Aaron Judge…! Aaron Judge…!! The 17 games the Yankees won during September were primarily down to Mr Judge, their superstar outfielder, whose sixty plus home runs guaranteed them their place in the post-season.
But, it obviously wasn’t down to Aaron alone. We’ve already seen how much players like Gleyber Torres contributed to getting things rolling in September. And many of the pitchers, both starters and relievers, added great performances into this strong month.
As we mentioned in our previous article, the Yankees just did enough to achieve a .500 win-loss record in July and as we survey the pitchers, we note that many of the starters began to buckle with only Nestor Cortes coming in at the end of the month with an ERA of less then 4.
Michael King was having another excellent month in July, but broke his elbow in the 2/3 of the month and is gone for the long term. You’d never want to see somebody go out with an injury like that, and in reality there is no compensation. However the Yankees did have longterm injuries Domingo German and Jonathan Loaisiga coming back this month. Clarke Schmidt who had been building up his stamina was recalled from Scranton, but oft-injured Luis Severino was lost to the team again.
The Yankees were able to call on their main five starting pitchers throughout April, without any of them suffering injury. Gerrit Cole, Luis Severino, Jordan Montgomery, Jameson Taillon and Nestor Cortes were available from Opening day, and remained that way.
Domingo German remained on the injured list but the Yankees had anticipated that. There were no new faces amongst the starting pitchers and only a smattering among the relievers. Based on last season, the fanbase wouldn’t be too sure what to expect from this arrangement but as we have already suggested in our article about the batters, things worked out just fine as, after a few bumps, the team cruised to the head of the division.
Pretty much every baseball season ends in October – although there have been exceptions: one of which comes to mind all too easily and painfully. This year’s was scheduled to possibly run into November…
The Yankees’ season ended way too early in October. They had a three game series against the Tampa Bay Rays to round out the regular schedule and that qualified them for the one game wildcard playoff where they would face the Boston Red Sox.
And that’s where it all came to a premature end. To be frank, whilst it would have been nice to beat a great rival, the Yankees didn’t deserve much more. They had a season where they bounced between simply horrible and very good. Were the best bad team? Or the worst good team? Either way they didn’t deserve to be taking home any pennants this year. We have two tables for you – the stats for the last regular games and then the stats for that one post-season game. Let’s take a look at who did what:
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…
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-
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…
Continue readingOn the face of it, the Yankees’ starting pitching in July wasn’t really much different than the way it had been in June. In June, the team had come out 17-9 on the month and the starters had picked up 8 of those wins. Excluding the rather bizarre decision to open with Stephen Tarpley in the second “London series” game, the team had depended on 4 principal starters and one opener, Chad Green who did exceptionally well both as an opener and as a reliever. In July, the Yankees reverted to the more usual tactic of using 5 starters, now that Domingo German was available for the full month. Indeed, German was the pick of the starters but nothing else quite went to plan but even so, the starters just about got away with it. Whilst the win percentage was down (14 out of 25 games), the starters were still responsible for 50% of those wins. However, the real truth can be seen in the ERA (earned run average) and WHIP (walks and hits per innings pitched) columns.
July was a peculiar month for the Yankees. After going 17-9 in June, they found themselves struggling with injuries and below-par pitching and having to settle for a weaker record in the new month. They still, however, came out 14-11 and with a half game increase on their lead in the American League East. The two game series at the end of June in London with the Red Sox which was followed by a two-games series against the Mets at Citi Field can’t have helped – but somehow they got through.
A tale of three cities…
Surely, it could never catch on… could it?
The date: 29 & 30th June 2019
The place: Olympic Stadium, Stratford, London, UK
What: Major League Baseball
Who: The New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox (with Boston playing as the home team).
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