Yankees 5, Indians 4: Just the right amount of bad defense

They can’t all be pretty. The Yankees and Indians traded sloppy defensive plays Saturday night, and the Yankees were the last team standing. They won 5-4 and have clinched at least a tie of this four-game series. The Yankees have lost only two of their last 25 series. Pretty great.

An Early Strike
Gosh, I love first inning runs on the road. I’ve said it countless times over the years and it’s still true. Score in the top of the first and put the other team on their heels right away. It’s great. The Yankees scored three runs not just in the first inning Saturday night, they scored three runs within the first three batters of the game. Can’t have a better start than that.

Best of all? Both Brett Gardner and Aaron Judge reached base after falling behind in the count 0-2. Batters owned a .175/.223/.228 batting line after falling behind in the count 0-2 to Mike Clevinger this season, yet Gardner was able to go from 0-2 to a walk, and Judge was able to go down and poke a slightly elevated slider into left field for a single. Clevinger then hung a 1-0 changeup to Didi Gregorius and bam, 3-0 Yankees.

That’s four homers in the last four games at Progressive Field for Sir Didi, dating back to Game Five of the ALDS. Fourteen pitches into the game, the Yankees led 3-0. Two batters reached in two-strike counts and the third hit the ball out of the park. Hooray for that. The Yankees added a fourth run in the sixth inning on Greg Bird’s solo homer. He took Clevinger deep in the ALDS too, you know. That’s three homers in the last five games for Bird.

Betrayed By Defense
CC Sabathia was so much better than his pitching line (5.2 IP, 4 H, 4 R, 4 ER, 2 BB, 2 K, 1 HR) would lead you to believe. He did give up a solo homer to Jose Ramirez in the first inning (it happens) and a manufactured run in the third inning (single, steal, two grounders), but otherwise held a good Indians lineup to two runs in the first five innings. Sabathia retired ten straight at one point.

Things unraveled in the fourth inning and it’s hard to blame Sabathia, really. Michael Brantley beat out an infield single — it was kind of a weird grounder into no man’s land in the shift that Tyler Wade couldn’t make a play on — then Sabathia walked Ramirez to put the tying run on base with one out. You can put the walk on Sabathia, though I’m not going to blame him for pitching Ramirez carefully, especially after he took him deep earlier in the game.

Anyway, there were two on with one out, and Sabathia was about to face Edwin Encarnacion for the third time. I did not like it. Sabathia appeared to be tiring and his numbers the third time through the lineup aren’t good at all (.351/.392/.617!), plus David Robertson was warmed up. Seemed like a good time to go get him. Instead, Sabathia stayed in, and he got Encarnacion to hit a hard grounder to third base. Miguel Andujar made a nice grab and threw across the diamond for the out. Hooray!

The next play though … my goodness. Sabathia stayed in to face Brandon Guyer and another hard-hit grounder to third followed. Look at this mess of a play:

Four mistakes there. One, Andujar played the chopper awkwardly and put himself in a bad position. Two, Andujar’s throw to first pulled Bird off the bag. Three, Bird’s throw home was slow. He hesitated a bit. And four, Austin Romine couldn’t handle the catchable throw and apply the tag. Oy vey. That play was scored a two-run infield single. It could’ve been a fielder’s choice and with an error on Andujar and an error on Romine. Yuck. That ended Sabathia’s night. He deserved better. The Indians tied the game without hitting a ball out of the infield.

Answer Right Back
The Indians tied the game thanks to some shoddy defense in the bottom of the fifth. The Yankees took the lead again on the first pitch of the top of the sixth thanks to some more clown shoes defense. Austin Romine hit a Little League homer. It was a legit double into the right-center field gap, but a bobble by Guyer and an errant throw by Erik Gonzalez allowed Romine to score. Look at this:

The FOX cameras had a good angle showing Clevinger was late backing up third base because he got caught looking at the play. But still, how? How did that ball bounce sideways into the dugout? Some serious English on that ball, I guess. The Yankees let the Indians tie the game with some crummy defense and the Indians gave the lead right back with some crummy defense of their own. First pitch of the inning, that was.

Once the Yankees took the 5-4 lead, it was bullpen time. Three up, three down for Robertson in the seventh — he got the final out of the sixth as well — and three up, three down for Dellin Betances in the eighth. Betances struck out both Ramirez and Encarnacion, which was awesome. Aroldis Chapman pitched around a one-out walk in the ninth for his 26th save. He hit 101 mph on the gun, so I guess the knee was feeling good. Hooray for that.

Leftovers
Aaron Hicks was the only starter without a hit. He did hit into his first double play of the season though. For real. Going into this game Hicks had gone 310 plate appearances without grounding into a double play. Only Matt Carpenter had more (370 plate appearances). Crazy, huh?

Gardner (double, walk) and Gregorius (single, homer, walk) reached base multiple times. Bird had his homer, Romine has his Little League homer (it was scored a double and two errors), and everyone else had a single (Judge, Andujar, Wade, Giancarlo Stanton). Good night for the bats, all things considered.

And finally, Aaron Boone was ejected for the second time in his managerial career. Stanton struck out on a pitch that hit him in the hand in the sixth inning and Boone argued it was a foul ball. He got run and got his money’s worth. Boone was also ejected for arguing balls and strikes May 22nd in Texas. Stanton is fine, by the way.

Box Score, WPA Graph & Standings
ESPN has the box score and updated standings, and MLB has the video highlights. Here is our Bullpen Workload page and here is the win probability half:

Source: FanGraphs

Up Next
The final game of this series and the final game of the traditional first half. Masahiro Tanaka and Trevor Bauer are the scheduled starters for Sunday’s series finale. That’s a 1:10pm ET start.