Weak First Series

I want to go back to the first game and point out two things I hadn't stated about Judge.

• In the 10th inning, Judge had a bullet hit right at him and he had to make a split-second decision but unfortunately, he turned the wrong way.  It was a very tough play, but if he went straight back over his left shoulder he might have had a play on it. 
• Judge had a chance to knock in the game-winning run after that big 7th inning AB but also didn't come through.  This is how it "might" have looked.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1377969349634314245 (drop it into your browser)

Here is the surprising part, according to the Yankee announcers, this Gif is something we have never seen.  Judge has never had a walk-off hit in a non-exhibition game in the majors.!  That was surprising.

Game 2

Kluber - I was happy with the way he pitched.  He painted the corners usually and you can see why he is effective.  One particular AB impressed me as he nailed the inside black on the plate with fastballs that had a good tail (left to right movement) and then threw a backdoor slider with a sharp late break that painted the outside corner for a watched 3rd strike.  This was excellent to see.  

Frazier had a long way to go on a very high pop up and Torres was playing on the 2nd base side so the ball was all Fraziers and he never made it there.  He might have had trouble with the sun, but I think he felt that the SS would get to the ball (he normally would) and didn't go all out of the ball but even at the end if he extended his arm he could have caught it.  It was a pretty poor play if the sun didn't bother him, but I think he should have made the play because he saw it at the end because he didn't shy away.

Urhsela made one of his very nifty plays with 1st and 2nd and nobody out.  The ball was hit in the hole and Gio fielded the ball behind him and quickly turned his body to make a good throw to 2nd and we turned 2.

We saw a bad play at 1st base by Guerrero.  The announcers talked about him stretching too soon which he did in game 1, but this time he didn't stretch too soon.  Kay stated this emphatically, but he was wrong.  The issue was that he didn't move his base foot to the corner of the base where the throw was going.  He stretched the correct way, but there are two parts, move your base foot and then stretch toward the ball.  This game Lemahieu got a hit on yet another ball he rolled over to the left side (he has had about 5 of those already).  I think it was an error.

Sanchez with 2 HR's in 2 games!

Fraizer had a good swing on a breaking ball and ripped a double down the line and also walked.  

With bases loaded and 1 out in the 4th Stanton got jammed and popped up

Curious move by Boone to leave in Kluber after 4 innings and 70 pitches.  I think they were looking for 75 pitches from him, but after a long 4th inning for the Yankees up at the plate, I was very surprised he started the 5th.  This is a guy you want to be careful with.  Then, after making a bad pitch (HR) and 4 pitches he took him out???  I just don't get the logic?  I think Boone needs to understand that an inning break that is long counts as some pitches.  Even if he got the guy out on 4 pitches, it was the wrong move and if he would have left him in to throw more than 4 if he got him out it was still the wrong move, unless they really would have gone to 80 or so?  Either way, it was inconsistent and ill-advised...and not because it didn't work.\

Bruce, made every nice play on a squibber where he slid and stayed low on a backhanded short hop and then got up quickly and took it himself

Loaisiga did a great job with 2 perfect innings

Sanchez had an opportunity to block two balls and made neither of them.  I disagree that "there was nothing he could do" on them.  First, if he wasn't on one knee he could have gotten out and around the bounced pitch.  We see other catchers get to them a lot.  If he blocked either one of them a run doesn't;t score.

Here is something I have said for 5 straight years; Wade is not a major league player.  He came in to play 2nd base when they moved DJ to 1b and bobbled a routine grounder but fortunately, we just got the guy.  I am a broken record but why are we keeping him on the major league roster?

Bruce got a huge lucky bloop bases-loaded hit.  For the record, I said, I would pinch-hit for him, but then realized we didn't have any righty to pinch-hit that made sense.  He got jammed but got the job done.

Gio got 2 hits but he is still opening up and has not covered the outside of the plate yet.

Green did a nice job

Game 3

I am probably wrong because it has been awhile, but German's arm angle seemed a little lower than I remember.  His fastball was slower than normal by at least 2 MPH, which made his change too fast but he later adjusted and took a few MPH off the change.  He was very inconsistent with his control and his command.  He left too many pitches in the heart of the plate and his pitches sometimes had very good movement and other times they were flat (command).  His change usually tails a lot with some drop and it was not consistent.

I have been down on Gleyber's defense (rightfully so), but the error on his throw was Bruce's fault and they should change it.  The throw was not good, but Bruce did not stretch toward the ball and that is why he missed the fading throw.

Sanchez had another Catchers interference!!!  This infuriates me.  Who the heck is coaching him?  I wrote this after game 1, "On a Toronto strikeout, the batters backswing hit Sanchez on the glove hand and knocked the ball out.  That was not a big deal, but when they showed the replay, Sanchez was really close to the regular swing, and remember he has been called for more catcher interference than anyone."   This is just not acceptable and honestly is absurd.  It was a 1-2 count and it loaded up the bases.

Boone did a good job staying with the hot hand as King was pitching great.  Of course, he should have stuck with him for at least 3 innings, but many managers have been pulling guys after 4 innings, but King was in complete control and Boone allowed him to go 6 shutout innings (68 pitches).  

We are simply not swinging the bats well and they made more plays than we did (Bichette made a good play on Bruce's ball and Semien caught a bullet by Judge that almost took his glove off.

I love the stats they now have.  For pitchers, they show the 3-5 pitches they throw, what % of the time they throw each pitch and the avg. speed of each pitch (the stat they can add as they have it the OPS against on each pitch as well...they usually show batting avg, but I assume they will see why OPS makes more sense).  For batters, after Sanchez' HR they showed the exit velocity, distance and launch angle, but what I really liked (I do like exit velo) was that they showed the HR would have been gone in 22 of 30 parks.  Good stuff!

Not the best start against perhaps our main competition, but the bats are much better than this.