Can’t stop won’t stop. The Yankees won for the 14th time in 15 games Saturday afternoon, rallying in the middle innings for a 5-2 win over the Indians. This is their first 14-1 stretch since July 1998. Just wait until this team starts firing on cylinders.
Four Runs, One Hit
Trevor Bauer manhandled the Yankees the first four innings Saturday. He was throwing his curveball for strikes, locating his slider just off the plate, and elevating his fastball. The result: Four perfect innings on 44 pitches. They were four very low stress innings. The Yankees didn’t make Bauer work much because he was throwing so many strikes. Had they taken pitches and tried to get his pitch count up, they would’ve been down 0-2, and that’s no way to hit.
Everything changed in the fifth inning. The Yankees got their first baserunner with one out in the fifth, when Neil Walker drew a walk. Miguel Andujar followed with another walk, then Gleyber Torres broke up the no-hitter with a solid one-out single to center. Perfect game gone, no-hitter gone, bases loaded with one out. The Yankees were in business. Austin Romine, Sonny Gray’s personal catcher, got the first run in with a hard-fought bases loaded walk. The pitch locations:
Really great at-bat by Romine. Spit on some nasty breaking balls before Bauer’s eighth pitch of the at-bat was way inside. Heck of an at-bat by Romine. Well done. That tied the game 1-1, and the bases were still loaded with one out. At this point, Bauer had thrown 20 pitches in the fifth inning after throwing only 44 in the first four innings.
Much like Friday night, Francisco Lindor made a crucial error and the Yankees took advantage. Friday he booted a 6-4-3 double play ball that set up Torres for the three-run homer. Saturday afternoon he booted another 6-4-3 double play ball, this one from Ronald Torreyes, that put two runs on the board. Lindor booted it, recovered, tried to get the force out at third, but threw it away. Lindor was charged with two errors on the play and two runs scored.
Because the walks and the error weren’t enough, the Yankees got another gift when Brett Gardner got the fourth run home with a sacrifice fly. Torreyes, in a classic case of trying to do to much, tagged up at second and advanced to third on the play. Romine scored and Torreyes was safe, but replays showed Torreyes was tagged out before Romine crossed the plate. The inning should’ve been over and the run shouldn’t have counted. The Indians didn’t challenge though. It looked like they were having some communication issues in the dugout. Another gift.
After throwing those 44 pitches in the first four innings, the Yankees forced Bauer to throw 42 pitches in the fifth inning alone. Basically doubled his pitch count in one inning in the middle of the game. Two walks got their foot in the door and Lindor’s two errors on one play allowed the Yankees to kick that door open. The non-challenge was another Indians screw up. The Yankees had just the one hit in the inning, but they were still able to capitalize on some gifts. Good stuff.
Sonny’s Saturday
Back-to-back good outings for Sonny Gray. Not great outings, but good. He allowed two runs in six innings against the Astros earlier this week, and he did the same thing Saturday against the Indians. Two runs in six innings. Sonny escaped a bases loaded, one out situation in the third by striking out Jason Kipnis and getting Jose Ramirez to fly out, which was good to see. Innings like that were getting away from Gray earlier this season.
The Indians scored their first run on Lindor’s fifth inning solo homer. Gray did put the pitch where Romine wanted it — it was an inside fastball — but Lindor got around on it and hit it into the right field bleachers. Great player did a great player thing. The second run came after Ramirez blooped a ground rule double to right field. It landed just inside the foul line and hopped over the side wall. Womp womp. Two grounders got him in. A more experienced first baseman goes home on Edwin Encarnacion’s grounder, but Walker took the sure out at first. Meh.
The final line: 6 IP, 4 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 2 BB, 7 K, 1 HR on 93 pitches. The seven strikeouts are a good sign. Sonny didn’t strike out more than four batters in any of his previous five starts. The swings and misses were there. Gray was still behind in the count a little too often — he faced 24 batters and threw 13 first pitch strikes — which is something he has to correct going forward. Also, Sonny threw more fastballs:
- Four-seamers in first 16 starts with Yankees: 27.6%
- Four-seamers last start vs. Astros: 43.3%
- Four-seamers this start vs. Indians: 47.3%
The Yankees throw fewer fastballs than any other team and, by and large, it works. Their 3.48 ERA was seventh lowest in baseball coming into this game. The anti-fastball approach may not work for Gray though. And maybe it takes having Romine behind the plate to convince Sonny to throw more heaters. Whatever it is, he’s looked much better the last two times out. Not out of the woods yet. But progress.
Leftovers
Six up, six down, four strikeouts for a dominant Chad Green. He didn’t look like himself against the Astros the other day. This was a vintage 2017 Chad Green outing. Total dominance. I was hoping Aaron Boone would let him pitch the ninth too — Green threw 24 pitches in his two innings — because he probably won’t available Sunday anyway, so might as well max him out, but it didn’t happen. David Robertson pitched around a one-out double for the save.
The Yankees added an insurance run in the seventh inning on Romine’s double — Bradley Zimmer crashed hard into the wall trying to make the catch and had the leave the game — and Gardner’s single. Gardner shot a single the other way to score Romine from second. It helped that left fielder Michael Brantley can’t throw anymore after two 2016 shoulder surgeries.
Only four hits by the Yankees. Torres had the single to break up the no-hitter, Romine doubled off the wall, and Gardner got him in with the single. Aaron Hicks mixed in a single along the way. Walker, Andujar, and Romine drew the only walks and they all came in that fifth inning, within the span of four batters. Timing is everything.
Box Score, WPA Graph & Standings
Go to ESPN for the box score and updated standings and MLB for the video highlights. Here’s our Bullpen Workload page here’s the win probability graph:
Source: FanGraphs
Up Next
Time to get greedy and go for the sweep. The Yankees and Indians will wrap up this three-game series Sunday afternoon with a 1:05pm ET start. Domingo German will make his first career start in that one. Mike Clevinger will be on the mound for Cleveland.
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