Good ballgame. Would watch again. The Yankees had a rare stress-free win Tuesday night, beating the White Sox by the score of 9-0. One night after the Yankees could do nothing right, they excelled on both sides of the ball. This was one of their best all-around games of the season. No doubt about it.
Two Token Runs … And Many More
This was the Yankees’ best offensive showing in quite some time. I don’t necessarily mean the run total, I’m talking about the quality of the at-bats and the swings. ChiSox lefty Carlos Rodon was fooling no one and the Yankees took nothing but comfortable swings. Even against the relievers too. They laid off pitches out of the zone and hammered mistakes over the plate. This game is exactly how an offense should work.
The Yankees got on the board with two runs in the second inning thanks to three singles and an error by Tim Anderson. Rob Refsnyder started the inning with a leadoff single, then Brett Gardner and All-Star Carlos Beltran kept it going with two-out singles. Beltran drove in Refsnyder. Alex Rodriguez hit a hard grounder to Anderson for what should have been the final out, but the ball took a weird hop and ricocheted off his glove and right up in the air. That drove in Gardner for the second run.
The third and four runs came on Chase Headley’s seventh homer of the season and second in two days. It was also his third homer against the White Sox this season. Mark Teixeira doubled in the team’s fourth run in the fourth, and Austin Romine homered for their fifth run in the fifth. That was a bomb. I didn’t think Romine could hit a ball that well. It was more than halfway up the left field bleachers. Doubles by Refsnyder and Aaron Hicks created two runs in the eighth, and a Teixeira sac fly resulted in the team’s ninth run the next inning. The Yankees scored in six of their nine offensive innings.
The Yankees scored those nine runs on a season high 20 hits plus three walks, and, amazingly, they also had two runners thrown out at the plate. Beltran was cut down in the first inning when Brett Lawrie made a diving stop but not the catch, then threw home for the out. Teixeira was thrown out on Refsnyder’s would-be sac fly to right in the sixth. Not only are Beltran and Teixeira slow, but they’re also nursing leg injuries (Beltran’s hamstring, Teixeira’s knee). Why? Stay put next time, fellas.
Anyway, hooray offense! It had been way too long since we’d last seen a game like that. The Yankees went 5-for-19 (.263) with runners in scoring position one day after going 0-for-13 in those spots. Gardner had four hits, Beltran and Headley each had three hits, and Teixeira, Starlin Castro, Refsnyder, and Romine each had two hits. This was a total team effort. Every starter reached base at least once and eight of the nine starters reached multiple times. More games like this, please.
Master Tanaka
This normal rest/extra day of rest thing with Masahiro Tanaka is getting a little ridiculous. He went into Tuesday’s game with a 5.28 ERA on normal rest and a 1.94 ERA with extra rest this season. Tanaka was actually better on normal rest (2.89 ERA) than with extra rest (3.67 ERA) from 2014-15, yet this year his split is extreme. Blame small sample size, I guess. Either that or his 2014-15 performance was a fluke.
Anyway, Tanaka was on extra rest Tuesday night thanks to Chad Green’s spot start over the weekend, and sure enough, he held the White Sox scoreless over 7.2 innings. It was close to a stress-free outing. The ChiSox put two runners on base in the second and again in the seventh, but Tanaka escaped both jams and cruised the rest of the game. He struck out six, allowed six hits and one walk, and only 13 of the 29 batters he faced hit the ball out of the infield. Simply marvelous. Go Masahiro.
Leftovers
Welcome back to the big leagues, Chase Shreve. He replaced Tanaka in the eighth, struck out Jose Abreu to end the inning, then tossed a perfect ninth too. Shreve said he’s been working on a new slider grip in Triple-A but we didn’t really see. PitchFX says he threw one slider Tuesday. I’m not sure how much it’ll help anyway. He’s a fastball/splitter pitcher.
Box Score, WPA Graph & Standings
Head over to ESPN for the box score and updated standings, and MLB.com for the video highlights. Make sure you check out our Bullpen Workload and Announcer Standings pages as well. Here’s the ol’ win probably graph:
Source: FanGraphs
Up Next
The Yankees and White Sox wrap up this three-game set with the rubber game Wednesday night. Michael Pineda and ex-Oriole Miguel Gonzalez are the scheduled starters.
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