From Bryan Hoch:
The Yankees needed a big-time performance as they clocked in for a three-game showdown between the American League East’s top clubs, and Gerrit Cole delivered with his strongest start of the year thus far.
Cole fired six excellent innings and Aaron Judge hit his Major League-leading 33rd home run as the Yankees defeated the Orioles, 4-1, on Friday evening at Camden Yards.
With the victory, the Yanks (57-39) closed within one game of Baltimore (57-37) in the division race.
Cole, the ace right-hander, cleared the century mark for the first time this season, tossing 106 pitches (75 strikes) while assisting a bullpen that has been worked heavily on this trip. To get there, Cole needed to settle in after being taxed for 46 pitches through two innings and 60 through three.
Well, THAT was a pleasant surprise.
Cole pitched like an ace, and the Yankees even added a tack on run in the ninth! Then Clay Holmes caused some drama by accidentally hitting Heston Kjerstad in the helmet with a 0-2 pitch with one out.
The Yankees added one more injury of note, though, as Boone didn’t pinch run for Jose Trevino in the ninth, and Trevy injured his quad scoring from second, so he’s probably going to be out for a month or so. I guess Carlos Narvaez will be called up to fill-in. Agustin Ramirez has the greater upside, but he’s struggling in AAA right now, so they should probably give him more time. Wells should be playing pretty much regularly anyways.
The featured image is Cole celebrating his performance. It would be nice if Gil followed up Cole’s strong start with one of his own.
Robo balls and strikes.
I definitely did consider that, but what about Narvaez hitting better in AAA with the same conditions?
Pinstripe Alley has Ramirez as their #3 prospect behind the big dawgs and just ahead of Rice.
Ramirez led all of Double-A with home runs while posting a borderline elite strikeout-walk ratio. Ramirez is flat-out a better hitter than Sánchez ever was, with only slightly less raw power. In all, Ramirez could be a middle-of-the-order masher regardless of what position he ultimately plays.
Hit: 55 | Power: 70 | Run: 30 | Field: 45 | Throw: 55 | OFP: 60
Hampton is #5 and he finally had his first rehab and it didn’t go well at Tampa.
I love Ramirez overall, and I’ve even noted that they might want up consider trading Trevy this offseason if Ramirez is ready, but for a temp fill in, I still think you go Narvaez.
I agree, Ramirez is not ready.
Top 15
OF Jasson Domínguez (Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre)
OF Spencer Jones (Double-A Somerset)
C/1B Agustin Ramirez (Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre)
1B/C Ben Rice (New York Yankees)
RHP Chase Hampton (Double-A Somerset)
LHP Henry Lalane (FCL Yankees)
RHP Will Warren (Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre)
SS George Lombard Jr. (Low-A Tampa)
SS Jared Serna (High-A Hudson Valley)
SS/3B Enmanuel Tejeda (Low-A Tampa)
RHP Carlos Lagrange (FCL Yankees)
INF Caleb Durbin (Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre)
2B Jorbit Vivas (Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre New York Yankees)
RHP Zach Messinger (Double-A Somerset)
OF Jace Avina (High-A Hudson Valley)
Booner can decide whether to leadoff the guy with a 163/461 the last 28 days or the guy with the 194/508 the last 28 days and since the 194/508 guy is going so well as is the 2b with a 203/627 only a fool would want to play Vivas who’s only here to keep the bench warm for Cash’s find who’s hitting 077 for the Yankees.
A Verdugo (L) LF
J Soto (L) DH
A Judge (R) RF
B Rice (L) 1B
G Torres (R) 2B
A Wells (L) C
A Volpe (R) SS
T Grisham (L) CF
D LeMahieu (R) 3B
So it’s Verdugo against righties, LeMahieu against lefties? I guess it could be worse (it could be Volpe).
“It could be worse” is not the criterion I want us to apply.
GM to Manager: “Your team lost every game this season except the last one!”
Manager to GM: “But remember, it could be worse.”
No reason to have pinch run for Trevi with a man on 2nd late and
close!
Hoch
No update yet on the severity of Jose Trevino’s quad injury. He is on his way back to New York for testing. Aaron Boone said that Austin Wells will see more starts, and they also have confidence in Carlos Narvaez’s defense. Ben Rice will remain mostly a first baseman for now
i wouldn’t mind if Rice could be someone’s personal catcher so he could keep developing a bit. maybe he could even throw a runner or two out?
sitting Vivas is so typical and dumb
Somehow it seems worse than typical. And dumber.
So frustrating. Infuriating. Sad.
Perfect time to give DJ and Gleyber a day off each. If Boone and Cash were in charge at the time Woemack wouldve stayed at 2b and Cano in AAA.
Doogie took three pitches to start the game. Already a victory!
And oh, hey, took three pitches, then got a hit. Shocking.
It’s like Groundhog Day every goddamn game. Walk Judge and get away with it every fucking time.
Okay, except that one time. Gleyber tried to groundout, but it didn’t work.
FIve BB in 6 PA’s for Judge, as they won’t pitch to him.
And when Rodriguez actuallly gave him one pitch to hit in the at-bat, he almost hit a home run!
I legit get that there are some pitches that are hard to call, but then there are ones that are obvious, and when you miss them, it just makes robo umpires seem so much more appealing.
Not having them is insane.
There’s just no argument for getting it wrong. Let along getting it wrong all the f(*ing time. It does NOT make the game better.
Wells! (And I had that ‘feeling’)
Good timing for Trevy to go on the IL, I guess.
Okay, Gil, here’s the “Try not to give back the 4-run lead you were given in the first inning” challenge. Can you pass it? Imagine if you didn’t give up ANY runs?!
I mean, it’s not like I didn’t expect this, but it’s still very annoying. Given a 4-run lead, and he throws two balls to open up the 1st and then gives up a leadoff single.
So goddamn expected.
Make sure to also throw as many pitches as possible while not getting the outs, Gil!
He was so lucky that was just a single by Santander. He put it on a fucking tee for him.
Wow, a groundball from LeMahieu, what a shocker!
And then Verdugo first pitch swinging. Worked out great! Good to give Gil some time to breathe, guys, nice job!
The Tigers tie the Dodgers in the 9th, Gio hits a 2-run walk off for them in the 10th.
Yay, Gio! He’s been having a rough year. I think that groin injury has really affected him.
Hays is doing a really nice job here staying alive. These are good pitches he’s fouling off.
And Gil was too good for him to avoid swinging. Those last two K’s were very impressive by Gil.
Man, after that double, Judge is never getting a strike again.
Stantonian swing there by Rice.
Man, Rice can just NOT lay off pitches at the moment. It’s like Stanton at his worst.
And that last pitch by Rodriguez was legit a good pitch, but ALL of the pitches weren’t great.
A lot of pressure on a guy with <100 MLB PA's to hit clean up.
Agreed. Perhaps they just swap him and Wells in the lineup to ease off the pressure a bit?
Five-pitch walk to the #9 hitter. Gil just has these clear mental lapses that are so frustrating, because obviously he has such great stuff.
Loss of focus, which is the bane of many guys who have really good stuff but fail.
And that’s where it kills me with them having a good pitching coach, because if you don’t pay attention, then what does it matter if your coach is good or not? That’s why I like the idea of just picking up no-name pitchers, see if they will listen to Blake, and if they don’t, cut them and try the next live arm.
“And that’s where it kills me with them having a good pitching coach, because if you don’t pay attention, then what does it matter if your coach is good or not?”
Gil is light years better this year than he’s ever been. Clearly, he DOES pay attention – even if he does have occasional lapses.
As much as I love Blake, I actually tend to give Cole more of the credit with Gil. But yes, that he can listen to Cole IS a good sign, fair enough, my apologies, Luis!
Well, at least partial apologies. He clearly DOES lose focus too much.
In terms of frustrating things they keep doing, I prefer their annoying habit of scoring in the first and then stopping versus not scoring in the first after having the bases loaded (and then not scoring period).
That one wasn’t on DJ. The seventeen million groundouts in the last two games are.
Boy, when Verdugo takes a bad read, he REALLY takes a bad read.
Nice job costing Gil a run, Doogie.
I’ll tell myself the guy would have scored on the single anyways, so I guess I won’t give Doogie too much shit.
Pasta diving LeMahieu.
It’s really frustrating to throw a ton of pitches only to give up the hit on, like, pitch 9.
Okay, you figure Tonkin is available for an inning, and Weaver has to be available for at LEAST an inning, and Holmes is available. So I guess Gil needs to go six!
I guess tack on runs just don’t exist in the Yankee universe.
Man, Soto just loves to defy Yankee expectations, doesn’t he?
Judge is getting antsy. Four balls so far, and he’s swung at two of them.
And then Rodriguez gave him a strike like a fucking MORON.
Why are they leaving Rodriguez in?
I’ll give Rice this much, the pitches he is actually striking out on ARE good pitches. It’s the OTHER strikes that aren’t as good.
You CAN’T let him face Wells, right?
Is their bullpen THAT tired?
What is the pointing at the eyes about?
And really Rice can cut down on the swing with two strikes.
The eye pointing this is a pretty standard jock thing. There’s a couple of different variations on it, like “Eyes on the prize” but also “Look at me, look at me, we’re doing this.”
Okay, now I love Nelson. That was hilarious!
Come on, Gil, just go after these guys. You’re up 6-1!
Now Grisham, HE makes good reads on balls (when he is actually trying, that is).
Bader had good reads.
DJLM now under 500 OPS
Time for Hal and Cash to pull the plug.
Nice response inning, Gil!
Robot umps would make having a good eye much more meaningful. One day they WILL do it. Why the hell have we been waiting all these years?
Gleyber (what kind of a name is Gleyber, btw?) had a pretty good 2-strike approach.
And all you guys are suddenly gone.
What an inning by Hill!
Wait, why are you still in this thread? Didn’t you make the actual game thread (which I only found after everyone “vanished” for 2 innings)? ))))
Yay, win.
This was an EXCELLENT win. Yesterday was good, but this win was OUTSTANDING.
They are NOT going to drag me back in. No no no.
In all seriousness, they have two starters. When they’re pitching, you can tune in. Then just pray some crazy shit happens in the other three games, like the bullpen pitching innings 3-9 every game.
Brian, an 11:35 AM start Sunday.