José Berríos (#17, 30, RHP, 9-8, 3.93) vs. Carlos Rodón (#55, 31, LHP, 11-7, 4.34)
BLUE JAYS
DH G. Springer R
CF J. Loperfido L
1B V. Guerrero R
C A. Kirk R
2B S. Horwitz L
3B E. Clement R
LF D. Schneider R
SS Leo Jimenez R
RF S. Berroa S
YANKEES
LF Alex Verdugo L
RF Juan Soto L
DH Aaron Judge R
C Austin Wells L
2B G. Torres R
3B J. Chisholm L
SS A. Volpe R
1B Ben Rice L
CF T. Grisham L
I’d love it if Rodon’s adjustments actually continued in this start (and, well, you know, the rest of the season).
Yesterday didn’t feel like an inevitable loss. It felt like a game they would easily have won if not for Stroman.
Three good ones for Rodon and he does have back class. This team needs him to be good because right now it looks like Cortes and more so Stroman are unlikely to give us many good starts.
“back class”?
I can’t get on a pitcher for giving up a solo shot to Vladdy.
Not a terrible pitch, either.
Rodon’s location is sketchy, though. Led to too many pitches thrown.
And longish fly balls
Yeah. Hopefully he gets it together as he goes along. I like that he got some swings and misses, though.
Verdugo has the lowest OBP in the lineup, lower even than Trent, and that’s who you want leading off in front of Soto and Judge? For crying out loud Jazz’s OBP is 30 points higher than Vertigo.
It’s really really stupid. They’re so obsessed with those home runs in the Philly series. Just bat him leadoff!
In fairness, he’s been much better lately.
Soto really is the only player I’m okay with swinging 3-0.
You don’t buy Girardi’s argument for more 3-0 swings? I kind of do.
Incredible
I think it’s incredible that pitcher go after the guy still.
And maybe Yankee pitchers could pitch around Vlad Jr also.
Not a bad idea, really, with the losses in their lineup.
That was an EXCELLENT at-bat by Wells to get that walk. That wasn’t Berrios being wild, it was Wells working out the walk.
Some Posada-ing right there by Wells there. Lucky they threw it away.
Man, it really felt like they had Berrios on the ropes in that inning, but that Gleyber liner was hit in JUST the wrong spot.
I’m still waiting for Volpe to get a hit with RISP since his hot streak.
It’s truly maddening.
So you didn’t watch yesterday?
None of Volpe’s three hits last night came with runners in scoring position.
A division with Yankees, mutts, townies and Philly. Oy.
Rodon looks like early season Rodon right now. The stuff is JUST good enough that he’s getting good results, but he is not locating his pitches well at all. He’s getting more swing and miss than early in the season, though, so that’s a good sign.
Yeah, this just doesn’t feel like Berrios’ day. Although, looking at his game log against the Yankees, he actually has struggled against them more than I recall.
But still, this definitely doesn’t feel like his day. They just need Rodon to pitch just well enough that Berrios’ bad day is enough.
Grisham’s OPS is 26 points higher than Vertigo’s and playing him over Vertigo improves the defense. But Vertigo has to play every day. Thats the rule.
AND they have to keep Dominguez in the minors.
Intentionally walking Judge with two outs is silly.
Two outs and nobody on.
Now THAT inning, Rodon looked sharp.
True Joe except the top of the order starts with Vertigo.
A single is better than a home run!
Yankees letting Berrios hang around.
Yeah, he should be out of the game by now.
Rodon, you gotta be able to put away Spencer fucking Horwitz.
Now that was a TERRIBLE at-bat by Rodon. Runner on first base, two out, you simply cannot walk Horwitz there.
Flirting with disaster
That’s how good Matt Blake is. He went up to Rodon and told him, “Get Clement on the first pitch,” and Rodon did so. Wow!
At least Verdugo didn’t ground out.
The answer to the trivia question has to be Tony Fernandez, right?
That was a TERRIBLE call on that ball.
And then Laz Diaz shouted at the Yankee dugout over it. Loser behavior.
Wait, you mean Berrios CAN get Judge out with two outs and nobody on base?!?
How are you falling behind Jimenez 3-1?!
That’s more like it, Rodon! I didn’t know why he DIDN’T go right at the guy.
Oh man, I wanted that strikeout. Still, nice inning besides falling behind Jimenez 3-1 before he blew two fastballs right by him for the K.
They really need to have an extended inning here to help Rodon, he’s clearly feeling the heat a LOT.
Berrios is getting BETTER. It’s annoying.
Volpe! And with a runner in scoring position!!!!
Ok Tony I’ll leave you alone now.
That’s three runs now on shitty Toronto defense (the Rice error before the Grisham homer, and now the shitty play on the should-have-been double play to end the inning ahead of the Volpe homer).
That was a bad leadoff walk to start the sixth by Rodon, after being given a five-run lead.
They might want to pull Rodon. He seems like he’s losing it a bit.
Now he takes him out.
Nice K there. Do you let him face Vladdy for the third time? Five run lead, after all.
I think it makes more sense to bring in the righty against Vladdy.
You CAN’T walk him. If you leave him in, it has to be for him to go right at Vladdy. Walking him would be AWFUL.
I didn’t HATE giving him the chance, but he probably should have just gone to the righty.
And now Cousins has to come in with runners on second and third instead of a runner on first.
Boone!
By the way, a couple of things on this…
1. Rodon wasn’t going to stay in PAST Vladdy had he gotten Vladdy, soo…
2. Lefty on righty, WHY LEAVE HIM IN then?
Again, I get it, Rodon is a lunkhead, and you don’t want to make the space cadet angry, so you lose the battle to hopefully keep Rodon in a better mindset long term, but I would disagree with it here. He was at 100 pitches, after all. And then Rodon didn’t even go right at Vladdy! He dicked around!
Good decision Aaron. Go with your gut.
That WAS a ball, but Diaz wasn’t calling that a ball against Soto!
Who is this dude taking pitches wearing Verdugo’s uniform?
And on cue, he swings pathetically on a 3-1 count. It was an awwwwwwwwwful swing.
Boone keeping the Jays in the game.
While I think it was the wrong call, I think Vladdy could have just as easily hit a two-run home run off of Cousins, ya know?
Interesting use of Weaver. Are they using him a one-inning guy today, with Leiter in the 8th, or does Weaver go two?
An oddly bad at-bat by Wells.
You KNOW you’re wild when you’re walking Gleyber Torres!
Oooooh…Jazz JUST missed that pitch. Oh MAN.
Another hit with runners in scoring position by Volpe!!
Volpe with a non-HR hit with a RISP.
So, who pitches the ninth? Who is the low man in the bullpen right now? De Los Santos, I guess? So I guess he pitches the ninth, right?
Volpe just can’t get a hit without a runner in scoring position today, what’s THAT all about?
Now it’s GOTTA be De Los Santos, right?
Looks like it is Leiter for some reason.
A pop up on the first pitch. The Gleyber-less 2025 team is going to be so much fun.
All those years he’s been really good, he doesn’t deserve so much hate.
He’s always been good enough to keep on the roster, but he hasn’t been great in YEARS. His OPS+ over the past five years, with shitty defense his entire career.
103
93
113
118
87
What a weird first pitch by Leiter. He hung on to the ball for an eon, and then threw it wild.
Oh, okay, so this is going to be annoying ninth inning, I see.
Jeeez, it’s incredible how badly they need a closer.
The guy who’s in deep trouble, or they guy I don’t want to see on with the game on the line?
Not the choice you want to have.
Whew.
And, by the way: robot umps already, come the F on!
Felix Leiter needed Bond to bail him out.
Nice.
“According to Codify Baseball, it was the first instance of an MLB batter getting intentionally walked with two outs and no one on base in the first two innings of a game in over 50 years.”
Wow!! Great stat.
And then it was to face the pitcher.
From Fangraphs yesterday, in a piece titled “Aaron Judge is Harrison Bergeron”:
“This season, the entire league has a wOBA of .311, compared to Judge’s .470 mark. We’ll be searching for splits in which the league as a whole has a wOBA as good as Judge’s .470. The question we’re asking is this: If you took a league-average hitter, just how favorable would the conditions need to be for them to be able to hit like Aaron Judge does all the time?”
“In any nine-box diagram of the strike zone, box five is the one right in the middle. You know how people say that home runs aren’t hit, they’re thrown? They’re talking about those zone-five meatballs, and on those pitches, the league as a whole has a wOBA of .391…. When you throw a league-average player nothing but pitches right down the middle, their wOBA is still nearly 80 points lower than Judge’s [is against pitches everywhere]… Judge’s wOBA on those same middle-middle pitches is a nice, meaty .736…
“When position players are pitching, the league has a .403 wOBA…. Just to reiterate, the league as a whole, is way, way worse when facing position player pitchers than Judge is against actual pitchers…”
Link (withheld from initial post due to requirement for moderator approval): https://blogs.fangraphs.com/aaron-judge-is-harrison-bergeron/
Also worth looking at the previous day’s piece that argues the Yankees’ offense is more dependent on just two players (Judge/Soto) than any other team in recent memory (including the Bonds-era Giants). https://blogs.fangraphs.com/juan-soto-and-aaron-judge-are-creating-a-historic-amount-of-offense/
Wow that’s dominance.
Babe Ruth, 597 wOBA , 1920.