River Avenue Blues

Didi Gregorius is coming back this weekend and it is not a moment too soon

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Everybody loves Didi. (Presswire)

Nothing is official yet, but all signs point to Didi Gregorius rejoining the Yankees for tonight’s series opener against the Mariners. He’s been out since August 21st with a bruised left heel — how he bruised his left heel on this play, I’ll never know — and all his rehab work the last few days has gone well. Gregorius has been hitting, running, the whole nine. He is expected back in the lineup tonight.

“He had a good day and we are looking at probably activating him Friday,” said Aaron Boone to George King on Wednesday. “In a lot of ways, he is one of the heartbeats of this club. He is in the middle of the diamond and playing a premium position as well as he does (and) gives us a lefty presence in the middle of the lineup. Kind of the captain of the infield out there. Just looking forward to his presence back in our lineup on both sides of the ball.”

Gleyber Torres has made a few careless errors but has otherwise filled in capably at shortstop while Gregorius was on the disabled list. Adeiny Hechavarria has helped out as well. The issue hasn’t been shortstop while Didi has been out. It’s been second base. With Gleyber shifting over to short, it has largely been Neil Walker and Ronald Torreyes at second base since Gregorius got hurt, and, uh:

  • SS while Didi hurt: .382/.460/.655 (204 wRC+) with five homers
  • 2B while Didi hurt: .130/.226/.185 (14 wRC+) with no homers

Goodness. The Yankees capably replaced Gregorius at shortstop by shifting Gleyber over. No one bothered to replace Torres at second. Once Didi returns, hopefully tonight, that second base black hole on offense goes away and I think the defense improves at both positions as well. Gregorius is better in the field than Torres, and Torres is better in the field than the Walker/Torreyes tandem. The Yankees will be better on both sides of the ball.

Also, Gregorius will add another left-handed bat to the lineup and wow do the Yankees need it. Greg Bird has been relegated to the bench, Walker’s bat has cooled, and Brett Gardner has had a bad second half. That all left the switch-hitting Aaron Hicks as the team’s most reliable left-handed bat while Gregorius has been sidelined. Hicks has been awesome — he’s hit .260/.415/.445 (139 wRC+) with more walks (20.7%) than strikeouts (19.1%) in the second half — but yeah, another reliable left-handed bat will be a welcome addition.

The Yankees have played some uninspired baseball the last week and a half — you can go back further than that, but it’s been really uninspired the last week and a half — and I don’t think Gregorius returning will fix it. Didi’s a ballplayer, not a miracle worker. He’ll help, for sure, but the Yankees have some deeper issues to fix. Luis Severino has been terrible and that is the team’s single biggest problem as far as I’m concerned. Gardner has vanished, Bird is unplayable, Giancarlo Stanton has been slumping, Aaron Judge is still out, so on and so forth.

For now, the Yankees are about to get one of their best players back from the disabled list, and that is undeniably a good thing. Gregorius improves the offense and the defense, and he’s a high-energy glue guy. The Yankees will be that much closer to full strength once he returns this weekend. They still have a bunch of other problems to figure out, but righting the ship is a multi-part process, and getting Didi back is a big part of that process.

Update: The Yankees reinstated Gregorius from the disabled list this afternoon, the team announced. He will officially be back in action tonight. Hooray for that.

Mailbag: Boone, Ohtani, Sanchez, Severino, Seigler, 40-Man

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Only seven questions in the mailbag this week as we’ve seem to have hit the annual “ugh why isn’t the season over yet just get to the postseason” part of the calendar. Less than four weeks to go in the regular season, folks. As always, RABmailbag (at) gmail (dot) com is where you should send your questions each week.

Boone. (Presswire)

Dan asks: What are the chances actually part ways with Boone at the end of the season? What would need to happen for that to take place? Losing the wild card game? Making an egregious mistake/move? When David Cone was in the R2C2 pod, he mentioned that when he saw Boone at a hotel bar earlier in the season that he gained more respect for him making himself available like that. But just having a good personality doesn’t necessarily mean he’s a solid manager.

There is basically a 0% chance Aaron Boone will be fired after the season. Barring an outright mutiny in the clubhouse (that ain’t happening with this group) or an unknown behind-the-scenes matter (remember when Dave Eiland was mysteriously fired?), Boone is here for the long haul. The Yankees knew they were getting an inexperienced rookie manager — that was the gamble they knowingly took — and they’re willing to live with the short-term growing pains in exchange for what they expect to be a big long-term reward. He’s a prospect, basically.

Boone has undeniably made some baffling on-field decisions this year. I don’t like Gleyber Torres hitting ninth at this point and the A.J. Cole obsession is pretty bad. Every manager does weird stuff like this though. Year One was always going to be something of a trial-and-error year for Boone. You could argue turning this team with these expectations over to a rookie manager was a bad idea, but the Yankees knew the risk, and they went with Boone anyway. He’ll get plenty of time to grow and develop as a manager. They’re not pulling the plug after one season, especially when they’re still on pace to win over 100 games.

Keane asks: Knowing what we know about Ohtani now, would you still sign him last December if you could? He won’t be back until 2020, but you’ll get four years of team control.

Absolutely. Shohei Ohtani is a star and I think he’s a generational talent. The guy is hitting .287/.367/.579 (157 wRC+) with 18 homers in 279 plate appearances while throwing 51.2 innings with a 3.31 ERA (3.56 FIP) and 29.9% strikeouts. Small sample sizes? Yes. The talent is undeniable though. Ohtani put up Aaron Judge (156 wRC+) and Charlie Morton (3.14 ERA and 3.59 FIP) numbers while dealing with that ongoing elbow injury. He showed he can handle MLB velocity at the plate and overwhelm hitters from the mound. What an awesome, fun player.

The Tommy John surgery absolutely sucks, but the Angels got this guy for nothing. The Angels gave him a $2.315M bonus and they control him for six years (ages 23-38) like every other rookie under the dumb international bonus rules. It’s a minimal commitment for a massive talent. Assuming Ohtani comes back a full-time two-way player in 2020, losing a year and a half of his six years of control to injury really stinks, but I’d happily sign up for the other four and a half years. I really wish the Yankees could’ve signed Ohtani. Alas.

Blaise asks: Since Sanchez has been on the DL I feel like our SP’s haven’t been as effective with Romine and Higgy behind the plate. In my opinion Sanchez is a much better game manager than Romine & Higgy, and because of that opponents swing and miss more often with Sanchez behind the plate compared to when Romine & Higgy are catching. Is this accurate?

For whatever reason hitters have swung and missed more when Gary Sanchez has been behind the plate this season. I’m not sure this is a good way to gauge game management or pitch-calling or things like that because, as always, the guy on the mound matters. The catcher can have the perfect plan and call the perfect pitches, and things can still go wrong. It’s still up to the pitcher to execute. Here are some numbers:

K% BB% Whiff% Out of Zone Called Strike In Zone Called Ball
Sanchez 27.2% 8.0% 29.9% 6.0% 4.6%
Romine 25.9% 8.3% 27.7% 5.6% 3.9%
Higgy 27.2% 7.4% 28.1% 5.5% 3.0%
MLB AVG 22.1% 8.4% 24.8% 5.2% 4.2%

Compared to Austin Romine and Kyle Higashioka (and the MLB average), Sanchez gets more called strikes on pitches out of the zone and also more balls called on pitches in the zone. The difference is tiny though. A handful of calls per 1,000 pitches in/out of the zone. Even with PitchFX and Statcast and all that, I don’t think we’re anywhere close to reliably measuring a catcher’s game-calling and game management.

Carlos asks: Ok, I know is a late question and probably lots of one side perception. But what is the Yankees 1st Inning ERA and how we rank against the league? It just seems we are always down after the first.

Historically, more runs are scored in the first inning than any other inning because it is the only inning in which the top of the order is guaranteed to bat, and teams (usually) stack their best hitters at the top of the lineup. Back in the day a lot of runs were scored in the sixth and seventh innings as well, though that really isn’t the case anymore because teams have quicker hooks with their tiring starters.

The Yankees have allowed a lot of first inning runs lately but, overall, they’ve been better than league average in the first inning. Here’s the inning-by-inning breakdown:

  • 1st inning: 4.24 ERA (MLB rank: 10th; MLB average: 4.65 ERA)
  • 2nd inning: 4.18 ERA (MLB rank: 20th; MLB average: 3.72 ERA)
  • 3rd inning: 2.51 ERA (MLB rank: 2nd; MLB average: 3.90 ERA)
  • 4th inning: 4.76 ERA (MLB rank: 22nd; MLB average: 4.27 ERA)
  • 5th inning: 4.50 ERA (MLB rank: 18th; MLB average: 4.32 ERA)
  • 6th inning: 4.76 ERA (MLB rank: 21st; MLB average: 4.27 ERA)
  • 7th inning: 3.15 ERA (MLB rank: 4th; MLB average: 4.17 ERA)
  • 8th inning: 3.24 ERA (MLB rank: 5th;  MLB average: 4.18 ERA)
  • 9th inning: 2.56 ERA (MLB rank: 1st; MLB average: 3.79 ERA)
  • Extras: 3.03 ERA (MLB rank: 10th; MLB average: 3.80 ERA)

Not surprisingly, the Yankees are much better in the late innings than the early innings thanks to their bullpen. Kinda weird they’re so good in the third inning. Is there a trick to being a good third inning team? Or is it just a coincidence? It is almost certainly the latter.

RJ asks: Will Sevy win the AL Cy Young if he ends up leading the league in wins?

Probably not. The prevailing narrative says the Cy Young voting changed after Felix Hernandez won the award with a 13-12 record in 2010, but eleven of the 14 Cy Young winners since then have been the league leader in wins, so I’m not sure that really holds water. Maybe it’s all one giant coincidence.

Anyway, thanks to his ongoing slump, I think Severino is too far down the leaderboard in other categories to win the Cy Young. His ranks among AL starters:

  • Wins: 17 (2nd)
  • Innings: 173.2 (7th)
  • ERA: 3.52 (11th)
  • ERA+: 125 (10th)
  • FIP: 3.04 (4th)
  • Strikeouts: 202 (5th)
  • K/BB ratio: 4.81 (5th)
  • fWAR: +4.8 (6th)
  • bWAR: +4.0 (8th)

Severino’s been good but others have been better, specifically Chris Sale, Corey Kluber, Gerrit Cole, Justin Verlander, Trevor Bauer, and Blake Snell. Sale, Bauer, and Snell are going to end up throwing like 40 fewer innings than the other Cy Young candidates due to injuries, which will hurt their chances. I feel like the Cy Young is going to fall into Kluber’s lap again, not that he would be undeserving.

George asks: I had seen playing status for first round pick C Anthony Seigler in GCL and then at Pulaski team. It appeared that he was taken out mid game a few weeks ago but have not seen him in box scores or any DL notices. What’s up?

Seigler took a foul tip to the face mask on August 16th and the Yankees shut him down for the rest of the season with a concussion. Pulaski’s season was a week away from ending and there’s no sense in pushing your most recent first round pick — a just turned 19-year-old kid out of high school — after suffering a brain injury. Let him rest up and get ready for next year. Seigler hit .266/.379/.342 (108 wRC+) with more walks (14.7%) than strikeouts (12.6%) in 24 games in his pro debut. My guess is he’ll spend all of next season with Low-A Charleston.

Dave asks: the recent trade for McCutchen removes two more players from the future 40 man roster / rule V roster crunch. How about a quick rundown of who is left on the bubble at the moment?

The Yankees really cleaned up the 40-man roster situation at the trade deadline this year, both July 31st and August 31st. They have nine free agents coming off the roster after the season  (Zach Britton, J.A. Happ, Adeiny Hechavarria, Lance Lynn, Andrew McCutchen, David Robertson, CC Sabathia, Neil Walker, and probably Brett Gardner) and three 60-day DL players to activate (Jacoby Ellsbury, Ben Heller, Jordan Montgomery), which leaves six open 40-man spots. Here are this offseason’s notable Rule 5 Draft eligible prospects:

  • Catchers: Donny Sands
  • Infielders: Dermis Garcia,  Kyle Holder, Hoy Jun Park, Brandon Wagner
  • Outfielders: Trey Amburgey, Pablo Olivares
  • Pitchers: James Reeves, Justus Sheffield

Not the most exciting group. Sheffield will obviously be added to the 40-man — he’s probably coming up once the Triple-A Scranton season ends anyway — and I think there’s a good chance Amburgey, Holder, and Wagner make it as well. None of them project to be impact big leaguers but they all look like quality depth pieces, and all of them have played at Double-A next year, so they’ll be knocking on the door soon.

Remember, the Yankees will need some 40-man spots for big league additions. Britton, Happ, Robertson, Sabathia … those dudes all have to be re-signed or replaced. Can’t just load up the 40-man roster with non-elite prospects, you know? It is super early, but, given the current 40-man outlook, I wonder if the Yankees may look to make a Rule 5 Draft pick this year. They haven’t made a Rule 5 Draft pick since Brad Meyers and Cesar Cabral in 2011. Maybe they’ll look for an arm or a corner bat to compete with Greg Bird in the spring.

DotF: Cortes flirts with no-hitter, Scranton now one win away from IL Championship Series

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Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders (3-0 win over Lehigh Valley) they lead the best-of-five first round series two games to none … one more win sends them to the International League Championship Series for the third straight season

1. CF Shane Robinson: 0-4 — 0-for-9 in the two games
2. LF Mark Payton: 3-4, 2 R, 1 3B — 4-for-8 with a triple and a (walk-off) homer in the series so far
3. SS Gio Urshela: 0-4, 1 RBI, 2 K — drove in a run with a ground out
4. 1B Ryan McBroom: 0-4
5. DH Mike Ford: 1-4, 2 K
6. RF Zack Zehner: 1-2, 1 BB, 1 K
7. 2B L.J. Mazzilli: 1-3
8. C Wilkin Castillo: 1-3, 1 R, 1 HR, 1 RBI, 1 K — he hit two homers in 41 regular season games after signing out of an independent league
9. 3B Rey Navarro: 0-3
LHP Nestor Cortes: 8 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 1 BB, 7 K, 13/2 GB/FB — 63 of 94 pitches were strikes (67%) … he lost the no-hitter with one out in the eighth on a ground ball single back up the middle … total dominance by Nasty Nestor … what a performance
RHP Chance Adams: 1 IP, zeroes, 2 K, 1/0 GB/FB — nine of 12 pitches were strikes … he was on the schedule to pitch tonight, so Cortes wouldn’t have come out for the ninth even if the no-hitter was still intact

Double-A Trenton Thunder (10-4 loss to New Hampshire) they’re down two games to none in the best-of-five first round postseason series, so it’s win or go home time

1. 2B Gosuke Katoh: 1-4, 1 R, 1 HR, 1 RBI, 1 K — led the game off with a homer … it was all downhill from there
PH Jeff Hendrix: 0-0, 1 RBI — pinch-hit sac fly
2. 3B Angel Aguilar: 0-5
3. 1B Brandon Wagner: 1-4, 1 K — 1-for-7 in the series so far
4. LF Trey Amburgey: 0-3, 1 BB — 0-for-7 in the series so far
5. SS Kyle Holder: 2-4, 1 R — 5-for-7 with a walk in the two games
6. RF Dom Thompson-Williams: 1-4, 1 R, 1 HR, 2 RBI, 2 K — led the farm system with 22 homers during the regular season … he joined Trenton for the postseason after spending the regular season in Tampa and Charleston
7. DH Jorge Saez: 2-3, 1 R, 1 BB, 1 K
8. CF Rashad Crawford: 1-2, 1 2B, 1 BB, 1 K
PH Wendell Rijo: 1-1, 1 2B
9. C Chris Rabago: 1-3, 1 2B, 1 BB
RHP Nick Green: 1.2 IP, 6 H, 5 R, 5 ER, 1 BB, 1 K, 1 HR, 1 HB, 4/0 GB/FB — fourth time in his last six starts that he allowed at least five runs
LHP Phil Diehl: 2.1 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 3 K, 4/0 GB/FB — 24 of 36 pitches were strikes (67%) … including the regular season, he’s at 111/23 K/BB in 77.2 innings
RHP Jordan Foley: 2 IP, 3 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 1 BB, 1 K, 1 HB, 2/2 GB/FB — 29 of 42 pitches were strikes (69%) … 2014 fifth rounder finished the regular season with a 2.98 ERA and 67/35 K/BB in 66.1 innings
RHP Chase Hodson: 1.1 IP, 1 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 2 BB, 1 K, 0/2 GB/FB — 20 of 39 pitches were strikes (51%)
LHP Justin Kamplain: 0.2 IP, 1 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 1 BB, 1 K, 0/1 GB/FB — seven of 13 pitches were strikes … allowed both runners he inherited from Hodson to score … Green wasn’t good, but the bullpen allowed five runs in 6.1 innings to let the game get out of hand

The season is over for the High-A Tampa Tarpons, the Low-A Charleston RiverDogs, the Short Season Staten Island Yankees, the Rookie Pulaski Yankees, and the two Rookie GCL Yankees affiliates. None of those teams qualified for the postseason.

For the Yankees, Luis Severino’s continued ineffectiveness is a much bigger problem than Sanchez’s blocking

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(Ezra Shaw/Getty)

What a mess of a first inning last night. Somehow stranding the bases loaded in the top of the first was the least bad part of it all. Luis Severino, with an assist (four assists, really) from Gary Sanchez, allowed four runs in the bottom of the first to dig a daunting early hole. The Yankees could never climb out of it.

Understandably, the conversation after the game revolved around Sanchez and the four — four! — pitches that went to the backstop in that first inning. Two were scored wild pitches, but all four could’ve been passed balls. Maybe the first should’ve been a wild pitch because Severino missed his spot by more than the entire width of the plate. Either way, it was ugly.

“There were a couple of cross-ups, but, at the end of the day, they were near the zone and I feel I have the ability to stop them, and I didn’t,” said Sanchez following the game. Severino blamed a new set of signs on their problems. It was particularly damning that, after the inning, no one spoke to Gary in the dugout (or at least YES didn’t show anyone talking to him). Mistakes happen and usually there’s a “we’ll pick you up” pat on the behind or something like that. Not last night.

Sanchez is a terrible blocker and has been pretty much his entire career. He has a great arm and rates well as a pitch-framer, and prior to this season he was a monster at the plate, so everyone kinda held their nose and looked the other way when a ball got by him. I ran the numbers before the season and found Sanchez’s passed balls led to nine runs scoring last year. Nine. Given everything else he provides, it was a worthwhile trade-off. The bat hasn’t been there this year — hopefully last night’s homer gets him going — which makes the defensive miscues more damning.

This isn’t about Sanchez though, despite his terrible night behind the plate. This is about Severino, who had another bad start, arguably his worst of the season. Sanchez’s passed balls make it easy to overlook that Severino allowed four 100+ mph batted balls to the first five batters he faced. Both Brett Gardner and Andrew McCutchen had balls hit over their heads, and Severino’s problems continued into the second and especially the third innings as well. Six runs (five earned) in 2.2 innings is real bad.

In his last eleven starts now Severino is sporting a 6.83 ERA (4.65 FIP) with a .323/.360/.574 opponent’s batting line. That is pretty close to Christian Yelich (.316/.380/.556). Severino has turned every hitter he’s faced in his last eleven starts into Christian Yelich. Ouch. The trends are scary:

Hard contact allowed is up and fastball velocity is down. Last night Severino’s heater averaged 96.2 mph. Two things about that. One, only seven starting pitchers have a higher average fastball velocity than that this season. And two, that is Severino’s lowest average fastball velocity in any game since April 2016. For mere mortals, it’s great velocity. For Severino, it is down considerably.

I don’t think Severino is hurt — if he is hurt, he’s the first starter I’ve ever seen throw 96+ mph while hurt — but, anytime there’s a decline in velocity, injury is always a possibility. I trust the Yankees are on top of Severino, physically. He’s too important to the team, both short and long-term, to send him out there injured. I think, more than anything, Severino is hitting a wall after last year’s career high workload and shorter than usual offseason to recover.

It is late in the season and it seems to me the Yankees should skip Severino’s next start in an effort to recharge the batteries. The Yankees have an off-day today, an off-day next Thursday, and an off-day the Monday after that. Use a spot starter (Sonny Gray? Luis Cessa? Jonathan Loaisiga?) next week against the Twins and the Yankees will be able to push Severino’s next start all the way back to September 22nd. Doing so accomplished three things:

  1. Gives him a nice long 16-day break between starts in September.
  2. Allows him to make two tune-up starts before the postseason.
  3. Keeps him lined up to start the Wild Card Game on October 3rd.

The Wild Card Game starter is very much up in the air right now. There was no sense in worrying about it a few weeks ago. Now we’re at the point where the Yankees have to start thinking about it. And, right now, I don’t see any way the Yankees could give the ball to Severino in that Wild Card Game. His struggles have gone on too long. It’s not a two or three-start blip. It’s a two or three-month skid.

Given everything we know right now, the Yankees would have to give the ball to either J.A. Happ or Masahiro Tanaka in the Wild Card Game. I’d trust CC Sabathia in that game as well, though my sense is Happ or Tanaka would be the guy. The final 22 games of the regular season — less than that, really, since the Yankees will need some time to make sure the Wild Card Game starter is lined up for the Wild Card Game — figure to be the tiebreaker.

As bad as Sanchez was behind the plate last night — and he was terrible — the larger problem is Severino’s continued fall from grace. He was arguably the best pitcher in the league in the first half and he has inarguably been one of the worst in the second half. I hope it’s just a young pitcher hitting a wall after a big workload last year. Severino wouldn’t be the first young pitcher to go through a lull the year after a career high workload and he wouldn’t be the last.

“We have a few weeks for that kind of stuff to unfold and see where we are at and make those decisions. Do I think those two guys are capable of going out and shoving? Absolutely,” said Aaron Boone last night when asked if the Yankees could start Severino and Sanchez in the Wild Card Game. The passed balls get the most attention and understandably so. They are glaring, easy-to-see mistakes. As far as the team’s World Series chances go, Severino’s continued (and worsening) ineffectiveness is the more serious problem. A deep postseason run may not be possible with this version of Severino.

Yankeemetrics: West Coast nightmare (Sept 3-5)

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(AP)

Ugly homecoming for Sabathia
The Yankees nine-game, 10-day road trip got off to a miserable start in Oakland with a 6-3 loss on Monday afternoon. The three runs masked a lackluster offensive showing, as they were 0-for-5 with runners in scoring position and managed just four hits while striking out 11 times. The last time the Yankees had four or fewer hits and struck out 11 or more times in a game against the A’s … World War II was still more than one month away from officially ending — July 27, 1945.

(AP)

CC Sabathia had one of his worst outings of the season, lasting just 3 1/3 innings while getting tagged for five runs (four earned) on seven hits and lots of loud contact. Six of the 13 balls in play against him were line drives, a season-high rate of 46.2 percent. The Bay Area native now owns a 5.38 career ERA in 11 starts at Oakland Coliseum, his second-highest mark at any stadium where he’s made more than five starts (5.68 at Rangers Ballpark is his worst).

The most impressive Yankee pitching performance was turned in by Jonathan Loaisiga, who threw two scoreless innings with four strikeouts — each of them swinging — and one hit allowed. He was excellent in pounding the outer edges of the zone against righties with his fastball-slider combo, netting six whiffs and six called strikes on 25 pitches.

[Monday vs A’s]
Although Gleyber Torres was 0-for-3 with a walk, it’s still worth noting that Monday was his 100th career game, giving us a chance for a sweet #FunFact to celebrate his century-game milestone in the big leagues:

Torres is one of five players in AL history age 21 or younger with at least 20 homers, a .350 on-base percentage and a .500 slugging percentage through their first 100 career games. The others: Jose Canseco, Tony Conigliaro, Joe DiMaggio and Hal Trosky. Fun list, eh?

King Louis
Thanks to #toomanyhomers, the Yankees overcame another bout of early-inning dead-bats disease and rallied for a 5-1 win on Tuesday night, snapping their five-game losing streak in Oakland. After getting no-hit through 5 2/3 innings, the offense exploded for seven hits and five runs in the final three innings en route to what turned into an easy victory.

This type of late-inning rally has become commonplace for the Yankees, who improved to an impressive 12-6 when tied at the start of the eighth inning. Last year they were 5-7 in those games, and the 12 wins are their most in a season since going 15-0(!) in 2009.

(AP)

The Yankees tied the game at 1-1 in the seventh after an Aaron Hicks bases-loaded walk — his AL-leading fourth bases-loaded walk of the season — and then pulled ahead in the next frame when Luke Voit led off the eighth with a solo home run. It was Voit’s seventh longball with the Yankees, and fifth that either tied the game or gave the team a lead. Obscure Yankeemetric Alert! The last Yankee with a go-ahead homer in the eighth inning or later in Oakland was Jason Giambi on April 14, 2007, a solo shot in the top of the 13th that propelled the Yankees to a 4-3 comeback win.

J.A. Happ bounced back from his worst start as a Yankee to deliver one of his best starts as a Yankee. He made one mistake in his gem (a solo homer in the second inning), but otherwise turned in a masterful six-inning, two-hit, one-run performance. In two outings against the best teams he’s faced as a Yankee — Tuesday vs the A’s and August 14 vs the Rays — he’s pitched a combined 13 innings, faced 45 batters, allowed three hits and just one run in those games.

(Getty)

Terrible terrible Sevy
The Yankees visit to the Bay Area ended with an disaster-filled dud, getting manhandled by the A’s 8-2 on Wednesday night. The Oakland Coliseum has become of house of horrors for the Bombers recently. They are now 7-18 (.280) at the stadium since the 2012 All-Star break, their worst win percentage at any AL ballpark over the last six and a half seasons, and the second-worst win percentage by any AL team there in that span (Twins are 4-16).

Pitching against the team that the Yankees are most likely to face in the Wild Card Game, Luis Severino had his worst start of the season, a total disaster in which he lasted just 2 2/3 innings and was blasted for six runs on six hits. The A’s rocked Severino from the start, as four of the first five batters pounded him with three scorched doubles and a line-drive single, plating four runs before Severino even recorded the second out of the first inning.

Those hits weren’t cheapies, either, they had exit velocities of 109.6, 106.3, 103.1 and 103.8 mph. Before Wednesday, he’d never allowed more than two 103-plus-mph hits in any single inning in his career. His lack of command was startling as Severino not only served up multiple meatball pitches but also threw two wild pitches and Gary Sanchez was charged with two passed balls. Sanchez has allowed 29 passed balls over the last two seasons, the most of any catcher in MLB in that span.

This game was an absolute debacle, yes, but it did produce a notable Milestone Alert. When Severino struck out Stephen Piscotty for the second out, it was his 200th strikeout of the season, the second straight season he’s reached that mark. Two other pitchers in franchise history have recorded multiple 200-K seasons, but none have done it three times.

Also, the 24-year-old became one of seven pitchers in the last four decades to record back-to-back 200-strikeout seasons before the age of 25. The others: Clayton Kershaw (2010-12), Yovani Gallardo (2009-10), Felix Hernandez (2009-10), Roger Clemens (1986-87), Fernando Valenzuela (1984-85) and Dwight Gooden (1984-86).

Thoughts in the middle of the West Coast trip

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(Presswire)

The Yankees are three games into the six-game West Coast swing and the best thing you can say right now is at least they didn’t get swept in Oakland. Good win Tuesday. Great win, really. Let’s not talk about the rest of the series. Onward and upward. Here are some thoughts.

1. My days as a daily lineup complainer are mostly over, but man, I just can’t get on board with Gleyber Torres hitting ninth. I am well aware of the whole “second leadoff hitter” concept and I am generally on board with it. Torres is way too good to use him in that role though. He’s hitting .277/.349/.501 (128 wRC+) overall this season and is 24-for-66 (.364) with four homers, eleven walks, and only 16 strikeouts in the last 19 games. Even as a 21-year-old rookie, that level of production warrants a much higher lineup spot. Not fewer at-bats than literally every other player in the lineup. Think about Tuesday night. Brett Gardner, the leadoff hitter in the lineup and the inning, started a seventh inning rally in which the Yankees loaded the bases with no outs, scored the game-tying run, and sent seven men to the plate. None of the seven was Torres. He never even made it as far as the on-deck circle that inning. Think about that. The No. 1 hitter in the lineup — the guy tasked with setting the table for the team’s best hitters — started the best possible rally (bases loaded with no outs) for the middle of the order, and Gleyber was one of two Yankees to not bat that inning. That shouldn’t happen. Torres is too good to be marginalized like this. I’d probably go with this lineup once Didi Gregorius returns tomorrow:

  1. CF Aaron Hicks
  2. DH Giancarlo Stanton
  3. RF Andrew McCutchen
  4. 3B Miguel Andujar
  5. 2B Gleyber Torres
  6. SS Didi Gregorius
  7. C Gary Sanchez
  8. 1B Luke Voit
  9. LF Brett Gardner

Gardner, a veteran leadoff hitter, would be the second leadoff hitter in that lineup, and the five best hitters would get the most at-bats, with the team leader in on-base percentage (at least while Aaron Judge is out) setting the table from the leadoff spot. It’s not worth the energy to argue whether a guy should hit eighth or ninth, or fifth or sixth, or something like that. This isn’t that though. Torres is hitting ninth and he should probably hitting 3-4-5 somewhere. That’s a big difference. Gleyber’s way too good to be the last guy the Yankees send to the plate in any given game.

2. Speaking of Torres, wow does he look good at shortstop. There have been some careless errors on routine plays, there’s no doubt about that, but those issues aren’t position-specific. He had the same problems at second. Gleyber looks so natural at shortstop, which makes sense because he is a natural shortstop who only moved to second base last year. He played 18 minor league games at second base prior to this season. That’s it. He’s now up to 112 career games at second base. Inexperience and growing pains were inevitable. I never really appreciated how difficult it can be shifting to the other side of the bag until Starlin Castro said it felt like everything was backwards when he moved from short to second. The sloppy errors need to be cleaned up. We’re also talking about a 21-year-old rookie who’s shown very good defensive tools in his range and arm …

… and just needs to gain some consistency. He’s 21, not 31. Give him some time. Seeing Gleyber at shortstop has been real eye-opening to me. He looks so smooth and natural there. Things at second can be a bit more challenging due to his inexperience. Give Torres time and I’m sure he’ll make second base look natural too.

3. As for Miguel Andujar, his defense is bad, folks. Real bad. I am usually a “give the young player some time and see if he improves” guy. Normally I’d say leave Andujar at third base and give him at least next year to show whether he can get better. In this case, Andujar’s defense has been so bad this year that I wonder if the Yankees are looking at a Ryan Braun situation here. Braun came up in 2007 and mashed en route to being named NL Rookie of the Year. He also had one of the worst defensive season since DRS became a thing in 2003, so much so that the Brewers moved him from third base to left field the next season. Andujar isn’t Braun bad at third, but he’s bad. If the Yankees were to move Andujar off the hot corner, the outfield seems like a better idea to me than first base, for three reasons. One, it gets him further away from the plate and gives him more time to react. Two, his arm is a cannon and it would go to waste at first. It’s more useful in the outfield. And three, if you’re trying to hide a guy defensively, moving him to the position involved in the most plays seems like a bad idea. (Between balls in play and throws from other infielders, first basemen have been involved in more than twice as many plays as any other position this year, and more than four times as many as the average corner outfielder.) I’m on the fence about Andujar’s defensive future. If the Yankees decide to stick with him at third a little longer, that works for me. If they decide to move him off the position and into the outfield, that works too. Maybe the endgame here is turning Andujar into a guy who can be in the lineup everyday while rotating between first, third, or in the corner outfield.

4. I have no idea what the Yankees should do with Greg Bird. Luke Voit is mashing and has to keep playing, and because Bird isn’t hitting and doesn’t offer a lick of defensive versatility, there’s no way to get him into the lineup. The Yankees need to DH spot for Stanton’s tender hamstring. I also don’t think the Yankees can simply leave Bird on the bench indefinitely. At some point they have to get him back into the lineup and see whether they can him going, even as a potential pinch-hitter option, otherwise he might not even be worth a postseason roster spot. Once the Yankees start clinching things — the magic number for a postseason spot is 14 and the magic number for the top wildcard spot is 19 — getting Bird into the lineup more regularly seems worthwhile. We saw last October that Bird has the potential to be impactful in big games and the Yankees should want to get him back to that point as soon as possible. Right now, his production doesn’t warrant a lineup spot, certainly not over Voit, so this is something the Yankees should deal with once their postseason ticket is punched later this month.

5. Earlier this season David Robertson toyed with dropping his arm slot and slinging his fastball almost sidearm (example), and now it seems he’s mixing in a few two-seam fastballs. He’s thrown two two-seamers in each of his last three appearances. Prior to that, he hadn’t thrown the pitch since last June, when he was still with the White Sox. Here’s one of those two-seamers:

Huh. That’s interesting. Robertson has been a cutter/curveball pitcher for years and years and years. Since his first stint with the Yankees. Now he’s mixing in a two-seamer — a fastball that moves in the opposite direction of the cutter, which could make it a nice surprise weapon against hitters familiar with him — and the fact he’s thrown it multiple times in his last three outings suggests it’s intentional. The sidearm fastball thing has kinda gone away. Release point data says he hasn’t thrown one of those since April. So maybe that means this two-seamer will go away eventually too. Robertson’s a wily veteran now and he’s a bit of a tinkerer, and the two-seamer is currently the shiny new toy. Either way, sidearm fastball or no sidearm fastball, two-seamer or no two-seamer, Robertson is having yet another excellent season. We’ll see what happens after the year. To me, re-signing him is a no-brainer. He should be a forever Yankee.

6. I’m really bummed about the Clint Frazier news. He suffered a setback at some point over the weekend and the Yankees sent him to see a specialist in Pittsburgh, and now he’s back in Tampa doing … I don’t know what. Probably nothing since they have to wait for the post-concussion symptoms to subside. At this point the primary concern is not baseball. It’s his health and quality of life. Frazier suffered a brain injury when he crashed into that wall in Spring Training, and he’s still feeling the effects six months later. That’s scary. I can’t imagine what it’s like going through that. Hopefully Frazier gets healthy and soon, and can have a normal and productive offseason. He’s still so young, man. He has his entire career and his entire life ahead of him. Hopefully the concussion and migraine issues subside soon and Clint is able to come to Spring Training next year ready to go and able to win a big league job. The injury already cost him a shot at big league time this year when Judge was sidelined. With any luck, Frazier will come through all this okay and be a better player after going through the adversity. Hopefully this is a bump in the road and nothing more, both with regards to his baseball team and his long-term health. Concussions are no joke.

Site News – Comments Disabled

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It was time, but we finally disabled comments on this site.  Before people point fingers about why or how we should re-enable them, I wanted to provide some reasoning.

1. It’s almost impossible to moderate a comments section like RAB’s without a full time person. There are too many comments and too much to delete.

2. While Disqus provides tools, it doesn’t prevent abuse. The tools are never 100%.

3. Warnings and notices of what is considered appropriate have proven to be absolutely pointless in the RAB comments and these types of forums in general.

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5. Once people on the staff begin to receive threats, it’s time to move on.

Thanks for participating in this portion of our history and think you for your continued readership. We just felt it was time to move on from the comments.  Feel free to respond to us on Twitter: @RiverAveBlues.