On the paper, the Adam Warren vs. David Price matchup didn’t sound sexy for the Yankee fans. However, the offense pounced on the former Cy winner to warrant at least a series tie in Detroit. New York has taken seven of their last ten and tied the Blue Jays for the second place in AL East (and a game behind the first-place Red Sox).
So, About That First Inning…:
Maybe David Price was looking forward to the snow too much, or the cold and snowy atmosphere really messed with him a lot, but he clearly did not have it tonight. He started the game off by plunking Jacoby Ellsbury and consistently missing spots. Chris Young singled, Alex Rodriguez struck out and Mark Teixeira walked. Brian McCann drove in the first run of the game with a single to Yoenis Cespedes. Carlos Beltran followed that up by striking out (sigh) but the fun started right after. Chase Headley drove in Young with a ground ball single to left field, giving Yanks a 2-0 lead. With two outs, bases loaded, Gregorio Petit came up.
Petit, who was hitting for an ungodly .111/.150/.111 line before tonight’s game, took Price’s slider down the middle into the gap for a bases-clearing double. Man, snow or no snow, you don’t see something like this every day. The Yanks led 5-0. Price proceeded to walk Didi Gregorius and allowed an RBI single to Ellsbury. By the way, that was the first run that Ells drove in this season and it took a very gutsy Rob Thomson call — Petit ran on Cespedes’ very strong arm and Avila couldn’t handle the throw properly. If he did, Ellsbury might have had to wait another day for the first RBI of 2015.
That was just the first part of the first inning saga for pitchers. In the bottom of the first, Adam Warren’s command also caught the David Price disease. Instead of allowing meatballs, the righty just couldn’t find the strike zone. Warren walked four (!!!) of the first five batters faced. One batter he did not walk – Ian Kinsler – lined out sharply to center. After walking in a run, Warren faced Cespedes. The Cuban outfielder hit a grounder to Didi, who made a nice diving stop and was in a good position to get a force out at third … but he went a much harder way and threw to second awkwardly. What? I honestly have no idea what prompted Gregorius to do that. Next batter, Nick Castellanos, hit a grounder to Gregorius. Didi, instead of quickly throwing overhand to turn a double play, did a slower underhand toss to second base for a force out and Castellanos was safe at first. The lead cut to 6-3. Argh.
This inning just screamed of not only the big league inexperience but just overall baseball inexperience for Didi, which shouldn’t be the case since he’s been playing at least since the teens. Given the way he seemed to field the ball in Spring Training, I predict that he’ll find his groove back at some point. He just seems to be in some kind of funk right now.
Oh, and after the force out, Warren allowed an RBI single to Alex Avila. A 6-0 laugher became a 6-4 nailbiter in a matter of half of an inning. Yeesh.
The 5th Starter:
Warren had not all that been inspiring in first two starts as the Yankee fifth starter (9 IP, 11 H, 5 ER, 4 BB and 3 K’s). Even before getting the second out of the first inning, he doubled his walk total of the season and it seemed like New York needed to score way more than six to earn a win. However, after a tumultuous first inning, Warren settled down nicely. For the next 4.2 innings pitched, Warren allowed only three hits, no runs, no walks and struck out three. Not bad. It was definitely suboptimal (and I’m putting that lightly) condition for pitchers in the beginning and unlike Price, Warren did a nice job rebounding from it. Props.
Warren’s line for the season now stands at 5.40 ERA/5.61 FIP and his walk rate (4.80 BB/9) is higher than his strikeout rate (3.60 K/9). But hopefully he’ll build from the latter portion of tonight’s start. I don’t want to be watching another game where the fans genuinely seem to yearn for Chris Capuano’s return to the rotation.
No offense to you Detroit, but here’s our offense:
So, 13 runs. Not too shabby. Remember that Yankees’ big Achilles heel in 2013 and 2014 was the inability to score runs? Believe it or not: the Yankees are now second in the entire league in runs scored with 83, trailing only to the Blue Jays (87).
Five starters in the lineup had two or more hits tonight (Ellsbury, Young, McCann, Beltran, Headley) and the team totaled 15. Gregorio Petit, who hit an aforementioned bases-clearing double in the first inning, walked twice (including an intentional one, no kidding!). Teixeira, who now has a .202 batting average and a .925 OPS, hit a towering three-run homer in the seventh inning to pad his slugging percentage. He could use some love from the BABIP gods right now but it’s good to see him hit for good power in early in the season.
By the way, how fun is it to watch Chris Young right now? After a 3-for-6 performance, his 2015 line is .368/.442/.816 in 44 PA’s, which is ridiculous. For obvious reasons, I don’t expect him to keep that kind of production up for too long but it’s really fun to be in the moment for it. I still have a thread of hope that he could’ve found something that clicked and Jose Bautista’d his career with the Yankees … but that’s a pipe dream.
Extra Notes:
Bullpen was pretty solid tonight. Justin Wilson, David Carpenter and Chasen Shreve combined for 3.1 innings pitched, allowed only a hit and struck out six. That’s pretty nasty.
On the note of an excellent offensive showing, how about this? According to our Katie Sharp, the Yankees are the only team in the majors to score 13 runs or more multiple times so far in 2015. Here’s to many more for the rest of season. Hopefully. Not going to kid you, It’s fun to see this team score a lot of runs again.
Box Score, WPA Graph & Standings:
Here are the box score and video highlights. Oh, and win probability chart.
Source: FanGraphs
Up Next:
The Yankees look to take the four-game series in Comerica with their ace Masahiro Tanaka on the mound. The Nipponese righty shut down the Rays last time out and he’ll look to repeat that against the Tigers’ starter Anibal Sanchez. Oh, by the way, New York has a winning streak going again. Let’s hope it continues!
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