Gerrit Cole wasn’t good again on Monday night against the Rays. For who he is and what he is supposed to be, he sucked.
Gerrit Cole wasn’t good again on Monday night against the Rays. Actually, he flat-out sucked. He might not have sucked the way someone like James Paxton is capable of sucking, but for who he is and what he is supposed to be, he sucked.
I didn’t think I would ever have to give Cole the “Ladies and gentlemen” treatment on Twitter, but in the first inning of his eighth game as a Yankee, I had to. Cole began the game with two quick outs, and then unraveled, allowing a line-drive single and a home run to former Yankee Ji-Man Choi, who hits against Cole and the Yankees as if he’s David Ortiz, and who Cole said about following the game, “I don’t really have an answer on him at this point.” In the first game of a three-game series against the Rays, representing the Yankees’ last chance to get back in the division race, and with Tyler Glasnow going for the Rays, Cole lost the game in the first inning. It was his worst start of the season and it came when the Yankees needed him most.
The next inning, Cole let the light-hitting (and I mean light-hitting) Kevin Kiermaier take him into the second deck in right field, and he would give up a fourth run in the fifth. While Tyler Glasnow was busy no-hitting the Yankees into the sixth inning, Cole had already been done for the night for more than an inning after putting 12 runners on base in five. His final line: 5 IP, 8 H, 4 R, 4 ER, 4 BB, 7 K, 2 HR. That’s a line I didn’t think I would see from Cole as a Yankee. At least not until the final couple of years of his contract.
Cole walked four batters for the first time since Sept. 12, 2018, and nearly all contact the Rays made was barreled, as 10 of the 15 balls they put in play had exit velocities of at least 95 mph. After getting lit up in Atlanta last week for five earned runs and three home runs, Monday’s start against the Rays was the second straight start in which Cole only lasted five innings. It was the third time in as many starts that he has failed to record more than 15 outs against the Rays (in 2019, he only failed to record more than 15 outs in four of his 33 starts), the toughest opponent the Yankees will see in the regular season and their only competition for the division.
Cole’s ERA (3.91) is now just slightly better than J.A. Happ’s (4.05) and hitters have a much better average against him (.224) than Happ (.188). His ERA isn’t a product of bad luck or unfortunate circumstances as his 4.83 FIP suggests his ERA should be even worse than it is. He leads the league in home runs allowed (12) and has allowed more than Happ (4), Masahiro Tanaka (3) and Jordan Montgomery (3) combined in 19 less innings. Worst of all, he has yet to win a game against the Rays this season, pitching to this line: 16.1 IP, 20 H, 9 R, 9 ER, 6 BB, 27 K, 5 HR, 4.97 ERA, 1.595 WHIP. A win every fifth day was supposed to be a given and as close to a guarantee as there is in the league with Cole, now even a “quality” start isn’t a given with him, as he has produced only four in seven starts with his other start on Opening Night being cut short due to rain.
Am I worried about Cole? Not really. The problem is the answer to that question should never be anything other than “No.” In fact, that question should never have to be asked. If anything, I’m worried he’s not healthy by the way he has pitched. In eight starts, Cole has gone from challenging Jacob deGrom as the best pitcher on the planet to a five-inning, 100-pitch pitcher who allows a home run every 3.8 innings. Sure, he’s been good, but he hasn’t been the Houston version of himself, and being good isn’t enough. He needs to be great. He needs to not extend losing streaks like he did against the Braves or destroy winning streaks like he did against the Rays.
The only positive is that Cole understands the magnitude of the game he lost on Monday night. He didn’t talk about how he had “great stuff” or make excuses for why he can’t beat the Rays or keep the ball in the ballpark.
“I’m pretty hard on myself as it is,” Cole said. “I definitely know how important the game was, so I’m wearing it.”
Ultimately, Cole will be judged on what happens in the postseason, like every Yankee is. No one will care if he can’t pitch a 1-2-3 inning against the Rays in August (which he couldn’t) as long as he dominates them or whichever other team he faces in October. He has less than a month to figure it out.
The Yankees could have won all five games over the weekend against the Mets. They could have also lost all five games. In actuality, they should have gone 4-1.
The Yankees could have won all five games over the weekend against the Mets. They could have also lost all five games. In actuality, they should have gone 4-1. They should have won every game except for the wild, five-run, seventh-inning comeback game they won. Prior to the series, I said I would sign up for a 2-3 weekend and I ended up lowering my expectations to 1-4. Thankfully, the Mets are abysmal and the Yankees’ “C” team, or maybe even their “D” team was able to win three of five against their cross-city rival.
Last season, I wrote the Off Day Dreaming blogs on every off day, but this season there aren’t many off days. There aren’t many games. So instead, I have decided to use the Off Day Dreaming format following each series. Yankees Thoughts will be posted after each series this season.
Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.
1. A couple weeks ago in an afternoon game against the Rays, Mike Tauchman was listed as the 3-hitter in the lineup. About 12 hours earlier the night before, Tauchman wasn’t allowed to bat in the bottom of the ninth and was pinch hit for by Miguel Andujar. Andujar struck out on three pitches and was sent down to the alternate site after the game. So Andujar was good enough to pinch hit for someone the Yankees feel can bat third in a lineup, but then following the pinch-hit at-bat wasn’t good enough to be on the Yankees.
Twice this season, Luis “Everyday” Avilan was allowed to pitch with the game on the line against the Rays, and both times he blew the game, and the Yankees lost. For the first month of the season, Avilan was good enough to either warm up or come into every game for the Yankees, but this past week he was released by the Yankees, apparently no longer good enough to be a Yankee.
On Sunday, when Michael King ran out of gas in the fourth inning against the Mets, Aaron Boone turned to Brooks Kriske for the final out of the inning. Kriske got the out and returned for the fifth. He was allowed to stay in to face Michael Conforto, J.D. Davis, Dominic Smith and Robinson Cano, and Cano hit a two-run home run off him. Boone stayed with Kriske after the home run to finish the fith and Kriske came back out for the sixth. He walked Wilson Ramos to lead off the inning and Boone still didn’t pull him. He then walked Andres Gimenez, and finally, Boone had seen enough. Or at least I thought he had. Boone walked to the mound, never signaled to the bullpen and talked with Kriske rather than pull him. Six pitches later, Kriske walked Brandon Nimmo to load the bases via walks with no outs. Then Boone decided to take him out. It was Boone’s Mona Lisa; the complete package of managerial incompetence. Kriske was allowed to pitch in a tie game and keep on pitching with the Yankees barely hanging on to a postseason spot, and then after the game, he was optioned back to the alternate site.
The Yankees continue to allow marginal players and pitchers to determine the outcome of their games only to then determine the players and pitchers aren’t good enough to be Yankees.
2. With each Yankees Thoughts I write, Aaron Boone seems to get worse as a manager. There has been no improvement for him managing the bullpen, which remains his biggest flaw, and the only true in-game decision making he needs to do. He is every bit as bad as he was for the last two years, and each game he manages to do something more ridiculous than he did the game before. He consistently fails to put his team in the best position to succeed by making inconsistent choices. As I have written before, these lines from Stanley Hudson to Michael Scott in The Office do a good job of explaining Boone:
Every day you do something stupider than the day before. And I think, “There’s no possible way he can top that.” But what do you do? You find a way, damnit, to top it! You are a professional idiot!
Boone is a professional idiot. He was wrongfully given the Yankees’ managerial job in the middle of a championship window with no managing or coaching experience, and he hasn’t gotten any better in what’s now Year 3. He remains a more challenging obstacle for his team than the Rays, Twins, A’s, Astros and Dodgers combined. The only way the Yankees are safe from Boone’s destructive decision making is if they score 10 runs in a game, and with their current lineup, that’s impossible.
3. The Yankees’ lineup continues to appear to be picked at random. Thankfully, DJ LeMahieu is back to give the leadoff spot stability, and the Yankees are 3-0 since he came back. Coincidence? No. LeMahieu is the Yankees’ best player and the team is 16-5 when he starts and 3-8 when he doesn’t. LeMahieu has hit safely in 20 of the 22 games he has played in (he had a pinch-hit single). He makes the lineup go even if it’s very hard to get this lineup to go right now with the bottom-third it has and because Boone feels the need to screw around with the middle third of it every day. LeMahieu is the most important defensive player on the team, and while I have long thought Aaron Judge to be the most important player on the Yankees, I think I have changed my mind to it being LeMahieu since you actually have to play in games to be the most important player on the team.
Luke Voit has been otherworldly in the 2-hole in Judge’s absence. The 3-hole has become Aaron Hicks’ and up until his game-tying, two-run home run off Edwin Diaz on Sunday, Hicks has done absolutely nothing to deserve being a Top 3 hitter, even with Judge, Giancarlo Stanton and Gleyber Torres all on the injured list. Hicks entered Sunday with one home run since July 29, and his on-base percentage which has always been his defenders’ only favorable argument had fallen to .343. But Hicks saved the first game on Sunday and prevented another miserable loss, and the Yankees won a game in which they had a 0.02 percent chance of winning in the seventh inning. It didn’t take long for the real Hicks to return, though, as he was pulled from the second game of the doubleheader with “cramping in both of his calves.” I guess there’s a reason why Hicks never plays both ends of a doubleheader and it’s because he can’t play more than nine innings of baseball on the same day. After the game, Boone was asked about the severity of Hicks’ injury and said, “I don’t think it’s serious at all,” and when Boone says that, it’s a guarantee the player will be placed on the injured list, if not worse.
4. It wouldn’t surprise me if Hicks is placed on the IL since that’s what he does: he gets hurt. I realize some (OK, maybe a lot) of my criticism of Hicks is unfair given his advanced metrics, but the criticism stems from his inability to stay healthy. As a Yankee, Hicks has played in 435 of a possible 680 regular-season games or 64 percent, and he has been on the injured list at least once in each of his first four seasons with the team with back, hamstring, oblique and elbow injuries, and I’m sure I’m forgetting others. If there’s a baseball-related injury, Hicks has had it. It wouldn’t be a baseball season without Hicks going on the IL, and after he was able to avoid a first-half stint if the season began on time in March for Tommy John surgery rehab, it was only a matter of time until he landed on a place he has called home for roughly one-third of his Yankees tenure. No, he hasn’t been placed on it yet, but it’s only a matter of time until he is.
5. I was more nervous for Gary Sanchez and his pinch-hit opportunity on Sunday night than Sanchez was. As President of the Gary Sanchez Fan Club, I finally caved and heavily criticized the struggling catcher, while maintaining my belief he will turn it around because he has to … right? When Sanchez stepped up to the plate with the bases loaded and one out and the game tied at 1, I could envision the social media meltdown from another strikeout. My wife, who is a Sanchez critic, sat next to me pulling for Sanchez, though I knew she had no faith in his ability to come through since I didn’t even have any. She was just trying to be nice in the moment, waiting to write another one of her critical tweets about him. Once there were two strikes on Sanchez, I was prepared for the at-bat to end as a complete failure. Sanchez had been unsuccessful in putting Drew Smith’s fastball in play, so Smith tried once more to get Sanchez to swing through it, but instead, Sanchez channeled his 2016 self and sent the pitch deep into the New York night. A pinch-hit grand slam to give the Yankees a four-run, extra-inning lead.
Is this finally the hit to get Sanchez going? I thought it might be any of his other five home runs, but it wasn’t. I thought he might be coming alive when he homered in three straight games earlier this month, and those three games were followed by a 3-for-25 slide. Maybe Sunday night’s go-ahead grand slam will be the spot we look back at for when Sanchez’s season turned around. If it’s not, maybe he will never turn it around this season, a season in which he has yet to have a multi-hit game.
6. The Yankees nearly blew the four-run lead after Sanchez’s grand slam because Boone wouldn’t use Aroldis Chapman, deciding to stay with Jonathan Holder for a second inning. Chapman was unavailable because he had pitched two consecutive days. It didn’t matter to Boone that Chapman had thrown 25 pitches over the last 14 days or that he had thrown 45 pitches since being walked off against on Oct. 19, 2019 in Game 6 of the ALCS. Boone and the Yankees have their bullpen usage rules and no amount of pitches and no amount of importance on a game or situation will change their mind. Boone would have rather lost the game to the Mets and erased the momentum the team had built with two straight walk-off wins to end their seven-game losing streak than use Chapman for a third straight day. Ask Zack Britton, who’s on the injured list with a hamstring injury, or Tommy Kahnle, who’s out for the season after undergoing Tommy John surgery, how not pitching on three consecutive days prevented them from getting hurt.
7. Tyler Wade hit a home run in the second game on Sunday for his first of the season and fourth of his career. On Saturday, Michael Kay said, “The only thing keeping Tyler Wade from regular work is that he has not hit.” Really? Is that all, Michael? The only thing that has kept him from being an everyday major leaguer is that he hasn’t been able to perform half of the game of baseball. The line from Kay reminded me of this exchange from The Mighty Ducks when Gordon Bombay find Fulton Reed taking slap shots in an alley way:
Gordon Bombay: Why don’t you play for us?
Fulton Reed: I can’t … I don’t know how to skate.
Gordon Bombay: Whoa! Is that all that’s stoppin’ ya?
Sure, Wade is extremely fast and a threat on the bases, but you have to actually get on base to be a threat on the bases. As long as he plays great defense while he has to be in the lineup, I don’t care if he goes 0-for-100, representing as close to an automatic out at the bottom of the order as you can have. I just can’t wait until he’s no longer needed to be an everyday player.
8. I think we are watching the final weeks of Brett Gardner’s career. I wanted the Yankees to sign Michael Brantley after 2018, and they instead brought back Gardner. He benefited from the super baseball in 2019, hitting a career-high 28 home runs, and got himself another contract with the Yankees. But now that the baseball has lost its unbelievable flight, Gardner is back to being the player he was in 2018 when he look finished and lost his starting job to Andrew McCutchen. Gardner entered Sunday with a .190/.325/.381 line and then went 0-for-5. He has two multi-hit games and two doubles this season and hasn’t homered since Aug. 3. No, power isn’t supposed to be his game, but it shows how last year was an anomaly and a clear product of the state of the ball. Gardner is still an elite defender, and maybe that’s enough for him to keep getting new contracts with the team. It shouldn’t be enough for him to block other outfield options from a path to playing time.
9. The trade deadline is Monday, and I’m OK with the Yankees doing nothing. There isn’t a game-changing starting pitcher available, and that’s all I would be interested in. Mike Clevinger isn’t that, and given his character following his night out in Chicago, I doubt that’s someone Brian Cashman would want on the team after being so concerned with the clubhouse culture for more than a decade now. And Lance Lynn certainly isn’t that. I don’t care about what he’s done since leaving the Yankees after 2018. There’s no point in trading just for the sake of trading and neither are going to swing a series in the Yankees’ favor. There’s a chance the Yankees found a potential front-end starter on Sunday in Deivi Garcia, and there’s a chance they have another one waiting for his turn in Scranton in Clark Schmidt. The Yankees shouldn’t have waited until now to find out what they have in the organization, but they did, and they should stand pat at this deadline.
10. Garcia became the first Yankees pitcher to pitch six innings and allow zero earned runs and zero walks in their debut. He was as good as advertised and his one start was better than any start Gerrit Cole, Masahiro Tanaka or Jordan Montgomery has had this season, and those three would currently be the Yankees’ postseason starters in order. Garcia doesn’t only deserve another start, he deserves to stay. He actually has ability, unlike most Yankees pitchers, and no matter what his role is, he is a better option that just about every Yankees pitcher.
After Garcia’s start, Boone was asked about his roster spot, and Boone said, “We’ll talk about that and get back to you.” It was comical, but also expected from a manager and a team that has no idea how to properly manage a roster as I depicted earlier in this blog with moves like Andujar, Avilan and Kriske. I wouldn’t be surprised if Garcia is optioned back to the alternate site while the Yankees continue to give J.A. Happ unlimited chances and let Michael King open games and let Ben Heller ruin games out of the bullpen. This is the same team that won’t bring up Schmidt to start because he isn’t on the 40-man roster, as if there isn’t a litany of names eligible to be designated for assignment on the current 40-man roster, and because of service time, as if they’re not the New York Yankees and capable of paying any free agent any amount of money. I would be disappointed and frustrated and embarrassed if Garcia were optioned, but that’s life as a 2020 Yankees fan. (Sure enough, Garcia was sent down to the alternate site. It better just be a technicality for the next four days until he’s needed as a starter again.)
After getting swept in Atlanta, the Yankees have now lost five straight and now they will play five games against the Mets in three days with a roster representing a mid-March spring training game.
Six days ago, I wrote the Yankees Are Falling Apart. Well, they’re still falling. After getting swept in a doubleheader in Atlanta, the Yankees have now lost five straight and after Thursday’s off day, they will play five games in three days against the Mets with a roster representing a mid-March spring training game.
Last season, I wrote the Off Day Dreaming blogs on every off day, but this season there aren’t many off days. There aren’t many games. So instead, I have decided to use the Off Day Dreaming format following each series. Yankees Thoughts will be posted after each series this season.
Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.
1. Wednesday’s doubleheader sweep increased the Yankees’ losing streak to five straight games. They have gone from 16-6 to 16-11 and they have gone from having a 2 1/2-game lead in the AL East to having a 2 1/2-game deficit. They are about to play five games in three days against the Mets and won’t have Gerrit Cole or Masahiro Tanaka for any of the five games, and will be without DJ LeMahieu, Gleyber Torres, Giancarlo Stanton and likely Aaron Judge for the series as well. At the same time, the Rays will be playing the Marlins. The Yankees had a chance to end the division race last week, and instead they were swept by the Rays to begin this losing streak. The Rays have a chance to end the division race this weekend, and they just might. The Yankees should feel extremely grateful that 53 percent of the AL is going to the playoffs because right now the Yankees would be clinging to a spot in the wild-card game in a five-team postseason format. For a team that was 10 games over .500 nine days ago, the Yankees only have a four-game lead on a postseason spot.
2. Masahiro Tanaka has made five starts this season. In his first start, he threw 51 pitches. Since it was his first start of the season and he was coming back from being hit in the head on a Stanton line drive, the Yankees were being overly cautious, the way they always unnecessarily are. A pitch count is normally elevated by 15 pitches from one start to the next for a pitcher coming back from injury. So if Tanaka had thrown 51 in his first start then he should have been able to throw roughy 66 in his second start and 81 in his third start and then been able to throw as many as needed for his fourth start. Here are Tanaka’s pitch counts this season for his first four starts: 51, 59, 66, 71. There is no rhyme or reason to these numbers. They increased by eight then seven then five and not the standard 15. The only conclusion I could come to is that the Yankees decided in the offseason Tanaka is now roughly a 70-pitch pitcher or a five-inning pitcher, whichever comes first. You might think conclusion is absolutely ridiculous, but it’s something the Yankees would definitely do, thinking they have unlocked some revolutionary strategy. On Wednesday night, in the second game of the doubleheader, Tanaka was removed after five innings. His line at the time: 5 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 4 K. He had dominated the Braves the same way Ian (Jethro Tull) Anderson had dominated the Yankees in the first game of the doubleheader. But Tanaka was pulled and he was pulled after 66 pitches. After the game, Boone said Tanaka could have thrown up to 85 pitches in the start, but that Tanaka told him, “The tank was starting to empty a little bit.” Tanaka also said, “Basically, I told him, ‘I’m good with whatever you decide.’” Tanaka, Tanaka, Tanaka. You never tell Boone “you’re good with whatever he decides” no matter what the situation is, let alone in a one-run game. The Yankees’ goal is to limit the amount of decisions Boone has to make. When he’s needed to make a decision in a close game, he will ultimately make the wrong decision, and he did.
3. There was no reason to remove Tanaka from the game unless Tanaka said, “I’m done.” But the second Tanaka gave Boone the option to remove him, Boone was going to remove him. And if you’re going to remove Tanaka with two inning and six outs to go, the right move is to go to Chad Green, which Boone did. Green got two quick outs and then allowed an infield single to Dansby Swanson and a two-run home run to Freddie Freeman, and the Yankees had gone from being four outs away from ending their losing streak to trailing 2-1 in what eventually be their fifth straight loss. Boone had made the right decision and it backfired. I like to think it backfired for all the wrong decisions he has made that have worked out for him and there is an endless list of those. Green had essentially done his job and was unlucky that Swanson’s weak ground ball led to a baserunner. The inning should have been over if not for the unfortunate placement of Swanson’s weak contact. The pitch to Freeman that led to the opposite-field, two-run home run was supposed to be more away than it was. It caught too much of the plate, and being the great hitter that Freeman is, he was able to muscle it out to left field. Green has been so good that I was stunned he had blown the game. Even after Swanson had reached, the thought of Freeman giving the Braves lead didn’t worry me because of how good Green has been. When Green entered the game, I was worried that he hadn’t pitched in a game in 10 days (and that number was high because of Boone and not postponements), but after striking out the first two hitters, I didn’t think Green looked rusty or off. He just can’t miss his spot against a hitter like Freeman and he did.
4. As disappointing as getting swept on the day was, the latest Judge injury news was even more disappointing. Judge apparently re-injured his calf running from first base to second base. I joked about Judge needing perfect weather and wind and grass and temperature conditions for the Yankees to allow him to play, but maybe it wasn’t a joke after all. Judge is becoming the joke. fter having his 2016 season cut short due to an oblique strain he played through the second half of 2017 with a shoulder injury that required offseason surgery. He needed more than double the expected recovery time from a hit by pitch on his wrist in 2018 and missed two months of 2019 with another oblique injury. He would have missed half of this season had it started on time with a broken rib and collapsed lung from diving a ball last September, and now he might miss half of this 60-game season. He’s only played in 18 of the Yankees’ 26 games, and if he were to be put on the injured list as of Wednesday and somehow miraculously come off the IL after 10 days, he would miss 12 games. Judge can claim he’s healthy and able to play through it and he can say whatever he wants, but if he were able healthy and able to play through whatever is ailing him, he would stop telling the training staff or Boone of his status.
5. Judge’s health continues to hinder the Yankees’ present and his own future. I don’t know how anyone could think giving Judge a long-term contract is a sound business decision.Yes, when he plays he’s one of the top players in the game and the Yankees’ best player, but “when he plays” is the most important thing. Since 2018, he has played in only 66 percent (232 of 350) of the Yankees’ regular-season games. His age 26 and 27 seasons were decimated injuries and an ability to heal in a normal timeframe from injury and his age 28 season was going to be cut in half if it hard started on time and is likely to be cut in half after all anyway.That’s a problem. It’s a problem if he can’t play on artificial turf at the Trop without destroying his lower body at age 28 considering the Yankees play nine to 10 games per year there, and it’s a problem if he can’t run 90 feet from first base to second base without hurting his calf. Judge has become Stanton, and maybe there’s a reason those two are in their own class in the sport in terms of height and body type for a position player. Maybe it’s because that body type can’t handle playing baseball for six straight months. If the Yankees could get out of Stanton’s contract, I’m sure they would in a heartbeat given that they didn’t win with him in his age 28 season, his age 29 season consisted of him playing in 18 of 162 regular-season games and five of nine playoff games and his age 30 season is shaping up to be like his age 29 season. Judge is 28 now and will turn 29 a month into the 2021 season. Do the Yankees really want nearly $50 million a season tied up into two players who can’t stay healthy?
6. It would be nice if Gerrit Cole pitched like the Gerrit Cole I thought the Yankees were getting. Here are Cole’s seven starts:
He’s had some good starts, but he has yet to be the dominant pitcher he became in Houston who has challenged Jacob deGrom for best pitcher in the world status. The strikeouts are there, but so are the home runs. Somehow, he’s given up a league-leading 10 home runs in 41 innings, or one every 4.1 innings which seems impossible. Last season, he allowed a home run every 7.3 innings, and the year before, one every 10.5 innings. Supposedly, the actual baseball in 2020 is playing like it did in 2018, yet Cole is giving up home runs as if the super ball from 2019 is even more super. I’m not worried about Cole. He’s been good, just not great, and I want him to be the guaranteed win every five days I thought he would be, and not the guy who throws 100 pitches in five innings and give up multiple home runs per game.
7. When Aaron Hicks bats right-handed, it looks like he’s doing it for the first time. Hicks went 0-for-Wednesday in the doubleheader and when Hicks is allowed to play both games of a doubleheader, you know the Yankees are banged up. Hicks continues to bat third, even as his on-base percentage has declined to .344, which is the one stat that has kept him in that spot. But for how bad as Hicks’ extra-base hitting has been (.384 slugging), he’s going to keep hitting near the top of the lineup because the options are limited right now. He was hitting there when the team was completely healthy, so he’s not going to stop now. Torres was removed from the 3-hole for a bad start to the season despite coming off the best young offensive middle-infield season since Alex Rodriguez. Hicks is now 1-for-18, boasts a .192 average and has one home run since July 29, but he maintains his place in the order.
8. This should be the Yankees’ lineup while their Top 4 hitters are out and I don’t care what hand the pitcher throws with:
Aaron Hicks (unfortunately, there’s no other option) Luke Voit Gio Urshela Clint Frazier Gary Sanchez Mike Ford Mike Tauchman Thairo Estrada Brett Gardner Tyler Wade
Sanchez could strike out in 19 of 20 at-bats, as long as the other at-bat is a home run it doesn’t matter. The team right now has enough trouble getting guys on base, let alone scoring a run (12 runs in the last five games), and they need to give at-bats to those who might get the team on the board with one swing. “Singles” Tauchman certainly isn’t going to and neither is anyone else behind him in the order.
9. J.A. Happ needs to shut up. The Yankees have used off days and postponements to skip his starts and he isn’t happy. “You guys [in the media] are pretty smart,” Happ said. “It doesn’t take too much to figure out, sort of, what could be going on.” Happ is talking about his vesting option for 2020, which was tied to innings pitched prior to the shortened season, and though unknown, is likely still tied to innings pitched or possibly starts. The Yankees aren’t avoiding starting Happ to save money. If Happ were pitching like it was 2018, they would gladly send him to the mound and would want him on the team for 2021. Instead, Happ has been as bad and possibly worse in 2020 than he was in 2019. He’s only been allowed to make three starts (I would have never allowed him to start for the team again after two), and has given up nine earned and put 20 runners on base in 12 2/3 innings. He has walked 10 against only six strikeouts and has allowed four home runs. Happ being on the 2020 Yankees has been detrimental to the team and him being on the 2021 Yankees would be detrimental to next season. CC Sabathia with whatever is left of his shoulder would be a better option than Happ in the rotation. Happ needs to shut up and be thankful he’s still on the Yankees given his performance since Game 1 of the 2018 ALDS. He should feel lucky he still gets to call himself a major leaguer in 2020 because he doesn’t deserve to be one and shouldn’t be one in 2021.
10. In February, on paper, the 2020 Yankees were going to be so good. So, so good. Seven months later and their rotation after Cole includes a five-inning pitcher at most, a pitcher in his first “full” season after Tommy John surgery, a pitcher who has more walks than strikeout and a 6.39 ERA and no fifth starter. Their bullpen lost one elite option for the season and another is on the IL. Their lineup is currently missing four of it’s nine everyday players, including the 1-, 2-, 3- and 4-hitters. It feels like a minor miracle when the Yankees are able to score a run that isn’t the result of a Luke Voit home run and it will feel like an actual miracle the next time they win a game.
The Yankees didn’t play this past weekend against the Mets, but after the weekend’s injury updates from the Yankees, I thought it would be good to sort through it all.
The Yankees have so many injuries right now it would be unbelievable for any other fan base aside from the Yankees. For the Yankees and their fans, it’s just business as usual. After setting the single-season record for most players placed on the injured list in 2019 (30 players across 39 IL stints), the Yankees haven’t slowed down when it comes to getting hurt in 2020.
Last season, I wrote the Off Day Dreaming blogs on every off day, but this season there aren’t many off days. There aren’t many games. So instead, I have decided to use the Off Day Dreaming format following each series. Yankees Thoughts will be posted after each series this season. There wasn’t a series this past weekend against the Mets, but after the weekend’s injury updates from the Yankees, I thought it would be good to sort through it all.
Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.
1. I think Luke Voit summed up the Yankees’ injury situation best when he said, “Obviously it’s a part of the game, but it’s crazy that it’s happening again.” He’s right, it is crazy that it’s happening again. It’s unbelievable is what it is. As of right now, the Yankees are missing four of their nine everyday position players (DJ LeMahieu, Aaron Judge, Gleyber Torres, Giancarlo Stanton), their second-best reliever (Zack Britton), a starting pitcher (James Paxton), their backup catcher (Kyle Higashioka) and Aaron Boone’s go-to reliever (Luis Avilan). This is in addition to having lost their No. 2 starter (Luis Severino) and an elite relief option (Tommy Kahnle) for the season. And this doesn’t include all of the injuries the team would have had to play the first half of the season with had the season started on time.
2. Paxton was placed on the injured list with an elbow issue suffered in his most recent start, in which he once again blew a lead to the Rays with a three-run inning. “At first when it happened, I was thinking, ‘This can’t be happening,’” Paxton said. “It just continued to get tighter and tighter. Considering the circumstances, I got very lucky with the injury.” How could Paxton think, “This can’t be happening?” Paxton gets hurt. That’s what he does. He has never made 30 starts in a season and has never pitched more than 160 1/3 innings in a season. Why? Because he gets hurt. He has been on the disablied list/injured list at least once in every season in his career. The Yankees knew who they were trading for and what they were getting when they dealt for the oft-injured left-hander, so none of this should come as a suprise to them. Last season — his first with the Yankees — he missed a month with a knee injury and then hurt his back in his final regular-season start, which eventually led to surgery in February. I’m shocked that Paxton is shocked that he is hurt again.
3. “It should be a short-term thing,” Paxton said. “My goal is to make it back for the end of the season. Hopefully get a few starts in before the postseason begins.” An elbow injury for a pitcher usually isn’t a “short-term thing” in a regular 162-game season, and this elbow injury has come in late August in a 60-game season with 35 games left. Paxton is shut down right now. Then he has to be built back up from basically nothing to the point where he can pitch in a game. I don’t see how it’s possible he could “get a few starts in” with the regular season ending on Sept. 27, which is 35 days from now. And even if he were to “get a few starts in,” who wants Paxton starting a postseason game? He wasn’t deserving of a postseason start before this injury, now he’s going to come back from the injury and suddenly be good enough to be a Top 3 starter on this team? It’s bullpen or nothing for Paxton when he comes back.
4. With Paxton out, there’s an open rotation spot. How should the Yankees handle that open spot? By giving it to Clarke Schmidt. How will the Yankees most likely handle that open spot? By using an opener. Why won’t the Yankees turn to Schmidt? I’ll allow Boone to explain. “[Schmidt] not being on the roster makes it not so simple,” Boone said. “But he’s certainly doing well down there and the reports we continue to get are strong.” Schmidt isn’t an option because he isn’t on the Yankees’ 40-man roster, and putting him on the roster would mean getting rid of someone else and it would also mean starting his service time. In the middle of a championship window, the Yankees aren’t going to put the best possible team together because they might have to cut a reliever undeserving of a 40-man spot and because they continue to operate as if they don’t have endless financial resources. I have a list of names who could be designated for assignment to make room for Schmidt. It’s not hard. Instead, 40 percent of the Yankees’ rotation will be J.A. Happ and an undetermined opener.
5. The good news is DJ LeMahieu is rehabbing this thumb injury. The bad news is what Boone said about LeMahieu’s injury. “I’m excited about how he’s progressed since the injury, because he was in some pretty good pain and had some pretty good swelling in there and lack of range of motion.” So according to Boone, LeMahieu had “some pretty good pain” and “some pretty good swelling” and also a “lack of range of motion,” yet he was evaluated at the plate after the injury and allowed to stay in the game, and evaluated again in the field and allowed to stay in the game. It’s good to know pain, swelling and lack of range of motion aren’t symptoms of someone who needs to removed from a game.
6. Torres is out for two to three weeks after suffering Grade 1 strains to his left quad and hamstring running out a ground ball. So essentially his entire left leg is in shambles from running 90 feet? That is so Yankees it hurts. “The players prepared really well during the quarantine; myself, I prepared really well,” Torres said. “I think injuries just happen.” Torres is right, injuries do just happen, and there’s nothing you can do to prevent them. Unfortunately, the team he plays for doesn’t realize this, and they don’t realize there is nothing that can be done to prevent them from happening even as they continue to records for amount of injured players.
7. “Giancarlo did some running outside on the field, probably about half-speed,” Boone said. “He continues to make really good improvements. Nothing imminent there, but he is making steady progress.” That’s good name for the eventual Stanton biography: Nothing Imminent There: The Giancarlo Stanton Story. I don’t think anyone thought there was anything imminent about a return for Stanton given everything that happened in 2019. Like I have said in all the Yankees Thoughts blogs since Stanton got hurt, I will believe he’s back when he’s standing in the batter’s box in an actual game, and I don’t think that will be happening this season with five weeks left.
8. Judge is expected back on Tuesday. That doesn’t mean he will be back, just that he’s expected back. If you have learned anything from timetables to return from Judge’s previous injuries, then you should know he usually doesn’t meet those timetables. “I felt like I could have been back out there after a couple of days,” Judge said on Sunday. “That’s why I was so adamant about not going on the IL to begin with. … I’m feeling great,” Judge said. “I could run around, I could jump, I could swing a bat, I could throw. Everything that you need to do for a baseball game, I could do.” If Judge was not injured like he claims he wasn’t and was able to play all along, then how did the Yankees know he was banged up in order to remove him from the most recent game he played in? He had just hit a home run and there was no visible injury with him, so clearly he said something to Boone or the training staff, which led to his removal and then to his being placed on the injured list. If Judge was as healthy as he says he was, he wouldn’t have said anything about possibly being injured.
9. Boone talked about the Yankees’ weekend series against the Mets being postponed. “It’s the world we’re living in. We understand that,” Boone said. “It certainly is a little frustrating, especially when we haven’t been infected with it, but that’s the nature of this. We knew what we signed up for and unfortunately it’s happened to us now a couple times. That doesn’t make it ideal, but we also understand that we have to deal with it.” Boone talks like someone who knows any game could be postponed, yet he manages like someone who thinks there are zero days off this season. The Yankees had Friday off. They had Saturday off. They had Sunday off. They are off today. They are off again on Thursday. Every single player and pitcher better be available for a two-game series in Atlanta, otherwise, what’s the point of anything? I’m sure Boone already has scheduled off days for Luke Voit and Gio Urshela this week that were mapped out in July, and he will follow through on them, even if 44 percent of his everyday lineup is out as of right now, and 33 percent of it will still be out if Judge does return on Tuesday.
10. The Yankees trail the Rays by one game in the division. That means the Yankees are currently the No. 4 seed in the AL’s eight-team playoff field, and that means they are currently in line to face the Indians the first round, best-of-3 series. The Rays would face the Orioles right now. The difference between being the 1-seed or the 4-seed is enormous. You can write it down that the Top 7 seeds in the AL will be the Yankees, Rays, Twins, Indians, White Sox, A’s and Astros in some order. The 8-seed will be the Orioles or Blue Jays or Tigers or Rangers or some other horrible team which wouldn’t sniff the postseason race in a 162-game season in a five-team format and might not even finish at .500 this season. Would you rather have the Yankees play a team from the first list of teams or the second list of teams in a best-of-3? If you follow the Yankees’ line of thinking that “just getting in the playoffs” is enough and it doesn’t matter what seed you are, remember that line of thinking when Shane Bieber strikes out 15 Yankees in Game 1 of the first round.
The Yankees lost all three games to the Rays and now trail in the division. On top of that, the Yankees added Zack Britton to the injured list and Gleyber Torres and James Paxton are expected to join him.
The Yankees had a three-game loss-column lead on the Rays entering this recent three-game series and a chance to create some real separation in the standings and essentially end the division race. Instead, the Yankees lost all three games and now trail the Rays by a 1/2 game. On top of that, the Yankees added Zack Britton to the injured list and Gleyber Torres and James Paxton are expected to join him.
Last season, I wrote the Off Day Dreaming blogs on every off day, but this season there aren’t many off days. There aren’t many games. So instead, I have decided to use the Off Day Dreaming format following each series. Yankees Thoughts will be posted after each series this season.
Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.
1. Three days ago, I wrote about how the Yankees have the deepest team in baseball (which they still do) and talked about how the Yankees could win the division this week (which they can no longer do). At the time the Yankees had DJ LeMahieu, Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton on the injured list and they had a 2 1/2-game lead in the AL East. Today, the Yankees have added Zack Britton to the injured list, will most likely add Gleyber Torres and James Paxton, and their 2 1/2-game lead is now a 1/2-game deficit. First, the perfect 2020 home record went, then the home series unbeaten streak went and then the division lead went. The Yankees lost all three game to the Rays to fall to 1-6 on the season against their only competition for the AL East and they did so with a combination of awful managing, poor pitching and a lack of offense. Did I mention awful managing? Because it was possibly the worst managed series by Aaron Boone since he threw away the 2018 ALDS against the Red Sox. The Yankees had a chance to put the Rays away with 35 games left and instead they gave away their division lead.
2. The Yankees lost the first two games of the series and were clinging to a 1/2-game lead in the division, setting up the series finale to be the biggest game the Yankees have played and might play in the regular season. When the lineup was posted, Mike Tauchman was listed as the 3-hitter. About 12 hours earlier on Wednesday night, Tauchman wasn’t allowed to bat in the bottom of the ninth and was pinch hit for by Miguel Andujar. Andujar struck out on three pitches and was sent down to the alternate site after the game. So Andujar was good enough to pinch hit for someone the Yankees feel can bat third in a lineup, but then following the pinch-hit at-bat wasn’t good enough to be on the Yankees. And Tauchman wasn’t good enough to bat for himself in the ninth inning as the tying run, but was good enough the following day to bat third in the starting lineup. The Yankees have used these players as their 3-hitters this season: Tauchman, Torres, Aaron Hicks, Mike Ford, Clint Frazier and Gio Urshela. Three of the six aren’t everyday players on the Yankees when the team is at full strength, but apparently, everyone gets a chance to bat third for the New York Yankees!
3. The Yankees led the series finale 2-0 before James Paxton had his routine meltdown. Paxton blew the lead in the fifth inning and the Rays went ahead 3-2. In the bottom of the fifth, the Yankees answered with an Urshela two-run home run to go back ahead 4-3. Then the top of the sixth happened. Boone removed Paxton (which was the right move) and went to Adam Ottavino (which was also the right move). Two correct moves in a row for Boone! Clearly, Boone had a predetermined plan of Ottavino for the sixth, Chad Green for the seventh and the eighth and Aroldis Chapman for the ninth since Britton had been placed on the injured list. It was a good plan … in theory. Except plans in baseball rarely work out. The game doesn’t let you perfectly map out your relief situation, and the problem with that is Boone doesn’t know how to deviate from the plan once it goes awry. Ottavino allowed a double to lead off the inning and then walked the next batter. First and second and no outs. Bad Ottavino was clearly in the game, but with the three-batter rule and limited “elite” options, he was going to have to figure it out, and I was OK with him figuring it out. Ottavino got a lineout and strikeout to hold the runners and move one out away from getting out of the self-induced jam. Ottavino got the soft contact every pitcher dreams of, but the bloopiest bloop of all time fell in over Tyler Wade’s outstretched glove to score the tying run. It was unfortunate, but just bad luck. What happened next wasn’t bad luck, it was just plan dumb.
4. Due up for the Rays was the left-handed Joey Wendle. Under no circumstances will Boone allow Ottavino to face a left-handed hitter, especially with the go-ahead run on third and the game on the line. But Boone’s plan of Ottavino for the entire inning and then Green had fallen apart and he needed to adjust. Rather than go to the Yankees’ best reliever in Green like the Rays’ Kevin Cash would have done and has done all season against the Yankees, Boone went to Luis “Everyday” Avilan for a left-on-left matchup to try to “steal” the third out of the sixth. Given Boone’s early-season obsession of Avilan, I knew he would eventually have to lose a game for Boone to lose trust in him. That game came on Aug. 8 in the second game of the doubleheader in Tampa when Avilan let both runners he inherited score and the Yankees lost by two. Or so I thought. Evidently, one disaster for Avilan against the Rays wasn’t enough. Avilan allowed a single to Wendle to put the Rays up 5-4. Boone’s attempt to steal an out had blown up in his face and now because of the three-batter minimum, Avilan had to stay in to face the right-handed hitting Mike Zunino. Zunino crushed a three-run home run to put the Rays up 8-4. Game over.
5. It’s not Avilan’s fault he blew the game. He isn’t very good. He didn’t offer himself a contract with the Yankees and he doesn’t continue to put himself into games for them. Avilan has been on six teams in five years. There’s a reason for that and the reason isn’t because he’s really good at getting out of jams and pitching in high-leverage situations. Green had pitched once and thrown 33 pitches over the last eight days. He could have gotten the last out of the sixth and pitched the seventh and the eighth. But even if Boone didn’t want him to get seven outs, he could have used Green to finish the sixth and then seen what the Yankees’ offense did in the bottom of the sixth (they scored a run). Rather than worry about the next inning or the day next day or the next game, how about worrying about the situation at hand? And guess what? There is no next day or next game right now after a Mets player and staff member tested positive for coronavirus, so it will be at least another few days until Green throws a pitch in a game. The Yankees continue to give their players excessive rest and scheduled off days and keep enforcing their load management strategy when it clearly doesn’t work. After setting the all-time record by putting 30 players on the injured list last season, the Yankees might break that record this season in only 60 games. Every game should be treated with the utmost importance because it’s only a 60-game season and because the next day’s game is always in jeopardy of being postponed by the coronavirus.
6. The problem is the Yankees don’t feel any game is of the utmost importance. They were going to implement their extra rest methods this season even before the postseason field was expanded to eight teams. Now with more than half of the AL going to the playoffs, the Yankees simply don’t care if they win the division or have home-field advantage or play the most possible games in Yankee Stadium in October. They just want to get in, the same way they have just wanted to get in for the last decade, and they have endured the same fate every time they have “just gotten in” over that time: by losing. Boone said as much this week at the Stadium. The Yankees aren’t going to go all out to win the AL East. If they do, great. If they don’t, no big deal. It will be a big deal when they have to travel in October or play more games in a series in Tampa, Oakland or Houston.
7. The Yankees’ current injured list includes:
Zack Britton (hamstring) Kyle Higashioka (oblique) Aaron Judge (apparently his entire lower body?) DJ LeMahieu (thumb) Giancarlo Stanton (hamstring)
I would be shocked if Torres (hamstring) and Paxton (elbow) aren’t added to the injured list. Luis Severino (elbow) and Tommy Kahnle (elbow) are out for the season. If the 2020 season had started on time, Paxton would have missed the beginning of the season with a completely different injury (back), and Judge (rib/lung) and Stanton (calf) would have missed the first half of the season with completley different injuries than they currently have. And Aaron Hicks (elbow) also would have missed the first half of the season if it had started on time. Excessive rest and load management is working well!
8. The Boone, Avilan and Luis Cessa fans on social media who are pretty vocal whenever any of the three does something positive (it’s rare) were very quiet during and after the series finale. It must have been a scheduled day off for those fans. I don’t think the Yankees are going to move on from Booone after this season when his contract expires. The Hal Steinbrenner Yankees don’t like to upset the apple cart and as long as ownership is making money and turning a profit, they don’t care if the team wins championships or if every member of the team is good at their job. Boone will likely get a three-year contract, the way Girardi did when his initital three-year contract was up. (Girardi got a three-year contract then another three-year contract and then a four-year contract.) Boone was hired because of his communication skills and ability to manage a clubhouse with an even-keeled personality. At least that’s what everoyne says. He clearly wasnt hired for his experience since he didn’t have any before becoming Yankees manager and let’s hope he wasn’t hired for his bullpen management or lineup construction, otherwise that evaluation process needs to be revamped entirely. Boone’s so-called communication speciality though now appears as questionable as his calls to the bullpen after telling lies about Judge’s removal from a game last week and after removing Gerrit Cole was from his start this week.
9. The only glimmer of hope for Boone not returning in 2021 is that Cashman asks the opinions of his players before extending Boone a new contract, because Cole, who will be a Yankee for nearly the next decade, clearly has a problem with Boone. Or at least he does right now. After Boone ended Cole’s winning streak in Tampa a couple weeks ago, he removed him with one out remaining in the seventh this week. Boone motioned to the bullpen before he reached Cole on the mound and then Cole let him have it with his glove covering his mouth, continued to vent in the dugout and then kept going with the media after the game. “I’m just going to keep it at less is more right now,” Cole said after the game, not wanting to say something he might regret about his manager. “I wanted to finish the game. I think the body of work over the course of today and over the course of the last start speaks for itself.” Cole was right. He has earned the right to get out of jams and pitch until he feels his start is over. Personally, I would haven’t even sent him back out for the seventh at 99 pitches because I believe every pitcher’s arm only has a certain number of pitches in it before it breaks down, and there’s no reason to extend Cole in the fifth start into a decade with the team. But once Boone sent him back out there, he should have let him finish the inning. “[Boone] made the move before he even got out there, so it didn’t really matter whatever I said to him on the mound,” Cole said. “Whatever I said to him in my glove, we’ll just leave it at that.” I wish I knew what Cole said to him in his glove because it’s probably similar to many things I have said about him over the last nearly three seasons.
10. The next day, Boone was asked again about Cole and said, “He’s an ace in the sport, and I love the fact that he wants the ball. Sometimes that spills over with some emotion when there’s a lot on the line, so I really don’t have an issue with it.” I like how Boone thinks him having an issue with it would even matter. Boone does a job thousands of people can do. Cole does a job only he and Jacob deGrom can do. No one cares if Boone has an issue with Cole’s reaction or remarks and the Yankees’ front office certainly doesn’t. I wonder who they would side with. The Yankees owe Cole more per start than they own Boone per year and Cole is the the franchise’s most important piece to winning a championship. Boone can’t win championships for the Yankees, he can only lose them, and so far he’s proving he will do that. I’m sure the two are actually fine, but maybe they’re not? Maybe Cole won’t be inviting his fellow Greenwich neighbor Boone over to play catch anytime soon and maybe he will have an opinion if Cashman asks him about Boone at the end of the season.
