Hooray!

Anyway, let’s get into it, shall we?

• Watching the Yankees beat Houston is a lot of fun.
• Tuesday’s game wasn’t fun until the ninth inning.
• What a sloppy performance.
• But hey, they won.
• And how about Brett Gardner coming back to life.
• Usually, he starts off hot and cools down in the second half.
• This season, he had been ice cold to start and is now heating up as the weather does the same.
• And isn’t Gleyber Torres great?
• I enjoy watching him play.
• Well, when he’s not making errors in the field.
• He’s hitting well for someone his age.
• I was worried about Miguel Andujar after that collision with Yuki Gurriel during Wednesday’s game.
• Didi asked him what 1+1 equaled and Andujar laughed.
• It’s good to know that our players know basic math.
• And how about Luis Severino?
• It’s relaxing watching his starts unlike Sonny Gray’s starts while can be agonizing.
• The personal catcher thing isn’t really helping.
• Apparently, it doesn’t really matter who’s catching him.
• He works better when he’s fast.
• If he takes too long on the mound, it screws him up.
• He’s opening the series against Baltimore that starts on Thursday night.
• Bad news: Gray is 1-3 with a 5.40 ERA in his career at Camden Yards.
• Good news: Aaron Judge really likes hitting against the Orioles.
• The Orioles are bad and the Yankees should beat them.
• Should.
• Back to Houston, can we talk about how nice it is that the Yankees can beat Dallas Keuchel?
• Remember dreading his starts against the Yankees?
• Justin Verlander is pitching out of his mind.
• And it’s not at all suspicious that a guy who is 35 and has over 2600 innings on his arm and who was plagued by injuries is suddenly pitching better than he did in his 20s.
• Not at all.
• My main reason for pointing this out is because he’s so sanctimonious when it comes to PED and I’d love nothing more than to see him get caught doing something illegal.
• The Astros are heading home to play the Red Sox this weekend.
• Hey! The Red Sox are finally playing a good team for once.
• Their schedule has been a cakewalk so far this season.
• The Yankees are now in the cakewalk part of their schedule.
• And they need to take advantage of this stretch.
• Remember when the Yankees were 9-9? It seems so long ago.
• As if it wasn’t this season.
• During that stretch, they lost three out of four to the Orioles.
• Hopefully, they can return the favor and beat up on a terrible Orioles team.
• They were able to beat the Angels two out of three this past weekend.
• The one loss was Gray’s start.
• Of course.
• I really don’t like going into Gray’s starts and assuming it will be a loss.
• CC Sabathia isn’t looking great either.
• He started off well but now he’s losing a bit of that early season magic.
• And his starts seem to go the same way.
• He’ll be great for the first few innings and then fall completely apart in the fourth or fifth inning.
• Maybe this stretch of “easier” games will help him out
• Maybe it could help Gray out as well.
• Giancarlo Stanton didn’t get hot until July of last year and then he went HAM.
• So I’m not worried about him yet.
• I’m glad that after looking dreadful at the plate on Tuesday that Gary Sanchez turned things around on Wednesday.
• Can we talk about this play?

• I mean, come on.
• It worked out perfectly.
• What a carom off the backstop.
• Jeez.
• If Chapman tried that 10 times, he wouldn’t be able to do it.
• Yankee magic!

On Friday night, the phenom, who was already responsible for the Yankees’ first run thanks to an infield hit, stepped up to the plate against reliever Jim Johnson in the bottom of the seventh inning—Johnson came into the game after manager Mike Scioscia the Angels’ starter Andrew Heaney. Johnson retired Miguel Andujar for the second out of the inning and was trying to get Torres for the final out. The first pitch was a called strike and the next three offerings from Johnson missed the plate and the rookie didn’t bite.

Johnson threw Torres a 95 mph pitch that was low and outside and Torres hit it to right center to give the Yankees a 2-1 lead.

Torres is now batting .333/.393/.646 with nine home runs in 108 plate appearances. Every time you think he can’t get better, he does. In a fun twist, the last 21-year-old to hit a home run in four straight games is Torres’ teammate Giancarlo Stanton who did in 2011 with the Marlins.

Photo credit: Brad Penner / USA TODAY Sports

On Monday night against the Texas Rangers, Tanaka surrendered two home runs to bring his season total, thus far, to 11. He has given up five in his last three starts. He gave up one in the rain-shortened game last week against the Nationals, and two against the Red Sox on May 9. Tanaka only has two starts without giving up a home run; April 23 in a 14-1 win against Minnesota and in the 6-5 victory over Houston on May 3.

Tanaka has made 10 starts and while the Yankees only have two losses in those starts, before Monday’s win against the Rangers, he pitched three straight no-decisions and allowed 10 earned runs. His HR/9 is hovering around last year’s mark and last year, he surrendered 35 long balls, a career-high since coming to the U.S.

Per Baseball Savant, Tanaka relies on six pitches. A slider, splitter, four-seam fastball, sinker, curveball, and a cutter. As you can see, he threw his slider a lot more during the first month of the season. Now he throws both his slider and splitter around 31% of the time.

Both home runs on Monday night were off his splitter. On May 9, Mitch Moreland’s home run was off a slider and Andrew Benintendi’s was off a sinker.

Courtesy of Baseball Savant

Tanaka’s given up home runs the most with his slider (4), his sinker is next (3) and he’s given up two apiece on his four-seamer and splitter.

Here is where all 11 of Tanaka’s home run pitches landed in the zone. As you can see, six of them were right in the middle of the zone while the other five were just a bit lower but still in the zone.

Courtesy of Baseball Savant

This heat map also shows exactly where Tanaka’s home run pitches landed in the zone. When his four-seamer is flat, his splitter doesn’t drop and when his slider and sinker also don’t move enough, batters are going to hit them well and out of the park.

Courtesy of Baseball Savant

I took a look at where in the count Tanaka’s has given up his 11 home runs and here are the results:

Tanaka has given up three home runs with the batter behind in the count.

• Adam Jones hit one off Tanaka’s slider on an 0-1 pitch on April 5
• Zack Cozart hit one off Tanaka’s slider on an 0-1 pitch April 28
• Andrew Benintendi hit one off Tanaka’s slider on an 0-1 pitch on May 9

See a pattern?

He’s given up three with the batter behind in the count.

• J.T. Realmuto hit one off Tanaka’s four-seamer on a 3-1 count on April 17
• Mitch Moreland hit one off Tanaka’s sinker on a 2-0 pitch on May 9
• Joey Gallo hit one off Tanaka’s spiltter on a 2-0 count on May 21.

He’s given up two home runs on a 1-1 count.

• Anthony Rendon hit one off Tanaka’s sinker on May 15
• Rougned Odor hit one off Tanaka’s splitter on May 21

And finally, first-pitch home runs.

• Randall Grichuk hit one off Tanaka’s four-seamer on March 30
• Hanley Ramirez hit one off Tanaka’s slider on April 11
• J.D. Martinez hit one off Tanaka’s sinker on April 11

At least Tanaka’s spreading the wealth, so to speak. I was a little surprised that Tanaka has not (to this point) yielded a home run with two strikes. I guess that’s one positive because nothing is more frustrating to watch than a pitcher getting the batter to two strikes and then giving up a home run.

Last season at this time, Tanaka had given up 14 home runs; even giving up four in a start to the Astros on May 14, 2017. He made 30 starts last season and he had 10 games in which he surrendered multiple home runs and 10 starts in which he escaped unscathed by the long ball. So he’s not on pace to eclipse last year’s total but all he needs is a couple more multi-home run games and he’ll be back on track.

I’m not sure what the solution is or if there even is one. Sometimes you can’t help when your pitches don’t do what you want them to do. If every pitcher could control their pitches all the time, baseball would be kind of boring because strikeouts would go up even more and games would be low-scoring affairs. The bottom line is, Masahiro Tanaka has always been somewhat homer-prone while playing in the Majors and as he ages, it’s getting worse.

Photo Credit: Robert Deutsch-USA TODAY Sports

CC Sabathia fell apart after four innings, Chasen Shreve came in with a three-run lead and allowed two hits to start the bottom of the sixth for the Rangers. Then David Robertson walked two more, which let in a run and then gave up a bases-clearing, go-ahead double. What’s worse is that the Yankees had a 4-0 lead and a 10-5 lead erased by a combo of bad pitching and not-so-stellar defense. The good thing is, they’re off today. Maybe they’ll watch some film of Wednesday’s game so they can see what no to do this weekend against the Angels.

We’re going to look at all the pitches Sabathia, Shreve, and Robertson made that yielded a result (single, double, walk, strikeout, etc.) and see where the pitches landed. Spoiler: Most of the pitches that resulted in a positive outcome for the Rangers, got too much of the plate.

Without further adieu, here are all of CC’s pitches which resulted in an outcome (single, double, strikeout, walk, etc.), We’re not going to look at every single one of his pitches.

The two home runs he surrendered in the fourth inning were off his slider. It didn’t dive enough in either at-bat and both Jurrickson Profar and Ronald Guzman took advantage of the lack of movement. Both of the pitches were in the zone and a shade below 80 mph. Essentially, they were meatballs and CC served them up on a platter.

Sabathia left the game after giving up two more runs in the bottom of the fifth and the Yankees had a 10-7 lead. Jonathan Holder did what he needed to do: Hold the lead at three and get the Yankees out of the inning before Texas had a chance to tie the game.

Then came the sixth inning…

Chasen Shreve who came in and gave up a single to Guzman struck out Carlos Perez and gave up a single to Delinoo DeShields. He was taken out and replaced by David Robertson who gave up a walk to Shin-Soo Choo to load the bases and gave up another walk to Isiah Kiner-Falefa to score a run and make it, 10-8. Robertson was able to strike out Nomar Mazara to get the second out of the inning and then his first pitch to Profar was right in the zone and Profar hit it to right center field to split the outfielders and clear the bases. The Yankees were now down 11-10. The Rangers would score an insurance run in the bottom of the eighth off Dellin Betances who had a clean bottom of the seventh but then forgot how to throw the ball the following inning. He screwed up a pickoff attempt on DeShields and the Rangers were able to get another run across when DeShields scored from third (after he stole it, of course) on a Kiner-Falef single.

Here are Chasen Shreve’s outcomes.

Now, to be fair to Shreve, he did make a good pitch the strikeout; it was a splitter. But the two pitches that yielded singles were too much in the zone. He threw a 90.1 mph fastball to Guzman and an 83.6 mph splitter to DeShields.

And here are Robertson’s outcomes.

Look at the yellow dot. That’s the bases-clearing double. It got way too much of the plate and there was no way Profar was going to miss it. It was on a tee. Sigh…

It’s just frustrating and disappointing to watch the Yankees score 10 runs and lose. It shouldn’t happen. This loss resulted in a series loss for the first time in nine tries so the Yankees are still playing well, but, you can lose to a team like Texas. They’re not good.

We have a little while until the trade deadline but Brian Cashman better look for at least two pitchers.

Photo Credit: Dan Hamilton / USA TODAY Sports

Charts courtesy of Baseball Savant

Yeah. It’s the first time a Major League team has accomplished that feat.

Here are last night’s dingers:

First up, Gleyber Torres’ first.

Next, Neil Walker’s first as a Yankee.

Aaron Judge joined the party.

Torres’ second dinger of the night.

And finally, Aaron Hicks.

It was a slugfest and the Yankees ended up on top.

Photo credit Kevin Jairaj / USA Today Sports

And for seven innings, it looked like the Orioles could pull it off. They scored five runs off Yankees’ starter David Cone in six innings, and Orioles’ starter Doug Johns held the Yankees to a run in five innings.

By the time the bottom of the eighth inning started, the Orioles were holding on to a 5-3 lead. Orioles reliever Sidney Ponson, who replaced Johns in the sixth and who gave up two runs in the bottom of the seventh, got Scott Brosius to fly out to right on a 2-1 pitch for the first out. He then walked Jorge Posada who was pinch-hitting for Joe Girardi and Chuck Knoblauch to put runners on first and second. Orioles manager Ray Miller summoned right-hander Alan Mills from the bullpen to replace Ponson and pitch to Derek Jeter. Mills got Jeter to fly out to shallow right on the first pitch. With two on and two out, Miller once again strode out to the pitcher’s mound to take the ball from Mills, and lefty Norm Charlton came into the game to face Paul O’Neill. O’Neill hit a 1-0 pitch into the hole between shortstop and third base which scored Posada to make the score 5-4. Knoblauch advanced to third. Miller, who would have been in deep trouble if the mound visit limit was in effect in 1998, called upon righty Armando Benitez to end the inning. Instead, Benitez surrendered a three-run home run to Bernie Williams which gave the Yankees a 7-5 lead.

While the stadium was still rocking and the fans were still celebrating, Tino Martinez stepped into the box to face Benitez and was immediately greeted with a fastball to the back, right between the 2 and the 4. Benitez had a history with the Yankees already. More specifically, he had plunked Martinez once before, so when it happened again, the Yankees were not going to brush it off. Home plate umpire Drew Coble threw Benitez out of the game and then Benitez did the tough guy thing, he motioned for the Yankees to come and get him, and well, they did, and all hell broke loose.

Some highlights from the video include: (0:34) the Yankees bullpen; specifically, Graeme Lloyd goes after Benitez, (1:56) Jeff Nelson tries to get at Benitez and at (2:03) Darryl Strawberry disappears from the shot, but you see him as he’s about to nail Benitez (The replay is at 6:01). At (3:05) Joe Torre is trying to calm down Strawberry. Strawberry ended up being punched by Alan Mills.

It was ugly all around, and it didn’t have to happen. Benitez didn’t need to hit Martinez in the back. It wasn’t Tino Martinez’s fault that your team used up its bullpen in a single inning and lost the lead. But the umpires were also at fault because they didn’t warn the benches after Benitez’s obvious message to the Yankees.

After the umps restored order, nearly 10 minutes later, reliever Bobby Munoz was on the mound for the Os and Tim Raines was at the plate for the Yankees. Munoz threw his first pitch and Raines deposited it into the right-field seats to give the Yankees a 9-5 lead that they wouldn’t relinquish.

Two days later, American League President Gene Budig handed out suspensions to five players; three Yankees and two Orioles. Darryl Strawberry (3 games), Graeme Lloyd (3 games), and Alan Mills (3 games) and Jeff Nelson (2 games). Armando Benitez received the largest suspension: eight games.

Gene Budig released a statement explaining his decision and said this about Benitez hitting Martinez: “The severity of the discipline reflects the gravity of the offenses. Mr. Benitez not only intentionally threw at Martinez, but the location of the pitch was extremely dangerous and could have seriously injured the player.”

He added: “This was a highly unfortunate and highly dangerous on-field situation. The events demand swift and stern action. A player’s safety is of utmost importance.”

Martinez didn’t break anything; he just had a large welt in the middle of his back for a while. As for the Yankees and Orioles, you know how 1998 ended up; the Yankees barely lost any games and won their 24th championship while the Orioles finished fourth in the American League East division with a 79-83 record.

So, with that in mind and because my brain is all over the place this afternoon, I’m going to fire off some random thought before the game. Grab a snack and/or a drink and away we go!

• The offseason seemed like the longest one ever but spring training felt like it zoomed by.
• At least it did to me.
• The Yankees have Giancarlo Stanton.
• I keep having to remind myself because I can’t believe it.
• I feel bad for Greg Bird.
• The guy just wants to play and his right foot is being a pill.
• Hopefully, this latest surgery will be his last.
• Cross every body part you can including your eyes.
• Last year, I predicted that Ronald Torreyes was going to hit the first Yankee home run of 2017.
• I really did. Here’s the tweet:

• I wasn’t lying.
• I was recording a podcast when it happened so I couldn’t react on Twitter but it was pretty funny.
• I predicted Didi this season.
• Watch it be Brandon Dury.
• Speaking of Drury, I think he was a fine pickup.
• Some people are really down on it but for now, he’ll do.
• The Yankees have Giancarlo Stanton.
• I still can’t believe it.
• Imagine having to face Aaron Judge, Giancarlo Stanton, and Gary Sanchez?
• Oh, and Didi Gregorius.
• The Yankees have the longest road Opening Day losing streak.
• It’s 6 games.
• The last time they won an opener on the road was in 2006 at Oakland.
• That’s a really long time ago.
• No one is left from that team but that was another squad with a pretty stacked lineup.
• Remember 2006? When it seemed like everyone went down with a wrist injury?
• Matsui, Sheffield, Giambi….ugh.
• Matsui was gone for most of the season.
• Then they lost to Detroit in the Division Series.
• And Joe Torre batted A-Rod eighth.
• Memories…
• Back to 2018 and the promise of a new season.
• The hope.
• The excitement.
• The feeling of euphoria that comes with the knowledge that this team could do something special.
• Of course, the flip side is everything that could go wrong and ruin it but let’s not think of that.
• Let’s be positive today.
• Let’s picture 495 foot Judge home runs instead.
• And Stanton hitting ball 500 feet.
• Maybe Sanchez can get in on the action.
• Let’s get excited about Tyler Wade.
• He had a nice spring. Let’s hope some of it carries over into the regular season.
• Oh, by the way, the Rays picked up our old friend Rob Refsnyder and he’s batting clean up.
• Evan Longoria is a Giant.
• That’s another thing I’m not used to right now.
• Or Andrew McCutchen also being a Giant.
• Or Giancarlo Stanton being a Yankee.
• Did that really happen?
• Greg Holland finally signed with someone. (The Cards.)
• There are still so many unsigned players. It’s ludicrous.
• I feel bad for them.
• Well, not that bad. Most of them are still well off and won’t starve.
• But it has to be frustrating to sit around and watch as the baseball season starts and you’re without a job.
• Frustrating and scary for some of them.
• Okay, I feel bad.
• I’m not a monster.
• Anyway, let’s end this on a high note.
• Happy Opening Day, everyone! Let’s go Yankees!

Now let’s get started.

1. THE INFIELD

I absolutely love the Brandon Drury trade. While he will primarily play third base, he can also play second base, first base, and left field. He also hit .267/.317/.447 (92 wRC+) in 480 big league games last year. At the end of the day, Cashman addressed the team’s biggest need by trading two mid-level prospects.

I also think it is interesting to compare Drury and Headley. They provide similar production, but Drury is cheaper, younger, and can play more positions. This move doesn’t really block Gleyber Torres, Miguel Andujar, or Tyler Wade in a significant way. If the homegrown talent is productive, then Drury will be an excellent utility player. If players need more time in the minors though, this trade provides necessary insurance. Either way, this trade seems like a big win for the present and the future.

2. THE RIVALRY

The Red Sox and Yankees will both be large powerhouses entering this season, and I could not be happier. Baseball is always more fun when these two teams are good.

Despite the J.D. Martinez acquisition, I am still picking the Yankees as the favorites to win the division. Yes, the Red Sox won the division last year and added Martinez. However, when you factor full seasons of David Robertson, Tommy Kahnle, Sonny Gray, and (hopefully) Greg Bird, along with Giancarlo Stanton and a much younger infield, the Yankees are the easy pick for me. They have upside, they have depth, and the strong farm system provides flexibility at the deadline that other teams lack.

 3. OPENING DAY STARTER

The opening day starter should be Luis Severino. I think a strong case can be made for Masahiro Tanaka, and I like Tanaka more than most. I think he is going to bounce back this year and produce numbers that are similar to his 2016 season. At the same time, I think that Severino is an important part of the Yankees’ future, and the Yankees need to give him as many “big game” opportunities as possible. Opening Day is one of these opportunities. It is an opportunity to make the big stage feel natural and routine. Additionally, Severino was the third best pitcher in the American league last year. While that may be hard for Severino to replicate this year, I think he has earned this opening day start with his performance. Give the ball to Severino.

LOOKING AHEAD

The first game of spring training is tomorrow against the Tigers at 1:05pm. The game will be aired on the YES Network, and a delayed taping will be played later on the MLB Network. It’s always nice to enjoy stress free baseball but before we know it, April will arrive, and the Yankees will begin the battle for the AL East.

No, it wasn’t because of the Home Run Derby. That explanation – to use one of many terrible workplace buzzwords – is low hanging fruit. We’ve seen writers like Devan Fink of SB Nation’s Beyond the Box Score break apart that myth, leading us to a word wholly foreign to 2017 for the superstar.

Aaron Judge might be in a slump.

I emphasize “might” because other forces have muddied the waters of understanding the problems in Judge’s bat. That force is the Red Sox idea to pitch Judge noticeably different than their predecessors: up in the zone. Whether other teams begin to adopt the same approach will dictate the future of the word “might” in my phrase above.

Here is a handy little GIF comparing heatmaps between all of the pitches Judge saw between June 1st, 2017 and the All-Star break, with the 97 he saw in their most recent series against Boston. Why opt for just over a month’s worth of data instead of the whole season? I wanted to bake in the changes pitchers have already made as Judge’s season has progressed. My intuition is to visualize if the Red Sox actually had a distinct approach, or merely copied a trend from prior to their court date (come on, you knew I was going to sneak one in eventually).

This looks promising. While the heaviest concentration of pitches doesn’t migrate wildly from what Judge faced in our June 1st to All-Star break bucket, there is a clear movement north. Heatmaps like this are indicators of concentration, so while your eye might dismiss anything that isn’t movement in the darkest part – highest frequency – it’s important to look at the surrounding, lighter colored inkblots for a better sense of trends save the obvious. Elevated pitches, particularly those above the belt and slightly away, seems to have been the gameplan for Farrell and company.

Dangerous hitters are often met with breaking balls low and away, as pitchers would rather take their chances with a less threatening bat lower in the lineup. So why would the Red Sox elevate to a hitter like Judge?

That’s a shot of Judge’s whiff rate in our June 1st to All-Star break timeframe. You’ll notice some of the deeper red – higher whiff rates – find themselves up in the zone. From the looks of it, the Red Sox saw where Judge was struggling recently, and said, “Hey, we bet you can’t adjust.” It turns out they were right.

Actually, that claim may have seen its knees buckle if it wasn’t for Jackie Bradley Jr.’s unbelieveable robbery of Judge late into last Sunday night’s battle. And more importantly, I would have been tasked with adding a clever qualifier to pull out that 417 ft out from our sample if Bradley Jr. was a few inches shorter. Whether the Red Sox determined holes in a player’s swing over small samples actually are predictive is beside the point; their approach worked.

Let’s pay some attention to another aspect of the Red Sox’s philosophy employed to stymie Judge. Not only were they elevating pitches, but their staff made sure to lean on fastballs even when they weren’t living at the letters. The phrase, “Challenge him with a fastball,” veered from use on a scattered basis, to use in every Judge at-bat.

Only 11 total pitches – roughly 13% – of what Judge saw over the weekend were classified as offspeed; for what it’s worth they were all sliders. The other 87%? 62% four-seamers and 25% two-seamers. Compared to the same bucket from earlier in this column that took us to the All-Star break, Judge saw only about 53% mixed fastballs, a 35% increase. It’s hard to believe the Red Sox merely stumbled into an approach that stands out both visually and statistically. Premeditation is one of the intangible keys to pitching, and I’d venture a guess this idea was championed by a Red Sox who logs a lot of clicks on BrooksBaseball.net in their free time.

In wondering if the Red Sox’s model would become the norm moving forward – like a similar theory did to combat Mike Trout early in his career – the Twins provide our first indicator that teams may not have taken notice.

Below I’ve taken the GIF from above and added a third heatmap to the end. It shows all 46 pitches Judge saw against the Twins in their mid-July series. While the Red Sox’s model continues to distance itself from others, it confounds whether their model was actually more effective, or if Judge is in fact in a slump.

Minnesota opted for a much more perplexing approach, yet it didn’t prove substantially less effective. With the Twins living inside and over the plate – both, on the surface, seem like terrible ideas – Judge was 2 for 8 with two singles and two walks. Not nearly as disappointing as the 1 for 18 against the Red Sox, but not exactly breaking out of a rut. This group of pitches from the Twins’ staff is somewhat deceptive because it’s such a small sample, so while I’d like to conclude that the Red Sox’s Model is how you should pitch Judge, we’re going to need a bigger post-Red Sox sample before drawing any profound conclusions.

What we can conclude is that the Red Sox did pitch Judge differently than the month prior, and while correlation isn’t necessarily causation, I subjectively think it may have had some effect when combined with the context of Judge’s recent whiff rate up in the zone. While the Twins’ didn’t follow suit in terms of focusing on pitches hard and up, whether the Mariners will adopt the philosophy in their coming series remains to be seen.

The most valuable evidence to support the effectiveness of the Red Sox model is to see Judge revert back to his early-season self, while the Mariners either adopt the Twins’ perplexing pitch distribution, or assimilate themselves to the June 1st to the All-Star break bucket. Or they can go full Red Sox on Judge and prey on his eye-level temptations, and see if the model holds more water than a small-sample skeptic might think.