5-18-18

We looked like a team that has not played many games recently.  The defense was weak and mostly from Torres who had a rough game in the field.  Misdiagnosing a grounder with the bases loaded and then flubbing the throw was a difference maker in the game.  Not only did we end up letting up 2 runs we shouldn't have, it overworked CC who was not that sharp anyway.  Torres also dropped a popup he was running back on, and while he got an out on the play, a run scored that probably would not have if he caught it.  Of course, I think he dropped it because he was gearing up to stop and throw home.  regardless, it was a rough game in the field.  We should not be worried about his defense though; it happens.

What we should be a little concerned about is that we have a lot of guys not hitting that well at the same time.  This lineup will be pretty good about not having extended slumps because someone can pick us up.  However, in the month of May, Hicks has an OPS of .603, Andujar has an OPS of .546 and including the very nice opposite field HR last night, Austin has an OPS of .369 (2-21).  the sad part is that Didi is even worse than Austin's .369, having a slump for the ages with a .301 OPS in 55 AB's...and over the past 42 AB's he has ONE single, 1 RBI and 4 walks.  It is time for the batting coach to earn his money because while I agree with the saying, "nobody is as ever as good as when they are on a hot streak, or as bad during a slump," this is a terribly long slump.  I thought he would be dropped in the lineup already and it needs to happen asap.  Most of it is mental so I am a fan of changing the mindset.  I say mostly because the hitting coach should be able to spot something Didi is doing differently.  It looks to me like he is not the same aggressive player he has been and not in terms of swinging at pitches, but how he swings at the pitches.  He isn't attacking the ball with aggression, he seems to be off balance and just trying to make contact and in doing so not squaring anything up.  BTW, players have had bad slumps before but not usually players that are solid hitters like Didi.  In their rookie years, Robin Ventura and Jose Canseco each had 0-40 slumps; so it can happen (man and for a rookie that is rough).

A couple of quick notes:

CC was not sharp in the game.  While better defense would have helped him a ton, if KC swung the bats better, it could have been worse.

Interesting stat - The Yankees hadn't lost in a CC start for 15 starts until last night.

The Yankees didn't swing the bats well either as the KC starter (Junis) missed a lot of spots frequently.  Sometimes, he was lucky in that he would paint the outside corner when the catcher called for an inside pitch but other times he left pitches right over the heart of the plate and the Yankees either missed them or took them.  There were a lot of sliders over the heart of the plate.  Bonne said Junis was really good, but this was a weak hitting effort.

Frazier is back up on the team and I expect him to start playing more with Hicks being more like he has always been (go back and read my preseason blog). 

I would not be surprised to see Drury come up as well, but that leaves a lot of infielders.  I wouldn't be surprised if we saw a trade,  Torreyes may make the most sense as his numbers are a little inflated even with his recent 2-12 slump.  The issue is that I don't think anyone else can play SS except Torres and we may not want to mess with him.  That being said, I would play Torres at SS once in awhile when you want to rest Didi.

Final Oakland Game

We took another series!

Severino was not sharp but his 3 excellent pitches were not hit hard even though he put them in non-preferred locations.  His location was not good, but his stuff was good enough for him to get through 6 innings of 1 run baseball.  Oakland really didn't swing the bats well, but the 3 pitches were mixed well.

Judge tried to throw a runner out and made a great strong throw, but he may need to speed up his release in the future.  He seems to be in no rush to get rid of the ball.  He also should come forward toward home more (but I am being picky)

Great 4 hit game by Stanton.  His first hit was odd in that his back foot went back and away from the plate on the swing (that is something a little leaguer would do); he still hit it hard.
Stanton is faster than I thought he was; he gets out of the box and down the line pretty well.  He has also played a good OF when given the chance.

Didi still can't center a ball well now and could use a day off.  Contrast that with Gardner, who was in the same boat most of the year, but now that he is going well, he has been hitting the same pitches he missed previously on the nose!

We are about 25% through the season and on a pace to win 113 games; I am good with that!

Happy Mother's Day!

The pitcher for Oakland (Triggs) is a finesse pitcher with a lot of movement on his pitches.  The Yankees got off to an early lead as he fell behind 2-0 to Sanchez and then came in with an 89 MPH fastball that Sanchez turned on for a dinger.  The next batter was Hicks and the exact same scenario happened.  With German mixing in his 3 good pitches and mowing down Oakland for the first 3 innings (9 up and 9 down), the game looked positive.  The Yankees got two more on in the 3^rd inning but couldn’t score as Hicks got out.

The 4^th inning saw a different pitcher as German could not control his pitches.  Not sure what happened in between innings, but German kept throwing his change in the dirt and lost his command of the strike zone.  After a single and a walk, German threw a changeup down the middle of the plate and all of a sudden we were losing 3-2.  9 pitches later German had walked 2 more batters and with one out he got a groundout that moved both runners up.   It is hard to discuss pitch selection when your pitcher can’t locate what you want as a fastball inside may be the perfect call, but if the pitcher has it leak out over the plate, that may be a worse call then just asking for a breaking ball.  That being said, Mark Canha had just swung at a curve in the dirt and I thought the same pitch should have been called for.  Instead, they threw a fastball and Canha ripped it for a huge 2 out single knocking in 2 runs and we were down 5-2.  The inning ended as we threw out the runner going to 2^nd.

The Yankees were mowed down and then German continued struggling allowing 2 more singles and got out of the inning allowing one run. 6-2.

Soapbox comment:  People throw around the word momentum too frequently in sports and while there are times where momentum can “keep going,” it can just as easily be changed.  Regardless, The Yankees had early “momentum” and then Oakland had “momentum” and then in the bottom of the 6^th, the Yankees mounted their own excellent inning scoring 4 runs (including Didi’s first hit after going 0-30 – yeah, 0-30 is terrible).  Now the Yankees have “momentum!”  The point is that you have momentum until you don’t…and while the word is not wrong, I think it is used far too frequently as the reason why an outcome happened rather than as the word used to describe what happened.

For example, saying, The Yankees kept the momentum going getting the bases loaded in the 6^th inning, but momentum ended when Hicks grounded out with 2 outs, on a 3-2 count and the runners going.  J

Stepping down from the soapbox!

Hicks grounding out was a big opportunity lost, but 1/3 of the game was still left.

With the score tied at 6, Holder pitched a perfect 6^th and I was surprised he was taken out, but I would have had a quick hook on him because he is Jonathan Holder and I don’t have great confidence in him.  Chad Green struck out all 3 batters in the 7^th and threw only 12 pitches in doing so.  I clearly expected him to pitch to start the 8^th but no, Boone took him out and brought in Betances.  Betances looked razor sharp as well and threw only 11 pitches to retire Oakland in order.  While the Yankees didn’t score, we are now in a tie game entering the 9^th.  Betances has to start the 9^th right?  Nope, Chapman was in.  I have a big problem with this.  In a tie game, you can’t assume the game will only go 9 innings and what happened to the comments made that we are trying to extend guys out to be able to throw multiple innings?  In a tie game and your pitcher looked sharp and didn’t throw a lot of pitches you have to try and get through a few more batters.  Even if they pitch to one or two batters in the next inning and you can get 3 innings out of (in this case) Green and Betances instead of 2.  This was a very bad decision in my book. 

It looked even worse when Chapman was throwing 96 MPH (5 or 6 MPH under what he threw the other night.  Making it worse was that he couldn’t find the strike zone and even his slider had no bite.  After walking the first two batters I was really concerned because weak stuff and no control equals trouble.  We had a mound visit because I think there was concern Chapman might be hurt but they left him in and with the bunt on Chapman bounced a ball moving both runners up with nobody out.  Oakland then removed the bunt and brought in a pinch hitter and Chapman walked him.  After the walk, the Yankees visited the mound again as they were looking at a possible blister on his throwing hand.  The Yankees left him in the game.  With not much left in the bullpen as Robertson was awful the night before, I could understand leaving him, but I would have taken him out because I didn’t want the blister to get worse (marathon not a sprint).  Plus, he was pretty ineffective (bases loaded and nobody out), but Chapman wanted to stay in and with the score tied the options in the pen weren’t exciting (because we got the minimum out of 3 relievers in a tie game – which shows you how bad not extending them was.  After the next pitch was bounced and Sanchez gloved it (fortunately it found his glove, but it was a huge play), it looked like we were going to allow some runs.  Chapman was able to get a few more MPH’s on his fastball and struck out Canha for the 1^st out.  What followed was a huge play where Chapman got Lucroy to hit a fly ball to slightly shallow LF.  Gardner got momentum behind his throw him and got rid of it reasonably fast and made an accurate throw but had a little less velocity than normal; the play was very close as Sanchez did everything he could, but the ump called the runner safe as the swipe tag appeared to miss the runner.  In review, Sanchez barely touched the runner and we got the call overturned for a huge DP to get out of a bases loaded nobody out jam in the 9^th inning.

Two things on this.  1) Sanchez started in the baseline and then, because he didn’t have the ball, came out just slightly (as he is supposed to) and caught and swiped very quickly and just caught (up to) the runner on the back of his jersey.  Yet another exciting play for an exciting team!  The second comment is that this is one of those times where you have to give credit to the manager.  If runs scored there, everyone would have abused him for staying with an injured player who clearly didn’t have his stuff.  But Boone stuck with him and Chapman stepped up as did Gardner and Sanchez.  Of course, if Boone would have managed the bullpen better in the 6-8^th innings the issue might not have happened.

Sometimes, the wrong moves work and sometimes the right moves don’t; you just have to make a lot more correct ones to give the team its best chance to win now and in the future.

We were all set for the walk-off win in the 9^th, but Sanchez Hicks and Walker went down 1,2,3

Now we had to use AJ Cole to pitch (which makes you realize the poor job of getting only one inning out of each pitcher.)  Cole was picked up from the Nationals after they cut him as he got off to a horrific start allowing 15 runs in 10 innings pitched and has not done anything in the majors at 26.  Here we were hoping he could give us something and he walked the first two batters and this had the makings of a bad ending.  But instead of continuing his terrible pitching, he was able to strike out the next two batters and get a pop out to give us a chance.  We didn’t score in the 10^th and Cole pitched a scoreless 11^th to keep our chances alive.  After Didi flew out Stanton walked and after a groundout FC by Sanchez Hicks walked Sanchez to 2^nd base with 2 outs.  Walker then hit a soft line drive to LC that scored Sanchez for yet another exciting win!

Some other notes:

Sonny Gray pitched poorly Friday night and what was interesting is that Dustin Fowler was in the A’s lineup and they were traded for each other.  Gray has been a pretty solid pitcher and while he is off to a Bad start (5.15 ERA), he will turn it around.  His stuff wasn’t bad, his control has been as he is walking too many people and not locating his strikes well.   He has 24 walks in 38 innings; that is simply not acceptable and about double the amount he should have.

Our record is good and while the starting pitching overall has been good, the bullpen and hitting hasn’t been all that good.  Our hitting has been timely and it seems like someone different is the hero on wins, we have more underperforming than over performing.

Neil Walker and Gardner have been getting it going in May.  Walker, in his 35 plate appearances, has a line of: .346/.514/462 (OPS-.976).    Gardner has a .404 OBP in May and a .765 OPS mostly because he hasn’t hit with power.  In fact, as these guys get going, their HR production would really help.  Taking their averages over the past 4 years based on their AB’s this year, they should have 7 HR’s at this point and combined they have ONE!

Aaron Hicks has been slumping and his OPS is just above his career number at .712. 

Andjuar has been struggling as well as he has not had an extra base hit in his last 13 games and only has 1 walk and 2 RBI’s in those 13 games.  His overall OPS is at .747.  Both he and Torres are going to have to adjust to the pitchers who have made adjustments.

Oakland had score 9 runs in their previous 5 games and in our 2 games have scored 16 runs.

Happy Mother’s Day!

Game 3 Against Boston

Here we are down 4-0 in the 7th inning, after a rain delay, and we still are clawing back with bases loaded and one out.  With one good hit, some walks, a grounder that found the hole and some good base running by Gardner to score on a wild pitch where the catcher Sanchez'd it (it was not an easy block but he was late) the Yankees tied it at 4.  You have to admire the grit of this team. 

A cheap HR that just cleared the RF porch and missed Judge's glove by inches (to the right, not behind) as the ball kept fading away from him, was the one run that broke our streak.  We still fought again in the 8th but a borderline low pitch (close) got Walker with 2 men on.

Outside of the call on Walker (which was close and we didn't see a side angle, the ump behind home plate was awful and 95% of the bad calls favored the Red Sox.  The same spot for CC was a ball that was called a strike for Rodriguez on many occasions.  In a close game like this, it was a huge factor in the game.  In contrast, I thought the ump Wednesday night was great.  He called it consistent both ways and was spot on.  He was so good that I actually looked up to see who it was (Cory Blaser).  Good job Cory.  Stu Scheurwater was the bad ump Thursday night FWIW.  You could see one situation where Boone gave him a mouthful saying "that was ball 5, wasn't even close."  He also had an "F" bomb in there, but Boone was right.  These things even out over time, but a bad performance even by the umps needs to be called out.

From the Yankees standpoint, I think a huge AB was from Tyler Austin.  He was up with bases loaded and 1 out and had a 2-0 count on him.  He was in swing-no-matter-what mode and waved at a change in the dirt.  He followed it by swinging at a slider so inside that might have hit him if he turned into it (a lefty was on the mound).  He was then called out on a fastball that was inside that the ump (Stu) called a strike; it was a bad call during an awful AB.  In this AB (different than the one Boone yelled at the ump for), the pitcher threw 5 straight balls and our outcome was a strikeout with the bases loaded.  Bad job by the slumping Austin

Didi is 0 for his last 23.

Great run and the game last night was exciting again! 

Game two against the Red Sox

This will be written a little bit more as a dialogue to myself in this game:

Through one inning, it is good to see that Porcello doesn’t look anything like that great outing he had against us last time.  Good to see Gardner getting into the action on offense with a solid double

Ugh, Tanaka is not sharp either.  The 2 run HR to Moreland was terrible, missing his spot badly.  Can’t do that to a hot hitter.

Down 2-1 we didn’t score as Torres swung at a lot of bad pitches, but it is good that Porcello isn’t sharp because Tanaka will allow some runs.  We need to be ready with a quick hook

2 walks with a DP and Tanaka worked his way out of it, but he is not sharp.

Gardner with another double and after a walk to Judge we got a break that Didi squibbed one to 1^st that allowed both runners to move up on the productive out.  Stanton, who looks to have widened his stance a week or so ago, did a great job of driving an away fastball down the line for a 2 run double.  What was interesting was that on the 2-1 pitch he took a FB right down the middle of the plate.  I believe that Porcello felt Stanton was looking for the breaking ball or he wouldn't have that hittable pitch go by and decided to come back with a fastball.  I would have come inside with that thinking (and would have done that), but Porcello, threw the fastball outside and Stanton went with it and ripped it.

With a 4-2 lead we can be a little more lenient with Tanaka, but I would be careful

Hard liner and a single and I am seriously thinking of making a move to Holder (if he is our long man now as I don’t know who we have in the pen?)  I would not be upset if Boone makes a move.  

What do I know?  Leon grounded into a DP where Torres made a very quick pivot and throw and Didi made an acrobatic one legged throw to first

Top 5: Ugh, hanging breaking ball by Tanaka and Benintendi launched a long HR.  Taking him out would not have been such a bad move.   He is not sharp at all.  Next pitch Ramirez gets another hanging breaking ball and just missed it for a long out.  I thought it was gone but he got it off the end of the bat a little.  Tanaka has nothing today.  Got the last out on a very nice running/diving catch by Judge.  I would take Tanaka out before he allows another HR that could be a 2 run type that puts us in jeopardy.

Both pitchers when they miss are missing by a lot so the batters aren’t chasing anything.  Bases loaded nobody out Sanchez who terribly chased 2 balls in the other box got a hanging slider on 3-2 and ripped a hard line drive for a sac fly.  Hicks and Walker couldn’t get anyone else home.

5-3 good guys into the 6^th

Why is Tanaka still in?  Bogaerts rips a double and this has to be it for Tanaka…nope letting him face Moreland as nobody was ready; hope this doesn’t bite us.  

On a 2-1 count he chased a splitter so Bogaerts moved to 3^rd with 1 out.  Green in now…he let up the sac fly but struck out Devers to end the inning. 

5-4 into the top of the 7^th.

After 2 outs, Green walks Benintendi.  He then hangs a slider to Ramirez who crushes it for a long HR to LF.  Very bad pitch selection in my book as he just had thrown a slider well off the plate and then came back with one that just hung.  Green is a fastball pitcher and while you need to mix in the slider a little, he was not able to control it on any of his previous ones.  Ramirez is a good hitter but he is really good on off speed mistakes.

 

Shoot down 6-5, bad job by Green.  Still have 9 outs to score some runs

Top 8: Shreve walks the leadoff guy (drives me nuts) and then allows a double down the line.  With 2^nd and 3^rd nobody out Shreve is able to get Devers swinging for a huge out.  Boone correctly takes Shreve out now (after his great start to teh year, Shreve has had 2 bad outings in a row).  In comes Holder and he gets a huge strikeout.  

Have to walk Betts here 

..and Boone does!  OK holder now get the job done…got him; very nice work by Holder (haven’t said that often).

Bottom 8:  Walker does it again with a leadoff double being down by 1!  It has that feeling again…this team is fun!  

2-0 count on Andujar and he was very intent on hitting it to the right side.  While you want to try and do that; on a 2-0 pitch I would be trying to do some damage.  He basically gave himself up.  Torres did a great job of laying off the curves he swung at last time and walked (Barnes actually threw Torres a 3-0 breaking ball; that was surprising).  So with Gardner up the Red Sox brought in their closer (I call him the scarecrow because he stands on the mound with both elbows up – looking stupid).  

I like this matchup for Gardner as he has hit the ball hard all 4 times and Kimbrel comes from the right side a little.  Oh Baby, a huge triple by Gardner just scoring Torres who held up a little to ensure that the ball wasn’t caught.  Betts was playing very shallow and Gardner drove it for his 3^rd extra base hit.  One run lead and Chapman will be in.  Boom, Judge crushed a line drive HR…Man, this is exciting to watch.  9-6!

Chapman throwing 102 and 103 strikes out the side (allowing a hit in between)!

AWESOME!!!  We have 10 come from behind wins already; we have had a lot of exciting games for 22% of the season!

Other notes:

Can someone please tell Gardner to stop sliding headfirst into 1st and home?  Torres got injured for the year sliding into home headfirst and on Gardner’s triple did it again.  WHY?

On a Judge squibber, the pitcher got the ball in between the catcher and pitcher slightly on the 3^rd base side.  When he threw to first, the 1^st baseman was standing with his foot on the bag and his right foot on the line toward 2^nd base.  Veterans to this blog no that this is another one of my pet peeves.  This does not allow them to stretch for a close play, but it also does not allow them to field a ball when it is thrown into the bag where the 1^st baseman can get his arm hurt by reaching in to catch the ball and hitting the runner.  However, if you stretch toward the throw you can actually get to the ball before it is in a dangerous spot.  Instead, Moreland started to reach and just stopped with no effort…not only is Judge safe (he would have been out) the throw got away and he went to 2^nd.  I don’t get it and I am not sure why this is taught as it is ineffective.

If O’Neill says that the player just needs to “stay within himself” one more time…

Last comment:  I don’t usually get to hear much of the announcers, but Cone told what I thought was a funny story about his first major league spring training game.  He was nervous and came into a game where there were a lot of hit batters.  His coach told him to throw directly behind the hitters head (again in his first ML game in Spring Training).  Cone said he was so nervous he threw one so high it went up on the screen and he got tossed on his first ML pitch in ST.   LOL

Hopefully, we can get the sweep!

Game 1 of 3 for the Rivalry in May

The rivalry game lived up to the hype!  My thoughts:

·         Severino pitched great again, he is working all 3 pitches really effectively and he had his best slider of the year. 

·         Sanchez once again had a bad play allowing a swinging strike to get under his glove for what they rules was a wild pitch, but he should have had it.   It made Severino work harder and that led to the 7^th inning where the team felt they had to take him out because of his pitch count was at 109.  This turned into Robertson allowing Severino’s tying run to score.  Also, with Sanchez not hitting that well, we may see Romine more than just for Gray.  I am not giving up on Sanchez as he has had some very big hits, but his ability to receive and block the ball is simply bad.

·         Stanton was our offense with a line bullet HR to left on a fastball and then another to right when he took an outside fastball about 5 rows back in RF.  He also hit a laser to 3^rd so it is good to see him going as others have cooled off (Austin, Judge, Didi, Hicks and Andujar)

·         That being said, Walker pinch hit a double and then came around to score the go ahead run on Judge’s bullet single to LF

·         On this single the Yankees had bases loaded with 1 out and Torres was at 2^nd and he hesitated as the line drive went through the infield, but the 3^rd base coach made his first blunder of the year sending him home.  Live (well on tape but at first glance watching at normal speed), I noticed Torres slow up and because the ball was hit hard I assume he would stop but they kept him running and he was dead at home on a throw that was slow and a two hopper but it was accurate.  This was a terrible decision with Didi and Stanton coming up and with 1 out.  With 2 outs it was probably a bad call…one out was awful.  I hate when people say, he was just being aggressive; that is a bad excuse.  There is a difference between being aggressive and being reckless.  Sending him with 2 outs may be aggressive; sending him with one is reckless.

·         Judge made a perfect throw from right to catch Vazquez trying to stretch a single into a double.  He sure doesn’t rush his throws but this one was caught in perfect tagging position…or as my brother calls it, “a self-tagging throw.”  Judge is a complete player

·         Up 1-0 earlier in the 2^nd inning, The Yankees had 1^st and 2^nd with nobody out and I thought it was a great time to bunt Andjuar.  While I am not a big sacrifice guy unless one run wins a game and your batter sacrificing doesn’t have a good matchup, when you can move 2 runners over it is more advantageous to give up an out to do so.  There have been many of them and Boone has yet to sacrifice, even in these good situations. 

       Andujar made a very nice play on a tough hopper to his left with 2 outs and a runner on 2nd.  It was kind of an in-between hop but he played it perfectly and then threw the runner out!  Torres made an error, but he continues to show a very quick first step and he turns the DP pivot from 2nd to SS very well.

·         Good job by Chapman on a tough 1 run save!

·         16-1 over the last 17 is something we haven’t done since the 60’s.  We are also tied for 1^st!

After the Weekend

This is one extremely fun team to watch!  Adding youth to a good team makes it even more exciting and both Torres and Andujar have contributed to the enjoyment.  Before I get into the previous 2 games, we saw another youngster get into the action today, as Domingo German followed up his excellent relief outing to pitch 6 innings of no-hit ball walking 2 and striking out 9!  He looked similar in that he mixed in a 94-95 MPH fastball with tailing movement, with an excellent changeup (also with a tail and sink) and a good curve.  It was the right move to take him out after 84 pitches even though he had a no-hitter going.  Betances did a decent job in the 7^th inning keeping the no-hitter going, but because the score was tied at 0, Boone left him in to pitch the 8^th.  I didn’t want Betances to pitch more than 1 inning, but it is possible that Robertson was not available and I understand the thought process as the Yankees offense only had 1 hit themselves.  Betances didn’t pitch poorly but he allowed 3 hits (mostly because of good hitting) before Jonathon Holder came in and allowed a hit.  Sanchez followed with a bad passed ball (his 7^th already that doesn’t include the wild pitches he didn’t save) which allowed a run and then a sac fly put us down 4-0 in the bottom of the 8^th against a pitcher we only had 1 hit off of.

After 2 walks, Gardner finally contributed offensively, with a line drive single which was followed by a double by Judge where he went with an outside and low fastball to plate Brett and make the game 4-3.  In the 9^th, Hicks led off with a double followed by a double by Walker to tie the game.  After intentionally walking Stanton (the right move), Torres hit a 3 run HR for a great walk-off HR.  After 7 innings of 1 hit and no runs, it was very surprising to see 11 runs scored in the final 2 innings…and being down 4-0 things looked bleak.

I mentioned Sanchez with some more poor defense, and it is even more alarming when you compare it to the ease with which our competition blocks tough pitches in the dirt and saves wild pitches.  He did make a tremendous throw to 3^rd base where he got rid of the ball lightning quick and threw a pea to 3^rd that was a catch and tag at the same time to get the runner stealing.    It was a big play that also underscores why you would like to have him catch, but he still needs work.  I think his stance with men on base is too low on one side and it limits his mobility.

Looks like Romine is the personal catcher for Sonny Gray now as the difference in his ERA between the 2 catchers is almost 4 runs a game.  Gray did pitch well winning 5-2 with Romine on Saturday.

Walker is starting to heat up.  While his overall numbers are still bad, he is 4 for his last 10 with 6 walks and a HBP!

Friday was an interesting game as the Yankees had a 5-0 and were cruising, only to see Cleveland put up a 5 spot to tie the game as Shreve had his worst outing of the year (he grooved too many pitches).  Honestly, this was a game where I thought Betances should have started the 8^th because he only threw 15 pitches and 12 were for strikes.  Shreve was bad and then Robertson allowed a 2 run HR and we were tied.  After Judge hit a HR it looked like we were in business until Chapman allowed a single and a HBP.  Then Chapman threw a high pitch for a Wild Pitch that was a high fastball and a tough one for Sanchez.  After a strikeout for the 2^nd out we were one out away before Chapman released another high fastball that Sanchez didn’t even get a glove on.  As weak as Sanchez has been, I think he was expecting a breaking ball but maybe he messed up his own signs  Regardless, Chapman was pissed as the game was tied up and he blew a save.  He struck out his 3^rd batter of the inning to give the Yanks a chance in the bottom of the 9^th.  Stanton led off with a double and with 2 outs Andujar delivered the game-winning hit

Baltimore is 17 games out of 1^st place already; the next "closest" is Cincinnati who is 12.5 out.

The two best records in baseball (Red Sox and the Yankees ) play Tuesday – Thursday this week; should be fun!

A Lot of Sanchez

These Houston games have really had a playoff type of atmosphere and today was no different.

My Notes on the game:

1.     Altuve crushed one down the line that hit off the wall JUST to the side of the thick yellow line on the wall.  I don’t think it is possible to ever hit a ball closer to a line…I wouldn’t be surprised if it did hit the line.

2.     Veterans of this blog know I have a few pet peeves.  One is when catchers with nobody on don’t tuck their exposed hand behind their shin guard for protection.  This is an absolute in my book.  The other is that I think you should still do this with guys on base and if the ball is low or a guy is stealing you have to risk exposing it and you bring it out.  With a runner not able to steal such as 2^nd and 3^rd it should be tucked.  It surely should not be lazily sitting exposed on your thigh to be smacked by a foul tip.  This is exactly what happened to Sanchez and luckily he didn’t break anything, but it will hurt tomorrow and it is stupid.  It happens a lot more than it should and has knocked catchers out for extended periods of time.

3.     It seemed like Sanchez was walking a lot but when I looked at it he had 11 walks in 110 AB’s (10%) compared to last years’ 40 walks in 471 (8.5%).  I thought it would be a greater differential, but it is a little more.  The equivalent would 47 walks in 471 AB’s.

4.     Sanchez had a terrible defensive night, he had one he simply didn’t move well for, another that was a tough play that he didn’t make and then in the 9th inning with a one run lead Sanchez let a 101 MPH fastball go right "under" him for what would have been strike 3 swinging to end the game.  He actually hopped up to try and glove it rather than using the chest protector (it was odd)…After the runner gained first base, the next batter got a hit and all of a sudden Houston was down one with 2 outs two on and Altuve up. Fortunately, in an exciting sequence, Chapman threw 101 centered right for a swinging strike, then threw a fastball down the middle for a taken strike and then threw 101 right down the middle for a swinging strike 3.  Terrible location, but effective!

5.     BTW, with men on base, Sanchez is uneven in his stance which is limiting his movement.  It is sort of the equivalent to kneeling on one knee and then trying to move left or right quickly; hard to do (even though he isn’t that unbalanced.)

6.     Cone had a cool conversation about how some pitchers dig in on mounds and some don’t and why some move around on a mound for different batters or to get away from the pitcher's spot of the other person.

7.     Ump was better for us tonight.  We got the edge on calls, including a fair ball called foul for Sanchez on a dribbler in front of the plate.

8.     I disagreed with the decision of Boone to take out Tanaka with only 83 pitches in the 7^th inning and nobody out and bases loaded winning 3-0.  My reasoning was that Tanaka made an excellent strike 2 pitch and the batter pulled a ball outside through the hole between 3^rd and SS…not much you can do there.  The 2^nd batter literally stuck out his bat and did a good job getting a soft line single up the middle on another 2 strike pitch that was located well.  The next guy was said to have been HBP, but another incredibly close call.  Yes had a great super slow and I would not have overturned the call either, but if you asked me to make a call from the video I didn’t see anything that showed it hit the sleeve so I would have said no HBP.  Anyway, with bases loaded and nobody out with a 3-0 lead, we brought in Greene.  He did his job and induced a weak hit grounder but we could not make a play on it.  Then he allowed a hit and one of the Sanchez wild pitches he could have had and before you know it we are down 4-3

9.    Green allowed another run after serving up a HR and we entered the 9^th down 5-3

10.   Walker led off the 9^th with a walk (3rd time on base), Andujar singles going with the pitch perfectly, and Hicks puts together an excellent AB and wins the battle with a single to load the bases with nobody out.  Torres gets a big 2 run single and we plate another run on a fielders choice and go into the 9^th up 6-5 and Chapman saved it.  

11.  It was a very intense game! 6-1 road trip!  

Wednesday May 2nd

After watching Verlander look so good, our ace gave a dominant performance as well.  Severino threw fastballs at 97-100 mph all night (including hitting 100 in the 9^th), throwing a lot of quality and well-placed sliders at 89-90 and probably about 10 changeups, Luis had the first complete game of his roughly 60 starts!  I also thought the ump favored Houston as Keuchel got calls Severino didn’t.  I thought Severino got 3 calls outside the zone and Houston had 11.  For awhile Severino was throwing more sliders than fastballs, but later on, threw more fastballs.  Not sure what the total breakdown was but I would think that out of the 110 pitches 55 were fastballs and 45 were sliders and 10 were changeups.  I still think his changeup at 89-90 is a little fast, but it worked.  What also worked was that he threw 83 strikes and 27 balls, striking out 10 and walking one on a 3-2 pitch.

Stanton had a great game offensively, hitting an outside fastball the other way for a line drive HR, pulling a slider to left (and yes it was a slider even though Flash called it a cutter twice) on a bullet HR and then hitting another fastball that was a ball outside, the other way for a double.  It was great to see a guy who was just pulling off the ball make that adjustment and have a dominant game.

Torres got a great jump on a broken bat hit over 2^nd base to make a nice running catch.  He has shown excellent range (getting a quick jump) and a strong arm.  He did get picked off on a running catch by Reddick in RF which was not a good baserunning play, but it was a decent catch and great throw to just nab him.  He needs to get a little more patient at the plate, but he is a player.\

Unfortunately, Montgomery is out 6-8 weeks with a strained elbow.  German will take his place in the rotation.

The Houston rotation is pretty darn good.  While Keuchel is 1-5, everything he throws has movement and in different directions.  He also uses all parts of the plate well.  The Houston view from the camera is a cool one where it is as close to directly behind a pitcher as I have seen and it is slightly to the left (most are to the right or 3^rd base side).

20-10 - .667 baseball equates to 108 games.  I would sign up for that!

Through Tuesday Night

You can see what a slightly larger strike zone (in the NL) and excellent pitching can do to an offense.  The first game in Houston saw Morton really mix up pitches on the corners and make the Yankees his the few mistakes that were made…which they didn’t do.  One opportunity had Judge with a 3-0 count and Torres on 2^nd down 2-0 in the 8^th inning.  My feeling was they weren’t going to give in but they didn’t want to put the tying run on base either so I thought sitting on a slider would be smart and Judge got one that was grooved but he took it for strike one.  I love walks, but in that spot, I want my big guy looking to tie the game on a mistake.  He did end up walking and Gardner got a single scoring one, but that is all we got.  Giles closed out the game by striking out the side and had the type of pumped up intensity you would think he just won/saved game 7 of the World Series.

Fast Forward to Tuesday night where Verlander was amazing.  He was so good that it made me think back to when we were going against Houston for a trade for him and wondering, what if? He was painting the corners with a high 90’s fastball and his slider had amazing movement and location.  He also worked in his curve just for another speed.  I didn’t see many/any changeups, but he threw as good a game as I have seen.  There were only a few bad pitches and we didn’t hit many good strikes either.  I was glad to see him come out of the game after 8 and Houston brought in Giles.  Judge did a nice job of lining a fastball on the outside corner to RF and Didi hustled a gap single into a double and we were in business at 2^nd and 3^rd with Stanton up and nobody out.  Stanton had a terrible AB.  He waived at a slider that was a ball, took a low fastball and then swung at another bad slider.  He barely held up on a slider in the dirt and then at 2-2 got a hanging slider that he pulled off of and missed.  His front hip is flying open and he is off balance…it was really an awful AB and he doesn’t seem to be picking up the rotation on the ball at all.   Now Sanchez was up with first base open and Houston had a mound visit…Whatever they talked about didn't work as the first pitch to Sanchez was a slider not in the exact same spot as Stanton’s but similarly hittable and Sanchez jumped all over it and deposited over the CF fence for an exciting 3 run HR.  After plating another run on a manufactured run by Hicks who ripped a single, stole 2^nd, moved to 3^rd on a grounder and then scored on a wild pitch that McCann was very Sanchez like.    Chapman closed out an outstanding bullpen day throwing a tailing fastball at 100 and throwing his breaking ball 7 out of his 14 pitches. 

While on the bullpen, German came in to start the 2^nd inning as Montgomery had some shoulder stiffness after a good 1^st inning.   German, did a great job pitching 4 scoreless innings.  He showed a good fastball, change and breaking ball and that was very promising.  The bullpen order was interesting as Green came in for the 6^th, Betances for the 7^th and the normal Robertson and Chapman to close it out, but I was a little surprised that Green came in before Betances and then for only one inning in a tie game and throwing only 9 pitches?  We were fortunate the game didn’t go into extra innings and I would have tried to get more out of Green who looked great.  Betances was his normal, great stuff, but erratic self; striking out the side while mixing in a hit and a few wild pitches.  Both Betances and Robertson threw 19 pitches so I would not have pitched either a 2^nd inning; again, fortunately, we scored in the 9^th or the Green mistake could have hurt.

After the 3 run HR and the hard hit from Hicks, Giles was removed from the game and he could be seen literally punching his own face coming off the field and then slamming something in the dugout…that guy is wound too tight…but I loved seeing it, as he seems like a real tool!