No A-Rod, no Hicks, no problem. With the active career leader in home runs on the shelf temporarily with an oblique injury and down Statcast darling Aaron Hicks due to a shoulder injury, the Bombers had no problem picking up a 3-1 win in Texas against the AL West leading Rangers. The Yankees — who have struggled in the young season with runners in scoring position — didn’t really need baserunners as they benefited from a couple of solo homers from Jacoby Ellsbury and Starlin Castro along with a run-scoring double from Mark Teixeira.
The runs scored total might not have held up if not for the near perfect outing from Nathan Eovaldi. He was by far the star of the game going seven innings while only allowing two hits and two walks. He flirted with a no-hitter through six innings before allowing a hit to Nomar Mazara to start off the seventh who at the time had been the only Ranger baserunner in the game.
Nate was truly nasty tonight, but in a way you might not expect. It didn’t seem as if he was trying to blow it by every batter and while he did have six strikeouts the more promising sign was his groundball ratio. This season Eovaldi has a 47.8 ground ball percentage, and tonight that ratio was 62.5 and it had a lot to do with his use of the splitter.
Eovaldi has been ramping up his usage of the splitter this season; according to Brooks Baseball he now uses that pitch 25 percent of the time compared to just 20 percent last season. He also did a great job of mixing his pitches so that when he did throw as fastball it wasn’t as predictable.
The Play: Teixeira’s run scoring double in the third (+.111 WPA)
Top Performers
Yankees: Nathan Eovaldi (7 IP, 0 R, 2 HA, 6 SO)
Rangers: Brett Nicholas (1 for 3, 1 HR, 1 R, 1 RBI)
Notes
– Jacoby Ellsbury hit his first dinger of the season in the third inning off Rangers starter Cesar Ramos. Ellsbury is projected by PECOTA to hit 12 more home runs this season.
– Dellin Betances gave up his first earned run of the season in the eighth inning against Brett Nicholas.
– The MRI for Alex Rodriguez came back negative. He is listed as day-to-day (Oblique).
The Quote
“Call your friends and family. Don’t shoot the messenger. He has a no hitter going.” – Ken Singleton after Nathan Eovaldi gets through inning six with no hits. I blame you Ken.
The Highlight: Nasty Nate goes seven allowing only two hits
Up Next
Game two of this three game series against the Rangers will commence tomorrow at 7:05 PM CST at Globe Life Park. Luis Severino is on the bump for the Yankees and his counterpart on the Rangers will be A.J. Griffin. Severino is due for a good outing. His BABIP of .397 is way above his career average of .301 and his K/9 thus far is a measly 5.94 which is significantly less than his average of 8.37. Ranger pitcher A.J. Griffin has started off hot this season and will look to build on that success in this coming game. The Yankees will look to jump on the fastball as Griffin throws this pitch over 50 percent of the time.
Lead photo: Tim Heitman / USA Today Sports