From Bryan Hoch:
Cam Schlittler carried a bid for history deep into his seventh Major League start, retiring the first 18 batters he faced. The electric performance couldn’t guarantee a win, though: it took a big swing from Giancarlo Stanton to seal that.
After David Bednar stumbled in the ninth inning, Stanton came off the bench to launch a two-run homer one frame later and Austin Wells hit his second homer of the game as the Yankees punched back for their fifth consecutive victory, defeating the Rays, 6-4, on Wednesday at George M. Steinbrenner Field.
“It’s been a great road trip,” Stanton said. “We’ve been hitting the ball hard, hitting the ball in the air, getting a lot of homers. Timely hitting. We’re clicking on a lot of cylinders. So it’s good to take this into the weekend.”
Obviously, Cam Schlittler, he of the perfect game through six innings, and six and two-thirds scoreless, one-hit innings, SHOULD be the featured image, but come on, Giancarlo Stanton just saved the day AGAIN, and I couldn’t avoid putting Stanton in the top spot again.
David Bednar has been good as the Yankees closer, but obviously not perfect, and boy, did he make a mistake pitch in this one. Hunter Feduccia is better than his numbers have suggested (the Rays traded a few guys to get him from the Dodgers, where he was just blocked by one All Star catcher and another young catcher who is so good that he is playing everyday even with the OTHER catcher still there), but he is not THAT good, but Bednar just missed his location BADLY on a fastball that was basically a batting practice pitch that the Yankees and Bednar are VERY lucky wasn’t hit over the wall in center field (it fell about two feet shy of being a home run, hitting off of the top of the center field wall). That was why him walking Brandon Lowe with one out was the REAL sin. Junior Caminero getting a single wasn’t awful, but when you walk Lowe, then suddenly a double ties the game instead of, well, you know, NOT tying the game.
Devin Williams has been great in low leverage situations, but as soon as he was given a high leverage spot again, he gave up a single and a double. Luckily, he then struck out the side to preserve the Yankee victory.
Luke Weaver ALSO gave up a home run, so all three of the Yankee relievers allowed runs, which is not ideal.
Luckily, Giancarlo Stanton exists. And hey, Austin Wells and Trent Grisham also both hit two home runs apiece. That’s awesome.
And speaking of awesome, Cam Schlittler was AWESOME in this one. He clearly had a game plan, only, unlike the other Yankee young starters, he FOLLOWED it. Aggressive pitching and hitting his locations. Then in the seventh inning, after allowing a hit, you saw him pitching like everyone else, throwing a TON of pitches to each batter, and even Boone acknowledged that he really should have pulled him against Josh Lowe, who Schlittler walked to load the bases. Weaver came in, and dominated Feduccia (I don’t believe the other Rays catcher was available in this one after being banged up the previous night, so Feduccia HAD to hit both times), and he dominated him so easily that it really made Bednar’s performance look worse.
Still, great win in the end, and you have GOT to be pumped about Schlittler long term, right? If he can put together some more starts even SORT of like this one, wow, that’s a hell of a pitcher to have on your squad!
The Royals, Blue Jays, Mariners, Guardians, and Astros all lost (the Red Sox were off), so the Yankees now trail the Blue Jays by 4 games, and are now up 1.5 games on the Red Sox for the top Wild Card spot, 2 games on the Mariners, 4.5 games on the Royals and 5 games on the Guardians.
Of course, they’re now going to be swept by Boston, but even so, they will still be in the playoffs after that.
No way he doesn’t make it if hits 500. A guy hitting 500 without PEDs would be a BIG deal to voters.
Yep, when it’s low leverage, he’s great. Add pressure and…not so great.
But yes, you have to give him some major credit for getting himself out of that huge jam with three straight strikeouts.
That’s the Devin Williams I remember from years past, where you could have the bases loaded and no outs, and he’d just strike out the side to get out of it.
He hasn’t been putting guys away like he had in the past, but he did it in this game.
That curve ball gave him a whole new weapon. He could be for real said I who predicted a big season for Wells this year, was excited by phenom last May, and cheerleading for Spencer up until a month ago.
Kyle Tucker has been playing through a fractured right hand/finger since June …
Before 1 June: 58 G 266 PAs 12 HRs 39 RBI .283 BA .391 OBP .520 SLG .911 OPS
After 1 June: 62 G 264 PAs 6 HRs 23 RBI .236 BA .352 OBP .368 SLG .721 OPS
I want to play MLB too, but trotting me out there would not be in the best interest of a club trying to win.
It’s gotta be better news for his free agency, at least. He doesn’t suck, he’s just been playing through a broken hand!
Pretending that this is a big series, and accepting that baseball will not be shown on broadcast TV In the near future, there still something rotten about the fact that only one game of this four game series will be on YES.
Yeah, it’s total bullshit.
I love when Stanton’s on, but this time Schlittler deserved the pic. For that performance even more than surviving junior high school with that last name.
If they’ve suddenly gained a young stud starting pitcher, that’s huge! Then start next year with Cole, unblistered Fried and Gil, and – good lord!
That was one hell of an impressive performance.
I’m thinking back to how ridiculous the Dodgers looked during the off-season. And yet they’re not blowing the league out of the water. Not sure how I feel about that. I’m not a fan of the Dodgers, but shouldn’t putting together a team like that have more of a result on the field?
A loooooot of injuries, plus they have a lot of older players who could fall off a cliff at any moment, as older players are wont to do.
The more i think about, the angrier I get at the umpire for calling Caballero out. No way a “safe” call gets overturned there, but since the call was “out,” you couldn’t really prove the negative, so it was inconclusive, meaning that the call stood.
But as Caballero correctly noted, how could the ump have POSSIBLY seen that theoretical microscopic movement off of the bag from where he was? There is no way that he saw that shit. Just a total guess.
Watched the videos in the morning.
He looked pretty out to me.
As I recall, it was between his hand coming off the base and his foot hitting the base. Didn’t seem that microscopic.
I agree, he should have never been called out
Big game since we can’t win Friday or Saturday we need to win tonight and Sunday
T Grisham (L) CF
A Judge (R) DH
C Bellinger (L) LF
G Stanton (R) RF
B Rice (L) C
J Chisholm Jr. (L) 2B
P Goldschmidt (R) 1B
R McMahon (L) 3B
A Volpe (R) SS
It would be nice if Judge stopped expanding the strike zone.
Seconded
Think Gil looks at Schlittler last night and says to himself: that was me, just last year?