In Between the Pinstripes #34

In Between the Pinstripes_34: Just unprepared
To sit here and say that the Yankees didn’t know what was coming in Game 1 is an absolute lie. After an inspiring Wild Card Game win over the Twins, the Yankees were still hungover from the celebration on Tuesday night.

Trevor Bauer was the gift that the Yankees where rewarded after winning the Wild Card game, and well they just didn’t show up. The first four batters in the order went 0-15 with Judge collecting a Golden Sombrero. Now, it wasn’t all to the fault of the Yankee hitters, Bauer attack the inside corner against the left-handed hitters in the order and was given a few inches inside, and used every inch he was given. Bauer pitched both Judge and Sanchez the same way and neither of them adjusted. If watching each other at-bats was too hard for Judge and Sanchez, they should have looked at the tape from earlier in the year, Bauer attacked them THE SAME EXACT WAY. They knew the curve was coming and just couldn’t lay off it. Judge in particular just blanked on a knee-high curveball in the 6th inning that he could have wasted to continue the at-bat. Instead, Judge starred it and walked back to the dugout failing to produce in a huge opportunity to swing the momentum. Every time the bombers had an opportunity to take a bit of the momentum in this game they just fell short, not doing themselves any favors at all either in those situations.

Something the Yanks did extremely well in the Wild Card game is raising the pitch count of Ervin Santana when they were down, something they had the chance to do, but couldn’t against Bauer. However, you can’t blame this entire on the offense, as bad as they were as a collective unit—some of the blame has to go on the staff and Gary Sanchez’ defense. Look I love Gary Sanchez, but his defense behind the plate led to two of the runs for the Indians tonight. The staff just missed two spots. Sonny Gray didn’t hit his spot on the Jay Bruce 2-run homer, and Jaime Garcia didn’t hit his spot on the Jay Bruce sac-fly that extended the game pretty much out of reach in the bottom of the 5th.


If you can take anything out of a bad loss like this is Dellin Betances looked like his old self, and you have the ultimate stopper in C.C. Sabathia looming for Game 2 against the pending Cy Young winner Corey Kluber. The Yankees, Girardi in particular will complain about the umpiring being one sided (and it was with the check swing calls, and Bauer’s ability to nibble away one of the corners), but the offense has to give Gray and the entire Yankee bullpen runs to give them a chance to steal a game in Cleveland. Nothing comes easy for the 2017 New York Yankees, this bunch is as resilient as any team in all of baseball and I wouldn’t be surprised if they scratched and clawed their way into a win against Kluber in Game 2. But, that is tomorrow, and as of today—the Yankees are in a 0-1 series hole in Cleveland against a really good Indian team.    

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