From Jake Rill:
The dejected face of Max Fried — perched on the top railing of the first-base dugout at Rogers Centre by early in the fourth inning on Sunday evening — said it all.
The Yankees’ left-handed ace glumly looked on as the Blue Jays’ offense kept pouring it on.
Fried aimed to lead a bounce-back showing for the Yanks, one that could have evened the American League Division Series before it shifted to New York. Instead, an uncharacteristic start by the 31-year-old southpaw became a reason for Toronto’s 13-7 win that pushed its advantage in the series to 2-0.
They scored seven runs and they had their best pitcher going. That this ended up in a blowout loss is just pathetic.
But, I dunno, at the same time, sometimes good pitchers fucking suck. Mike Mussina gave up five runs in Game 1 of the 2001 World Series. Andy Pettitte then gave up six runs in Game 6 of the 2001 World Series.
Roger Clemens, who has had some of the best pitching performances in Yankee postseason history, had a terrible game in his much-hyped-up showdown with Pedro Martinez in Fenway in the 1999 ALCS.
So I guess I shouldn’t read TOO much into Fried’s pathetic performance, except to note that he has had a hard time pitching in Toronto all season long, and since the only way the Yankees can possibly win this series is for him to pitch well in Toronto in Game 5…well…that does not bode well.
Will Warren, also, made it very clear why there was never a chance that he was going to ever start a game in this series in Toronto.
Featured image is Max Fried in his feel-feels in the dugout after losing the game (and possibly the series) for the Yankees.
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Scoring runs when you’re already down 12, and when the other team is just trying to get outs, isn’t the same as scoring run in some kind of situation that, you know… matters.
When it got to seven runs, I note, Toronto brought in their fireballing reliever and they Yankees went straight back to meekly folding.
Exactly
I get that the rookie pitcher Yesavage is legit going to be a top of the rotation piece, but they looked completely noncompetitive. And Fried was getting hit hard from the get go. One team showed up to Toronto and the other thought that they were going to roll because of how they did in the last few weeks of the regular season.
Judge is hitting singles and getting walks, but he’s getting burned badly in big moments. Him chasing that splitter ten miles out of the strike zone with the bases loaded pretty much killed any interest I had in game 1.
Listen, Aaron, it could be worse. Donny never made the postseason in his prime at all, and only tasted it just before he retired.
So you never win a WS. Still it’ll have been an amazing career, you can live with that.
…right?
If Mattingly played in the era of THREE Wild Cards, he’d have been in the playoffs, like, every year.
That said, if there were three Wild Cards back in the 1990s, I SINCERELY doubt the Yankees have four World Series titles between 1996-2000.
More rounds, Brian, but more teams competing for them.
You’re surely right, of course – although those teams found was to fail.
But to the extent it’s true, Judge’s postseason presence has to be correspondingly less of a comfort.
I think the poignancy of where I think this may end up will hardly be lessened by what you’ve raised.
Maybe Judge can wonder why Torre and Girardi got fired despite winning the World Series and having better post season records than Boone. Matter of fact every Yankee manager since Miller Huggins, except Buck, has a better post season record than Boone and with only 1 or 2 or no wild cards you were almost always facing a strong opponent.
I gather no one’s interested in the prospect of a 2026 Yankee team that could not only schlittle, but also schwarb?
They aren’t going there.
Doesn’t seem that way – but Schwarber’s the kind of personality this team could use.
Go Phillies.
Dodgers-Phillies, each team with one hit after 5 1/2 innings.
Snell’s hardly a workhorse, do they bring him out again? I imagine not.
Orion Kerkering. There’s a name.
The Dodgers have two players with that clutch thing about them.
If it’s not an illusion, I have to envy them that.
And of course both are involved in actually finally pushing a run across.
1-0 dem bums.
A bases loaded single. My, my, my. 3-0 dem bums.
I didn’t know line drive base hits were legal with the bases loaded. Is that an NL rule?
Hits with RISP. Such a novel idea.
The Phillies haven’t scored since the 2nd inning of game 1. Deja Yankees.
It’s our fault if we’re rooting for the Phillies.
We are apparently now carriers.
Need a clutch hit? Nobody better than Will Smith. The Dodgers catcher is still recovering from a fractured hand, but it hasn’t stopped him from coming up huge, this time with a two-out two-RBI knock to silence the Philly crowd.
https://www.mlb.com/
So there’s more to hitting than elevation angle and swinging for the seats?
Wow Rob Thompson must be dumber than Boone if he called that.
What a disgusting playoffs so far.
The Phillies making the first out in the 9th at third base after cutting the score to 4-3. Channeling their inner Posada.
It wasn’t on the runner it was on Thompson for calling for a bunt with a man on second, no outs, down one.
So, so dumb.
Not saying I would have done it, but why is it so clearly dumb use your worst hitter to move the guy to third with less than two outs and give yourself a chance to tie the game on just a sac fly?
ESPN “Boone considering tweaks for game 3.” Bieber, like Yescavage, has an enormous reverse split. Seems like a good idea but maybe he should have figured that out Sunday. PGold and Rosario are obvious candidates for Rice and McMahon.I’d consider also going Cabby for Grisham who is not good against LHPs182/303/348.
It doesn’t matter when we KNOW that tomorrow’s featured image will be Rodon’s dumb face at the exact moment he’s wondering why that bases loaded 2-2 pitch to, oh say Springer, ended up a middle-in hanger in a game where the Yankees hitters had already left 8 runners on base and were being shut out.
Springer sound like exactly the right choice.
Did they say what the “tweaks” were? How do we know it’s something smart, like taking consistent reverse splits into account?
Yeah using right handers against Bieber as he should’ve against Yescavage. Presumably Goldschmidt is a lock to play. Probably Rosario also. I’d argue for Cabby over Grish who’se numbers against LHPs are atrocious.
Man, the Dodgers are going to destroy the Brewers. This is so fucking annoying.
Pinstripe Alley “Even at his best, the former ace allowed a decent amount of hard contact. But he missed bats and induced strikeouts at elite rates, with his four-seamer, slider, and knuckle-curve all serving as effective put-away pitches. Not the case in limited action this year. While Bieber has continued to generate whiffs with his slider, the same has not been true of his four-seamer or knuckle-curve. It’s why his strikeout rate has become pedestrian while batters have recorded hard contact on nearly half of balls put in play against him. Perhaps to counterbalance this development, Bieber has started mixing in his changeup more frequently with disastrous effects — opponents slugged .667 against the pitch this year. That formula led to a mediocre expected ERA of 4.57 this season.
In a reversal of career trends, Bieber has had extreme reverse splits this season, with his fellow right-handers smacking him around the park (.936 OPS) while he’s dominated opposing lefties (.434 OPS). It will be interesting to see if the Yankees chalk that up to a function of small sample size or seize on the starkness of that trend to start some extra righties.
Hear, hear!
In Sunday’s game it looked like the Yankees had no idea what was coming, who should be in the line up and no one went to the plate with an idea or an approach. Do they ever have an approach?
I don’t know if Yescavage will be an ace or not as other, smarter teams face him. The downside side is he could be Edwar Ramirez who looked so dominant in his first outing with his change but then got exposed.
Yeah, like Schlittler against Boston, Yesavage benefited a LOT from the Yankees having never seen him before. Even the Yankees will be able to adjust next time.
That doesn’t mean, of course, that he won’t be a good enough pitcher that he’ll adjust to the adjustments. Just that they won’t be dominated like THIS, just like how Schlittler won’t dominate Boston next time, either.
But he did have that huge reverse split going in and Boone chose to use Rice, McMahon, and Grisham. Rice especially looked lost against Gausman when Gausman threw him similar pitches.
Rice just seems a bit lost right now period.
A late thought on pulling Gil so early. We had talked about Boone emulating other managers. Was Boone influenced by Cora giving Bello such a quick hook.
100%.
A POSSIBILITY would be to re-sign Bellinger AND add Tucker.
Outfield would be Tucker/Belli/Judge
1B would be Rice
But Rice could catch, and Belli could play first, allowing Dominguez to play center with Tucker and Judge.
So much for tweaking the lineup. So much for huge reverse split. Not even PGold. Same lineup as Sunday
https://x.com/BryanHoch/status/1975648903300362445?t=XIZjUJyF4UPPNk65c9okdA&s=19
Boone and Cashman put their collective heads together, and this is what they came up with.
F*ing moron.
Why have the same lineup as yesterday when Bieber’s splits are identical to Yescavage’s. Because!
Aaron Boone on keeping the same lineup: “I just believe in this group a lot. … This is our lineup that had a chance to do the most damage, while also having my right-handed guys (on the bench) that are real threats for their lefty specialists too.”
And off to the golf course tomorrow.
F*ing moron.
Rodón vs. Vladimir Guerrero Jr., who has utterly owned him with a .588/.667/.941 triple slash in 21 career plate appearances with no strikeouts.
Weak, Rodon can be very weak.