The day for memorials. A day to remember a great tragedy.
There was a rumour that President Donald Trump would throw out first pitch. He didn’t, but he did attend the game and drew uproarious cheers from the fans, even at one point drowning out the singing of “God Bless America”.
But I am here to talk about baseball, so let’s turn our attention to the game.
Continue readingSo, on September the 9th, the Yankees went into the game against the Detroit Tigers looking limp and surely enough they were demolished by their opponents. The game ended 12-2, and now they desperately needed to bounce back – in order to even the series, and give them the best opportunity of going into the post-season playoffs as division winners.
One of the few highlights of yesterday’s game had been the starting pitcher, Will Warren and indeed it was when the Yankees had to substitute him and go into the bullpen that things really began to fall apart – the relievers (Fernando Cruz and Mark Leiter Jr) conceding 9 runs in one inning.
So today, with one of their strongest starters Carlos Rodon on the mound, they seemed to have a great chance.
Continue readingThe Yankees additional reward for taking the series against Toronto 2-1 was a day off on the 8th. This was mainly because of the timetabling issue of making sure that the Yankees had a game on 9/11 to enable appropriate commemorations of the dreadful events that took place on that day in 2001.
Tonight’s game was the first of three against the Detroit Tigers. The Tigers are ahead of the division in the American League Central and more wins helps them cruise towards the division title and clear of the second place Cleveland Guardians.
Continue readingThe Yankees rolled to a 3-0 start in March, but there were notes of caution with new signing and staff ace, Max Fried getting off to a difficult first start – despite a no-decision, he began with a 3.86 and a 1.93 WHIP. The Yankees need Fried to perform well with Gerrit Cole gone for the season.
Also going through a struggle was new and expensive signing, Devin Williams who the Yankees signed despite seemingly have a great closer already in Luke Weaver. Williams and the 9th inning weren’t getting along. In his one March appearance, he ran up a 9.00 ERA and a 3.00 WHIP.
Continue readingEach season, we award to players’ rankings according to outstanding performances during the season. Using this system, here’s how the Batters and Pitchers of the New York Yankees placed:
Continue readingSo, the Yankees in October were a mixed bunch. Sure, they made it to the World Series, but many of the players they needed to “turn up” in the vital games went AWOL.
Crucially, these included Aaron Judge, Jazz Chisholm Jr., and once more, both catchers. That combination was never going to end happily.
Continue readingBy the beginning of September, the New York Yankees were well on their way to the post-regular season playoffs. They were 79 wins, 57 losses with 26 games to play. The main question seemed to be surrounding the issue of whether they would win the divison or go through by wildcard qualification.
Amongst the regular players, Gleyber Torres was leading the way, by the end of the month, but their were real issues about how much he could be a team player as well as a strong individual performer. Trent Grisham was much improved in the little time he was given at the plate, and of course, Aaron Judge and Juan Soto continued to be masterful.
Continue readingSo, game 162.
And this would prove to be my last game of the season. The news agency had offered me a contract for the post-season, but the need to move house and start a new position in England, was going to mean that there was no way of taking that up.
As in 2023, the last days of the season were visited by blanket rain, which meant delays and just getting generally soaked to the skin. First pitch didn’t come around until 4:36 by my watch.
On the mound? Clarke Schmidt for the New York Yankees who entered the game with a 2.55 ERA and a 5-5 win – loss record which partially concealed that he hadn’t achieved a win since May 16 and had missed a considerable portion of the season through injury. For the Pittsburgh Pirates, it was Bailey Falter who had an 8-9 record. This was his rookie season and other than not playing in the majors for most of July, he had produced a reasonable season pitching to a 4.17 ERA.
Continue readingThe Yankees now have a decisive lead over Baltimore, and Baltimore have a wild card qualification. The outcome of the series between the two teams could not really have worked out better for both participants. The Orioles really couldn’t expect to catch the New York team on the season, but just simply to leave town having taken the 3-game set, 2-1 gives them something of a psychological edge should the two meet again in the playoffs.
Really, only one matter remained for the New York Yankees. That was to clinch the top seed spot. This too seems likely to be the outcome, but the Yankees were balancing the need to do that with the need to rest players and keep them fresh. It is a difficult equation because the Yankees were likely to have the rest they needed if they did not play in the wild card series and rested everyone through that “bye” period,
Continue readingSo, 4 games to go and 4 games in front. And to be frank things were not going well for the Yankees as the Orioles were two up in the series already.
Now this evening game had a very tough pitching matchup with Gerrit Cole leading off the pitching for the New York team and Orioles’ ace Corbin Burnes the other guy on the mound. This one was wide open and could have gone either way.
Gunnar Henderson hit a fly out to Aaron Judge in centerfield which was followed by two gentle ground outs – Jordan Westburg out 6-3 and then Anthony Santander hitting directly to Antony Rizzo to finish out the Baltimore time at bat.
Burnes suggested he might have the edge tonight. In 9 pitches, he got the first three Yankees’ batters to strike out swinging (Gleyber Torres, Juan Soto and
Aaron Judge).
twilightdawning 