From Bryan Hoch:
Aaron Judge finally received the “thumbs up” he’d been seeking from the Yankees’ training staff on Friday, returning to right field for the first time since sustaining a right flexor strain. But the captain’s first game-action throws in more than six weeks prompted fresh questions.
Tested immediately, Judge appeared unwilling to throw at full force, tossing to second baseman Jazz Chisholm Jr. rather than challenging a runner at the plate on Nathan Lukes’ first-inning, two-run single in the Yankees’ 7-1 loss to the Blue Jays at Yankee Stadium.
Yet Judge insisted he can make any necessary plays, saying: “Everything is feeling pretty good, so if you can throw, you’ve got to get out there.”
With the loss, New York (78-63) trails Toronto (82-59) by four games in the American League East, while still in control of an AL Wild Card spot. The Yanks are 3-8 vs. the Blue Jays this year.
“They’ve certainly had our number to this point,” manager Aaron Boone said.
I mean, it’s fucking hilarious how they just try to lie to our faces like this. “No, no, I can make all throws like normal, I just chose not to make a normal throw for…you know…reasons.”
Cam Schlittler has been succeeding, in large part, because he’s been going right at guys. The Blue Jays know this, so their gameplan was to foul off as many pitches as possible to fuck with him. Schlittler, somehow, was not prepared for this at all. You can knock the coaches for not having him prepared for this, but, well, I find it hard to believe that no one actually DID prepare him for this. He just failed to respond properly, and played right into Toronto’s hands, eventually giving them pitches where THEY wanted them instead of sticking with where HE wanted to pitch them (but where they were fouling him off). And then he had the walk to Kirk where he clearly just got frustrated and began missing the zone.
It was a major case of a rookie not being able to re-adjust to the adjustments the other teams made for him. We saw a similar thing in Boston, where the Diamondbacks clearly scouted the Red Sox hot shit rookie well, and crushed him.
Here, Schlittler was still making good pitches, and got ahead 0-2 on, like, every hitter. He just needs to not get rattled the next time out. It should be a learning experience.
Kevin Gausman, meanwhile, often dominates the Yankees. Sometimes they kick his ass. But sometimes he dominates them. This was a dominant night for him. Schlittler could have been GOOD and the Yankees still would have lost this one because they couldn’t score. Ryan Yarbrough at least saved most of the bullpen by pitching a LOT of innings, and pitching well (still giving up a run himself).
Oh well, they sucked, just have to move forward, and hope that Luis Gil also doesn’t throw 100 pitches in three innings (Luis Gil will throw 100 pitches in three innings).
Featured image is Judge’s weak ass throw to Jazz that allowed a second runner to score (as Toronto was actively testing Judge’s arm, and he failed miserably). But don’t worry, despite him obviously not being to make the throw, he can totally make the throw. It’s all good, you guys.
Stanton sits, Martian plays. phenom back in lineup. Boone says the goal is for Judge to be the every day RF.
On Judge’s throwing “ “The last couple of weeks — if you guys have been paying attention — we worked on different creative cuts and things like that. We’ll continue to do that and hopefully kind of continue to evolve it as we go.” Huh?
It’s BAFFLING. It’s not like you’re fooling the other teams. “Oh, okay, Judge’s arm is fine, the Yankees are just working on creative cuts.” No, dude, they are all just going to assume Judge’s arm is fucked.