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River Ave. Blues » Gary Sanchez

The Yanks are fighting for the top wildcard spot because their best players haven’t been at their best for weeks

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(Mike Stobe/Getty)

Eleven losses in the last 19 games and recent series losses to the White Sox, Twins, and Blue Jays. The White Sox and Blue Jays series were at home too. The Yankees are 29-25 since the All-Star break and during that time they’ve a) bombed out of the AL East race, and b) seen their lead on the top wildcard spot trimmed from eight games to 1.5 games. It’s three games in the loss column when you include the tiebreaker, if that makes you feel better.

This weekend’s series loss the Blue Jays was not a bummer out-of-nowhere series loss like that Texas series back in May. It was more of the same from a generally underperforming Yankees squad that has become more and more lifeless as the season has progressed, to point where they are now thoroughly unexciting even while threatening the single-season home run record. How do you manage that? The 2018 Yankees have, somehow.

“You don’t want to go through it, especially when it’s late like this, but we’ve still got plenty of baseball left to get hot. It’s all about what team is hot,” said Aaron Judge, forever the optimist, to Bryan Hoch following yesterday’s game. “If we can get hot here in the last two weeks and take that into the playoffs, we’re going to be in a good position.”

The Yankees have used up pretty much the entire cushion they built in the first half, and now they’re in a mad dash to the finish to clinch homefield advantage in the Wild Card Game. They have 13 games remaining, ten of which will be played against the Rays (four games) and Red Sox (six games). The Athletics, meanwhile, have 12 games remaining. They’ll play nine of them against the Twins (three games) and Angels (six games). Yikes.

The Yankees are where they are right now because, quite simply, their best players have not had the seasons expected of them. Judge gets a pass here because he was so good before the fluke wrist injury that has sidelined him two months now. Everyone else though? This isn’t what anyone expected:

  • Gary Sanchez: Hitting .188/.284/.408 (87 wRC+) in 334 plate appearances overall and is 9-for-47 (.191) since returning from the disabled list (the second time).
  • Luis Severino: A 3.46 ERA (2.99 FIP) in 179.1 innings isn’t bad by any means, but he has been one of the worst pitchers in baseball (6.35 ERA) since the All-Star break.
  • Giancarlo Stanton: Not counting his partial rookie year, he’s on pace for his third worst AVG (.265), second worst OBP (.341), third worst SLG (.501), and second worst wRC+ (125 wRC+).

Dellin Betances, the team’s best reliever, has been generally awesome this season but has had some hiccups lately, including yesterday. Didi Gregorius has been great overall despite that ugly May and the recent heel injury. Masahiro Tanaka has been very good overall and ace-like for more than two months now. The first half wasn’t pretty though. Sonny Gray? Oy vey. Don’t even get me started on him.

On one hand, the fact the Yankees are 91-58 despite Sanchez being terrible, Severino’s second half, Stanton falling far short of expectations, and all that other stuff tells you how strong the rest of the roster has been. Where would the Yankees be without Miguel Andujar and Gleyber Torres? Good gravy. I don’t even want to think about it. Aaron Hicks, David Robertson, Jonathan Holder, J.A. Happ … they’ve all helped pick up the slack.

On the other hand, the American League is so top heavy and competitive — the four best records in baseball belong to AL teams, and the Indians are not one of those four despite already clinching the AL Central title — that the Yankees have no shot at doing anything meaningful in the postseason without getting more from their stars. They might not host the Wild Card Game without getting more from those guys.

Whose fault is it the Yankees’ top players are underperforming? The blame should always start with the players. In Severino’s case, it’s possible he’s feeling the effects of last year’s career-high workload. Wouldn’t surprise me one bit. Stanton is presumably dealing with a ton of pressure in his first season with the team, which would be a lame excuse, but an excuse nonetheless. Gary? He doesn’t have an excuse. Unless he’s been hiding an injury and playing hurt all year, there’s no good reason for him to have a season like this.

Of course, there were times Sanchez and Severino and Stanton produced at a truly elite rate earlier this year. Severino was brilliant in the first half. Stanton hit .288/.360/.549 (142 wRC+) from May 1st through August 31st and did much of that with one good hamstring. Sanchez hit .292/.396/.681 (185 wRC+) during a 31-game span from mid-April through mid-May. That success was a long time ago though. Same for Severino.

Look around at the other top AL contenders and they have key players having the best seasons of their career. Mookie Betts and J.D. Martinez for the Red Sox. Francisco Lindor and Jose Ramirez with the Indians. Alex Bregman with the Astros. Matt Chapman with the Athletics. Not necessarily career years, those guys might get even better going forward — that is especially true for Lindor, Bregman, and Chapman — but this is their best season to date.

The Yankees don’t have a single player like that. Maybe Gregorius and Hicks? I mean, yeah, definitely Gregorius and Hicks, but they’ve been more comfortably above-average than star-caliber. Imagine how good the Yankees would be if Sanchez and Stanton were performing up to their career norms, and Didi and Hicks were doing what they’re doing? Imagine how much easier it would be to deal with Severino’s struggles if Gray wasn’t a mess?

What’s done is done. Can’t go back and change it. The only thing the Yankees can do it be better going forward, and the first step in being a better team is getting the best players to actually be the best players. We all love Andujar and Gleyber. Things were much better when they were like the fourth and fifth best players on the team though, not the best and second best. Those two have done a lot of heavy lifting lately. The Yankees’ best players haven’t played up to snuff for weeks now, in some cases months, and the result is a small margin for error in the standings.

“We’ve got to play better, clearly. We’re not playing our best right now, but the history of this game is littered with stories of teams that went into the playoffs in different scenarios — limping, playing great — the bottom line is you’ve got to be playing right when it counts,” said Aaron Boone to Coley Harvey following yesterday’s game. “Don’t mistake that for, ‘This is okay.’ Still believe at my core that we have everyone in that room to do something special. We’re getting pushed around a little bit right now because it’s difficult and we’re not quite at our best. This thing ain’t even close to done.”

Gary and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Season

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(Getty)

What if I told you Gary Sanchez would have an 11% walk rate and a .225 ISO in 2018, and would be on the verge of 20 homers despite missing more than a month of baseball? You’d likely say Gary was having a pretty damn good year.

But given what his season stat line looks like, what can we say about his season other than what’s in the title of this post? Almost nothing has gone right for him this year in terms of both performance and health. The latter does, however, seem to be cleared up, but the performance hasn’t come around like we expected it to earlier in the year. What gives?

In at least one way–his basic batted ball profile–things look fairly similar to 2017. There are hardly any differences in his tendencies to pull, go up the middle, or hit to the opposite field. Some other things that look similar are his ground ball and fly ball rates. Despite those similarities, there are trouble spots.

His line drive rate has plummeted to 14.9%. Predictably, this has led to an increase in infield fly balls as well as a decrease in HR/FB%, the former increasing almost 9% and the latter dropping around 7%. That combination is not a recipe for success for any player who isn’t slashing the ball around the field, using his speed to get on base. Sanchez is not that type of player.

One culprit for the change in results for 2018 has been the slider and his lack of production against that pitch type. In 2017, he hit fairly well against the slider, racking up line drives on 27% of the sliders he put in play, as well as cranking out a homer about 21% of the time he put sliders in the air. Additionally, his pop up percentage per balls in play was low at just under 6%. Things have not gone as well in 2018.

His LD/BIP% has dropped to below 19%. The PU/BIP% has skyrocketed to almost 15%. The HR/(FB+LD)% has dropped to a tragically low 5.56%. Sanchez has also had issues with the slider’s forebear: the curveball.

Gary’s whiffed on 49% of the curveballs he’s swung at. That’s trouble no matter what happens when you actually do hit the ball. But when he’s done that, it’s mostly been weak contact, as he’s rocking a paltry LD/BIP% of under 12% on the deuce.

His Statcast data offers a mixed bag in terms of explanation for what’s going on. On the plus side, Sanchez’s contact profile suggests he’s way underperforming. His real wOBA? .307. His expected wOBA? .364. But on the flip side of that, his performance against non-fastballs has been so dismal that it’s hard to say he ‘deserves’ to be hitting better. Against offspeed pitches, he has a wOBA of just .189 with an xWOBA of .214. Against breaking pitches? wOBA: .203. xWOBA: .285. A lot of the difference in overall wOBA and overall xWOBA is the fact that despite a .388 wOBA on fastballs, he’s underperforming there, too, with an xWOBA of .437.

This has been a worst case scenario season for Sanchez. What could go wrong has gone wrong. Despite that, he still does have an outside shot at 20 homers and does have the rest of September and October to make meaningful contributions. If he does that, all of this will just be noise. Perhaps I’m too much of a Stan for Sanchez, but I have a hard time thinking he’ll repeat this type of season next year.

Yankeemetrics: End of road, hello rock bottom (Sept. 10-12)

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(Getty)

Welcome back, El Gary
Monday’s series opener in Minnesota had a familiar feel through the first five innings: too many wasted scoring opportunities amid mounting pressure to beat up on a below-average team. Locked in a pitchers duel, Gary Sanchez broke a scoreless tie with a solo homer in the sixth, and then the Yankees bats finally woke up in the next frame as they exploded for six seventh-inning runs en route to the 7-2 win. At 90-54 on the season, this was the fastest to 90 wins for the team since 2009, when they reached the mark in their 140th game.

Sanchez’s home run was a titanic blast that traveled an estimated 460 feet into the left field seats, his second home run this season of 460-plus feet (other was a 461-foot shot on May 4 against the Indians). He is one of four players this season to hit two 460-plus-foot bombs, along with Trevor Story, Joey Gallo and Carlos Gonzalez.

The most interesting part of Sanchez’s two mammoth homers is that they couldn’t have been more different in terms of their vertical location, highlighting his ability to crush pitches regardless of where they’re thrown. On Monday, Sanchez somehow golfed a pitch that was at his shins and sent it into the upper deck at Target Field; back in May, he tomahawked an elevated fastball deep into the left field bleachers at Yankee Stadium.

Through Monday, there had been 32 homers hit at least 460 feet. Sanchez’s against the Twins came on a pitch that crossed home plate just 1.2 feet off the ground, the lowest in the 32-homer sample. His one against the Indians in May came on a pitch that crossed home plate just 3.6 feet off the ground, the highest in the 32-homer sample.

Miguel Andujar ignited the fireworks in the seventh inning with an RBI double, his 40th two-bagger of the season. Cue the Joe-D comparisons:

Andujar is one of 14 Yankees all-time to hit at least 40 doubles and 20 homers in a season, but he is the first third baseman to achieve the feat in franchise history. And impressively, only five other American League rookies as young as (or younger than) the 23-year-old Andujar have produced a 40-double, 20-homer season:

AL Rookies Age 23 or Younger 20+ HR and 40+ Doubles
Year
Miguel Andujar 2018
Nomar Garciaparra 1997
Fred Lynn 1975
Ted Williams 1939
Joe DiMaggio 1936
Hal Trosky 1934

Slammed!
One up, one down continues to be an annoying trend for the Yankees this month. They followed up Monday’s win with an embarrassing and disappointing 10-5 loss on Tuesday. The Twins pummeled the Yankees pitching from start to finish, roughing up starter Sonny Gray for three runs in the first three innings, and then turning the game into an unsightly rout with seven more runs on nine hits against the bullpen.

After his implosion against the Twins, Gray’s ERA as a starter is 5.26 in 23 games. Since 2001, three other Yankee pitchers have finished a season with an ERA that high in as many starts as Gray: A.J. Burnett (5.26 in 2010), Javier Vazquez (5.56 in 2010) and Jeff Weaver (5.73 in 2003).

Jonathan Loaisiga took over for Gray and was somehow worse, tagged for six runs while getting just four outs. The six runs matched the same number he had allowed in his first 20 major-league innings pitched before Tuesday.

(AP)

Three of those runs came courtesy of a grand slam allowed by Tommy Kahnle, who inherited a bases-loaded, one-out jam in the fifth and poured gasoline on the fire when Joe Mauer deposited a center-cut fastball into the seats. It was the first grand slam allowed by Kahnle in his big-league career.

Kahnle has now inherited 11 baserunners and allowed eight of them (73%) to score. Among the 200-plus pitchers with at least 10 innings pitched and 10 inherited runners this season, that inherited score rate is the highest in MLB (the league average rate is 31%).

Didi Gregorius kept the game from being a total disaster with his own grand slam in the sixth, his third career dinger with the bases loaded and second this season. He is the first shortstop in franchise history to hit multiple grand slams in a season.

Both of his slams this year came against the Twins (also on April 23 at in the Bronx), giving us our #FunFact of the series. Here’s the list of Yankees to hit multiple grand slams against the Twins/Senators franchise since 1925:

  • Lou Gehrig (5)
  • Babe Ruth (3)
  • Mickey Mantle (2)
  • Alex Rodriguez (2)
  • Didi Gregorius (2)

Nearly no-hit
The Yankees dropped a rare series in Minnesota thanks to Wednesday night’s debacle, a 3-1 loss in which they nearly got no-hit by Jake Odorizzi. They entered this series 20-8 all-time at Target Field, the best record by any AL team at the ballpark and the Yankees best record at any current AL stadium.

Their offensive struggles reached near-DEFCON-1 levels with Odorizzi taking a no-hitter into the eighth inning before Greg Bird drilled a one-out RBI double into the left-centerfield gap. It was the longest the Yankees had been held without a hit since September 11, 2014 when Rays righty Alex Cobb had his no-hitter broken up with one out in the eighth inning by a double from Chris Young.

(Getty)

Bird might have been one of the most unlikely Yankees to make sure the team wouldn’t be on the wrong side of history. It was his first hit since August 29 and his first RBI since August 19. Bird had one hit in his previous 30 at-bats dating back to August 19 before Wednesday’s miracle hit.

Luis Severino delivered a strong bounceback effort with one run allowed on four hits in 5 2/3 innings. After giving up a leadoff single, he retired 15 straight guys before getting into trouble in the sixth. It was his fewest runs given up since July 1, when he threw 6 2/3 scoreless innings against the Red Sox. In between those dates — 11 games from July 7 through September 5 — Severino posted a 6.83 ERA and batters had a .934 OPS against him.

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.

Yankees activate Sanchez; call up Cessa, Wade, and Tarpley

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(Mike Ehrmann/Getty)

September 1st has arrived and that means rosters have expanded. Teams can carry up to 40 players through the end of the season rather than the usual 25. Most teams will wind up carrying 30-35 players this month. Every team will have extra relievers and bench players starting today.

The Yankees announced a series of call-ups and roster moves today. A recap:

  • Andrew McCutchen and Adeiny Hechavarria added to the active roster.
  • Gary Sanchez activated off the 10-day DL.
  • Tyler Wade and Luis Cessa recalled from Triple-A Scranton.
  • Stephen Tarpley added to 40-man roster and promoted to MLB.

Andrew McCutchen! The Yankees acquired McCutchen from the Giants yesterday and he spent the day traveling to New York. He wasn’t put on the active roster yesterday because there was no reason to do so. He wasn’t going to be available and there’s no sense in playing with a 24-man roster. McCutchen is in today’s lineup. Hooray. I’m not sure whether Hechavarria, who came over in a trade late last night, is with the team yet. No harm in adding him to the roster now that rosters have expanded though.

The big news is Sanchez returning from the disabled list. For all intents and purposes, he’s missed the last two months with a groin injury. He went on the disabled list June 25th, returned July 19th, played three games, then returned to the disabled list after reaggravating the groin injury. All told, Gary has missed 54 games with the groin injury and reaggravation of the groin injury.

While Sanchez was out the Austin Romine/Kyle Higashioka catching tandem hit .201/.258/.350 in 231 plate appearances and opponents went 43-for-56 (77%) stealing bases. The overall team ERA also went from 3.43 to 3.72 during Sanchez’s absence. It has not been pretty behind the plate the last few weeks. I’m looking forward to Gary being back and him getting back to being the player he was last year.

The other big news today is Tarpley’s call-up. The left-hander came over as one of the two players to be named later in the Ivan Nova trade with the Pirates, and thanks to a new pitch and a new role, he posted a 1.94 ERA (3.23 FIP) with 25.6% strikeouts, 9.4% walks, and 68.1% grounders in 69.2 innings between Double-A and Triple-A this year. That 68.1% ground ball rate is the highest among the 1,011 minor leagues with at least 65 innings pitched in 2018.

Tarpley will be making his big league debut, and, like most first time September call-ups, I expect him to work in mop-up duty, at least at first. He held left-handed batters to a .148/.219/.193 batting line in the minors this year and could always get the call in low-to-mid-leverage left-on-left spots. Phil Coke quickly worked his way into the Circle of Trust™ in September 2008. Maybe Tarpley can do the same in September 2018. That’d be cool.

The Yankees have not yet announced a 40-man roster move for Tarpley. I wonder if it’ll be Shane Robinson now that McCutchen is with the team and Wade, who can also play the outfield, has been added to the roster. The Yankees might be waiting to make sure no one gets hurt during batting practice today before announcing Robinson has been designated for assignment, assuming he is the move. That’s a fairly common practice.

Update: Yep, Robinson has been designated for assignment, the Yankees announced. That’s the 40-man move for Tarpley.

Cessa and Wade have been up and down a bunch this season and are just extra bodies now that rosters have expanded. Wade is a speedy utility guy who can play pretty much anywhere. With Quintin Berry not being called up (not yet, anyway), I assume Wade takes over as the designated pinch-runner. Cessa is stretched out as a long man, so now the Yankees have him and Sonny Gray available for long relief work for whenever things go haywire.

Notably absent among today’s call-ups: Justus Sheffield. Aaron Boone said yesterday Sheffield would not be called up today, but could be later this month. I think it’ll happen fairly soon. Sheffield moved to the Triple-A bullpen last week in preparation for a call-up, but he missed a few games with an illness earlier this week, and fell behind a bit. I expect him to come up after one or two more relief appearances with the RailRiders.

As always, more call-ups will take place throughout September. Sheffield will be up at some point and I assume Chance Adams will as well. Probably once Triple-A Scranton’s season ends, which could be as soon as Monday. Berry is another call-up candidate. Domingo German and Jonathan Loaisiga will likely return later this month, plus Aroldis Chapman and Didi Gregorius will eventually be activated off the disabled list, hopefully soon.

Game 135: Still waiting for Good Sevy to return

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(Jim McIsaac/Getty)

So. The Yankees lost that stupid game last night. It was annoying. Nothing they can do about it now though. The best and worst thing about baseball is that they play every single day. Can’t enjoy the successes or dwell on the failures too long. There’s another game tomorrow, or in this case, today.

Tonight we again turn our attention to Luis Severino, who is still trying to work out of his recent rut. He’s allowed 36 runs and a .325/.365/.579 opponent’s batting line in his last 46.2 innings. That is in the range of what Christian Yelich is hitting this year (.316/.378/.559). Severino has turned every batter he’s faced the last eight weeks into Yelich. Not good. A dominant start would be a welcome sight. Here are the lineups:

New York Yankees
1. LF Brett Gardner
2. DH Giancarlo Stanton
3. CF Aaron Hicks
4. 3B Miguel Andujar
5. 1B Luke Voit
6. SS Gleyber Torres
7. RF Neil Walker
8. C Austin Romine
9. 2B Ronald Torreyes

RHP Luis Severino

Detroit Tigers
1. 3B Jeimer Candelario
2. 1B Jim Adduci
3. RF Nick Castellanos
4. DH Victor Martinez
5. LF Niko Goodrum
6. SS Ronny Rodriguez
7. C James McCann
8. CF JaCoby Jones
9. 2B Dawel Lugo

RHP Jordan Zimmermann

It is cloudy and humid in New York and it was raining for a bit this afternoon. That’s supposed to clear out by game time, and here’s no more rain in the forecast until much later tonight/tomorrow morning. First pitch is scheduled for 7:05pm ET and YES will have the broadcast. Enjoy the game.

Roster Updates: In case you missed it earlier, the Yankees did indeed finalize the trade for Andrew McCutchen today. He is officially a Yankee. He is not with the team, however. He’s traveling from San Francisco today and will join the Yankees tomorrow. McCutchen is going to wear No. 26, apparently … Justus Sheffield will not be called up when rosters expand tomorrow. He’s still in the mix for a call-up though. Seems like the Yankees want him to get one more Triple-A relief appearance under his belt first, especially after missing time with an illness earlier this week.

Injury Updates: Gary Sanchez (groin) is back with the Yankees and will be activated tomorrow, when rosters expand. Today was a planned rest day anyway after playing the last four days with Triple-A Scranton … Aaron Judge (wrist) still hasn’t started swinging a bat but Aaron Boone is “very optimistic” he will return this season. Uh huh.

Game 134: Getting Closer To Full Strength

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(Adam Hunger/Getty)

Folks, there are only four home series and 13 home games remaining this season. Hard to believe, no? The Yankees begin a four-game home series with the rebuilding Tigers tonight. The Tigers have lost five straight games and they’re 7-18 with a -49 (!) run differential this month, so yeah, they’re bad. As expected. They’re early in their rebuild and on any given night there are maybe three league average players in their lineup.

Which of course means the Tigers are probably going to give the Yankees fits this weekend. The Yankees just lost two of three to the crummy White Sox and they’ve had issues with other bad teams like the Orioles and Rangers earlier this season. New York has the fifth best record in baseball against sub-.500 teams this year (51-24), but it sure doesn’t feel like it at times. Start the series with a win tonight, por favor. The lineups:

New York Yankees
1. CF Aaron Hicks
2. DH Giancarlo Stanton
3. 3B Miguel Andujar
4. 1B Luke Voit
5. SS Gleyber Torres
6. 2B Neil Walker
7. C Kyle Higashioka
8. RF Shane Robinson
9. LF Brett Gardner

LHP J.A. Happ

Detroit Tigers
1. 3B Jeimer Candelario
2. LF Mikie Mahtook
3. RF Nick Castellanos
4. DH Victor Martinez
5. 1B Niko Goodrum
6. SS Ronny Rodriguez
7. C James McCann
8. CF JaCoby Jones
9. 2B Dawel Lugo

LHP Francisco Liriano

More heat and more humidity in New York today. At least the real feel temperature was 95° or so rather than 105° like the last few days. Tonight’s game will begin at 7:05pm ET and YES will have the broadcast. Enjoy the ballgame.

Injury Updates: Gary Sanchez (groin) will catch nine innings with Triple-A Scranton tonight, and as long as all goes well, he will rejoin the Yankees on Saturday. Hooray for that … Didi Gregorius (heel) had a scheduled light workout day today. He’s getting better and is inching closer to a return … Aaron Judge (wrist) went through another workout in which he did basically everything except swing a bat … Clint Frazier (post-concussion migraines) started a minor league rehab assignment with High-A Tampa earlier today. He went 1-for-3. Not sure what Frazier’s timetable looks like, but the fact he’s now playing in minor league games is great news. That means he’s expected back and relatively soon.