From Bryan Hoch:
When Juan Soto reflects upon his first walk-off hit in Yankees pinstripes, he might not recall the scorching grounder he sliced into the outfield grass, nor that the two clubs had combined to go hitless in 16 attempts with runners in scoring position to that point.
No, what Soto figures to recall most is the celebration that followed, as the Yankees savored their second extra-inning victory in as many nights. Soto’s hard knock off Josh Winckowski delivered that outcome, lifting the Bombers to a 2-1 victory over the Red Sox on Thursday evening at Yankee Stadium.
“So many things; the crowd, my teammates and everybody,” Soto said, with a laugh. “Those guys were running hard at me. That’s one of the biggest things I’m going to remember. Wellsie [Austin Wells] was coming in and I just didn’t know where to go. It was definitely a fun way to finish the game.”
What a shitty headline, right? How did Soto “stun” the Red Sox with a fucking single with the automatic runner on second base in a game that the Red Sox had never led? So dumb.
That said, wow, what a win! The Yankee pitching held on strong, with Nestor making it very difficult to keep Marcus Stroman in the rotation for much longer. The offense was awful, but they at least did keep getting guys on base.
It is hilarious that back-to-back games it was Gleyber making the final out in the previous inning and Jon Berti coming in as a pinch-runner before he scored the final game. Berti sliding home is the featured image.
Tim Hill continues his striking run on the Yankees. Blake’s Magic has done an amazing job with him. He’s probably going to be a key player in the playoff bullpen, right? He’s risen his way all the way up the flagpole to the point where do you even keep Holmes in the playoff bullpen “rotation”? Healthy Ian Hamilton is filthy, so with off days worked in, couldn’t you just use solely Tim Hill, Ian Hamilton, Jake Cousins, Tommy Kahnle and Luke Weaver? That’s five dudes. That’s a goodly amount of guys, right? Holmes was electric tonight as his sinker was working beautifully, but you can’t have a guy in key playoff spots coming in as “Is his sinker good tonight?” You have to have faith that it WILL be good, and we can’t possibly have that much faith in Holmes’ sinker being there.
Judge hit three balls really hard and had four outs to show for it while his weakest EV went for a single. Hardest hit ball of the night went to Jasson at 108.5 mph.
Nestor seems to have finally broken out of his funk, only two stinkers out of his last six starts and one appearance and in the other five, he’s given up a total of 2 runs in 30 IP.
Rodon has also been good over his last 9 starts besides 2 stinkers
Yeah, I think Cole, Rodon, Cortes/Gil is the post-season rotation. Schmidt and Stroman in the pen. Stroman can at least get groundballs.
Rizzo, man. The Yankees have paid $50m for him to produce 2.7 WAR, which includes -2.7 dWAR, over 4 years and 359 games. At some point Cashman has to stop paying a premium to try and squeeze a good season out of the last gasps of a name.
I don’t know how much we can judge Rizzo’s performance when he had a major brain injury last season. Right up until the major injury to his brain, he was having an excellent season. Since the major brain injury, he’s been terrible. I don’t think you can realistically predict whether a guy is going to suffer an injury to his brain, so I think the contract he got was reasonable enough.
And since it wasn’t something clearly measurable like a back injury or whatever, we really didn’t know WHAT he was going to be like this year. As it turns out, he now just sucks.
Sure, the concussion did not help matters and it was a stark change, but last April/May is still a small sample size and he did the vast majority of his damage in Yankee stadium. His home/away splits in April and May are pretty stark. Away (98 PAs) he had a 97 wRC+ slugging .364 and at home (127 PAs) he had a 191 wRC+ slugging .625.
He was clearly no longer the same hitter when the Cubs decided to move on from him. His last five OPS: .924, .755, .792 (Cubs)/.785 (Yankees), .807, .706, .617
Stanton last 14 days 171/659 last 7 095/317
Rizzo 177/517 143/451
phenom 209/427 136/267
OTOH
Verdugo 282/702 294/839
Waldo hitting left handed 725 for the season
After Sundays loss, The Tennessee Titan coach said that had his team punted on first down every series in the second half they might have won.
The yanks are similar. Had they cut Rizzo and DJLM and replaced them with random freely available minor leaguers they’d be in much better shape.
Stanton, Rizzo, phenom and Verdugo in.
Martian out. Waldo is blacklisted despite hitting better than Rizzo or phenom.
Stanton, Rizzo and phenom a combined 150/400 last week.
Hoch Marcus Stroman is moving to the bullpen for this turn of the rotation, as Nestor Cortes will make his next start. Aaron Boone said that they could go five-man rotation the next time through as well.
Stroman would be available in relief on Sunday.
Does Stroman know?
OMG tonight’s starter is former Yankee Richard Fitts
Cannot believe they traded this guy for Alex fucking Verdugo
red Sox under the thumb