by Paul Semendinger
August 23, 2024
***
About Yesterday:
The Yankees closed out their season series with the Cleveland Guardians by taking the final game of this three game set by the score of 6-0. The Yankees won two of the three games in this series. The Yankees remain in first place in the American League East.
Quick Stats:
Gerrit Cole: 6 innings, 1 hit, 0 runs, 2 strikeouts. WIN
Aaron Judge: 48th home run of the season. He also has 118 runs batted in.
Giancarlo Stanton: 21st home run of the season. He has 55 RBI's
Gleyber Torres: 1 for 3, 2 walks
Anthony Volpe: 1 for 3, 2 walks, stolen base
Tim Hill, Luke Weaver, Michael Tonkin (combined): 3 innings, 0 hits, 0 runs
The Big Story:
The Yankees took two of three from the Guardians proving, again, that the idea of "momentum" in sports is nothing more than a myth.
In the first game, the Yankees did (almost) everything wrong. There were base running mistakes. There were defensive mistakes. There were managerial mistakes. On and on. The Guardians scored a host of runs in the 12 inning of that game to defeat the Yankees. If there was "momentum," the Yankees would have lost the next game. If momentum has any power, it would certainly impact the next game after such a big win from Cleveland and a bad loss from the Yankees. Instead, the Yankees won the next two games - by a combined score of 14-1 (with the lone Cleveland run coming in an 8-0 blowout against the last pitcher in the Yankees' bullpen).
Each game is its own game. Each series its own series. The Yankees will welcome the Colorado Rockies to the Bronx tonight. The Yankees should win this series. The Rockies are a very bad team. If the Yankees win (and they should) it will have nothing to do with momentum.
Player of the Game:
Gerrit Cole looked like the pitcher who won the Cy Young Award last year. He is now 5-2 on the season. Hey, extrapolate that out and that's the same ratio as 10-4...or even 20-8. Very nice. For the Yankees to have any chance in the post season, Gerrit Cole is going to have to be an ace. He pitched like that today.
Notable Performances:
Ben Rice, who hasn't hit, and hasn't even played much (partially because he hasn't hit), hit a long sacrifice fly in the bottom of the eighth inning. It made the score 6-0 (rather than 5-0). The game was already in the bag, but it had to be nice for Rice to make good contact and get a run home.
Better to Forget:
Juan Soto: 0-for 4, 2 strikeouts
Alex Verdugo: 0-for 4
The Yankees, as a team, only managed 6 hits (they did have 8 walks)
My Take:
Where have you gone Alex Verdugo, a (Yankees) nation turns its lonely eyes to you... The baseball season is long. It's very very long. Early in the season, as Verdugo hit and hit and hit, it looked like he was going to have a huge year. But then it all came crashing down. For the season, he's hitting only .227. His On Base Percentage is only .288. He still plays excellent defense, overall, but what looked to be a huge season for him, with great riches in free agency coming his way, has become a huge disappointment. It is very possible that he won't even be a starting player much longer. Jasson Dominguez seems to be knocking at the door...
Fourteen of seventeen. (If you know what I am referring to with this, I would be very very impressed. Read on...)
Too often when people make valid points, others take those ideas out of context and create a different (and wrong) talking point which is often used for humor. I get it. It's all good fun. One of those mistaken talking points is "The Yankees hit too many home runs." Of course they don't. Of course home runs are good. They're great. The "Yankees hit too many home runs" idea came from the fact that unless they hit a home run, the often don't score many runs. Said differently, it's not that the Yankees hit too many homers, it's that when they don't hit homers, they don't score. Yesterday, the Yankes went 1-for-6 with runners in scoring position. In their big win on Wednesday, they went 1-for-8. It's not that the Yankees hit too many homers, it's that all too often they rely on the homer to score and seem, for long periods, incapable of scoring without hitting a home run. That is a problem because when a team is facing the very best teams in the post season, home runs are more difficult to come by. Yesterday Aaron Judge homered and so did Giancarlo Stanton. The game before, Judge hit two homers and Juan Soto added another. The game before that, the Yankees left somewhere around 673 players at third base scoring none of them. No one homered to bring them home in that game. That's the problem and the concern.
The Yankees' last two starting pitchers (Nestor Cortes and Gerrit Cole) have allowed just 3 hits and no runs over their last 13 innings. Very nice!
To answer the mystery from above. It's not great. It's nothing special, but, Gleyber Torres has had at least one hit in 14 of his last 17 games. He's batting .276 in August. That's not nothing. Gleyber Torres has frustrated so many, so often, and for so long, but if he can stay consistent, he will be an important player for the Yankees' pennant push.
Next Up:
Carlos Rodon takes the mound tonight against the Rockies at 7:05 p.m.
I always looked at the acquisition of Alex Verdugo as a "stopgap" measure, someone to fill in for The Martian until he was healthy enough to re-join the lineup and also once he finds his timing again, and once again, is able to DOMINATE AAA pitching. Once The Martian would be at that point, I foresaw the Yankees calling him up, and Verdugo becoming a backup outfielder, who would play in the event of an injury to the other outfielders, or if Boone wanted to give one of the outfielders either a rest of a "DH Day". I think that day is now here. I think at this point, The Martian will be an upgrade in the lineup over Verdugo.
Paul: what you are describing in your comment about the team's home run hitting is this: the Yankees are a very poor situational hitting team and have been for years. I give you one, Giancarlo Stanton to prove my point. When there are men in scoring position the priority is to put the ball in play, not try to hit home runs. When the ball is in play, generally good things happen. In other words the Yankees could benefit from injecting a little "St. Louis Cardinal" style baseball.
Torres better hit, because his defensive game is not good, and his baserunning is bad.
Verdugo. They run him out there everyday even with Waldo available to play LF. As bad as I believe the coaching is when it's based on Analytics, why should a guy like Verdugo even try to hit better when he knows he's not going to be benched?
Wells still doesn't get enough love. They walked Judge again, and Wells proceeded to hit a long oppo SF that was almost played into a bases clearing double. Yes he threw a a ball into CF in the 1st on a steal attempt, but he's been pretty solid on D. Oh, no matter the level this year, te…
Here’s my take-it-to-the-bank predictions for the weekend:
Game 1 - Rockies 8, Yankees 1
Game 2- Yankees 13, Rockies 2
Game 3 - Yankees 5, Rockies 4 (11 innings)
Throughout, us old folks will grumble about the team, and why they don’t blow the Rockies away, etc.
Monday morning, the Yanks wake up with an increased lead in the AL East and the best record in MLB.
We will wonder “ how in the heck did that happen? “ Theres the story of the 2024 Yankees :)
Nice job taking a series against a very solid team. Pitching, Pitching, Pitching! 1 run in last 18 innings surrendered by the staff. Love seeing Volpe turn up the pressure stealing 3rd. Have to keep putting pressure on the D in the Rockie series. Still need to execute better with RISP. Lefty Freeland going tonight, jump on him early, give Rodon a little breathing room. Peraza sent down last night, probably means Jazz ready to go.