The Yankees played the Orioles, so the Yankees won another game. But there are still questions about the team.
After two unexpected days off, the Yankees played again on Wednesday night and won again, beating the Orioles 9-3 to improve to 3-1 on the season. Gerrit Cole wasn’t his dominant self for his second straight start to open the season, but he was good enough, and the Yankees’ power carried the team to another win.
Why was Cole out for the seventh inning at 90 pitches with a six-run lead and nine outs to go to a win? And why is the team not playing the everyday lineup in a season in which they have already had three days off in a week and could have additional days off at any point during this season? Why isn’t the everyday lineup playing every day in a 60-game season after having just had four months off and having not have played real game in nine months? Yes, the Yankees won again, but these are relevant questions for a team that needs to finish first in the American League and get back to and win the World Series for the first time in more than a decade.
At the 10:14 mark, former major league reliever Carter Capps joined me talk to about his baseball career, his famous delivery which caused MLB to implement a rule against it and his post-playing career on the analytics and mechanics side of pitching.
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My book The Next Yankees Era: My Transition from the Core Four to the Baby Bombers is now available as an ebook!
The Yankees went to Washington D.C. and took two out of three from the defending champion Nationals. Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.
The Yankees went to Washington D.C. and took two out of three from the defending champion Nationals. The return of baseball has been enjoyable, though there have been times (like the first five innings of Sunday) when I didn’t miss the increased blood pressure and frustation over lineup choices, poor at-bats and comical bullpen management. Thankfully, Gleyber Torres saved the Yankees from losing the rubber game and from starting the season off in disappointing fashion.
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.
Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.
1. It’s rare when I agree with an Aaron Boone lineup or whoever in the front office actually creates the lineup, so I wasn’t surprised at myself for getting upset about the first lineup of the season. This season, every game counts as 2.7 games and it needs to be played that way. So why was Brett Gardner batting fifth on Opening Day? Why? Because he bats left-handed and Max Scherzer throws with his right arm, as if that matters even the slightest bit when you’re talking about a future Hall of Fame pitcher? Did the Yankees not learn their lesson in the postseason when batting Gardner third took away at-bats from Gleyber Torres in key situations? I have no problem with Gardner playing, but the highest he should ever be batting is seventh. Not fifth. Not ahead of Gary Sanchez (even if Sanchez looked like he drank a six pack in the clubhouse before the game at the plate this weekend). Stop trying to make Gardner into something he’s not and don’t be fooled by last year’s “super ball” stats and the artificial 28 home runs. Gardner batted ninth on Saturday (where he belongs) and Aaron Hicks was batting fifth (as a lefty against a right-handed starter), so it’s obvious the Yankees will bat a lefty fifth no matter what. Any left-handed bat, no matter their ability will bat fifth.
2. Continuing the gripe about unnecessary rest, there’s no reason DJ LeMahieu couldn’t have been in the Opening Day lineup. Sitting on the bench and watching baseball isn’t going to get him the at-bats and live game action he needs after missing a large portion of Summer Camp. Even if LeMahieu weren’t at his best, it would have been no different than having Aaron Hicks lead off against Max Scherzer. Aaron Boone claimed LeMahieu needed more baseball activities before being in the starting lineup, and I guess on Friday’s off day, he magically went from not ready to play to leading off on Saturday.
3. The Yankees played Game 6 of the ALCS on Oct. 19. Their next real game was on July 24. That’s more than nine months between games and then there was another day off before the second game of the season. After playing only two games with more than nine months off, Gardner, Hicks and Gary Sanchez were all out of the lineup on Sunday. If you want to say Sanchez was out because of the day game after the night game, OK. I mean it’s not OK, but I can accept it. Hicks and Gardner were replaced by Miguel Andujar and Mike Tauchman. Andujar needs the at-bats, but Tauchman? A left-handed hitter against Patrick Corbin? If this was a scheduled day off for the three then this is the most egregious scheduled day off of all time given the amount of games played over the last nine months and the amount of games in the 2020 season. If the three were given the day off because of their poor performance in the first two games, then the Yankees can never cite “sample size” again as a reason or excuse for making any decision. Sure enough, all three of the everyday Yankees eventually found their way into the game anyway, nullifying the rest they were being given.
4. The Yankees chose to send Clint Frazier down rather than Tauchman before Sunday’s game, even though they were facing the left-handed Patrick Corbin and were prepared to let Tauchman face him. Tauchman went 0-for-2 with two strikeouts. The Yankees have essentially admitted Frazier is a major league player who they don’t have a roster spot for. But they do have a roster spot for him, they’re just choosing not to give it to him. Frazier’s inability to be healthy at the right time over the last few years and his defensive miscues cost him a chance at a starting role and I don’t see how he ever gets playing time in 2020. He’s blocked by Hicks, Gardner, Aaron Judge, and Giancarlo Stanton (if he’s allowed to play the outfield). And then the Yankees obsession with Tauchman and their wanting to play Andujar in the outfield has him blocked as well. Frazier is either the sixth or seventh outfielder on the depth chart depending on how Stanton is viewed and while the Yankees’ injury history suggests their depth will be tested, it’s going to take 2019-like injuries for Frazier to play.
5. Before Luis Severino went down with Tommy John surgery, the Yankees had the best team in baseball on paper. Even without Severino, the Yankees were still probably going to have the best team in baseball on paper, just not as good as they would have been with him. But for as talented and deep this Yankees roster is, starting pitching is once again the team’s glaring weakness. It’s enough of a weakness that the team went into the season with a bullpen game lined up for the third game of the season. James Paxton better figure out how to regain the arm extension he says he’s missing because the Yankees can’t go into the postseason with Gerrit Cole and Masahiro Tanaka and then hope that J.A. Happ will be his 2018 self or that Jordan Montgomery will worthy enough after coming back from surgery. Paxton’s second inning on Saturday was painful to watch as he couldn’t put any hitters away with diminished velocity, allowing all five hitters in the frame to reach base. If not for Michael King’s performance to clean up the bases-loaded, no-out mess, Paxton’s ERA might have never recovered in a shortened season in which he will make at most 12 starts. The Yankees need Paxton to figure it out for their championship chances and he needs to figure it out for his own bank account as an impending free agent.
6. Sunday’s game felt like a game the Yankees were destined to lose. Every Yankees line drive was finding a glove and every Nationals dribbler was turning into a base hit. When Asdrubal Cabrera beat out the closest bang-bang play of all time at first base in the ninth, I had a feeling the Yankees were going to blow what was going to be an unexpected comeback win. The game showed the Yankees aren’t going to be managed with urgency in a 60-game season. They’re going to play the same way they would if this were a six-month season. The lineup proved it and using David Hale after Jonathan Loaisiga proved it.
7. Before Adam Ottavino entered Sunday’s game, the Yankees had used Hale twice, Jonathan Holder, Ben Heller and Luis Avilan before using Ottavino, Chad Green, Tommy Kahle or Zack Britton this season. Can we stop with Triple H (Hale, Holder and Heller)? (Heller was sent down, so we can stop with him for now.) Clarke Schmidt or Deivi Garcia aren’t better roster choices than Hale or Holder? If the Yankees were keeping them at Scranton in the event of needing a starter, wouldn’t one of them have started on Sunday? I don’t care about roster limits since there are more than enough people eligible to lose their spot (I just named three). The Yankees should have the best overall roster to win now. As Michael Kay mentioned on Sunday, the Yankees are the second oldest team in the league after the Nationals. The difference is the Nationals won in their championship window and the Yankees haven’t, and the Yankees aren’t going to get any younger or less expensive in the coming years.
8. The days between Cole starts feel as long as this spring and early summer felt, and this feeling is coming after a Cole start in which he didn’t even look good. And his version of not looking good is one run and one hit over five innings. (For other pitcher’s versions of not looking good, see Paxton’s start in D.C.). Cole’s next start will be against the Phillies and then he will get his first taste of Yankees-Red Sox. It will be a small taste since he will be in New York and without fans, but it’s a taste nonetheless. As I wrote on Friday, it feels good to once again have a pitcher who, when given any sort of lead, has essentially won the game before the game has ended. The Yankees haven’t had that in more than two years when Luis Severino was the best pitcher in the league for the first half of 2018, and before Severino, the Yankees hadn’t had that since the first four seasons of Sabathia’s Yankees career. But for as good as Severino was that season and has been at times and for as great as Sabathia was from 2009-2012, it feels different with Cole. While, the other two felt like sure-thing wins every fifth day, Cole feels like an automatic win every fifth day, with the game being played out as a formality.
9. I hate the eight-team format. More than half of the teams in the league will make the playoffs now and there’s no advtantage for the higher seeds to host entire first-round, best-of-3 series at home in an empty stadium. I also hate it because I have a feeling it will be here to stay. Once the league and owners cash in on having an expanded postseason field, they’re not going to go backwards and settle for less money. The owners proved they don’t actually care about the sport or the integrity of the game over the last few months. If it were up to them, they would let every team in the postseason and just play one enormous and ridiculous tournament. If you think the “this is only for 2020” line holds any weight, then you must have forgotten which sport and league we’re dealing with: a sport and league that announced these changes seconds before the first pitch of the season.
10. Life is starting to feel somewhat normal again with baseball back. On Opening Night it felt weird watching baseball after having not watched a real, meaningful game in more than nine months, and the off day after the rain-shortened opener didn’t help. But with games on back-to-back days this weekend, the first day game after a night game and no off days for a while, baseball is becoming part of everyday life again. It feels right.
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My book The Next Yankees Era: My Transition from the Core Four to the Baby Bombers is now available as an ebook!
The Yankees need James Paxton to be a front-end starter and they can’t afford for him to have many other starts like his first.
For as good as the Yankees were and are expected to be this season, Saturday night proved why I still have my doubts about them in the postseason. Without Luis Severino this season, the Yankees need James Paxton to be a front-end starter and they can’t afford for him to have many other starts like his first.
Paxton was awful on Saturday with diminished velocity and no put-away pitch. Six of the nine batters he faced reached base, including all five in the second inning. He left the game with two runs in and the bases loaded and no outs, and for him, it’s a miracle his ERA wasn’t ruined for the shorteneed season in the second inning in what is a free agency year for the left-hander. The Yankees’ decision to open the season with a bullpen game in the third game meant that Paxton needed to give them length in the second game. He didn’t and now the Yankees are scrambling to make roster moves and get fresh arms to the majors for the third game of the season.
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My book The Next Yankees Era: My Transition from the Core Four to the Baby Bombers is now available as an ebook!
Scott Reinen of Bronx Pinstripes joined me to talk about the Yankees’ season-opening win over the Nationals.
Yankees baseball returned with a 4-1 win over the defending champion Nationals. It wouldn’t have been the first baseball game of 2020 without it being shortened due to rain. But it was a real, meaningful baseball game and the Yankees won.
Scott Reinen of Bronx Pinstripes joined me to talk about the Yankees’ season-opening win over the Nationals, Brett Gardner batting fifth in the lineup, Gerrit Cole’s Yankees debut, the new-look Giancarlo Stanton, Tyler Wade’s best game in the majors and the expanded postseason field.
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My book The Next Yankees Era: My Transition from the Core Four to the Baby Bombers is now available as an ebook!
On Thursday night, the Yankees won a game in July, and for the first time in a long time, life felt somewhat normal.
My initial thought when Giancarlo Stanton made contact with a first-inning pitch from Max Scherzer, which resulted in a two-run home run and 2-0 Yankees lead: Game over. Sure, it might have been a bit premature to think the Yankees had already clinched a victory in the first few minutes of the first inning of the first game of the season against the defending champion Nationals with the Nationals having yet to bat, but it really wasn’t. Not when you know the Yankees have Gerrit Cole pitching. Thursday night’s season-opening, rain-shortened 4-1 win for the Yankees felt even easier than their 2019 Opening Day win over the eventual 108-loss Orioles felt, and it was all because of the combination of scoring first and having Cole on the mound.
Michael Kay frequently mentions the old adage that a starting pitching will have great stuff in one-third of their starts, bad stuff in one-third of their starts and will have average stuff with the need to grind through the other one-third of their starts. I don’t know that Cole ever truly has “bad” stuff, and the adage clearly didn’t apply to him in 2019 with Houston when he finished the season 16-0, but on Thursday night, Cole was teetering on the border of having bad stuff and needing to grind though the start, and somehow he finished the game by allowing one hit and one earned run over five innings.
For as weird as it was to see Cole wearing the Yankees’ road gray uniform, it was even weirder to see him unable to throw strikes. Cole was missing with every pitch early on, going to a 3-1 count against the Nationals’ leadoff hitter Trea Turner before Turner helped him out by swinging at what would have been ball 4. Cole then fell behind Adam Eaton 2-0, and after evening up the count, Eaton was able to barely stay alive by just making contact on a third straight foul ball. The seventh pitch of the at-bat ended up in the seats for a home run.
For a brief moment, I had flashbacks of CC Sabathia losing in Baltimore on Opening Day 2009 in his Yankees debut before remembering Anthony Rendon is no longer a National, Juan Soto is currently out and Starlin Castro would be batting third in the game. Even though Cole would throw a first-pitch ball to three of the four hitters in the first inning (Castro, like always, swung at the first pitch of his at-bat), he was able to get through the inning and the top of the Nationals lineup (though their “top” was exactly a top) with just the one mistake to Eaton.
In the second, Cole hit Eric Thames with a slider, but after that hit-by-pitch, Cole only allowed one baserunner over the game’s final four innings (a fifth-inning Asdrubal Cabrera walk). Cole never really looked like himself or like the pitcher who became the best pitcher in the world with the Nationals. (Sorry, Mets fans.) Cole’s final line: 5 IP, 1 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 1 BB, 5 K, 1 HR. That very well could be the worst Cole looks all season and he still managed to allow one hit and one earned run over five innings.
It feels good to once again have a pitcher who, when given any sort of lead, has essentially won the game before the game has ended. The Yankees haven’t had that in more than two years when Luis Severino was the best pitcher in the league for the first half of 2018, and before Severino, the Yankees hadn’t had that since the first four seasons of Sabathia’s Yankees career. But for as good as Severino was that season and has been at times and for as great as Sabathia was from 2009-2012, it feels different with Cole. While, the other two felt like sure-thing wins every fifth day, Cole feels like an automatic win every fifth day, with the game being played out as a formality.
The early lead Cole was given was increased by an Aaron Judge RBI double and a Stanton RBI single. I know there’s a lot being made about Stanton being slimmer in an attempt to stay healthy and increase production, and it showed in the first game of the season, even if it’s the smallest of sample sizes. I want the weight loss and physique adjustment by Stanton to be real and I want him to be the player the Yankees thought they were being handed by the Marlins before 2018, but I was in Toronto on Opening Day 2018 and saw him hit two majestic home runs and got lost in the idea of him being a perennial MVP presence in the middle of the order for the Yankees. I won’t let myself fall for that again, especially given everything that happened with him last season. For now, I’m cautiously optimistic the real Stanton could be on the 2020 Yankees.
The Yankees started the season with a win, Cole dominated with nowhere close to his best stuff, not only did Stanton play, but he provided power and clutch hitting, and even Tyler Wade looked like a major leaguer.
On Thursday night, the Yankees won a game in July, and for the first time in a long time, life felt somewhat normal.
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My book The Next Yankees Era: My Transition from the Core Four to the Baby Bombers is now available as an ebook!
