1. Over the last two nights at Yankee Stadium, the Yankees won a game in which Max Fried didn’t start and the offense didn’t score at least eight runs and won another game in which they trailed in the bottom of the sixth inning. Who are these Yankees?!
These are the Yankees I like. The Yankees that get good starting pitching, timely hitting and have a dominant backend in the bullpen. The Yankees won a low-scoring, 4-1 game on Monday and then a low-scoring, 4-2 game on Tuesday.
2. Max Fried was really, really good once again (though not as good as he was in Detroit last week): 6.2 IP, 5 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 2 BB, 7 K, 1 HR. He’s the only Yankees starter this season to gets out in the seventh inning of a game, having done so in his last two starts. When the rest of the rotation starts, you pray you can get five innings out of them (and sometimes four). With Fried it’s different. He has been a real ace to this point with a 1.88 ERA through 24 innings.
3. It looked like Michael Wacha was going to outpitch Fried and lead the Royals to a win as he baffled the Yankees through five innings. But with two outs in the sixth inning, whether fatigue or pitch selection or a combination of the two, Wacha fell apart.
Aaron Judge singled to lead off the sixth, but Wacha struck out Cody Bellinger and Paul Goldschmidt to calm the rally. (Goldschmidt took two middle-middle 94-mph fastballs in a row before swinging at a fastball at his eyes, clearly waiting for more offspeed from Wacha.) Jazz Chisholm miraculously managed to work a walk to keep the inning alive and Anthony Volpe followed with a walk to load the bases. When you get walks from Chisholm and Volpe in back-to-back plate appearances, you better take advantage of. Wacha was removed from the game for the left-handed Angel Zerpa.
4. Zerpa couldn’t find the plate and threw four straight balls to Austin Wells to walk in a run. The bases remained loaded for Jasson Dominguez, who would have to bat from his weaker side on the right.
Zerpa got ahead of Dominguez 1-2 and then ran a 96-mph fastball in on Dominguez that Dominguez was able to turn on to drill down the left-field line. The follow-through of his swing knocked him in the back of the head, dislodged his helmet and when he could see again, he could see the bases being cleared by his three-run double.
“I’ve been having a little bit of struggle from the right side, but lately I feel like I’ve made some adjustments,” Dominguez said. “I’m getting more reps and being on time.”
5. Dominguez was 3-for-3 in the game, had given the Yankees a 4-2 lead and was rewarded by being removed from the game as a defensive replacement in Trent Grisham. Or so I thought and was upset about. Aaron Boone said after the game Dominguez’s contact lenses had come out and that’s why he removed and that the plan was for him to stay in. I’m sure his contacts did come out after he knocked himself in the head with his own bat, but I’m not sure Boone was really not going to go to an all-defense outfield for the final innings.
6. Fried to Luke Weaver to Devin Williams was the formula for success against the Tigers and it was again against the Royals. When you can take wild cards like Mark Leiter Jr., Tim Hill, Ian Hamilton and Fernando Cruz out of the relief equation, you’re in a good place. Weaver went four up, four down across the seventh and eigthth and Williams (who has been a wild card himself) closed out the ninth without allowing a baserunner.
“I thought it was a really great team effort,” Fried said. “A really good win.”
7. An odd 0-for-5 night for Ben Rice. With a left-hander pitching on Wednesday, it will be interesting to see if Rice stays atop the order. In my opinion, he should.
8. Another rough night for Bellinger as he went 0-for-3 with a walk. Michael Kay mentioned that it’s hard to judge Bellinger to this point because of the back issue and food poisoning incident, but I disagree. As Derek Jeter would say, if you’re in the lineup, no excuses. Bellinger has been atrocious. Easily, the worst bat of the Yankees’ everyday regulars and hasn’t homered since the second game of the season (neither has Goldschmidt, but at least he’s hitting .349 with an .867 OPS). In no way should Bellinger continue to hit third in the lineup, but he will.
9. Oswald Peraza for the start at third, played great defense, but went 0-for-4 with two strikeouts. He started because of Wacha’s supposed “reverse splits” which Boone lives by. With a lefty going on Wednesday, that would mean Peraza would play again? (Or maybe they can finally make Oswaldo Cabrera the everyday third baseman for an extended period of time regardless of who the opposing starter is?)
10. That lefty is Kris Bubic, who has a 0.96 ERA through three starts. Clarke Schmidt gets the ball for the Yankees in his season debut. Weaver and Williams will be down after pitching the last two nights, so the Yankees are likely going to have to get somewhere between 12 to 15 outs from the bullpen depending how economical Schmidt can be on a decreased pitch count in his first start back.
Last modified: Apr 16, 2025
