And so the Yankees headed into the final game of three against the Chicago White Sox. Carlos Rodon would start for New York and Davis Martin was on the mound for the Chicago team.
Needing to finish ahead of Toronto to clinch a bye through the first round of the playoffs as well as the need to clinch to take the honours of winning the American League East – which these days is peculiarly not essential but is more than nice to record.
Continue readingSo, the Yankees closed the gap on Toronto yesterday. Now they come to the second game of their three games series with the Chicago White Sox, hoping that it will not be as close as the first game, and also knowing that they could not afford to lose unless they should ruin their chances of taking of taking over at the head of the American League East.
Max Fried was to be the Yankees starter and Fraser Ellard would start on the mound for the Chicago team, in a game that would prove to be a bullpen game for them – intentionally or otherwise.
Continue readingAnd so back in NYC, the Yankees faced quite a comfortable run in. They would first face the Chicago White Sox – the worst team in the American League, second worst in all of major league baseball. After that they would face the Baltimore Orioles who have the poorest record in the Yankees’ own division – the American League East.
The difficulty is that, through these six games they will not only need to keep pace with the Toronto Blue Jays but surpass the Blue Jays record over the same period. They went into the first Chicago game two games behind Toronto and (because of Toronto having the advantage in the tie-breaker rules), they would need to finish one game ahead of the Blue Jays.
The tie-breaker stipulates that the team with most wins in the games between the two teams would finish top in event of a dead heat. And in this, Toronto have the clear edge – and the two teams will not play each other again in the regular season.
Continue readingFor the last two months, the Yankees have been below .500 in win percentage each month. In August they have begun to turn that around. They lost the first five games in August and then went two-two in the next four. From there, they really picked up, and on the whole month, they went 16-12 which means they were 14-5 after August 10th.
Most of the improvement can’t be attributed to the new signings that they brought in or around the trading so we must think in terms of the return of Giancarlo Stanton, a career best season for Trent Grisham and continued good form from Cody Bellinger.
Sadly, Aaron Judge was still not playing his best game.
Continue readingThe pitching in July has not been a pretty picture.
Several relievers came in at the deadline (more on them presently), but the Yankees could also have used a new starter or two, but no-one arrived. They really aren’t in great shape.
Continue readingMarch 3-0
April 15-13
May 17-9
June 13-14
July 12-13
How did it come to this? After a good start in March and April followed by an exemplary month in May, the Yankees have now had two months where their record is below 50%.
The tailspin meant that there were always going to be a good number of changes as the trading deadline approached.
Most of those who came in were on the pitching side of the roster, but first we’ll survey the batters and those who have left and those who have arrived during the last few days.
Continue readingAnd so we turn our attention to the Yankees pitchers. The starting rotation has had some necessary changes. The bullpen has changed beyond recognition.
Obviously, the major need is to cover for the absence because of injury of Gerrit Cole. He’ll be out until June.
Continue readingInjuries? The Yankees got ’em.
Nestor Cortes; Luis Severino; Albert Abreu; Anthony Misiewicz; Wandy Peralta; Tommy Kahnle; Ryan Weber; Luis Gil; Lou Trivino.
And Frankie Montas, and Keynan Middleton just made it back before the end of the season.
And Ian Hamilton by the middle of September.
No surprise then that the patched up Yankees rotation and bullpen struggled in September and in game 162 in October.
Thank goodness for Gerrit Cole.
Let’s take an overview of the stats…
Continue readingSo, we are thinking about the Yankees’ performance in August, and obviously based on their record during the month (10 wins – 18 losses), you wouldn’t expect an upswing in the quality of their pitching performances but in reality there were some positive signs.
Indeed, in the bullpen there were as many significant improvements as there were players who made a significant decline.
Let’s see who the strong performers were, and those who buckled under the strain:
So, you thought the July Yankees could not get any worse in August?
Wrong! 10 wins -15 losses in July, 10-18 in August.
At the beginning of the month, they had been deliberating whether to buy or sell at the trade deadline. At the deadline, they really did neither. Their only change was to bring in right-handed relief pitcher Keynan Middleton (from the Chicago White Sox) for another right-hander from their farm system, Juan Carela.
And by the end of August, as they were out of contention and the rosters were due to expand, they decide to do a little cleaning house. Predictably but expensively, they cut Josh Donaldson. Also going through the out door was Greg Allen, who wasn’t being used much, but did bring something to the team. More surprisingly, they placed Harrison Bader on waivers.
Let’s see what else happened:
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