From Bill Ladson:
Happy Birthday, Aaron Judge!
OK, so we are a day late, but it wasn’t a dollar short for the Yankees during the second game of a doubleheader at Yankee Stadium on Sunday. His solo homer in the sixth inning helped New York defeat the Blue Jays, 5-1, and sweep the doubleheader.
In the first game, New York made it a grind for right-hander Kevin Gausman in an 11-2 victory.
Judge turned 33 on Saturday, but he didn’t play that day because the game was called because of inclement weather. But it turned out to be a great Sunday for him, as he went 3-for-8 in the twin bill and extended his on-base streak to 24 games, dating back to April 2.
With the score tied at 1 and Blue Jays right-hander Chris Bassitt on the mound, Judge swung at the first pitch and hit the ball over the right-field wall to give New York a one-run lead. It was Judge’s eighth homer of the year and his first since April 16 against the Royals. He may have been homerless for a week — big deal — but he is still hitting .406 for the season.
I think Bill Ladson is usually pretty good, but “belated birthday blast?” Buddy, blech.
Anyone, great doubleheader sweep. The Yankees just seemed like they were in an entirely different LEAGUE than the Blue Jays on Sunday, and if it weren’t for Devin Williams, who is now no longer the closer (thank goodness), they would have swept these guys, just like how they would have swept the Rays had it not been for Williams there, as well.
Fried, Rodon, Warren, and Schmidt are now all pitching well at the same time, and even Cookie Carrasco isn’t looking godawful. The bullpen outside of Williams has been great, and the offense is doing well (so long as The Martian faces righties). Anthony Volpe was fixed during batting practice on Friday, so now he’ll be good, as well.
The Yankees have the second-best SRS in the Major Leagues right now behind the Cubs, and are only a game out of the best record in the American League.
The Yankees now head to Baltimore to take on the struggling Baltimore Orioles, but annoyingly the Yankees don’t get to face Charlie Morton, who is looking like he retired last season and just didn’t tell anyone.
The featured image is Max Fried getting congratulated after getting through six innings in Game 1. Neither he nor Schmidt were at their best on Sunday, so the fact that they both got through at least five innings and only allowing one run (6 innings for Fried, 5 for Schmidt) is really impressive.
somehow ,not The Onion.
“From the beginning (of spring training), I was in the dugout and I saw everybody running first to third,” Torres said. “I didn’t do that before. It’s a brand new game for me.”
Naxt he’ll discover “fielding”
And putting pants on one leg at a time!
From the article, Gleyber is also somehow already -4 Defensive Runs in just 16 games played! The more things change…
Apparently he didn’t play defense before?
gausman is crying about the umps so i decided to look up the game on umpscorecards.
they have it as +1 for TOR with all three top impactful plays going against the yanks.
What a baby.
It was REALLY surprising, as he was plainly not getting fucked. The only sort of sketchy strike/call that went the Yankees’ way was two innings later, when Fried got a close pitch against Vladdy. Schneider got himself ejected arguing that one, but really was just trying to support Gausman who, again, really didn’t deserve any “support” on this issue.
Maybe he was stressed out about the election
Alex Verdugo off to a 333 BA in Atlanta with a 4 hit game yesterday. SSS
At least it’s not for an AL East team!
It must be dreadful to be a Rockie right now, but at least they get paid. Imagine being the baseball guy at the Denver Post
Oof. They have an atrocious roster. It’s almost like Cleveland lineup from Major League.
Where were you last year?
California Penal.
Huh, never heard of it.
I wonder if Cashman tries to get Mickey Moniak at some point, former #1 overall.
The Yankees are putting out a “resting guys” lineup today, which is weird, since they had a day off on Saturday.
Rice sits, Martian DHs, Peraza plays third.
I guess they DID just play a doubleheader, and Martian and Waldo played in the field for both games, so fair enough.
Wait. Rice goes 0 for 7 in the DH yesterday and Volpe goes 4 for 7, yet it’s Rice who’s sitting while Volpe plays? Who’s running this team? That’s so unBoone-like.
“You know he’s awful when I don’t even want him here in the BULLPEN.”
Just because we think he’s sucked enough to have no right to bitch (and I think he’s never been good enough to have that right) doesn’t mean he’s now agreed to pitch in the bullpen. He outright rejected the idea, publicly, as we all recall.
Yeah, but if they don’t start him, what else can he do? Not show up for work? They’d be glad for him to do that.
But seriously – what happened to Williams?
Nobody sees anything – no change in velocity, spin, pitch selection? There has to be something.
(I was attributing it from *before* the start to Alonso’s report on the Mets’ analysis of his pitching approach, which everyone must have seen by now.)
He’s not locating his pitches, allowing people to just sit on the changeup. Boone noted it, he’s not getting ahead in the count.
I saw a Brewers fan on Reddit questioning why Williams isn’t throwing his cutter. They said it was his setup pitch. Would the Yankees mess with his arsenal and tactics to focus on his best pitch.
I don’t believe they’ve changed anything, no. He might have changed some stuff, but the big thing is that he’s behind in every count it seems, for a whole MONTH.
Shell shocked from last year.
I think that bizarrely might be true.