From Robert Falkoff:
The Yankees had the best of all worlds going for them on Tuesday. With the dominant Cam Schlittler on the mound and the offense breaking out in robust fashion, it was a cruise control type of game as New York struck early and rolled to a 15-1 victory over the Royals.
Before he ever threw a pitch, Schlittler was staked to a 4-0 lead.
The Yankees struck in explosive fashion with two outs in the first on Cody Bellinger’s second homer in two days, an RBI single by Ben Rice and a two-run homer by Amed Rosario off Royals starter Bailey Falter. New York kept tacking on from there while Schlittler generally showed the form that has made him a dynamic force through the opening one-third of the season.
“Not the best,” Schlittler said. “My stuff wasn’t as sharp, but I was able to put the team in position to win. That’s all you can ask for.”
The right-hander wound up going six innings, allowing one run on four hits. He struck out six and didn’t issue a walk.
As noted, the game really was about the offense, as Schlittler had a 4-0 lead before he even faced a single batter, but at the same time, I don’t think we should ever forget how amazing it is to have a guy who was clearly struggling with his stuff, and still went 6 innings and allowed only one run on a home run to a really good hitter.
The featured image is Schlittler’s strikeout of Witt in their third at-bat. Witt hit him hard the first two times (the first at-bat was an out that was extremely unlucky to become an out, as it was scorched…just right at Cody Bellinger, and the second at-bat was the home run that he also crushed), and then Schlittler struck him out easily his third time through. Nice to see.
In any event, great win. Grisham’s recent hot streak has got him over .200 batting average and over .700 OPS. Good, let’s hope he stays there (amusingly, the blowout kind of hurt him, as he was 3-5 heading into the 8th inning, and ended up with two more hitless at-bats).
Volpe, too, looks good enough that you probably have to keep running him out there at short, and use Cabby to rest other dudes.
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Guess who leads all American League second basemen in fWAR right now?
Bobby Witt Jr?
… Yes, I know he’s a shortstop.
Come on. Nobody’s anywhere close to being actually sold on Volpe now, there’s no point in talking about it yet.
Talk to us in a month.
But what does that mean in this context? Talk to us in a month after you play him regularly?
Or that, sure.
After he’s built up a sample size sufficient to be a meaningful argument for changing our view of him.
But the only way that’ll happen is if they commit to playing him now. And doing so means sitting either Cabby or McMahon.
If he plays, but more rarely, the stats still count for something, it’ll just take longer to build up a meaningful set.
Cabby getting a start over Grisham in left against a lefty. And McMahon starts over Jazz for…reasons?
1B P. Goldschmidt R
DH Ben Rice L
RF Aaron Judge R
CF C. Bellinger L
2B Amed Rosario R
SS A. Volpe R
3B Ryan McMahon L
LF J. Caballero R
C Austin Wells L
Gotta get McMahon going.
Really was amazing that Schlittler was THAT GOOD when he really couldn’t strike a lot of guys out.
Yeah, his stuff is so good that when it is “not as good,” it’s still really fucking good.
Not walking guys makes a big difference.