From Bryan Hoch:
Both the clock and the scoreboard announced it was getting late as Jazz Chisholm Jr. stood in the batter’s box on Sunday, a soggy afternoon having flipped to evening right around when the Yankees’ bullpen faltered, spoiling their chances of completing a sweep.
And yet Chisholm said he needed to stay locked in, understanding the expectations in his dugout – find a way to get on base, fight to keep the line moving. Chisholm did that, ripping a two-run double up the gap in right-center field. It altered the final score, but not the outcome, in a 7-6 loss to the Marlins.
“We don’t think the game is over until the last out, until the umpire calls the last out or the last strike,” Chisholm said. “So for us, we always go out there battling until the last minute.”
After grinding through a slog of three hours and 49 minutes on Saturday – the longest nine-inning game since the pitch clock was instituted in 2023 – the Yanks busied themselves during a rain delay of three hours and 35 minutes, only to see the bullpen cough up a lead.
Jake Bird surrendered Graham Pauley’s pinch-hit two-run double in the eighth inning, the right-hander also issuing a walk and hitting a batter in his first rough outing of the year following four scoreless appearances. Xavier Edwards added a two-run single off Ryan Yarbrough, extending Miami’s advantage.
“I gave them freebies,” Bird said. “You should never, ever give freebies. That’s not big league baseball. It’s not good.”
Anthony Bender struck out pinch-hitter J.C. Escarra to end it, stranding two men aboard. As Giancarlo Stanton remarked on Saturday, “If there’s outs on the board, we’ve got a chance.” Even on a night when the product was admittedly not sharp, they still had that.
It is stunning just HOW bad that eighth inning was. The Marlins don’t hit a lot of home runs, but they make a lot of contact, put a lot of balls in play. Plus a number of their hitters are on BIG hot streaks to start the season. Xavier Edward, Otto Lopez, Liam Hicks, Javier Sanoja, they have some guys who like to make contact and are seeing the ball REALLY well right now. In other words, these are absolutely NOT the guys you walk. They’re up there TRYING to make contact. They don’t strike out a lot, but they don’t walk a ton, either (the Yankees had more walks on Friday in one game than the Marlins did in their first six games). So what do the Yankee relievers do? They walk back to back batters with one out. Then, Jake Bird HITS the third batter with a pitch way out of the zone, bringing up bases loaded and one out for a team that makes contact. Awful situation to be in.
Bird then makes one of the worst 1-2 pitches you’ll ever see, a “sweeper” that landed right in the middle of the plate, akin to putting it on a tee for the hitter. It was walloped for a two-run double. Ryan Yarbrough came in, and actually got a big strikeout, but then the hot as fuck Xavier Edwards hit a two-run single, and it was now 7-4 Marlins.
We can definitely get on the offense a bit, as they should have scored a lot more than they did, but this game is truly on Cruz and Bird both just losing the plate at the worst possible time.
With Bird, it was clearly mental. He came in and threw five straight pitches WAY out of the zone, with the first four leading to a walk and the fifth hitting a batter. Like Camilo Doval, when Bird is off, he is WAY off. The Yankees didn’t have Tim Hill or David Bednar in this one, so they were a bit stuck, but still, it was not good.
I don’t think Cruz or Bird need to be judged too harshly on one shitty performance. Bird retired 13 of the first 14 batters he faced this year. It’s unreasonable to say that those results were fake, but the one shitty outing is the “real” Bird. Cruz, similarly, had done quite well this season, and even here, he was pulled with one out and a runner on first for Bird, who was a righty just like Cruz, and I legit don’t even know what Boone’s logic was in swapping the two at that point.
The piece of shit at the top of the shit sundae, though, was the Yankees actually scoring two runs in the ninth inning, and having the tying run on second base with two outs in the ninth inning, and Cabby due up.
Boone had five options. He could let Cabby hit (not a good idea). He could have Goldy, Grichuk or Rosario hit (much better ideas, all three of them. I’d put them in that order, but you could swap Rosario and Grichuk if you’d like). Or he could pinch-hit his only lefty available, the backup catcher, JC Escarra (A terrible idea). We all know which one Boone chose. His theory was that the lefties in the ninth had hit the righty Marlins reliever well, while the two righties (Judge and Stanton) had both been retired. That logic has some sense when the batters are close in skill level, but when it’s Goldy versus Escarra, I mean, come the fuck on. Especially since Goldy JUST hit a home run off of a righty recently! Goldy is getting towards the end of his career, but he’s still one of the most professional hitters in baseball. You OBVIOUSLY go with Goldy there.
But not Boone, and Escarra then weakly struck out very quickly to end the game.
Rough loss. 7-2 is a lot less fun than 8-1. At least every other AL East team lost!
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