Yankees.com: Nearly a month in, Judge still scorching with average over .400

From Henry Palattella:

About an hour and a half before the first pitch of the Yankees’ series finale against the Guardians on Wednesday, Aaron Judge captured the attention of the visitors’ clubhouse at Progressive Field.

It was just in a bit of an unconventional way.

The TVs in the clubhouse, which almost always show MLB Network, were showing a segment that featured a highlight reel of Judge’s four-hit performance on Tuesday, which raised his batting average to .411.

Most of the time, the TVs serve as background noise to the conversations and milling about that occurs in the clubhouse. But when Judge came on the TV, Oswaldo Peraza, Pablo Reyes and Jorbit Vivas stopped their conversation and intently watched as the crew broke down Judge’s feats.

Judge provided that trio (and the 23,981 in attendance at Progressive Field) with an encore on Wednesday, when he went 2-for-4 in New York’s 5-1 win over Cleveland. Judge is now slashing .415/.513/.734 through 94 at-bats. He is also tied for the MLB lead in RBIs (26) with the Mets’ Pete Alonso.

“More excellence,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said.

I gotta be frank, the bullshit losses are really getting to me, because this team really should be 17-8 right now. They had to WORK to lose that game in Tampa Bay and the game on Tuesday.

However, if I believe they should be 17-8 right now, I have to assume that they’ll improve on their current 15-10 record, plus, of course, 15-10 isn’t even a BAD record. As we have seen many times over the years, so long as you have a stretch of three good hitters clustered together, you’ll likely score enough runs to be competitive, and then if your pitching is good, you’ll be a good team.

Rice/Judge/Goldy is enough just there to score enough runs to be competitive. Belli, Jazz, the Martian, and Wells adding something to the mix would be a big help, of course. The Martian really has to start batting fifth against righties, and Grisham can bat fifth against lefties. You know I hate fucking with young players like this, but Grisham is just too hot right now to not keep playing him regularly, so he needs to get some time from Martian, some time from Belli, and even a little time from Rice and Goldy (VERY little) against especially tough lefties for Rice and especially tough righties for Goldy (Grisham’s splits are very even). The Martian will get his occasional at-bats against lefties. If he doesn’t show improvement, though, you can’t keep throwing him out there to just suck against lefties. Kerry Carpenter is one of the best hitters in baseball against righties, but Detroit still sits him against lefties.

Anyhow, great win.

Carlos Rodon just did a flat out great job of pitching. He didn’t even have his best stuff, but he followed Will Warren and was just AGGRESSIVE with his stuff to most of the batters (forgetting some of the weird shit, like walking Austin Hedges). Is it possible that seeing Will Warren man up as a 25-year-old has had an impact on the 32-manchild Rodon? Rodon now hasn’t given up an earned run in his last two starts, and don’t look now, but the shitty Yankee rotation now looks like this, ERA-wise:

Fried 1.42
Rodon 3.50
Warren 4.79
Schmidt (in TWO starts, so it’s obviously skewed) 7.45
Carrasco 6.53

Allan Winans just had an outstanding start in the minors, and if he keeps it up, maybe you eventually DFA Carrasco, but even still, as a fifth starter until Gil returns, Carrasco isn’t insane. They just can’t bring Marcus Stroman back to the rotation at all costs.

The featured image is Carlos Rodon celebrating striking out the side in the fourth. MLB.com oddly COMPLETELY shortchanged Rodon’s start in the highlight package for the game, choosing to show a lot of Zak Kent highlights for some fucking reason.