twilightdawning

A writer's thoughts – mainly about music, sport and theatre. Shakespeare, Bob Dylan, live shows, New York Yankees

The New York Yankees in October – Part Two – The Pitchers (2021)

Posted on November 17, 2021 by twilightdawning

It was October and the Yankees’ starting rotation was struggling.

While Gerrit Cole was on the active roster, the Yankees elected to not use him in the series with Tampa Bay in order that he might be ready for the Wild Card game.

Jameson Taillon was back from injury and a rehab assignment and ready to go but, as already noted in last month’s report, the Yankees had sent Andrew Heaney to the bullpen and now assigned him outright to Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Railriders (Triple-A) – an assignment he would decline and so elect to become a free agent.

Let’s see who rose above the challenges of the end of the year:

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The New York Yankees in September – Part Two – The Pitchers (2021)

Posted on October 11, 2021 by twilightdawning

The New York Yankees starting rotation rather fell apart in September.

Towards the end of August, they had given up on using Andrew Heaney as a starter – in September he didn’t do any better as a reliever.

Luis Gil, who had an astonishing start to his career in the majors in August, didn’t even come close to repeating that form in the following month.

Jameson Taillon spent time on the injury list. Clarke Schmidt became available but struggled. Luis Severino was available for the first time in the longest but the Yankees weren’t willing to risk him as a starter given all of his injury difficulties. Domingo German was added to the roster but wasn’t chosen to play until October. Thankfully, the bullpen regulars performed extremely well…

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The New York Yankees in September – Part One – The Batters (2021)

Posted on October 5, 2021 by twilightdawning

The New York Yankees of September were not the New York Yankees of August. From the 4th to the 10th of the month, they had a 7 game losing streak. However, later in the month (20th to 28th) they were to match this with a 7 game winning streak.

Inconsistency was their watchword.

This all meant that they only closed the gap on Tampa Bay by one game across the whole month and as the month came to an end, they were locked in a blockbuster situation with only three games to play. They still needed to head off Boston, Toronto and Seattle to earn one of the Wildcard places and this was going right down to the wire.

Most of the batters struggled. Some were pretty good…

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The New York Yankees in August – Part Two – The Pitchers (2021)

Posted on September 6, 2021 by twilightdawning

The Yankees’ pitchers were a major part of why they managed to transform their season by the upturn in their form in August.

Both starters and relievers hit a rich vein of form which made it much easier to turn runs into wins.

However, not everybody rediscovered their form. Let’s see who were those pitchers who led the way in August:

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The New York Yankees in August – Part One – The Batters (2021)

Posted on September 4, 2021 by twilightdawning

The New York Yankees had a 21-8 record on the month in August. It seems odd therefore, given that this was far and away their strongest month of the season, that I remain unconvinced about their potential to reach the post-season

On one hand, the vast majority of those wins came in consecutive games, when the momentum and positivity was spinning out of control. On the other hand, once that winning sequence was broken, they lost the four remaining games of the month – against the Oakland Athletics (a potential challenger for the New York team for a wild card spot) and against the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim who went into their series with the Yankees below .500 on the season.

It is an interesting conundrum and it will be very interesting to see what September brings. Boston have remained in contention. Toronto are fast improving. Oakland will need to sort out some of their issues but could still challenge for a wild card spot and Seattle have also come into the reckoning.

The Yankees would need to maintain something like their August record to challenge the Tampa Bay Rays for the AL East division lead, which, frankly, I can’t see happening. This means that any two of five could capture the wild card route to the playoffs. The Yankees of August could do it. The Yankees of July will not.

Let’s see what happened in August-

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The New York Yankees in July – Part Two – The Pitchers (2021)

Posted on August 11, 2021 by twilightdawning

The Yankees 14-9 record in July was due in no small part to their pitching. Their record improved after the All-Star break. They were 9-5 afterwards, 5-4 before.

The Yankees brought in two new pitchers at the trading deadline – Andrew Heaney (SP) from the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim and Joely Rodriguez (RP) from the Texas Rangers but neither of them made their debut for their new club before the end of July.

Heaney was traded for minor leaguers, Janson Junk and Elvis Peguero (both right-handers). Joely Rodriguez may be more of a make-weight, as there is no question that the Yankees main target in the trade was outfielder, Joey Gallo. The players who went in the opposite direction were right-hander pitcher, Glenn Otto and infielders Josh H.Smith, Ezequiel Duran and Trevor Hauver.

In addition, they had added Clay Holmes (RP) from the Pittsburgh Pirates on the 26th of the month in exchange for Hoy Park and Diego Castillo. A curious move saw relievers Luis Cessa and Justin Wilson join the Cincinnati Reds in exchange for a player to be named later. It was no surprise that the Yankees wanted to offload Wilson because the veteran has struggled all season long but giving up Cessa who has had a solid year and been with the Yankees for a number of years when they weren’t particularly targeting anybody in return is strange.

Let’s look at the pitchers who play in July, beginning with the starters…

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