From Bryan Hoch:
Marcus Stroman fumed as he watched Vladimir Guerrero Jr. hustle down the first-base line in the fifth inning on Friday night, legging out a potential double play. The Yankees’ pitcher cursed into his glove, then appeared to shout: “Throw the … ball,” before spiking the rosin bag at the back of the mound.
The target of Stroman’s ire was second baseman Gleyber Torres, with the pitcher believing that his teammate could have made a quicker throw after receiving a feed from shortstop Anthony Volpe. Stroman’s tirade continued while he paced the dugout after a pitching change, ultimately prompting a cooling-off chat with captain Aaron Judge.
Evidence of bad vibes in the clubhouse? Hardly. The display helped to ignite and unite the Yankees, as Juan Soto crushed a go-ahead three-run homer and Torres also went deep in a 16-5 victory over the Blue Jays at Rogers Centre. The 16 runs marked a season high for the Yankees, who snapped a four-game losing streak.
I mean, Gleyber Torres pisses the shit out of ME all of the time, too, but come on, Stroman, you can’t call out your own teammate like that, especially on the second ball, where it was VOLPE who slowed the transfer a little bit, and thus Gleyber had absolutely ZERO chance of getting anyone, even Vladdy, at first base on that play. Not cool.
What WAS cool was, well, you know, the 16 fucking runs. And as I noted earlier, besides the Soto bomb, and Gleyber’s homer, it was all singles and doubles, not a bunch of fluky home runs. DJ LeMahieu has been hitting the ball hard lately (by “lately,” I, of course, mean the last two games) and he was finally rewarded with an RBI double. Everyone got a hit. It was a nice night to see all of these dudes in slumps do well.
I actually liked a lot of tonight’s lineup, although I would prefer to get Ben Rice in there over Jahmai Jones (who DID have two legit hits tonight, and one pop-up that just fell in for a hit. That guy has some lucky hits, huh?), letting Davis DH. Basically, with regards to Rice, I think they should either play him on a regular basis, or just send him back to the minors. If LeMahieu does even what he did tonight (he only had the one hit, but he hit the ball hard earlier in the game), I’d seriously consider letting him lead off again.
LeMahieu 3B (R)
Soto RF (L)
Judge CF (R)
Davis DH (R)
Torres 2B (R)
Verdugo LF (L)
Volpe SS (R)
Rice 1B (L)
Trevino/Wells C (R/L)
Then swap Volpe and Davis if Volpe hits well in the #7 slot.
Or, you know, actually trade for a good-hitting first baseman/DH, and just send Ben Rice to the minors after you do that.
The featured image was Stroman making a point to be the first person to hug Gleyber after the home run.
Just watched the condensed game, and watched the DP several times. Where did Volpe bobble the ball? He didn’t, all I can say. MAAAAAYbe he could have transferred it slightly faster, but he didn’t screw that up. Given how the ball was hit, would a brilliant DP, a perfect DP, have gotten the DP? Maybe. Maybe not. But Volpe did not bobble the ball.
It’s nice to see DJLM finally get One. Extra. Base. Hit. I’m not going to make too much of it until his slugging percentage gets over the Mendoza line, for cryin’ out loud.
I actually thought Stroman handled that great. He got mad, went overboard – and demonstratively went out to make up for it.
If Jones is going to hit for a while, is it possible they can trade him for something? Something for nothing is usually a good trade model. The sooner, the better, though.
Brian, what did you mean about sitting Rice? If they’re not going to play him regularly, send him down. Sitting him seems like the worst of all possible options!
Anyway, nice to wake up to a win. Something this team should be doing a lot more of, even with their faults (and let’s face it, almost every other team has more of those).
Oops, yep, meant to write “send him down to the minors.” I’ll fix that.
Kirschner Stroman said Judge was telling him he needed to make the catch on IKF’s single to begin the fifth. Statcast had his catch probability at 75 percent.
Starting time 3:07
A Volpe (R) SS
J Soto (L) RF
A Judge (R) DH
A Verdugo (L) LF
G Torres (R) 2B
B Rice (L) 1B
D LeMahieu (R) 3B
A Wells (L) C
T Grisham (L) CF
Well, thank God for those three hits from JJ last night.
Only way possible to get Boone to bench him tonight.
Yankees announce: Juan Soto was scratched from the lineup with a right hand bruise, sustained sliding into home plate during the 4th inning. He will undergo initial imaging today in Toronto.
Rice batting 2nd. Waldo RF.