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Yankeemetrics: Bombers coasting out west (April 26-28)

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(Getty)

As RAB closes shop today, I personally wanted to thank everyone for their tremendous support of this website and my writing over the past four-plus years. It was truly an honor to contribute to this amazing site, to be able to write about my favorite team, and be a part of a really special and passionate community of fans. Keep following me on twitter @ktsharp for all my Yankees stats and analysis the rest of the season and more details on the future of Yankeemetrics.

April 26: When Gio Urshela is your cleanup hitter … all you do is win!
The Yankees got back in the win column on Friday night as they continued their road trip up the west coast to San Francisco and won their season-opening Interleague matchup, 7-3.

James Paxton ‘only’ struck out eight batters but still was solid in holding the Giants to five hits and three runs. Paxton has quietly been excellent this season in doing the things a pitcher can control on the mound (excluding his defense behind him) — strikeouts, walks and homers. After Friday’s start — among pitchers with at least 25 innings pitched — he led the AL in FIP (2.24), ranked third in strikeout rate (36.2%), was third in Strikeout-to-Walk ratio (5.1), and had allowed only three homers in 34 2/3 innings.

Luke Voit had another monster game, going 3-for-4 with 3 RBIs, including his eighth home run of the season. Voit’s dinger was a bomb over the center-field wall, another example of his ridiculous dead-center power.

Since the start of last season, he has a 1.067 slugging percentage and .533 isolated power to straightaway center, both the highest among all MLB players (min. 50 PA). It was also his fifth dead-center homer this season, tied with Pete Alonso for the most in the majors through Friday.

And because there can never be too many #LukeVoitFacts, we’ve got this for you to enjoy: He is the first Yankee with at least three hits and three RBI in a game against the Giants since Joe DiMaggio in Game 5 of the 1951 World Series.

April 27: The Kraken is unleashed
Welcome back, El Gary! The Yankees won their second in row on Saturday, 6-4, thanks to the big bat of Gary Sanchez and the stellar arm of J.A. Happ. The victory clinched their fourth series win in a row (yeah, remember when they lost four of their first five series to start the season?).

Happ delivered his best start of the season (7 IP, 0 runs, 5 hits, 0 walks, 2 strikeouts), a performance that earned him his first win and our Obscure Yankeemetric of the Series: He joined Randy Johnson as the only Yankee lefthanders to pitch at least seven shutout innings, give up no more than five hits and walk zero batters in an Interleague game. Randy did it in 2005 against the Cardinals and 2006 against the Braves.

Sanchez had only one hit in this game but it was a HUGE one – literally and on the scoreboard. He came to the plate in the fifth inning with the bases full and clobbered a 91-mph fastball deep into the seats in left-center for his first career grand slam. The 467-foot blast was the longest grand slam hit in the majors since Statcast distance tracking began in 2015, and the third-longest home run hit at Oracle Park in that span.

Although he’d never before gone deep with the bases full, Sanchez has been a productive hitter over the last three seasons in those situations. Since 2017 (through Saturday), he was 13-for-29 with 29 RBI and just two strikeouts in 32 plate appearances, and his .448 bases-loaded batting average was the fourth-best in MLB (min. 30 PA) in that span.

Let’s give Sanchez some more love with our most-awesome #FunFact of the Series: He is the second Yankee catcher ever to hit a grand slam in a National League ballpark. The other? Yogi Berra against the Brooklyn Dodgers at Ebbets Field in Game 2 of the 1956 World Series.

April 28: Bay Area brooms
The Yankees capped off their third sweep of the season with a 11-5 win on Sunday afternoon, continuing their scorching-hot streak over the last couple weeks. Since bottoming out on April 12 with a loss to the White Sox that dropped them to 5-8, the Yankees have the best record in baseball (12-3). And in that span, they also put three players on the IL — Greg Bird, Aaron Judge, Clint Frazier — while getting one player back (Gary Sanchez). The Little Pinstriped Engine That Could keeps chugging along!

For the millionth time this season, the Yankees raced out to an early lead, scoring two runs in each of the first three frames. Actually, it was the 21st time this year that the Yankees scored first. They are the only MLB team in the last 15 seasons to score first that many times in their first 28 games.

Luke Voit paced the offense with three hits, two runs scored and two RBIs, the third time in the last four games he’s had three hits. That’s pretty remarkable, considering he had three-or-more hits in just five of his first 133 career games.

Gleyber Torres and Gary Sanchez put an exclamation point on the win with a pair of homers in the third and sixth innings. Torres’ blast was a two-run shot — 15 of his 29 career homers (52%) have come with men on base, a rate that is well above the MLB average of 39%.

Sanchez’s dinger was the 79th of his career, moving him into a tie for 50th place on the all-time franchise list (reminder, he has played only 279 career games). It was also his 59th longball since his first full season in 2017, five more than any other major-league catcher in that span. And we’ll end with a ridiculous fun note: Sanchez has eight homers in 15 games this season, an 86-homer pace over 162 games!

Luke Voit is Carrying the Yankees. You Can Thank the Front Office.

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(Presswire)

The Yankees, as of last October, have around 20 analysts employed in their front office, per Marc Carig and Eno Sarris of The Athletic (subs req’d). The next closest American League team employs 15 (Houston) and only Los Angeles has as many. In other words, the Yanks invest more capital and staffing into their analytical department than nearly any other franchise in the league—and Yankee fans should be extremely grateful for that. After all, without them, Luke Voit would likely still be in St. Louis.

The Yankees analytical staff had their eye on Voit since at least 2017, with Cashman saying that “[my staff] were all pushing his name hard” and that “he was somebody on our radar.” At last year’s deadline, they traded Gio Gallegos and Chasen Shreve for Voit, who proceeded to hit .333/.405/.689 (194 wRC+) with 14 home runs in 148 plate appearances for the Yankees down the stretch. A small sample size, but one buoyed by an elite batted ball profile that suggested that Voit might, in fact, be the real deal. Let’s take a look at what he’s done so far.

2019 Performance

His performance in early 2019 continues to bolster his case, and he’s quickly becoming a fan favorite in New York. He’s hitting .276/.388/.551 (149 wRC+) with 8 home runs in the early going, walking 13% of the time and carrying a depleted and decimated Yankee lineup. In fact, as Mike noted last night, Voit is 11-27 (.407) with a .483 OBP in the six games since Judge went down. He has four home runs in that span, including one last night.

Here’s how Voit stacks up against the 31 qualified first basemen:

  • Batting Average: .276 (12th)
  • On-Base Percentage: .388 (8th)
  • Slugging Percentage: .551 (10th)
  • Home Runs: 8 (tied for 3rd)
  • wOBA: .396 (7th)
  • wRC+: 149 (8th)
  • fWAR: 9 (tied for 6th)

Voit is essentially in the top third in every relevant offensive category for his position this year after being the game’s best trade deadline acquisition last year. His average is climbing, he gets on base, he hits for power, he is good relative to his peers, and his expected stats are solid. Not bad for a guy nobody had heard twelve months ago, is it?

Still, though, this is only just about 100 plate appearances. That’s still not a lot (even when counting the 150 from 2018) and it’s still possible that there is a lot of small sample size noise. To really get a sense of what’s driving Voit’s success, we’ll need to take a deeper dive into his batted ball profile.

Batted Ball Profile and Approach

One of Statcast’s most useful statistics is the “barrel”, which is a term for the optimal batted ball event. In other words, it’s the best outcome a hitter can produce at the plate: it means he hit the ball hard and at the right angle. In 2016, for example, players hit .822 with a 2.386 slugging percentage on barrels.

201 players have put at least 50 balls in play (batted ball event, or BBE) in 2019 so far, and only three of them (Pete Alonso, Anthony Rendon, and Franmil Reyes) have produced more barrels per plate appearance than Luke Voit (13.5%). When it comes to converting BBEs into the optimal outcome, only Alonso is better. Just over a 5th of every ball Luke Voit puts into play is a barrel. That seems good!

What’s really encouraging about these figures is that they align with what he produced in 2018. Last year, Voit led baseball in barrels per plate appearance after the trade deadline (among batters with at least 100 BBE), hitting a barrel 12.4% of the time. Luke Voit hits the ball really hard and he does it at the right angle. Put simply, that suggests that there is much more to Voit’s success than a small sample size. In fact, Voit’s average exit velocity ranks in the 85th percentile in the league. If, somehow, you’re still on the fence about Voit, just remember: you can’t fake hitting the ball hard.

In fact, that’s exactly why Voit’s expected stats rank near the top of the league. Again, courtesy of Statcast:

Voit’s expected batting average, expected weighted on-base percentage and expected slugging percentage rank in the 72nd, 94th, and 95th percentile of the league this year respectively. What that tells you is that he’s not getting lucky on the balls he puts into play and that, in fact, his batted ball profile suggests he could even be a bit better than what he’s actually produced in 2019. The underlying data loves Luke Voit. It really does.

Finally, Voit has a good approach at the plate. He swings at fewer balls out of the zone (26%) than league average (30%) and he attacks the ball in the zone, swinging at 78% of all strikes he sees. Voit is aggressive but manages to lay off pitches out of the zone. That’s exactly what you want, even if he’s a bit below average when it comes to making contact. Good things happen when you swing at strikes and lay off the junk.

***

This is what the Yankees front office saw in Luke Voit at the time of the trade, though MiLB batted ball data is proprietary. We can’t see it. They believed Voit had the profile of someone poised for a breakout, a diamond in the rough. I think it’s safe to say that they hit a home run with this one, no matter what he does in the rest of his career. You can’t take away those plate appearances. They happened and they have helped the Yankees.

It can sometimes be easy to forget, as a Yankee fan who interacts with mostly other Yankee fans, why the rest of the country and league despise the Yankees. It’s not just that they haven’t been bad in 25 years or that they have the most championships in league history. That’s a big reason why, of course, but there’s more than that.

It’s because when they trade a minor prospect and worst reliever in their pen for a first basemen nobody has heard of, that first basemen turns around and hits .309/.398/.630 (174 wRC+) with 22 homers and 30 extra base hits in 264 plate appearances. Factor in the injuries the Yankees have faced during the end of 2018 and early going in 2019, and you can easily make the case that Luke Voit (!) has been the key cog in the Yankees offensive machine, keeping them alive. That’s why people hate the Yankees.

Yankeemetrics: Flyin’ high, crash landing (April 22-25)

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(AP)

April 22: Gio The Great
In our first #YankeesAfterDark matchup of the season, the Yankees outlasted the Angels in a bizarre 14-inning marathon to win 4-3. If you like weird baseball and fun obscure stats, this was a gem.

  • Third time the Yankees have won a game in 14-plus innings against the Angels, with the others being on August 27, 1976 (Catfish Hunter pitched 13 shutout innings!) and June 6, 1964 (Jim Bouton pitched 13 shutout innings!).
  • First time in franchise history the Yankees won a game of that went at least 14 innings with only five hits or fewer.
  • Another amazing number: they went 23 batters without a hit from the fourth inning to the 12th inning and yet still won. What a time to be alive and a baseball fan.

Luke Voit started the game with a first-inning solo homer that extended his on-base streak to 33 games, the longest active streak in MLB and the longest by a Yankees since Derek Jeter’s 36-gamer spanning the 2012-13 seasons. J.A. Happ quickly put the team in a hole when he surrendered a two-run shot in the second inning, the seventh longball he’s allowed in five starts (25.2 IP) this season. His homer rate of 2.45 per nine innings was the fifth-highest in the AL through Monday.

After the Yankees tied it up again in the third, both offenses went to sleep (along with most east coast Yankee fans) until the 12th when Clint Frazier scored on Gio Urshela’s first career sacrifice fly for a 3-2 lead. Obscure Yankeemetric Alert! Urshela joined Bobby Bonds (1975), Felipe Alou (1973) and Elston Howard (1962) as the only Yankees with a go-ahead extra-inning sac fly versus the Angels.

Aroldis Chapman blew the save in the bottom of the inning but that eventually set up Gio The Great for even more heroics. Fast forward to the 14th inning, and Urshela delivered another clutch hit with a two-out RBI single. This time the Yankees lead held and earned Urshela a page in the pinstriped record books:

He is the first Yankee since (at least) 1925 to drive in a go-ahead run in separate extra innings, with both of the RBIs coming in the 12th frame or later. Congrats, Gio!

(AP)

April 23: Luuuuuuuke
The Yankees kept the good times rolling in Southern California with another victory, 7-5, on Tuesday night. Luke Voit was the offensive spark again, belting another first-inning homer, and added a solo shot in the eighth. Through Tuesday, his four first-inning homers were tied with Christian Yelich for the most in MLB and his 1.222 first-inning slugging percentage was the highest in MLB (min. 10 PA).

Brett Gardner also had a huge night at the plate with two singles, a double and a triple. He’s the lucky winner of our Obscure Yankeemetric of the Game: Gardy is the first Yankee to be a homer short of the cycle in a game at Anaheim since Derek Jeter on April 8, 1997.

Domingo German pitched another gem, lowering his ERA to 1.75 as he allowed one unearned run in a season-high 6 2/3 innings. Normally a dominant swing-and-miss guy on the mound, German instead relied on deception with excellent location and command on the edges to keep the Angels batters off-balance.

  • Nine whiffs on his 99 pitches, a 9.1% whiff rate that was his third-lowest as a starter.
  • 20 called strikes, one shy of his single-game career-high.
  • 18 fouls, the fifth-most he’s had in a game.

Chad Green made the final score way too close with yet another implosion in the eighth inning. He loaded the bases with no outs, then surrendered his first career grand slam. Yeah, Chad, you get our #NotFunFact of the Game: It was the fourth time this season he’s allowed multiple runs and gotten two or fewer outs. He is the only pitcher in Yankees history with four such appearances this early into the season (team’s 23rd game). Oh, and there’s this too:

April 24: DJLM, Next man up
The Comeback Kids are Back. The Yankees finally found some late-inning mojo, scoring six unanswered runs to erase a 5-0 sixth-inning deficit and win 6-5. Through Wednesday, the only other AL team to win a game when trailing by at least five runs at the start of the sixth inning this season was the A’s. And it had been more than seven years since the Yankees had done it — April 21, 2012 against the Red Sox, one of the most memorable games in the historic rivalry.

CC Sabathia – normally the King of Soft Contact – was hit hard early and often, roughed up for five runs and three homers in five innings. He allowed seven batted balls of 95-plus mph, after giving up just six of those in his first two starts combined.

(AP)

D.J. LeMahieu led the stunning comeback with three huge RBIs during the late rally, including the game-winning hit in the top of the ninth. LeMahieu is no stranger to delivering in these high-pressure situations – this was his fourth go-ahead hit in the ninth inning or later since the start of 2018, the second-most among all MLB players over the last two seasons behind Khris Davis (5).

April 25: Crash landing
The Yankees six-game win streak came to an end in stunning fashion in the series finale. One day after their biggest comeback win of the season, the Yankees did a full-360 and had their biggest blown-lead loss of the season on Thursday night. The Angels gave the Yankees a taste of their own medicine, scoring 11 unanswered runs to erase a 4-0 fifth-inning deficit and win 11-5. Gross.

One of the few highlights in this terrible game was when Giovanny “The Most Happy Fella” Urshela went deep for the first time as a Yankee in the fourth inning. He is the 13th Yankee to homer this season, tying the Mets for the most players with at least one dinger.

(AP)

Tanaka cruised through the first four innings, holding the Angels scoreless on two hits and a walk, but then unraveled in the fifth. Two singles and a couple two-run homers later and the game was tied 4-4. Tanaka’s struggles continued in the sixth after he walked two more batters before being yanked. It was his third straight game with at least three walks, the first time in his career he’s had a streak like that. The six runs he allowed in 5 2/3 innings on Thursday were nearly the same number he had given up in his previous six career starts versus the Angels combined (9 runs in 39 2/3 IP).

And finally another unprecedented stat: Tanaka threw 89 pitches and got just one whiff. It’s the fewest swings-and-misses he’s had in any of his 143 career MLB games; his previous low was three, which he did on September 30, 2015 and June 6, 2017 (both versus the Red Sox).

Yankeemetrics: Vets, replacements to the rescue (April 18-21)

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(New York Post)

April 18: WTF cold bats
All of the momentum from the sweep of the Red Sox was quickly erased in a boring 6-1 loss to Kansas City on Thursday night. Four singles. The only run was scored on an out (sac fly). Gross.

Domingo German was hit hard in the first few innings, before he settled down and ultimately gave the Yankees a “quality start” (six innings, three runs). German had allowed just three singles to the 50 batters he faced in his first three outings… And then the regression-dragon smacked him right in the face, as two of the first three batters he faced on Thursday hit doubles and two more guys later added solo homers. Before Thursday, German was the only pitcher in the majors that had faced at least 50 batters and not allowed an extra-base hit.

The game was still winnable when German departed after the sixth inning, trailing 3-1. But Jonathan Holder effectively torched any chance of a comeback when he coughed up two runs on three hits while getting just one out in the seventh. This is not the first time Aaron Boone has called on Holder in a tight game and he’s imploded.

Prior to Thursday, Holder had the highest average Leverage Index (when entering a game) on the team — basically Boone called on him in the most-pressured situations on average this season — and yet his 7.00 ERA following Thursday’s implosion was the second-highest among Yankee relievers. Hmmm …

(USA Today)

April 19: Let the old guys play
The Yankees bounced back from Thursday’s loss as the old guys sparked a 6-2 win on Friday night. Brett Gardner delivered an early game-changing homer and CC Sabathia turned back the clock in another vintage performance.

Gardner’s two-run shot in the third inning quickly flipped a 1-0 deficit into a 2-1 lead that the Yankees wouldn’t relinquish. It was his fifth of the season, and through Friday, the only player in MLB with more homers as a centerfielder was Mike Trout (6).

CC Sabathia continued his incredible late-career resurgence with another strong outing, holding the Royals to just one unearned run in five innings. It was his 247th career win, tying Bartolo Colon and Jack Quinn on the all-time list. But more important is this note on CC The Stoppah:

Sabathia showed why he is the king of soft contact, generating a bunch of easy grounders and lazy flyouts. Only one of the 12 balls in play was “hard-hit” (95-plus mph), averaging just 77.5 mph off the bat. Through Friday, that was the sixth-lowest average exit velocity in a game for any starting pitcher this season (min. 10 balls in play).

April 20: Injury gods hate the Yankees
The Yankees crushed the Royals, 9-2, on Saturday, but it was a win only on the scoreboard. They added another player to their M.A.S.H. unit when Aaron Judge left the game with an oblique injury in the sixth inning. With Judge added to the IL on Sunday, the Yankees now have an MLB-high 13 players on the injured list and those 13 players, based on preseason ZIPS projections, account for a combined 32.7 Wins Above Replacement (WAR). That’s more projected WAR than 17 teams this season.

Clint Frazier’s scorching-hot bat sparked the offense again, as he went 3-for-4 with a homer, double and a single while driving in two runs. He finished the night with a .351 batting average and five dingers on the season. That seems good:

April 21: Romine to the rescue
The Yankees capped off a second straight series win at the Stadium in thrilling fashion, riding a rollercoaster of blown leads and late-game rallies to beat the Royals on a 10th inning walk-off hit by Austin Romine. Believe it or not, but their 11-10 record is just one game back of their mark through 21 games last year (12-9).

Romine, who also tied the game in the eighth with a run-scoring single, saved the Yankees from arguably their most awful and crushing loss in nearly a decade. The last time the Yankees lost a game when leading by at least five runs entering the eighth inning was September 28, 2011 vs Rays (click at your own risk). Instead, Romine joined some Yankee legends with his clutch hitting and first career walk-off RBI.

He is the third Yankee in the last 30 years with an extra-inning walk-off hit against the Royals, along with Brett Gardner (August 16, 2008) and Don Mattingly (May 19, 1990). And most impressively, produced our #FunFact of the game, becoming the second Yankee catcher since 1925 with a game-tying hit in the eighth inning or later and then a walk-off hit in the same game. The other? Yogi Berra on July 2, 1954.

(AP)

James Paxton would have been the star of the highlights if not for an epic eighth-inning bullpen meltdown that robbed him of the win and made the walk-off heroics necessary. Paxton pitched his second straight gem, striking out 12 in six scoreless innings. Let’s recap this historic two-start stretch:

  • Joined David Cone (1998) as the only Yankees with at least a dozen strikeouts in back-to-back games.
  • Sixth lefthander in MLB history with two games in a row of at least 12 punchouts and no earned runs. The rest of the list: Clayton Kershaw (2015), Chris Sale (2015), Randy Johnson (2001), Sandy Koufax (1965), Karl Spooner (1954).
  • Second major-league pitcher (since 1908) to strike out at least 12 batters, while allowing zero runs and fewer than five baserunners, in consecutive games. Some dude named Randy Johnson is the other.

And, finally, Paxton now has his own page in the franchise record book:

Brett Gardner Has Been A Great Yankee. Don’t Overlook Him.

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Brett Gardner hit the 100th home run of his career on Wednesday night, in dramatic fashion: a 7th inning, go-ahead grand slam against the Boston Red Sox at Yankee Stadium. The Yankees had struggled all night to get anything going against former Yankee Nathan Eovaldi but pounced on the Sox’ shaky bullpen, and it was fitting that the Yankees’ longest-tenured player was the one to deliver the decisive blow. His career is on the downswing, and if 2019 is not his final year, 2020 almost surely will be. Before then, Yankee fans should take the time to appreciate a player who has had a fine career as a New York Yankee, consistently providing consistent and overlooked value to what was often one of the league’s best teams during his tenure here.

A 100 home-run career feels slightly underwhelming in the post-steroid era: after all, a generation of fans watched sluggers like Barry Bonds almost hit that many in a single season. But that view is short-sighted. Consider that 19,472 players have played baseball at the MLB level and that, as friend of RAB James Smyth noted on Twitter, only 895 have hit 100 home runs. That means that Brett Gardner is the newest member of a club to which only 5% of all MLB players in history belong.

That is quite the accomplishment for a player who, at age 17, was not even sure he would make the roster at the College of Charleston in South Carolina. In fact, he originally didn’t: he was cut after trying out for the team as an unrecruited walk-on. But he showed up for practice anyway and was never asked to leave again, eventually drafted in the third round of the 2005 draft by the Yankees after hitting .447 as a college senior. He has never left the Yankees organization, either.

He made his Yankee debut in 2008, and is the only player left on the current Yankees to have donned the pinstripes at the original House that Ruth Built. Since then, he has hit .260/.344/.391 (102 wRC+) in 1377 games for the Bombers, compiling 37.5 bWAR. He is renowned for his patience at the plate, always taking pitches and ranking toward the top of the league in pitches per plate appearance. He was an All-Star in 2015 and a World Series winner in 2009.

On top of league average offense—which was often more than that in his prime, as he posted a 127 wRC+ season in 2012 and several others above 110—he was a fantastic defender in the outfield. Four times in his career, Brett saved more than 10 runs in the outfielder and twice exceeded 20, with 25 and 23 DRS in 2010 and 2011, respectively. He saved 17 runs in 2017, and, even last year, he saved 8 runs. He has been an above-average defender (often well-above-average) for a decade. He won a Gold Glove in 2016.

That defensive prowess, in which he manned the spacious left field at Yankee Stadium, was made possible by Gardner’s trademark speed—speed that hasn’t left him. As Mike noted in Gardner’s 2019 season preview, Gardner remains as speedy as ever. To the numbers, using sprint speed from Statcast:

  • 2016: 28.7 feet per second (69th in MLB)
  • 2017: 28.8 feet per second (71st in MLB)
  • 2018: 29.2 feet per second (37th in MLB)
  • 2019: 28.8 feet per second (27th in MLB)

That has made him a prolific baserunner, logging above-average baserunning figures according to both Fangraphs and Baseball-Reference last year. In other words, even as his offensive skills have depreciated, he has remained an efficient, above-average baserunner with above-average defense and one of the league’s speediest players.

Those skills, odd as it may seem, are why Gardner was able to join the exclusive 100 home run club last week: he was always offering value to the Yankees. Consider that he has been worth less than 3 bWAR exactly once (discounting 2012 when he logged only 16 games) after he became a full-time player in 2010, That was last year, and it was 2.8, meaning that Gardner has been a consistent 3-win player for a decade. Even though that’s not superstar material, it is a very valuable MLB player—and a rare one, at that.

Gardner has played with inner-circle Hall of Famers and with big-name superstars with divisive personalities that command talk radio attention and tabloid headlines. Through it all, he has provided steady clubhouse leadership and been an unofficial captain of sorts of the new Yankees, alongside CC Sabathia and Aaron Judge.

Brett Gardner’s career has been easy to overlook, but that doesn’t mean you should overlook it. After all, either after this year or next, he will no longer be a Yankee—and when that time comes, I suspect you’ll find yourself missing the speedy, efficient outfielder who has so woven himself into the fabric of the New York Yankees that you barely even notice he is there, doing what he has always done.

Yankeemetrics: Paxton, Gardner punish Red Sox (April 16-17)

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(NJ.com)

April 16: Paxton earns his pinstripes
For the first time in more than a quarter-century, a Red Sox-Yankees series opened with both teams’ fanbases seemingly in near-panic mode. With the Red Sox at 6-11 and the Yankees at 6-9 in the standings on Tuesday morning, this was the first time since the final weekend of the 1992 season that the two rivals matched up with both teams at least three games under .500. To put that into perspective, Derek Jeter was three months removed from being drafted and had just completed his first pro season with the Gulf Coast Yankees and Greensboro Hornets.

Behind a brilliant ace-like performance from James Paxton and a dinger-happy explosion from the lineup, the Yankees routed the Red Sox in the first game, 8-0. It was their second shutout of the season — last year the Yankees didn’t get their first shutout of the season until May 1.

The offensive star was Mike Tauchman, who had a career night with a double, homer and four RBI. Entering the game, he had zero homers and two RBI over 87 plate appearances in his first 61 big-league games. Congrats, Mr. T (ok, bad nickname), you earned our Obscure Yankeemetric of the Series: Tauchman is one of just three left-fielders to drive in at least four runs against the Red Sox in the last 20 seasons. The other guys? Hideki Matsui (July 25, 2004) and Alfonso Soriano (August 16, 2013). And, of course, we have this Fun Fact:

Paxton was the difference-maker, though, aggressively attacking the Red Sox with his electric four-seamer and sharp cutter. He tossed eight scoreless innings with just two hits allowed and 12 strikeouts. How good was his gem?

  • First pitcher in Yankees history to strike out at least a dozen batters and allow no more than two hits against the Red Sox at Yankee Stadium (old or new).
  • Third Yankee pitcher in the Divisional Era (since 1969) with 12-or-more strikeouts and no runs allowed against the Red Sox, joining Mike Mussina on Sept. 2, 2001 (the Carl Everett game!) and Andy Pettitte on Sept. 16, 1997.
  • Fourth Yankee left-hander ever to allow no runs and two or fewer hits while striking out at least 12 guys in a game. The others were David Wells (vs A’s in 2001), John Candelaria (vs White and A’s in 1988) and Al Downing (vs Orioles in 1967 and White Sox in 1963).
(Newsday)

April 17: Gardy Party in Bronx
Yankees capped off their first series win at Yankee Stadium and a fun mini-sweep of their rivals with a thrilling comeback win, 5-3. The victory was made even sweeter as it pushed the Red Sox further into the American League basement. The only teams with a worse record than the Red Sox (6-13) this season are the Marlins (4-15) and Reds (5-12).

J.A. Happ put the Yankees in an early 3-0 hole, coughing up two homers in the first two innings. He settled down after that rough start, though, allowing just three hits and no runs over the next four-plus innings. For the first time this season, he gave the Yankees length and pitched into the seventh after not completing the fifth inning in any of his first three outings.

Brett Gardner — who entered Wednesday hitless in 11 at-bats with runners in scoring position this season — rescued the Yankees from a bitter loss when he drilled a fastball for a grand slam in the seventh inning, flipping a 3-1 deficit into a 5-3 advantage. The pitch was a gourmet cheese-stuffed meatball served on a silver platter to Gardy:

He’s now is this select group of Yankees that have terrorized the Red Sox with late-game-changing slammer:

His fourth career grand slam was also his 100th career home run, but it was no ordinary homer. It came on an 0-2 pitch, just the third time in his career he’s gone deep down 0-2 (also in 2011 and 2009). Only six other Yankees have mashed a grand slam in an 0-2 count (pitch data available since 1988): Russell Martin (2012), John Flaherty (2004), Enrique Wilson (2002), Glenallen Hill (2000), Bernie Williams (2000) and Tino Martinez (1999). If you could have guessed the names on that list, you deserve an honorary plaque in Monument Park.

But perhaps most impressive for Gardner is this note: he is the second player in franchise history to compile at least 100 dingers and 250 steals in their pinstriped careers. You might have heard of the other guy — Mr. Derek Jeter.

Yankeemetrics: Bronx is burning (April 12-14)

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(Getty)

April 12: No lead is safe anymore
The Yankees returned to the Bronx on a rainy Friday night and picked up right where they left off when they departed Texas — blowing a lead and losing another game.

The loss dropped them to 5.5 games behind in the AL East, putting them in an unprecedented hole in the division race. It was the first time they trailed by more than five games in the standings this early into the season (13th game) since 1984, when the Tigers won 16 of their first 17 games and ran away with the AL East crown.

It was a collective dumpster-fire performance by the pitching staff. J.A. Happ was awful from the start (six runs allowed on nine hits) and continued his trend of inefficient, ineffective pitching this season (88 pitches, 12 outs). For the third time in three starts, he was unable to get more than one out in the fifth inning before getting pulled.

Before Happ, the last two Yankee pitchers to last no more than 4 1/3 innings in each of their first three starts of the season were Phil Hughes (2011) and Chien-Ming Wang (2009) … and both of those guys went on the DL after their third start.

After the Yankees pulled within a run in the bottom of the sixth, Chad Green came into the game in the next frame and sealed the loss by allowing back-to-back homers. It was the first time as a reliever he gave up multiple homers in a game. He has pitched 6 1/3 innings and allowed three homers. In 2017, he allowed four homers in 69 innings pitched.

(Getty)

April 13: CC The Great
The Yankees briefly snapped out of their slump on Saturday. They blanked the White Sox 4-0 thanks to a vintage performance from CC Sabathia and a dose of smallball offense.

Sabathia and three relievers combined to give up just one hit and no walks, the fourth game in Yankee Stadium history (old or new) that the Yankees pitchers didn’t walk a batter and allowed no more than one hit. The other three times? David Cone’s perfecto (July 19, 1999), David Wells’ perfecto (May 17, 1998) and Don Larsen’s perfecto (Oct. 8, 1956).

Sabathia was spectacular in his 19th and final season debut, delivering a performance — though abbreviated — that statistically might rank among the best of his big-league career. He retired 15 of the 16 batters faced, allowing only a third-inning single. It was the first game in Sabathia’s career that he gave up one or fewer baserunners (while pitching more than an inning). The big lefty also re-wrote the franchise record books:

The Yankees broke a scoreless tie in the seventh with a couple manufactured runs:

  • bases-loaded RBI single by Luke Voit (who is a cool 7-for-18 and 16 RBI with the bags full in his career)
  • bases-loaded sac fly by Kyle Higashioka (the first sac fly of his MLB career!)
  • perfect safety squeeze bunt by Tyler Wade (the first successful sac bunt of his MLB career!)

Aaron Judge then added another run in the eighth with a solo shot that just cleared the right-field porch. It had a Statcast-projected distance of 335 feet, the shortest home run of his career.

(New York Post)

Tanaka slammed, bats crumble
Any sliver of optimism coming from Saturday’s win was quickly erased in Sunday’s 5-2 loss. They’ve now dropped each of their first three series at Yankee Stadium; the last time that happened was 1982 (a forgettable season that included three managers and 83 losses). Even worse the three series losses have come against the Tigers, White Sox and Orioles — teams that averaged 104 losses last year and are projected to have three of the five worst records in MLB this season.

The game followed a very familiar — and depressing — script, with the Yankees taking an early lead, blowing it and the offense unable to mount a comeback.

The facts: The Yankees have held a lead in 14 of 15 games and are 6-8 in those games; they’ve scored first in 12 of 15 games and are 5-7 in those games.

  • 8 blown-lead losses are tied with the Royals for the most in MLB.
  • Last year they didn’t suffer their 8th blown-lead loss until June 24.
  • Last year they won 80% of their games in which they had a lead (second-best record in MLB), and the MLB-wide win percentage is 70%.
  • 7 losses when scoring first are the most in MLB this season.
  • Last year they didn’t get their 7th scoring-first loss until July 15
  • Last year they won 81% of their games when scoring first (second-best record in MLB) and the MLB-wide win percentage is 67%

Masahiro Tanaka cruised through the first three frames, striking out five of the first seven batters he faced. But he unraveled in the fourth, loading the bases with one out, before Tim Anderson pummeled a hanging splitter for a game-changing grand slam. It was the fourth career grand slam allowed by Tanaka, and all four have come since 2017. The only other pitcher to give up four slams in that span is J.A. Happ.

As nasty as Tanaka’s splitter can be when he locates it down in the zone or in the dirt, it’s a meatball pitch when he can’t command it.

(Sunday vs White Sox)

And so far this year, he’s struggled to keep the pitch out of the hitter’s attack zone more than in any previous season. Here’s his percentage of splitters thrown in the heart of the zone:

2019 – 30%
2018 – 21%
2017 – 21%
2016 – 16%
2015 – 14%
2014 – 15%

Tanaka was terrible but the offense was just as awful, scoring only two runs on four hits; from the fourth through ninth innings, just two Yankees reached base and neither of those guys made it to second base.