From Steve Schaeffer:
As far as reliever Devin Williams is concerned, the Yankees’ loss on Wednesday night didn’t come down to one pitch in a nightmarish eighth inning.
“‘You missed four,’” Williams said he told home-plate umpire Brian Walsh before getting ejected after giving up his third walk, which forced in the go-ahead run in what became an 8-7 Astros victory at Daikin Park.
The Astros, who plated just one run through five innings against Yankees starter Will Warren, had come back from a 4-1 deficit. Jeremy Peña’s leadoff homer in the sixth chased Warren, and the Astros tagged Luke Weaver with another run in the sixth and one in the seventh.
Two things can be true. Devin Williams can be a choking loser, and Brian Walsh can be a terrible umpire who fucked Williams (and the Yankees) over repeatedly.
I don’t normally include TWO images, but it’s important to also share the strike that ended the game. Jazz had the count 3-2, with Stanton (who had already homered earlier in the game, with the Astros’ closer, Abreu, having already given up a three-run home run to Bellinger earlier in the inning) on-deck, and THIS is the pitch that struck Jazz out to end the game…
I mean, come the fuck on, ya know?
As knuckle curve joked last night, the umpire should get a ring if the Astros win the World Series.
So, yeah, the umpire fucked the Yankees, but Williams shouldn’t have been in that position at all, falling behind 2-0 to the #9 hitter with the bases loaded. Just awful. However, just as importantly, he shouldn’t have been ejected, as you have to like Williams against Pena a lot more than Doval against Pena.
Then Boone, right before HE got ejected himself for arguing about Williams’ ejection, made one of the Booniest moves of the season, deciding to bring in Doval with the bases loaded, which is just INSANE, as Doval, even when he’s GOOD, tends to be wild. Dude leads the Majors in balks, and you’re going to bring him with the BASES LOADED in the eighth inning of a one-run game? Doval gave up a one-run single, and then promptly brought in two more runs via a balk and a wild pitch. Just pure insanity.
Down 8-4, the Yankees then scored three in the top of the ninth, before it ended with that pathetic call on Jazz, with Stanton on deck.
So, all in all, shit was SO crazy in the 8th and 9th that I’m honestly not all THAT down on the team. It was bad that Cruz and Weaver both had bad games, and then Williams had his nonsense, but whatever, Cruz and Weaver have both been good lately. The Astros have good hitters. Sometimes they’ll get some runs. The Yankees also had PLENTY of opportunities to tack on more runs, and repeatedly failed to do so.
Boone pinch hit for Volpe in the ninth, so hopefully Volpe gets a day off again. He’s really killing them out there. Just an automatic out right now.
Wells, though, is showing signs of life. That’d be great if he could hit so Rice could play first base more regularly.
Featured image is the blown call that REALLY drove Williams nuts.
We will never know but maybe if the game is 5-4 instead of 8-4 the 9th inning plays out differently and the yanks don’t score 3 runs.
Whatever. Just another typical bull pen choke job in a close game. They’ve all learned from DeviW. Who I assume cost himself millions with this disaster of a season. So at least there’s that.
Every bit of that is true, but I want to add one thing:
That pitch was not a yard out of the strike zone. This happens ALL THE TIME with this team. Is it some macho prove-you-have-Wade-Boggs’-batting-eye bravado? With two strikes – let alone with two strikes and the game about to be over if you screw up – you CANNOT JUST TAKE THAT PITCH AND HOPE IT IS CALLED A BALL.
This is not crazy talk about changing the game. It’s an age-old thing called protecting the strike zone with two strikes. You just HAVE TO be able to foul that pitch off. To foul a pitch off is far easier than actually hitting it, although not a guarantee. But it’s doable enough that it’s been part of baseball for generations… until now, apparently.
It drives me nuts. In ANY situation, with two strikes – why not extend the at bat and maybe get a good pitch to hit instead of gambling with the umpire’s unknowable state of mind?
That’s in ANY situation. Here, you KNOW the umpire is incompetent, and if he makes the wrong call the game is over. Why would you take that inane risk? It’s just like not being able to bunt or not knowing how many outs there are. It’s just bad, bad baseball.
(And it’s a matter of preparedness, so Boone, I suppose, is to answer for that, in addition to his already unparalleled litany of sins.)
I think Cone said he needed to swing.
Coney is the best.
They should have hired Cone after 2017. It seems He wanted the job and he’s just smarter than Boone based on watching the games he’s announcing.
Yeah, as noted, Cashman wanted a puppet, not a manager. Cone is really smart, but so is Girardi. They’re both way too independent for Cashman’s liking. At the time, I thought Cashman was doing a strong enough job with the team that I was fine with him having his puppet, but it’s really weird that he gets zero pushback all these years later on it.
Cone is too independent. Cash wanted a pet and he got one.
“he’s just smarter than Boone”
In terms of baseball managing, that’s synonymous with “he exists.”
But yes, Cone’s smarter than pretty much anybody they might have considered.
Coney would be a great manager, he was a smart pitcher and he got along great with other players (union rep).
Make Luis Sojo his bench coach and watch this team start actually winning close games…
Anybody who thought Volpe won’t be the starting SS until as a bare minimum the end of the season wasn’t paying attention.
T Grisham (L) CF
B Rice (L) 1B
A Judge (R) DH
C Bellinger (L) RF
G Stanton (R) LF
J Chisholm Jr. (L) 2B
A Wells (L) C
A Volpe (R) SS
R McMahon (L) 3B
apparently Warren hadn’t thrown many pitches coming into the sixth. the way he was getting smacked around in the fifth i thought boone was crazy letting him have more innings.
idk, lots to complain about with the game but if they win today i’ll forget about it.
It was weird. I don’t think Boone did anything wrong, per se, with going to Cruz there, as Warren didn’t look great. Cruz just sucked. Then Weaver made sense. He just sucked. Then WILLIAMS made sense, and HE sucked, too. What are you going to do? The Doval move, though, was insane.