twilightdawning

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

The New York Yankees in April – Part Two – The Pitchers (2022)

Posted on May 11, 2022 by twilightdawning

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.

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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 June – Part Two – The Pitchers (2021)

Posted on July 20, 2021 by twilightdawning

The world of baseball pitching began to be shaken up in late-May and early-June as MLB announced that it would be checking the hats, gloves and belts of pitching staff during games.

Rumours had begun to spread about the use of a substance called Spider Tack which was allowing pitchers to get a better grip on the ball and consequently increases spin speeds. Players like Josh Donaldson of Minnesota became very vocal in their criticisms of pitchers including, for example, the New York Yankees’ Gerrit Cole.

Now, there have been allegations like that. There also been suggestions that spin speeds for certain pitchers have dropped since the announcement of the rule-enforcement may have caused some pitchers to relearn their craft but so far that’s all we know.

So as we examine these statistics for the month of May, let’s consider those pitchers whose performance seems to have varied most dramatically – but I’ll go no further – the jury is still out – and we may never really know.

Here’s the stats for the whole team and then we’ll begin with a closer analysis of the starting rotation:

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The New York Yankees in March and April 2019 (Part Two) – The Pitchers

Posted on May 10, 2019 by twilightdawning

With all these injuries, this season was never going to be straightforward, but the Yankees except for an initial stumble or two have handled the opening weeks with style. Let’s see who had the arms which led the way:

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The New York Yankees – The Pitchers in the Playoffs (2018)

Posted on November 4, 2018 by twilightdawning

So, as we have seen there were some questionable decisions made by Aaron Boone, the Yankees’ manager, with regard to the batting line-up and substitutions. We, therefore, shouldn’t be surprised that those strange moments weren’t confined to the batting and the defence but affected the pitching too. Can anybody spell Austin Romine?

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The New York Yankees – The Pitchers in September (2018)

Posted on October 12, 2018 by twilightdawning

In September the Yankees had a team batting average of .232 and a team ERA (earned run average) of 4.05. If it wasn’t for those home runs that the team kept coming up with bundles of, then they would probably be looking at a win-loss record under .500 for the month. As it was, they came through 15-13 but some of their big name pitchers struggled majorly.

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New York Yankees: Last days of the season

Posted on September 26, 2018 by twilightdawning

Baltimore are the worst team in Major League Baseball but the Yankees are hardly the best.

Who: New York Yankees

What: Baltimore Orioles @ New York Yankees

Where: Yankee Stadium, Bronx, New York

When: 21 to 23 September 2018

So, the end is near, as some singer or other once said. The last three home games of the regular season and Yankee Stadium is certainly filling up slowly. In fact, in a worst case scenario, these could be the last home games for the Yankees until next year. If they continued to struggle until the end of the season, they could lose home-field advantage to the Oakland A’s for the wild card playoff. And that is only a one game match-up…

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Red Sox Take American League East – at Yankee Stadium

Posted on September 22, 2018 by twilightdawning

Who: New York Yankees

What: versus Boston Red Sox

Where: Yankee Stadium, Bronx, New York

When: 18 to 20 September 2018

Well, surely the Yankees – after their disappointing series loss against Toronto – couldn’t bounce back and manage to win the series against Boston — and still allow the Red Sox to clinch the AL East in the Bronx? Well, if anyone could, these contrary Yankees could. Read on…

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Toronto Trip Up the Yankees

Posted on September 19, 2018 by twilightdawning

Who: New York Yankees

What: versus Toronto Blue Jays

Where: Yankee Stadium, Bronx, New York

When: 14 to 16 September 2018

The plan must have been fairly simple as the Yankees returned to the Bronx for a nine-game home-stand – take 2 or 3 from Toronto, beat Boston 2-1 and blast past Buck Showalter’s weaker-than-ever Baltimore Orioles where a sweep seemed more than possible. What could go wrong?

Well, first of all, the Yankees evidently didn’t reckon on a gutsy, scrappy Blue Jays’ performance and their own all too apparent second half failings.

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