It's Officially Football Season

I hope you all slept better than I did as I was replaying so many parts of this game.

I will just list the parts that replayed the most with me including the issue I had with the umps.

The 3 run HR was a crushing blow.  With both teams not swinging the bats well, a 3 run shot is a game-changing and winning event.  The slider he centered to Altuve was just a terrible pitch especially with 2 strikes.  Green had the best slider I have seen him throw but this was a bad location.  You have to go low and away slow with him and then jam him in.  With 2 outs, he was careful with Bregman and walked him.  The next pitch was the one that lost the year for us.  It was the wrong pitch but in the correct location, and Gurriel did a great job of bringing his hands in and getting the barrel out on a 96 MPH FB for the 3 run HR on a pitch that was WAY inside.  Obviously, he was looking for the fastball so the slider would have been a better call.  Regardless, one has to credit Gurriel as he had a plan (something we didn't seem to have).

We almost answered all the way, but only got one run as Gardner k'd on 2 balls (more later).

Maldonado bunted in the 5th and Sanchez took his time and threw to first and he was originally called out but the replays showed he was safe.  Before I get into Sanchez, I want to discuss something I have said 10 times in my blog and this has to do with why the 1B positions himself with his feet in the line to 2nd base and does not stretch toward the throw???  This started with Teixeira and you see many 1B do this.  However, on close plays you need to stretch and DJ didn't stretch all the way and we lost at least 2 feet and that was the difference between being out and safe.  I have no idea why this is still done as it costs teams often.  

Speaking of mind boggling stuff, why did Sanchez take a quick pause before throwing on what was a good bunt?  If he comes out firing he is out even with DJ not stretching.  Also, how about dropping the 3rd strike slider Sanchez missed that caused Kahnle to throw 5 more high-stress pitches to get out of the jam created by Sanchez?  This also didn't allow us to stretch Kahnle for a few more outs in the next inning.  This is a theme that was important as we needed to get as far as we could knowing that this could go into extra innings.  I will say that Kahnle did throw some changeups at the top of the zone and that is not a good place to put them, but he seemed to settle down as he technically struck out the last 2 batters.

Didi - earlier in this series, Didi got up with the bases loaded and two outs and swung at a first-pitch breaking ball that was inside and grounded out to 1B.  It was very frustrating after we worked so hard to get bases loaded and then one pitch, a breaking ball that was inside no less, and it was all erased.  Last night, in the 3rd inning, I could write the exact same thing and Didi did the exact same thing!  Seriously, that is enough for me to say goodbye next year and move Torres to SS and DJ to 2nd.   The free-swinging drives me crazy.  If he got a fastball and he swung I would be OK, but bases loaded, you are in charge.  I like Didi a lot and he is great for Yankee stadium and being a lefty is even bigger with our lineup, but playing DJ at 1B hurts his value a lot.  That is an offseason decision.

Once again, I think we didn't extend guys enough and try to get deeper into the game.  Haap could have at least led off the 4th as Gurriel is better against righties and you want to pick up more outs anywhere you can and eventually that pushes you one or 2 innings deeper.  Cessa pitched really well and after going 2 scoreless on the 15th he did it again, but I would have let him go further.  Finally, I mentioned to all the people with me that I would have let Britton start the 9th.  You have to extend at this point.  Britton did throw 18 pitches the night before and threw 22 last night, but you have to push guys in the playoffs and unless he said he was gassed I would have let him go as far as he could or at least go until he let a guy on and see how he looked. 

As for the 9th, Chapman got the 1st 2 outs before losing his fastball and walking Springer (one of those pitches was a strike).  Then, after going 3-0 he threw a slider for a strike before throwing a spinner that hung up and away and was crushed.

Gardner just missed a HR

Gardner’s HR just foul

Urshela 3-3 and a walk and good defense - great job.  

Bad running by Judge to get doubled off!

The 9th inning HR by DJ is why we watch the games, as bad as I feel now, that HR was an awesome feeling and it was a great AB with a great outcome!

SOUR GRAPES MOMENT

During the game, I was furious with what I perceived to be us getting the short end of the stick on many calls.  So I took about 40 minutes to go through every AB and pitch to see if I was correct.  Many times our own emotions exaggerate the issues.  Here is what I found:

• 7 times we had balls called strikes against us, including some critical AB's where Gardner was up with 1st and 2nd and the ump gave him BOTH sides of the strike zone and both were balls.  Sanchez had a bad call as well and that led to a DP.  
• In these same situations, Houston had only 3 balls called strikes. 
• Here was another situation where our pitchers threw strikes and they called it a ball.  This happened 7 times as well, including the walk before the Altuve HR. 
• I only found only 1 instance where this happened to Houston, and it was close.
• The 3 most egregious calls were all on the Yankees (farthest away from the strike zone.)
• That is 10 more pitches that went against us including the worst calls.  This is a lot to overcome!

More on the future later...