From Bryan Hoch:
The skies finally cleared Tuesday after a lightning display over George M. Steinbrenner Field lasted for nearly two hours. The Yankees brought their own thunder.
Aaron Judge, Cody Bellinger, and Giancarlo Stanton hit consecutive first-inning home runs off the Rays’ Shane Baz as they returned to their spring home with a flourish, matching a franchise record by belting nine home runs in a 13-3 thumping of the Rays.
“We have a really good offense,” Bellinger said. “With the ebbs and flows of a 162-game season, it’s not always going to be pretty, but we all believe in each other. The talent’s there, and we’re doing a good job of putting it all together. It’s been fun to be a part of.”
There was so much offense that I legit didn’t know who to use for the featured image. Ultimately, I went with Stanton’s SECOND home run.
Normally, I would go with a pitcher here if they had a performance as good as Rodon, but I dunno, man, he quickly had a 10-2 lead, ya know? He pitched a WHOLE lot different when he was up 10-2 than when he was up 3-0 or 5-0, so I don’t want to reward his odd pitching approach. But, hey, when you’re as dumb as Rodon is and you still go six innings allowing just two runs, you legit ARE a good pitcher. He has some of the best stuff in the MAJORS. His secondary pitches are better than most pitchers’ PRIMARY pitches. He’s just a fucking moron. If he brings that shit that he did against the Rays against the Red Sox on Sunday, they are going to DESTROY him.
Stanton got the featured image because he’s such a great story. He has an OPS over 1.000!!! It’s insane.
Meanwhile, Ben Rice has firmly taken over the catcher job, and Jose Caballero is so hot that starting him in right field doesn’t even seem like a crazy idea on days Stanton can’t play the field (I wonder how many games Stanton will play in right against the Red Sox?).
Due to a hilarious Red Sox loss against the Orioles (Boston had the bases loaded with no outs in the 8th, scored no runs. Then, after tying the game with a two-run home run in the bottom of the 9th, they had the bases loaded with two outs, and the Orioles stopped them. Then, in the bottom of the 10th, they had the bases loaded and one out, only needing a sac fly to win the game, and they couldn’t get it, with Toro grounding into a double play instead. Finally, in the bottom of the 11th, now down 4-3 from an RBI groundout in the top of the 11th, the Red Sox had a runner on third base with one out, and Roman Anthony and Alex Bregman up. Anthony flew out, and the Red Sox didn’t want to challenge Cowser’s arm – his throw was then wide to the plate, which made it extra funny, and Bregman popped up to secure the loss) and the Mariners making a big comeback against Philly, only for the Phillies to pull away late, the Yankees are now hilariously the #1 Wild Card team at the moment.
That won’t last, but hey, at least Cleveland also lost, so the Yankees are up 4 games on the Guardians for the FINAL Wild Card spot, which is probably sadly going to be the more important thing to worry about.
Blue Jays somehow lost a series to the Pirates. Springer hit a leadoff homer, then the Pirates scored two in the bottom half of the first, and that was all the scoring the rest of the game. Vladdy missed the game due to a sore hamstring, but I think he’ll probably be fine. Worst case scenario, they just DH him.
Astros also lost, while the Mariners are down 8-2 in the bottom of the 8th in Philly.
Great win. One more win and Rodin will have 30 over 2 seasons. Last two yanks to do that were Sevvy and CC.
As for the “Nazi” kid they drafted – he’s spent hours with a guy named Steinmetz learning how hateful a symbol the Swastika is – someone said he’s a great player but in this stuff he’s as dumb as rocks – so I’ll give him a pass in something he did 4 years ago as a 17 year old. But he also had a DUI last year (charge later reduced). Drunk driving can kill people – often not the driver. That is worse than painting a swastika on someone’s door I think. Drinking can also lead to bar fights which might result in the end of your career before it starts. (Brien Taylor says hi)
I totally missed that now the ROYALS are the hot team, having won 8 of their 10, and THEY’RE actually the next team in the Wild Card standings behind the top three.
So it goes Yankees/Mariners/Red Sox
and then the Royals enter today 2.5 games behind the Red Sox/Mariners, 3.5 games behind the Yankees (and a half game ahead of the Guardians).
Crazy stuff.
It kills me that Rasmussen is going to dominate them tonight.
All things considered, if Devin Williams is your seventh inning guy, that’s a pretty decent position to be in, ya know?
Astros, Mariners, and Blue Jays all lost.
Schwarber with #45. Three people at 44 or higher, Judge at 40, potential for at least 4 guys to hit 50 HRs.
Sure would be nice if Judge could cut the gap with him and Raleigh. People are just OBSESSED with Raleigh having so many home runs that he’s likely going to run away with the MVP at this point despite Judge deserving it more.
Judge just needs one hot streak. Entirely probably. In retrospect no one is going to consider Raleigh a power hitter even vaguely comparable to Judge.
Judge hit three balls last night 110 mph plus, two were outs, so maybe the hot streak is here.
In 2017, they said Altuve won MVP over Judge because Altuve hit over .300, now that Judge is some 90 BA points higher than Raleigh they ignore the BA.
Would there be a suitable statistical method to weight a batter’s performance by the caliber of the opposing pitcher? Like, in the same way that wRC+ normalizes for park factors, year factors, etc., would it also be possible to weight runs against a Weaver as more valuable/remarkable than runs against a Doval?
Asking because I suspect that when Judge has struggled in October, it’s because he’s facing better pitchers – not necessarily because of any mental hangups / pressure.
(I suppose an easy, preliminary test of this theory would be to look at his regular-season performance against the same pitchers that he’s faced in the postseason.)
But you’d have to account for the fact that ALL hitters hit worse (I presume) against better pitchers. They are, after all, better pitchers. So you’d want to know if his drop in performance against better pitchers is larger than it is for other hitters.
Wow, they actually sat Caballero. I thought for sure that they’d try to keep riding his hot hand.
CF T. Grisham L
1B Ben Rice L
DH Aaron Judge R
RF C. Bellinger L
2B J. Chisholm L
LF J. Dominguez S
SS A. Volpe R
3B Ryan McMahon L
C Austin Wells L
Riding the hot hand?
Brian, allow me to introduce you to Aaron Boone, the originator of the policy of systematically sitting the hot hand.
I mean – TWO home runs in a single game by a guy like Caballero?
Kiss of death.
It’s what Boone does.
The Cleveland Whatevers lose.
It’s bizarre that it’s now Kansas City that we have to keep an eye on!