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Sanchez’s Strange Season

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(AP)

For some reason, there exists a level of polarization among Yankee fans when it comes to Gary Sanchez. Despite all the objective evidence showing that Sanchez is a good catcher, many just see his issues with blocking balls, can’t see past that, and want him permanently moved from behind the plate. That conversation existed last year, but it seems to happen more often now, especially since Sanchez hasn’t quite recovered from his awful start at the plate.

Despite that, there are some positive signs in Gary’s game at the plate. For example, he’s got a .342 wOBA and a 115 wRC+, both solid overall and great for a catcher. His walk rate has jumped up from 7.6% to 12.6% this year. But Sanchez has been absolutely slaughtered on balls in play with a .212 (!) BABIP. Considering how generally hard he hits the ball, that’s a shockingly low number. That number alone suggests he should be doing better. Let’s take a deeper look and what’s been happening to hold him down, referring mainly to his Statcast data.

Referring first to my own eye test, it certainly seems that Sanchez has had more than his share of infield fly balls this year. Generally, the Statcast data confirms this, noting a rise in pop-up percentage from 9.6 to 13.6. Additionally, FanGraphs shows a jump in IFFB% from 10.8 to 21.7. Damn. Not surprisingly, Statcast tracks Sanchez as having gotten under the ball nearly 27% of the time this year, a jump from last year when he did so under 22% of the time. So is he hitting the ball softer in general? Not necessarily. His average exit velocity sits at 90.6, down just 0.2 from last year’s mark of 90.8. Perhaps, then, the problem is with ‘directionality,’ so to speak.

While it’s a plus that Sanchez’s groundball rate has dropped, the aforementioned increase in pop ups has also resulted in a lack of line drives, down from 24.5% last year to 18.4% this year. There’s been no change in his pull percentage this year, but Gary is hitting fewer balls up the middle and more to the opposite field. In general, those aren’t necessarily bad things, but when a hitter as good as Sanchez is this far into the season without really breaking out yet, we’ll look for any explanation possible.

Gary should be getting better results based on his skill and talent. But, there does seem to be something in the way and I’d guess the main culprit is the infield pop ups. Those almost never lead to good things–unless you’re Alex Rodriguez and Luis Castillo is playing second–and seem to be sapping Sanchez of some perceived productivity. Indeed, Statcast’s xwOBA tells us Sanchez “should” have a wOBA of .381, but we should take that with a big ol’ grain of salt.

The Yankees have a primary catcher with an above league average wRC+ who hits for power–his ISO has actually increased from last year–but is simultaneously underachieving a bit. And, despite that underachievement, the Yankees are one of the best hitting teams in baseball. When Sanchez turns things around at the plate, the offense will be even scarier.

Yankees’ luxury tax payroll situation for 2018

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(Jim McIsaac/Getty)
(Jim McIsaac/Getty)

Updated 6/1/18

Estimated 2018 Yankees’ luxury tax payroll: $184.1M
2018 luxury tax threshold: $197 million

The 2018 season is now two months old. The Yankees are, as expected, one of the best teams in baseball. They are currently 35-17 with a +72 run differential. Aaron Judge and Luis Severino remain awesome and Gleyber Torres has been everything we could’ve hoped since arriving. The Baby Bombers are pretty rad.

One number is going to hang over the Yankees all year: $197M. That is the luxury tax threshold for the 2018 season. Ownership and the front office are adamant the Yankees will get under the threshold this year — they’ve paid luxury tax every year since the system was put in place in 2003 — which would reset their luxury tax rate. Right now the Yankees are taxed at the maximum 50%.

As the season progresses, the Yankees’ payroll situation will evolve due to call-ups and midseason additions, possibly even contract extensions. Every change to the roster results in a change to the luxury tax payroll. Because getting under the $197M threshold this year is an important stated goal, we’re going to do our best to keep track of the payroll situation with this continually updated post. Here’s where the Yankees stand as of June 1st.

Compiling the luxury tax payroll point-by-point was getting tedious, so I decided to throw it into a spreadsheet. The last time I updated the payroll situation, I had the Yankees at $184.1M projected for the season. Now it’s … $184.1M. That’s a rounding thing. The actual projected number has changed by a few thousand bucks. A few other things about the payroll situation.

1. The call-ups are complicated. Pre-arbitration-eligible players on split contracts — the majority of the players on the roster, basically — get paid one salary at the Major League level and a different salary in the minors, and their luxury tax hits are pro-rated. Say, for example, a player spends 100 days in MLB and 86 days in the minors. His luxury tax hit is then 100 days of MLB salary plus 86 days of MiLB salary.

It’s important to note only minor leaguers on the 40-man roster count against the luxury tax payroll. Jace Peterson, Shane Robinson, David Hale, and Ryan Bollinger were never on the 40-man and in the minors, so their minor league salary is irrelevant for luxury tax purposes. Guys like Domingo Acevedo and Jonathan Loaisiga are on the 40-man though, so their minor league salaries count against the luxury tax payroll. It’s not much, but every dollar counts.

2. Trades work in a similar way. Any player who comes over in a midseason trade — or even a waiver claim, for that matter — has their luxury tax hit pro-rated. If the Yankees were to trade for a player making $10M this season at the halfway point, they’d be charged with a $5M luxury tax hit. The math isn’t quite that neat in real life — A.J. Cole’s luxury tax hit will be $475,698.92 if he stays on the roster the rest of the season — but you get the idea. The Yankees figure to be active the trade deadline. They have money to spend and prospects to trade.

3. The disabled list provides no relief. Jacoby Ellsbury’s salary doesn’t go away for luxury tax purposes just because he’s injured and hasn’t played. The Yankees may be recouping some of his salary through insurance — we don’t know whether they have insurance on the contract, or the terms — but that doesn’t help the luxury tax situation. Players on the disabled list still count against the luxury tax payroll. It’s like they’re on the active roster. Ben Heller underwent Tommy John surgery and will miss the entire season — he didn’t throw a single pitch during the regular season — yet his full salary will count against the luxury tax payroll. Such is life.

4. There’s still lots of room under the threshold. Even with all the injuries and call-ups, and even with the potential bonuses looming, the Yankees are still way under the luxury tax threshold. That leaves them plenty of room for trades and plenty of room just to breath easy. They don’t have to sweat every call-up and every dollar spent, at least not right now. The Giants want to avoid luxury tax this year and they’re within $2M of the $197M threshold. They have no wiggle room. The Yankees have lots.

* * *

Like it or not, the Yankees are going to get under the luxury tax threshold this season, and they are currently in good position to do so. They have room to cover injury call-ups and room to take on salary at the deadline. If you have any questions about the luxury tax payroll, or if you notice an error, shoot me an email at RABmailbag (at) gmail (dot) com.

Yankeemetrics: Dethroned in the Bronx (May 28-30)

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(New York Post)

Bird is the only word
For one night, at least, the old adage “good pitching beats good hitting” held true, as the Yankees were totally dominated in Monday’s 5-1 loss by Justin Verlander and a historically great Astros pitching staff.

Verlander spun another gem, and in two starts against the Yankees this year, has a 0.61 ERA with 19 strikeouts and no walks. With this being the final series between the two clubs during the regular season, Verlander became the first pitcher — since earned runs became official in 1913 — to strike out at least 15 batters, walk none and post a sub-1.00 ERA in a single season against the Yankees.

One of the guys that Verlander handcuffed was Aaron Judge. After going 0-for-3 in their latest matchup, he remains hitless in 13 at-bats against Verlander with more than half (7) of those outs via strikeout. The 13 at-bats are his most versus any pitcher he doesn’t have a hit off in his career.

Domingo German flashed electric stuff but also suffered from inconsistent command. His final line was a mixed bag with three earned runs (plus an unearned run) allowed on five hits, including a homer, and seven strikeouts in 5 2/3 innings.

The good? He was excellent in missing bats and getting hitters to chase his pitches. He matched a career-high with 16 whiffs, and 11 of them came on pitches out of the zone. The only other guys this season to get that many out-of-zone swings-and-misses (11) in a game against the Astros were Trevor Bauer and Corey Kluber. Pretty good company for the rookie!

All seven of his strikeouts were swinging, including two each to the best Astros hitters in the lineup — Carlos Correa and Jose Altuve. Here’s German making Correa look silly in the first inning:

The lone offensive highlight for the Yankees was Greg Bird taking Justin Verlander deep in the seventh inning. It was the first homer that Verlander allowed to a left-handed batter all season; the 120 lefty swingers he had faced entering the week were the second-most of any pitcher in baseball this season who hadn’t yet allowed a home run to a lefty.

(New York Post)

Happy Gleyber Day
After a relatively quiet few days in the Bronx, wild and wacky baseball returned with a bang on Tuesday night, as the Yankees staged yet another epic comeback en route a 6-5 extra-inning win over the defending AL champs.

It was the Yankees AL-leading fifth walk-off win of the season, and also matched their entire total from last year. The only other time in the last 50 seasons that they compiled five-or-more walk-off wins within their first 52 games played was 2009.

But this wasn’t just any ordinary walk-off celebration, it required a two-run rally in the ninth inning, which has almost become the norm for this Yankee team. It was their …

  • MLB-best fifth win when trailing at start of the ninth inning (same number as last year)
  • MLB-best third win when trailing by multiple runs at start of the ninth (one more than last year)
  • 10th one-run win of the season, more than halfway to last year’s total (18)

Sure the Yankees have been piling up these Fighting Spirit-fueled wins, but this one was perhaps the most improbable. The Yankees committed five errors — their most in a win in more than two decades (April 17, 1997 vs White Sox) — and also struck out a whopping 17 times. They are the first team since at least 1908 (and probably ever) to win a game despite making five or more errors and striking out at least 17 times. Congrats?

Trailing 5-2 at the halfway point, the Yankees used their traditional power bats to save the game and then added a dose of Baby Bomber situational hitting to win it. Aaron Judge started the comeback with a 109.1 mph rocket into the second deck in right leading off the fifth inning. It was his fifth opposite-field homer of the season, and fourth with an exit velocity of at least 108 mph — that’s twice as many as anyone else through Tuesday.

(AP)

Brett Gardner made sure we’d enjoy free baseball with a thrilling two-run game-tying homer in the ninth inning. It was his second home run of the game, after he led off the night with a solo homer in the bottom of the first. That statistical combo gave us our Guest Yankeemetric of the Series, courtesy of stats maven Doug Kern: Gardner is the second Yankee ever to lead off the game with a home run and then hit game-tying or go-ahead homer in the ninth inning or later, joining Snuffy Stirnweiss on August 27, 1947 against the St. Louis Browns.

Gleyber Torres — who else?! — then won it with a two-out RBI single in the 10th, padding his incredible clutch stats and boosting yet again his ever-growing legendary pinstriped career. After his latest heroics, it seems worthwhile to present this relevant chart:

Gleyber Torres OPS in “Clutch” Situations

*PA in 7th or later with batting team tied, ahead by one, or tying run on deck
PA Torres League Avg
RISP 37 1.260 .732
High Leverage 28 1.519 .717
Tie Game 25 1.663 .721
Late & Close* 21 1.357 .675

Torres — at the age of 21 years and 163 days old — became the youngest Yankee with an extra-inning walk-off hit since Ben Chapman on April 25, 1930. And combined with his May 6 game-ending homer vs Cleveland, Torres also entered the record books as the youngest Yankee (since at least 1925) with multiple walk-off RBI in a single season.

(New York Post)

Welcome to the Sevy and Sanchez Show
Yankees continued their domination of the defending champs this season, taking another series against Houston after their 5-3 victory on Wednesday night. The Yankees are the only team to win multiple series against the Astros this season. Some other stats of note as the Yankees improved to…

  • MLB-best 14-4 in games started by left-handers
  • MLB-best 20-7 against teams with a .500 record or better
  • MLB-best 24-2 in games that their starter pitches at least six innings
  • MLB-best 24-1 when allowing fewer than four runs

Luis Severino showcased his ace stuff as he struck out 11 batters and held the Astros to two runs on four hits over seven innings. All 11 of the punchouts were swinging — a career-best for Sevy — and eight of the 11 came on his slider.

His masterful outing capped off a dominant month during which he struck out a total of 50 batters, whiffing 10-plus guys in three of six May starts. He is just fifth Yankee in the last 50 seasons with 50 or more strikeouts in a single calendar month. This list is pretty good, eh?

Gary Sanchez delivered the game-changing blow in the fifth inning, a bases-loaded two-run single that turned a 2-1 deficit into a 3-2 lead. That hit snapped an 0-for-19 slump and was his first RBI since May 19. Sanchez has no fear when coming to plate with the bases juiced — he is now 11-for-22 (.500) with the bases loaded since the start of 2017, and has driven in 22 runs in those 22 at-bats.

Yankeemetrics: Heaven in the Bronx (May 25-27)

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(AP)

It’s Torres’ world, and we’re just …
After enduring yet another travel nightmare and coming off back-to-back stinging losses to the Rangers, the Yankees were happy to be back home on Friday night, and even more exited to see their perennial Bronx punching bag in the other dugout. They entered 2018 with a 28-10 record against the Angels at the new Yankee Stadium (including the postseason), their best record versus any AL team at the ballpark.

Gleyber Torres made sure that the Yankees would remain the only team in MLB without a three-game losing streak, delivering his bazillionth historic, clutch performance in their 2-1 victory. With the win, the Yankees also improved to 9-3 in one-run games, the best record in MLB, and put them halfway to last year’s one-run win total (when they were 18-26).

Torres wouldn’t have been able to extend his assault on the record books without a gutty performance from Luis Severino. The Yankees ace grinded through six innings, holding the Angels to one run despite putting eight runners on base, including a career-high-tying four walks. Still, even lacking his best stuff, we get to update our favorite chart:

Aaron Judge also helped keep the Angels in check with a run-saving assist to nail Kole Calhoun at home plate in the third inning, his second assist to home this season. The last Yankee right-fielder with multiple assists to home in a season was Ichiro Suzuki, who had three in 2013. The throw was measured at 100.5 mph by Statcast, the fastest throw by a position player this season.

Back to our hero, Mr. Torres, who added yet another chapter to his storybook rookie season. He sent the Yankee Stadium crowd into a frenzy when he crushed a tie-breaking solo home run in the seventh inning, his fourth game in a row going deep. You know the drill … to the bullet points! He is the:

  • Youngest player in AL history to homer in four straight games, and the fourth-youngest in MLB history. Only Miguel Cabrera (2004), Albert Pujols (2001) and Andruw Jones (1998) were younger than Torres.
  • Third Yankee second baseman to homer in four straight games, joining Hall-of-Famers Tony Lazzeri (1936) and Joe Gordon (1940).
  • Third player in MLB history to homer in four straight games while batting ninth in the order. The others were White Sox catcher Jim Essian in 1977 and Phillies pitcher Ken Brett in 1973.

It was also Torres’ fifth career go-ahead homer, all of them coming since May 4; in that span, over the past three weeks, all other Yankees combined to hit five go-ahead homers.

(AP)

Very dark skies in the Bronx
One day after one of the season’s most exhilarating wins, the Yankees crashed back to Earth with one of their biggest duds of the season. They jumped out to a 4-1 lead after two innings, but it was all downhill from there, as the Angels outscored them 10-0 the rest of the way. It’s the third time this year they’ve coughed up at least 11 runs in a game; last year they did that only twice the entire season.

This was not only an embarrassing loss, but also a rare one for the Yankees: it’s just the second time in the last 15 seasons that they blew of lead of at least three runs and ending up losing by seven or more runs. The other two instances were a 14-7 loss to the White Sox on June 29, 2012 and a 13-4 loss to the A’s on August 3, 2004.

Sonny Gray delivered another brutal outing, increasing his ERA to 5.98 overall (third-worst among MLB qualified pitchers) and a miserable 7.22 at home (worst in MLB). We’ve detailed here his struggles to get ahead early in counts, but there’s another potentially bigger issue that continues to plague Gray this season and again played a large role in his awful performance on Saturday — his massive struggles against right-handed batters.

Fifteen of the 21 Angels batters he faced hit from the right side, and they went 7-for-13 with two doubles, a homer, and four singles. The Angels righties pummeled him, as the nine balls they hit fair had an average exit velocity of 98.3 mph.

For the season, he’s allowed a .312/.395/.533 line and .397 wOBA to righties, basically turning every right-handed batter he faces into Jose Abreu (.398 wOBA this season). His OPS, OBP and Slugging Percentage allowed to righties each rank among the five worst in MLB for right-handed pitchers. [For reference, lefties are hitting .240/.348/.323 with a .306 wOBA against Gray.]

Much of that right-handed damage on Saturday was done by Mike Trout, who authored his own historic performance. He went 5-for-5 with three doubles, a homer and a single. He’s the first visiting centerfielder ever with four extra-base hits at Yankee Stadium (old or new). After Saturday’s game, Trout’s slugging percentage in the Bronx was .819, the highest by any player (min. 70 PA) at Yankee Stadium (old or new).

The game started out on a positive note, with Brett Gardner and Aaron Judge smacking homers back-to-back in the bottom of the first inning. For Gardner, it was his 12th career leadoff homer, the seventh-most in franchise history (Derek Jeter is first with 29). For Judge, it was his 70th career homer, a milestone he reached quicker (231 games) than any other player in MLB history (Ryan Howard is second, 233 games).

(New York Post)

This is heaven for Tanaka
The Yankees rebounded from their Saturday night disaster with a 3-1 win on Sunday afternoon, taking the series behind justenough offense and a dominant pitching performance from Masahiro Tanaka.

They scored all three runs in third inning, and the only hit in that frame was a leadoff single by Aaron Judge. We actually should call it a leadoff missile — the baseball left his bat with an exit velocity of 119.9 mph, the hardest-hit ball in play this season. Since the start of last season, there have been six balls hit with an exit velo of 119-plus mph in MLB — Judge has five of them and Giancarlo Stanton has the other one.

Tanaka produced his own bounceback performance, holding the Angels to one run on three hits in six innings. He struck out eight and the only mistake he made was a fourth-inning home run by Andrelton Simmons. He consistently froze the Angels batters, painting the corners and changing eye levels, getting a season-best 20 called strikes on the 60 pitches that the Angels took.

If only the Yankees played in the AL West … After Sunday’s brilliant outing, Tanaka improved to 6-0 with a 1.59 ERA in six career starts against the Angels. That’s the third-lowest ERA against them among active MLB pitchers (min. 5 starts), and the second-lowest against them by any pitcher in Yankees history (min. 3 starts), behind Mel Stottlemyre (1.49 ERA over 27 starts).

With his chase rate trending down, it may be time for Tanaka to throw more fastballs

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(Ronald Martinez/Getty)

For the second straight season, Masahiro Tanaka has pitched pretty poorly out of the gate. He’s had some good starts here and there, but overall, a 4.95 ERA (4.82 FIP) in ten starts is a 4.95 ERA (4.82 FIP) in ten starts. There are 92 pitchers with enough innings to qualify for the ERA title at the moment and Tanaka ranks 81st in ERA and 77th in FIP. The numbers don’t lie.

Tanaka’s slow start last season was much worse than this season. Through ten starts last year he had a 5.86 ERA (5.31 FIP) and we were talking about skipping starts and phantom disabled list stints and things like that. The Yankees never did any of that. They kept running Tanaka out there, and in his final 18 starts, he had a 3.69 ERA (3.54 FIP). Much better.

Tanaka was able to turn his season around last year by embracing the Yankees’ anti-fastball philosophy. He has really strong secondary pitches in his splitter and slider, so he threw a lot — a lot — of them and the results improved. His month-by-month pitch usage through last season:

Fewer fastballs, more bendy pitches, better results. We all know the story. Tanaka has continued with the anti-fastball philosophy this year — he’s thrown 27.2% fastballs this year, the lowest rate in MLB (Ross Stripling has the second lowest at 32.2%) — because hey, it worked last year, so keep doing it.

Lately though, it seems to me the anti-fastball approach is starting to lose some effectiveness, and I say this because hitters are not expanding the zone and chasing against Tanaka as much as they did last year and earlier this year. His chase rate:

See what I mean? Once Tanaka started throwing so many non-fastballs last year, his chase rate went through the roof. Now the chases are down. It was pretty obvious in his start three days ago, when he walked four batters in five innings against a Rangers team that generally doesn’t draw many walks. It’s not just the walks either. Tanaka was behind in the count a bunch and that created more problems.

Over the last few years Tanaka has been the best pitcher in baseball at getting hitters to chase out of the zone. That is not an overstatement. Last year’s chase rate leaderboard:

  1. Masahiro Tanaka: 42.1%
  2. Corey Kluber: 38.8%
  3. Chris Sale: 37.5%
  4. Zack Greinke: 37.3%
  5. Max Scherzer: 36.8%

Tanaka posted a 39.7% chase rate from 2015-17, which was the best in baseball. Michael Pineda was a distant second at 37.3%. Like I said, Tanaka has been the best pitcher in baseball at generating swings on pitches out of the zone. That leads to swings and misses and it leads to soft contact. If a guy goes outside the zone and makes hard contact, you just tip your cap. More often than not, good things happen for the pitcher when a hitter chases.

This season Tanaka has the second best chase rate (39.8%) in baseball behind Aaron Nola (40.0%), which is really good, but as the graph shows, Tanaka’s chase rate is trending down. That could be an indication hitters are beginning to adjust to the anti-fastball philosophy. Hitters aren’t stupid. Teams scout, teams do prep work. They know what’s up. Hitters know Tanaka doesn’t throw many fastballs nowadays and they’re beginning to adjust.

Because of that, it might be time for Tanaka to start working his fastball in a little more. I’m not saying he should throw heaters down the middle. But when hitters are thinking splitter down or slider away, you can get catch them looking at fastballs on the corners. We’ve all seen a hitter take a fastball in the zone for a strike and wonder what he was looking for. Well, he was looking for a non-fastball that would dip out of the zone.

Last year Tanaka struggled early in the season, so he made an adjustment, and in this case that adjustment that was throwing fewer fastballs. Now hitters seem to be adjusting to that adjustment, which means it’s time for Tanaka to adjust to their adjustment to his adjustment. Got all that? It’s a vicious cycle. It’s baseball. A constant game of adjustments. Now that hitters seem to be doing a better job laying off the splitter and slider, more fastballs could be in the cards.

Yankeemetrics: Nightmare Slugfest in Texas (May 21-23)

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(USA Today)

”I feel sorry for the baseballs”
The Yankees opened their series in Texas in historic fashion, as the offense went bonkers and put on an insane power-hitting show in a 10-5 win over the Rangers.

The final tally was five homers and five doubles, and when combined with the offensive explosions from their previous two games in Kansas City, produced these staggering stats:

  • First time in franchise history that they hit at least four homers in three straight games.
  • First team since the 1963 Twins with four or more home runs in three straight road games, and the first team since the 1961 Braves to do that on the same road trip. Those two teams, by the way, featured three of the top-25 home run hitters of all-time: Hall-of-Famers Harmon Killebrew (Twins), Eddie Mathews (Braves) and Hank Aaron (Braves).
  • First time in franchise history that the Yankees recorded at least eight extra-base hits in three straight games.
  • Only three other teams have done that in baseball history: 1935 Senators, 1999 Indians, 2003 Red Sox. And the best thing we can say about those three clubs is … I’ll just leave you with this clip:

And finally, putting it all together for our Obscure Yankeemetric of the Series: Yankees are the first team in MLB history (or at least since 1908) with at least eight extra-base hits, including four homers, in back-to-back-back games.

And that might not have even been the best #FunFact from this game

Gleyber Torres kicked off the dinger party with a 418-foot blast to left-center field, but he was just getting warmed up at that point, as he went deep (425 feet deep, to be exact) again in the sixth for his first career multi-homer game.

He became the second-youngest (21 years, 159 days) Yankee ever to hit two or more homers in a game, sandwiched between two hackers named Mickey Mantle (20 years, 296 days on August 11, 1952) and Joe DiMaggio (21 years, 212 days on June 24, 1936). And he’s also the third-youngest second baseman with a multi-homer game, trailing Harmon Killebrew (1956) and Bobby Doerr (1939).

Aaron Hicks capped off the homer parade with a two-run shot in the ninth inning. Combined with their five-homer outburst on Saturday in Kansas City, it was their second five-homer game in three days. That last time they pulled off that feat on the road was June 28, 1939 in both games of a doubleheader at Philadelphia’s Shibe Park against the A’s.

(AP)

Doomed by Domingo
For the second night in a row the Yankees were handicapped by a mediocre starting pitching performance, but on Tuesday they couldn’t match Monday’s record-breaking offensive fireworks, and suffered a 6-4 loss to the Rangers.

The hole that Domingo German dug was simply too deep even for this peak 2018 version of the Bronx Bombers, as he allowed six runs before getting pulled in the fourth inning. The wheels came off for him in the second frame, during which the Rangers lead swelled from 3-0 to 5-0 without getting a hit, thanks to three wild pitches, two walks and a plunking. German is first Yankee starter to have three wild pitches in an inning since Roger Clemens on September 8, 2002 against the Tigers.

His final line is something you probably couldn’t even re-create in a video game: 3 2/3 innings, six runs, three walks, four hits, three wild pitches, two homers, hit batter. It also forced us to give out a second Obscure Yankeemetric of the Series.

German is the first Yankee pitcher ever to throw three wild pitches and allow two homers while facing no more than 20 batters in a game. And when you add in the six earned runs he coughed up … only one other pitcher in MLB history has managed to do all that in outing of 20 or fewer batters faced: Senators righty Jim Duckworth against the Twins on August 29, 1963. Duckworth (-3.4 career WAR in 267 innings) is probably not a guy you want to be mentioned in the same sentence as.

(Getty)

The offense did try to rally, spearheaded by a third-inning home run off the bat of Gleyber Torres. At 399 feet, it was somehow the shortest of the seven homers he’d hit in his career through Tuesday. Following his two-homer spectacle on Monday, it still produced another batch of #GleyberGood fun facts.

He was the youngest Yankee to homer in back-to-back games since a 20-year-old Mickey Mantle in July 1952. Even more impressive, at 21 years and 160 days old, he was the youngest player in franchise history with at least three homers in a two-game span, and also the youngest in MLB history to do that as a second baseman.

(USA Today)

#TooManyHomers
It was deja vu all over again for the Yankees, who for the second straight night suffered from an awful starting pitching performance and lost a slugfest to the Rangers, 12-10. This loss, however, was far more painful, as the Yankees blew 4-0 and 10-5 leads and were on the verge of winning their ninth series in a row.

It was the first time in a decade they suffered such a heart-breaking loss, in which they coughed up multiple leads of at least four runs in the same game. The last time it happened was a 10-9 loss on May 27, 2008 against the Orioles.

Didi Gregorius put the Yankees up early with a two-run blast off Rangers southpaw Doug Fister in the opening frame. It was his first homer since April 27, snapping a 75 at-bat homerless streak. That should have been a good omen for this Yankees team, which, prior to Wednesday’s game, led the majors with a 24-3 record when scoring first.

But CC Sabathia couldn’t hold the 4-0 lead, coughing up five runs in the bottom of the fourth, with four of those runs scored via homers by lefties Ronald Guzman and Nomar Mazara. It was just the second time in his career that two lefty batters went deep against Sabathia in the same inning — Johnny Damon and Casey Kotchman homered in the third inning of a 5-1 win by the Rays on August 12, 2011.

The Yankees rallied from that mini-implosion, erupting for six runs in the fifth, and the big blow was a three-run homer by Gleyber Torres. Onto the bullet-point recap for the scorching-hot rookie! At 21 years and 161 days old, he is the ….

  • Youngest Yankee ever to homer in back-to-back-to-back games.
  • Youngest in MLB to pull off the feat since a 20-year-old Giancarlo (Mike) Stanton for the Marlins in September 2010.
  • Third-youngest AL player to go deep in three consecutive games; only guys younger than Torres were Babe Ruth in 1916 (21 years, 128 days) and Ted Williams in 1939 (21 years, 0 days).

It was also the Yankees’ third homer of the night, as they established a new franchise record with their fifth straight game hitting at least three home runs. Incredibly, all five games have been away from the Bronx. They are just the fourth team in MLB history to hit three or more homers in five straight road games, joining the 2017 Cardinals, 1996 A’s and 1996 Orioles.

(AP)

The home run derby continued a couple batters later when Aaron Judge destroyed a 92-mph fastball, sending it 471 feet and way over the center-field wall for the third-longest homer of his career. He is the only MLB player with three homers of at least 470 feet since the start of last season.

And that gave the Yankees 21 homers in their last five games, matching the Major-League record for the most homers in a five-game span, set by the 1977 Red Sox and 1999 Reds (Aaron Boone had three homers during that streak!).

Alas, all those homers were for naught as the Yankees still lost despite putting up double-digit runs and hitting a quartet of longballs. Howevahhhhhhh …

If you need something to feel good about, and you’re into weird coincidences, there’s this stat: The last time the Yankees lost a game in which they scored at least 10 runs and hit at least four homers was a 12-10 loss to the Rangers in Texas on August 23, 1998. That season turned out okay, right?

Yankeemetrics: The Royal Dinger Party in KC (May 18-20)

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(AP)

Road less traveled
The Yankees arrived in Kansas City a travel-weary and rusty team, having endured a nightmarish trip out of D.C. and a stretch of four straight days without completing a game. And, well, the Yankees predictably played like a travel-weary and rusty team on Friday night in their 5-2 loss to a Royals team that entered the series with the second-worst record in baseball.

It’s actually pretty rare that the Yankees would lose to a team as bad as the Royals — who were 13-30 (.302) before Friday — this late into the season. It was only the second time in the last eight years (since 2011) that the Yankees were beaten by a team with a win percentage of .302 or worse at least 40 games into the schedule. The other instance was a 7-4 loss to a 20-48 Twins team on June 19, 2016.

While there were multiple cold bats in the lineup on Friday, none have been as deep in the freezer as Didi Gregorius. After going 0-for-4, this became officially the worst 10-game slump of his career, no matter what offensive metric you use. In the 10 games from May 4-May 18, he had a .024/.089/.024 slashline, .113 OPS, .051 wOBA and -83 wRC+. All of those stats are the worst he’s ever had in any 10-game stretch in his career. Yikes!

Prior to Friday, CC Sabathia had been so dominant at Kauffman Stadium in his Yankee career, going 5-0 with a 1.42 ERA in five starts. That was the lowest ERA by any Yankee pitcher who had made at least two starts at the ballpark. But he was in trouble from the start, and while he was certainly hurt by a couple misplays in the field, he still had a subpar night with four runs and eight baserunners allowed in five innings. This was his second straight poor outing in a row, after he’d put together one of the best four-start stretches of his career from April 19-May 4:

CC Sabathia Since April 19
ERA IP R ER H BB
Last 2 Starts 6.00 9 8 6 13 4
Previous 4 Starts 0.39 23.1 4 1 14 3
(USA Today)

Bronx Bombers are back
The Yankees rebounded from one of their most sluggish efforts of the season with a typical Bronx Bomber-style offensive explosion, belting five homers en route to an 8-3 win. Even before they took the field, the Yankees made history. All nine guys in the starting lineup were 28 years old or younger, the first time the Yankees have done that since Sept. 26, 1970, and the first time ever this early into the season (43rd game) they’ve had a starting nine with every guy under age 29.

Luis Severino battled through six innings without his best stuff, allowing 10 baserunners and three runs while striking out six. It’s that last number that’s important for Yankeemetrics, because it meant that he joined an exclusive — though sorta arbitrary — club of decent pitchers:

Most Consecutive Road Starts with at least 6 K
Starts Years
Randy Johnson 33 1998-00
Pedro Martinez 28 1999-01
Randy Johnson 25 2000-02
Luis Severino 20 2017-18

Aaron Hicks kicked off the dinger party with an inside-the-parker to the corner in deep right field, his second home run of the season that didn’t go over the fences. Here they are, side-by-side, one as righty and one as a lefty:

(mlb.com)

An amazing statistical feat like this gets our finest bullet-point treatment:

Gleyber Torres was the next Bronx Bomber to go deep, breaking a 2-2 tie in the fourth inning with a monster three-run shot to left field, his first career homer on the road. That gave him 15 career RBI, making him the youngest Yankee (21 years, 157 days old) to that milestone that since a 19-year-old rookie named Mickey Mantle in 1951.

Although this was just his fourth homer as big leaguer, he definitely hasn’t produced any cheapies or boring blasts so far. All four have gone at least 407 feet, and three of the four have been tie-breaking shots in games the Yankees eventually won.

Gary Sanchez extended the lead with a homer in the seventh and another in the ninth. He now has 10 career multi-homer games, just the fourth Yankee to have double-digit multi-homer games before age 26. The guys he’s chasing? Joe DiMaggio (17), Mickey Mantle (14) and Lou Gehrig (13).

(Getty)

Finally, a Sonny Sunday
The Yankees won their eighth straight series thanks to a 10-1 rout on Sunday, as Sonny Gray delivered an absolute gem and the Yankee bats produced another explosive power-hitting show in Kansas City. It’s the first time they’ve won eight series in a row since a nine-series streak in July/August 1998.

For the second straight day the Yankees were spraying balls deep into the outfield gaps and over the fences, crushing four homers, two doubles and two triples among their 14 hits. And with that combo, the entire team earns our Obscure Yankeemetric of the Series: This is just the second time in the last 50 seasons that they’ve piled up at least four homers, multiple doubles and multiple triples in a game. The other was a wild 15-13 win over the Rangers in Texas on May 6, 1998.

Probably more impressive — given historically how tough it is to go deep at the K — is this note: the Yankees are just the second visiting team in the history of Kauffman Stadium (built in 1973) to hit at least four home runs in back-to-back games within a series at the ballpark (2003 White Sox are the other). Or maybe you prefer this comparison:

The big bopper on Sunday was Tyler Austin, who belted two homers for his second career multi-homer game (both this season), including a mammoth 440-foot blast in the fourth inning that is the longest of his career. Combined with his 405-foot shot in the ninth, he now has six 400-plus-foot homers this season, tying Gary Sanchez and Giancarlo Stanton for the team lead.

Miguel Andujar had a day at the plate, too, falling a double short of the cycle. The only other Yankee third baseman since 2000 with a home run and a triple in the same game was Alex Rodriguez on September 15, 2005 at Tampa Bay.

The best highlight of the game, however, was the brilliant outing by Gray. He retired the first 14 Kansas City batters and tossed eight sparkling innings, allowing just one run on four hits. He was sharp, efficient and in total control nearly the entire afternoon, and most importantly, pitched aggressively early in the count. He threw first-pitch strikes to 22 of 29 batters (75.9%), his best rate in any game as a Yankee. Gray entered Friday with a career-low 53.2 percent first-pitch strike rate, 10th-worst in MLB. How important is strike one for Gray?

OPS Allowed (before Sunday)
Gray MLB Avg
After 0-1 .626 .609
After 1-0 1.045 .828