About Yesterday: Yankees 3, Tigers 0

by Care Greene

June 5, 2022

*** Quick Stats:

• Winning Pitcher: Luis Severino (4-1) 7.0 IP / 1 H, 0 ER / 10 K, 1 BB / 92-61 PC-ST

• Losing Pitcher: Beau Brieske (0-5) 6 IP/ 3 H, 2 ER / 7 K, 1 BB / 83-52 PC-ST

• Yankee Home Runs: Aaron Judge (1-run HR, 106.4 mph, 378 ft to RF off Brieske) Anthony Rizzo (1-run HR,

Who’s Hot?

• Aaron Judge: 21 HR Leads MLB, Top 1% of league in too many Statcast Metrics to even list. JUST PAY THE GUY!

• Alex Trevino batting .414 since May 16th with a 1.192 OPS

• Matt Carpenter’s average now up to .263 since joining the Yankees

Who’s Not?

• Joey Gallo (what’s new) struck out in all three of his at-bats, dropping his season average to .173 in the process

Interesting Facts:

• On June 4th, 1990, the Yankees drafted both Andy Pettitte (20th round) and Jorge Posada (24th round)

• The Yankees are now the first team since expansion history to have two pitchers, Jamison Taillon and Gerrit Cole, take perfect games past the sixth inning

• 2022 is Miguel Cabrera’s 20th MLB season

The Big Story :

Aaron Judge led off the game with a 106.4 mph, 378 foot blast to right field to give the Yankees the early lead.

Shortly thereafter, Luis Severino established his Fastball and Slider to keep the Tigers perpetually in check on the way to becoming the most recent Yankee pitcher to just miss a no-hitter. Severino was superb throughout his outing.

In the second-inning, Isaiah Kiner-Falefa didn’t react quite quick enough on a 109.6 mph line-drive single off the bat of Miguel Cabrera, which wound up being the Tigers lone hit off Severino over his seven-innings of work.

The game remained an excellent pitchers duel until the bottom of the sixth-inning, when Anthony Rizzo popped a 102.2 mph, 387 foot moon shot into the second deck in right field to make the score 2-0 Yankees.

The Yankees added another run in the bottom of the eighth on a sacrifice-fly by Josh Donaldson, which scored Kyle Higashioka from third base to make the score 3-0 and would stand as the game’s last run.

Player of the Game:

• Luis Severino continued the Yankees downright stifling starting pitching of late. He looked the part of nothing less than a total ace and was in full command of all of his pitches from start to finish, on the way to a one-hitter! Severino pounded the strike-zone all afternoon, tossing 66% of his pitches for strikes. His pitch mix yesterday was:

57% 4-Seam Fastballs / 25% Sliders / 12% Change-Ups / 5% Cutters

Notable Performances:

• Anthony Rizzo’s solo home run in the sixth inning allowed the Yankees a little bit of breathing room and his defense around the bag was extremely steady throughout the game.

• Kyle Higashioka made a beautiful pitch transfer and ensuing throw to second base in the third inning to gun down the Tigers speedy right fielder Willi Castro. Higgy has thrown out 56% of would-be base stealers this season.

• Both Michael King and Clay Holmes were excellent out of the bullpen yesterday as they were able to keep the Tigers off the scoreboard and nail down the win in relief of Severino, who threw 92 pitches on the day.

Better to Forget:

• Joey Gallo went 0-3, striking out in all three of his at-bats.

My Take:

The formula continues to work! Dominant starting pitching, strong bullpen work and a few home runs is all it takes! The Yankees are systematically strangling opponents lately and if you like to watch great pitching and timely hitting, this brand of baseball is quite hard to resist. Yesterday, fans were treated to another dominant outing by a Yankee starter. Severino was the big difference in the game yesterday afternoon. He pitched like the ace he is and once again, a Yankee starter just missed a no-hitter. The Yankees have benefitted from unbelievably good starting pitching recently and yesterday, Severino had everything working. He needed it too because Detroit rookie Beau Brieske pitched well enough to keep the Tigers within striking distance at any moment.

Brieske wound up pitching three-hit ball through 6-innings, featuring lively 4-seam fastballs with some change-ups and occasional sliders mixed in. Biieske was the Tigers 27th round Draft pick in 2017 and he worked to become the Tigers “Minor League Pitcher of the Year” last season. It certainly looks like he’s going to be a keeper for the Tigers and it was fun watching him oppose Severino in a stout pitching duel that won’t soon be forgotten.

Aaron Judge is simply making a massive statement this season and it’s now beginning to look like Brain Cashman’s decision to let Judge truly dictate his market value is going to become a massive problem for the Yankees. Judge’s market value is now leaving our solar system, on pace to overtake Voyager-1 some time this summer.

Even though the Yankees have been baseball’s best team, the rest of the American League East is extremely good and Tampa and Toronto are both built for the long-haul so the Yankees will look to keep their torrid pace going for the foreseeable future. The Bombers opened June nicely and looking past this series with the Tigers, they’ll next play the Twins, Cubs, Blue Jays, Rays and Astros in what will be the most important part of their schedule, season to date. It sure would be nice for the Yankees to come out of that stretch looking as they look now. I expect a little reality check at some point and if there’s going to be one, it may come as a result of the increasingly more challenging schedule that will soon follow.

On a bit of an unfortunate note, the Yankees Optioning of Miguel Andujar (who was the odd-man-out) to Triple-A Scranton allowed the Yankees Giancarlo Stanton to return to the roster. Giancarlo Stanton batted cleanup for the Yankees yesterday and he didn’t miss a beat, going 1- 4 while smoking a 2-out 110.9 412-foot double to straight away center field in his first at-bat.

“Miggy” had come up on May 24th (for the second time this season) and combined with his two day call-up at the end of April, he’s hit .268/.279/.317 with a .596 OPS so far this season.

Of course, Matt Carpenter and Marwin Gonzalez, along with Kyle Higashioka and one of Gleyber Torres or DJ LeMahieu make up the Yankees bench. The demotion caused Andujar to ask the Yankees for a trade, based on his lack of consistent playing time. I feel for Miggy but unfortunately this is one of those things that come along with playing for a championship caliber team.

In Miggy’s mind, he may feel he was playing better than some other players, such as Joey Gallo or Marwin Gonzalez. In reality, he was optioned because of the former NL MVP’s return to action, but it was sad to hear that Andujar was upset in one respect, if he played on a team like the Nationals, he might indeed be playing a lot more.

Rather than go down that rabbit hole of whether or not the demotion was justified, I’ll leave it to our fans to speak to this issue in the comments area! I’ll refrain from saying whether I agree with the demotion or not, but I will point out that one of the big Yankee vulnerabilities so far in this young season has been that they have struggled at times against right-handed pitching.

The addition of Matt Carpenter has so far helped to reverse this trend, but Miggy has been pretty good against righties this year and historically, he’s always been so. Meanwhile, many other Yankees can’t say the same, including Joey Gallo. The chart below says a lot, perhaps it will get a conversation started on whether or not our readers think Miggy’s demotion was justified or not.

Next Up - The Yankees get an early start tomorrow. Pease note, all eastbound lanes on the lower level of the George Washington Bridge will be closed for the American Cancer Society’s GW Bridge Challenge NJ 2022 event. (New York-bound motorists can still use the upper level by the way.)

Game time is set for 11:35 am in the Bronx. Jordan Montgomery, 1-1 with a 3.04 ERA this year, will make the start for the Yankees and he’ll be opposing the Tigers Rony Garcia, who is 0-1 with a 4.70 ERA.

The game-time temperature will be a beautiful 71 degrees and skies will be clear. Should be a beautiful day for baseball!