Andrew’s One Good and One Bad
By Andrew Hefner
October 10, 2024
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The Yankees survived Game 3 on the road in Kansas City. From monster home runs, to stolen bases, to bunts, to walks, this game had everything that a good baseball game should. Let’s now again look at one good and one bad from Game 3 of the ALDS.
One Good (Plus some extra notes)
In Game 2 “One Good and One Bad”, I mentioned that someone other than Aaron Judge and Juan Soto needed to step up if the Yanks wanted to win ball games. This was taken to heart as last night Giancarlo Stanton went 3-5 hitting the go-ahead home run, recording a stolen base, having no strikeouts, and mashing a double.
The Yankees offense lacked a lot of depth and options in Game 2, with Judge often being put in pivotal positions while he was struggling even to make contact. On Wednesday night, however, Stanton showed that he could be the guy to step up in those positions. Stanton, who was catching a lot of hate on social media after his performance, more specifically his speed, in Games 1 and 2, completely turned himself around and proved all of the haters wrong. For the first time in four seasons, the normally slow Stanton, who has been commonly described as “carrying a piano on his back” while he runs, stole a base to put himself in scoring position. Stanton would later go on to hit the winning home run and is now second all-time in the Postseason Homerun Ratio, only trailing the great Babe Ruth.
Finally, there was life from other parts of the Yankees lineup, which was desperately needed. The Yankees can’t continue to rely on Judge and Soto, so when guys who have the potential to win games finally do step up, these tight games feel a lot more manageable.
The Yanks also walked 9 times again this game and Alex Verdugo laid down a perfect sac bunt early on in the game. There has been good small ball thus far in October, so if the bombers can keep that up as well, many more runs will hopefully be scored.
One Bad
I feel that “the bad” may be a bit repetitive at this point but with 11 runners left on base, and the team going a combined 0-6 with runners in scoring position, it's worth mentioning once again (I’ll keep it short this time).
The Yankees have been constantly setting up base runner after baserunner, but it's been tough to get hitting after that point. The absolute lack of patience with runners in scoring positions has been embarrassing with guys swinging out of their shoes on 2-0 counts, or simply swinging at balls way out of the zone. There has been no effort to try to fix it either, as in all three games it's been a common theme. The focus for Game 4 should be to approach at-bats with runners on base the same as any other at-bat. They’ve been working the counts until someone is in the position to drive a runner in. They need to apply what they have been good at to what they haven’t and all of these games could have been completely different.
Onto Game 4. I’m very pleased once again with the bullpen so let’s hope that Cole goes a strong 6-7 and then we see Weaver back out there to win the ALDS. Consistency is, as always, key and here's to hoping someone else can step up like Stanton did last night.
As far as RISP, the Yankees have generally been very bad at it for over a decade. One season they had only 2 SF. But it's the Cashman, I mean the Analytics Way of Coaching. Baseball thinking is not allowed.
good point about the 'bad', young prof, but
the 'bad' aint all that bad
they continue to get runners on base and into scoring position....and the inefficiency in driving all those runners in is a bit distressing
but it's also a bit understandable given the rather spotty umpiring and the wisdom of the Royals' catcher. mayhaps the Royals throw first-pitch strikes when runners are aboard, as befits a team playing in a park with a spacious outfield,
Are they reviving the "next man up" approach from 2017?