Considering how poorly things started on Friday night, this series against the Angels went pretty well for the Yankees. They followed up Saturday’s one-run win with another one-run win on Sunday, coming from behind (twice!) and taking the lead late. The final score was 3-2. The Yankees have now won ten of their last 14 games.
Bad Tanaka Is Still Pretty Good
For the first time in his brief big league career, Masahiro Tanaka really struggled with his command and did not appear to be on the same page as catcher Brian McCann. It got to the point that, in the fourth inning, McCann had to call pitching coach Larry Rothschild and translator Shingo Horie out of the dugout to make sure the message was clear. I thought the Angels did a good job of laying off some splitters down and out of the zone with two strikes. Here’s the PitchFX from Brooks Baseball, if you’re interested.
Tanaka walked four batters on the night after walking two total in his first four starts. He also failed complete seven full innings of work for the first time. And yet, he held the best offense in baseball (in terms of runs per game) to two runs in 6.1 innings with a season-high eleven strikouts. If that’s a bad start, I’ll take a season full of ’em. Tanaka allowed those two runs on a J.B. Shuck ground out and a David Freese solo homer, and four of the Halos’ five hits came on the first pitch of the at-bat. It was clear they wanted to jump on something in the zone early in the count. In addition to the eleven strikeouts, Tanaka got six outs on the ground and two in the air. Not bad for a guy who labored early.
Good Starter, Bad Bullpen
Angels righty Garrett Richards was the better starting pitcher in this game. He held the Yankees to three hits and two walks in seven innings, and it wasn’t until Mark Teixeira’s game-tying solo homer in the seventh inning that Richards actually allowed a hard-hit ball. Even Brian Roberts’ double down the left field line in the fifth inning wasn’t hard hit, it was just well-placed. That led to the team’s first run by pushing Teixeira to third, allowing him to score on Ichiro Suzuki’s ground out. Did you know Teixeira leads the team with has a .386 OBP? Sneaky. (Forgot about Yangervis Solarte, who has a .400 OBP.)
Anyway, the Yankees turned back the clock a few years and used the old “wait out the starter, jump on the bullpen” strategy. They took the lead in the eighth inning thanks to a no-hit rally. The inning went walk (Jacoby Ellsbury), strikeout (Derek Jeter), walk (Carlos Beltran), passed ball (runners move up), and wild pitch (run scores, runner to third). Ellsbury did try to steal second, but it was spoiled by a Jeter foul ball. Does that rally qualify as smallball? I guess so. Righty Michael Kohn faced the first three batters while lefty Nick Maronde faced McCann and uncorked both the passed ball (that was on catcher Chris Iannetta, it was awful) and wild pitch. Alfonso Soriano grounded into a double play to kill the rally, but the go-ahead run had already scored and that’s all that mattered.
Leftovers
David Robertson issued an umpire-aided walk — Iannetta took what should have been strike three, at least according to ESPN’s strike zone thing, but the ump called it a ball — but otherwise struck out a pair and shut the door in the ninth to preserve the win. He is a perfect 4-for-4 in save chances. Ninth inning ain’t no thing. Adam Warren got five pretty big outs between Tanaka and Robertson, most notably getting through Mike Trout and Albert Pujols. He gave up a single to Trout and coaxed a ground ball double play from Pujols. Just like they drew it up.
The Yankees only had three hits on the night: homer by Teixeira, double by Roberts, ground ball single through the shift by Kelly Johnson. They drew four walks, including two by Beltran and one each by Ellsbury and Teixeira. That’s all. They did a good job of clustering this stuff together for runs in the fifth and eighth innings. Timing is everything, folks.
Ichiro made a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad play in left field that resulted in a Howie Kendrick triple with two outs in the fifth. It didn’t come back to bite them because the bases were empty and Tanaka struck out the next batter, but Ichiro got twisted all around and flat out missed a very catchable fly ball. I think it was a passive aggressive dig at Tanaka because he is now the most popular Japanese player on the team.
Tanaka is only the third pitcher in history with 7+ strikeouts in his first five starts, joining Jose DeLeon and Stephen Strasburg. Hat tip to @BRefPlayIndex for that one. He is only the second pitcher ever with three 10+ strikeout games in his first five starts, joining Mark Prior. The hat tip for that one goes to @yestoresearch.
Solarte was a late scratch because of a sore shoulder, and after the game Joe Girardi confirmed he was sent for tests. Everything came back clean and they are hopeful he will be ready to play on Tuesday.
Box Score, WPA Graph & Standings
For the box score and video highlights, go to MLB.com. FanGraphs has some additional stats and ESPN has the updated standings.
Source: FanGraphs
Up Next
The Yankees are off on Monday and then they’ll welcome Robinson Cano back to Yankee Stadium on Tuesday. Robbie will bring his new Mariners teammates for a three-game series. CC Sabathia and Chris Young is the pitching matchup for Tuesday night’s opener. If you want to see Cano’s return in person, RAB Tickets can get you in the door.
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