Obviously, the no hitter was exciting to watch, but I really enjoyed the Montgomery game against Rodon on Friday night. We have faced some good pitchers this year (think Max Scherzer), but I thought Rodon pitched better against us than anyone so far this. Not only was his stuff excellent, but he also hit spots really well. His fastball started at 96 and got up to 99, but his breaking ball was at least as good as Klubers from the opposite side. The movement was insane and while the Yankees haven't been hitting much, he made us look really bad. Montgomery matched him and according to STATS, it marked the first time in the modern era that both starting pitchers had 10 or more strikeouts (11 Montgomery and 13 for Rodon) while allowing no walks and no runs.
We entered the 7th with the score tied and Torres hit a solo HR to RF that gave us a 1-0 lead.
In the top of the 8th, we allowed our first run in 4 games when Loaisiga walked Eaton on a 3-2 pitch and then he went to 2nd on a "wild pitch" that was another that most of our competitor's catchers would block. The runner ended up scoring on a single on a 1-2 pitch where the batter reached out and stuck out the bat (almost threw the bat) and dropped a hit into RF. Tough way to break the streak, but the Yankees came back in the bottom of the 8th getting singles by Andujar and Gardner (both guys starting to make a little noise at the plate). DJ was up in a key spot with 1st and 3rd (Tyler Wade pinch ran for Andujar) and unfortunately, DJ failed to come through again as Wade was gunned down at home. The Yankees didn't score and then Chapman came in for the 9th as he was warmed up when we had 1st and 3rd with nobody out. Chapman, like Loaisiga, walked the leadoff guy (see a bath theme?). A bunt caused Chapman to hurry his pickup of the ball and fumbled it one too many times and the White Sox were in business with 1st and 2nd nobody out. Then Chapman got them to hit the ball to Urshela who made such a smooth play to start a triple play that made me scream out "YEAH" at midnight!
The Triple Play: Urshela starts to move toward 3rd before he fields the short hop so that as soon as he fields it he already is moving toward 3rd, he takes 4 quick steps and fires a strike to Odor, who turned it avg, but makes a strong throw to Voit, who had a good stretch and a pumped-up exclamation like I had. Chapman also threw his fist in excitement!
Courtesy of MLB:
https://www.mlb.com/news/yankees-turn-triple-play-against-white-sox
The Yanks scored a run in the bottom of the 9th to win, but it was a great game regardless.
After Saturday's Yankees blowout win, the Yankees relievers allowed some runs on Sunday after Taillon pitched 5 scoreless innings. Peralta walked a batter and allowed a HR in 1/3 of an inning and then Green allowed a HR. Loaisiga pitched a solid 8th and hit 100 twice (he has looked very good). Finally, with a one-run lead, even Chapman allowed his 1st run and blown save giving up a HR on a fastball down the middle. He has not been throwing his splitter and I am not sure why?
In the 9th, Frazier led off with his 3rd single and stole 2nd as Gardner K'd. DJ was intentionally walked to have the lefty pitch to Wade and Tyler was able to beat out a dribbler that got past the pitcher. That brought up Judge who was still looking for his first walk-off hit. He didn't get it, but in this case, a walk was clearly as good as a hit as he did get his first walk-off walk as he took all 5 pitches. Great 3 game sweep off of a very solid team.
Other Notes:
- Yanks starters have fired 35 consecutive scoreless innings -- tied for second-longest in franchise history, behind a 40-inning stretch in May 1932.
- It is good to see us get some production from guys like Gardner, Wade and Frazier. While Wade may not hit better, he has helped out using his speed on the bases and OF and also added depth at 2nd base and SS. Frazier could not play worse, so it was good to see him get some hits.
- Tampa has won 10 in a row. Who would have thought the AL East would be the toughest division in the AL? I thought Tampa lost too much pitching to be much over .500 and I thought Boston would be better than people thought, but they have hit better than I expected. I felt Toronto would be our toughest competition, but they are in 4th (with a winning record).
- I was asked about why I thought the run-scoring was down so much. My two main answers are that the defensive switches are really paying dividends. Seeing the exact location of balls hit by players is allowing defensive shifts to take many hits away. Odor caught a line drive the other day when he was playing short RF (rather than deep 2nd base) and that would have always been a hit. The 2nd reason is spin rates. As pitchers have started to understand this and track it, their balls are not necessarily going much faster (that trend has been going up based on mechanical improvements mostly), but they are getting greater movement which makes it harder to square up the pitches.
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