Another day, another win for the makeshift 2019 Yankees. Saturday afternoon’s 6-4 win over the Giants was their tenth win in their last dozen games. The game was not as close as the final score would lead you to believe. It wasn’t until garbage time that the Giants made noise.

Kraken Attackin’
When Yankee Stadium is your home ballpark, it can be a shock to the system when you watch baseball in Oracle Park. The park is enormous — absolutely beautiful, but enormous — and it gobbles up long fly balls. Outfielders camp under balls that, off the bat, look like they have a chance to get out in the Bronx. Yankee Stadium and Oracle Park are polar opposites. I’m not saying one is better than the other. They just play very differently.

The Yankees scored their first run against Derek Holland in true National League fashion. Cameron Maybin worked a leadoff walk and two batters later J.A. Happ bunted him up to second base. The no-longer-slumping DJ LeMahieu got the run home with a hard-hit grounder to third base. Evan Longoria ranged to his left and appeared to be in position to make the play, but the ball clanked off his glove and carried on into left field. Maybin scored with ease.

It wasn’t until the fifth inning that the Yankees broke the game open. The bottom of the order set the table for the order. Maybin beat out an infield leadoff single and Thairo Estrada poked a single to right. Happ attempted to bunt the runners up, but it wasn’t a good bunt, and the Giants got the force out at third. No matter, LeMahieu walked to loaded the bases with one out.

All game long — he’s been doing it to every team all season, really — Holland busted the Yankees’ right-handed hitters inside with fastballs, similar to CC Sabathia’s pitching style. He crowds them inside, and home plate umpire Jim Reynolds was giving Holland the inside corner, so he kept going there. Look at his called strike locations to righty batters:

Hey, if the ump is giving you a few inches inside, keep going there. Holland did exactly that to Luke Voit with the bases loaded and he went too far inside — Voit had to skip out of the way of one inside fastball, then took another to the knee to force in a run. He’s fine, thankfully. Shook it right off. The Voit hit-by-pitch gave the Yankees a 2-0 lead.

Up to that point in the game, Gary Sanchez was 0-for-9 with seven strikeouts since returning from the injured list, including 0-for-2 with two strikeouts against Holland earlier in the game. Righty Trevor Gott had been warming, but because Holland handled Sanchez well in their first two at-bats, Giants manager Bruce Bochy stuck with the lefty with the bases loaded. Holland got ahead in the count 1-2. Gary then uncleared the bases.

Two things there. One, don’t miss the casual “I don’t need this anymore” bat flip. Bat drop, more accurately. And two, look where catcher Buster Posey wanted the pitch and where it wound up. Holland was supposed to bust Sanchez inside yet again with another fastball, but he missed out over the plate, and Gary hit it halfway up the bleachers. The too close for comfort 2-0 lead was now a comfortable 6-0 lead.

At 467 feet, Sanchez’s grand slam is the longest grand slam since Statcast launched in 2015. It is also the fourth longest homer in baseball this year, grand slam or otherwise. And it is Sanchez’s first career grand slam too. I would’ve guessed he hit one at one point, but nope. Gary went into this game with a career .375/.361/.438 batting line with the bases loaded. I do enjoy a good AVG > OBP slash line.

Seven Innings For Happ
Everything was all set up for J.A. Happ to have success Saturday. The Giants are a terrible offensive team — they went into this game ranked 29th in AVG (.210), 30th in OBP (.273), 28th in SLG (.345), and 30th in wRC+ (64) — and Oracle Park is huge. Big ballpark, bad offense, and Happ took advantage. Five singles and no walks in seven shutout innings. Only two strikeouts, but an 85.4 mph average exit velocity allowed. Weak contact all day.

Only once in his seven innings did the Giants really threaten against Happ. Gerardo Parra led off the third inning with a single to left and Tyler Austin pulled a two-out single to left. Brandon Belt pulled a hard-hit ground ball into the shift and LeMahieu made an excellent play to end the inning. LeMahieu made an excellent play at second and Voit made an excellent scoop at first base. Check it out:

Another leadoff single (Posey) and two-out single (Crawford) put two men on base in the seventh inning, but Sanchez had broken the game open by then, so it wasn’t a huge deal. Parra lined out softly to shortstop to end the inning and the threat and Happ’s afternoon. At one point he retired 14 of 15 batters faced and he did it with ease. I don’t remember one difficult defensive play during that 15-batter stretch.

Happ’s final line: 7 IP, 5 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 2 K on 95 pitches. He went back to throwing more four-seamers (38) than two-seamers (seven), though he also threw a ton of changeups. Thirty-seven of them. Happ threw 39 changeups in his first five starts combined this year. Maybe it’s a classification issue and Statcast confused some two-seamers for changeups? His average changeup velocity was 86.6 mph and it topped out at 88.7 mph. That’s a little high. Well, whatever. As expected, Happ is the first Yankees starter to complete seven innings in multiple starts this season.

Leftovers
After a great 1-2-3 eighth inning, Luis Cessa made things unnecessarily interesting in the ninth. Two singles and a three-run homer (Yangervis Solarte) and a solo homer (Erik Kratz) turned a 6-0 lead into a 6-4 lead. Gah. Aroldis Chapman had to get the final out. Cessa allowed two earned runs in his first 12.1 innings this season before that messy ninth inning. Eventually the Yankees (or some other team) will turn Cessa into one-inning air-it-out reliever and be happy they did.

Three hits and a great defensive play up against the netting in foul territory for Gio Urshela. He is now 12-for-31 (.387) in his last eight games and he’s hitting .327/.387/.491 (133 wRC+) on the season overall. Urshela’s history suggests the other shoe is going to drop at some point, but wouldn’t it be something if keeps this up? Would be cool. LeMahieu had a single and two walks as the leadoff hitter.

And finally, Voit extended his on-base streak to 38 games with his bases loaded hit-by-pitch. It is the longest such streak by a Yankee since Mark Teixeira had a 42-gamer in 2010. Voit’s 13-game hitting streak did end though. First hitless game for him since the first game of the White Sox series.

Box Score, WPA Graph & Standings
For the box score and video highlights, go to MLB.com. ESPN has the updated standings and here’s our Bullpen Workload page. Here is the win probability graph:

Source: FanGraphs

Up Next
The final game of the RAB era (!). Hard to believe. The Yankees and Giants will wrap up this three-game interleague series Sunday afternoon. That’s another 4:05pm ET start. Domingo German and Dereck Rodriguez are the scheduled starting pitchers. Dereck is the son of Hall of Famer and Yankees legend Ivan Rodriguez.

Thursday’s blown four-run lead and series finale loss to the Angels is just that: one loss. Not the start of a losing streak. The Yankees rebounded with a not necessarily pretty 7-3 win over Madison Bumgarner and the Giants at Oracle Park on Friday night. They’ve won nine of their last eleven games.

More Like BadMum Amirite?
Bumgarner is not the pitcher he was two or thee years ago — I wonder how many casual fans will still want him at the trade deadline following this game? — and the Yankees wore him out Friday night. He pitched in six different innings and the Yankees scored in four of them, including a first inning two-spot. DJ LeMahieu doubled, Gleyber Torres doubled, and Cameron Maybin singled. Bang bang bang. Bumgarner threw 33 pitches in that first inning.

The Yankees scored their third run of the game in the third inning. Luke Voit shot a single to right field and Torres … bunted him to second? What? I get that he might’ve been bunting for a hit there, but goodness, I don’t like it. He’s the No. 3 hitter, Bumgarner had been giving up good contact all night, and Gleyber is one of the few legitimate MLB bats in the lineup. Yes, I know the replacements have been great, but still. Swing away, young man.

The bunt worked, at least. Torres moved Voit up and Cleanup Hitter Gio Urshela got the run in with a single to left. LeMahieu singled and scored on Voit’s double to right in the fifth inning, then three straight one-out singles potted a run in the sixth. Austin Romine to left, Mike Tauchman to left, Thairo Estrada to right. I’m glad we got to experience The Summer of Thairo at the big league level before RAB shut down. That’s pretty cool.

Bumgarner needed 104 pitches to get 17 outs and give up five runs on eleven hits. First time a single pitcher has given up at least eleven hits to the Yankees since Martin Perez last August. Also, the Yankees fouled away 27 pitches, their most against a single pitcher since last August, when they did it to … Jacob deGrom? Jacob deGrom. Bumgarner had allowed 27+ foul balls in a start only six times in the last three years. At-bat after at-bat was a battle.

The Yankees went 5-for-11 (.455) with runners in scoring position with Bumgarner on the mound and, really, they let him off the hook too. There was the unnecessary Torres bunt and Voit was easily thrown out trying to tag up at second and go to third on Gleyber’s fly ball in the fifth. Two gift outs right there. I swear, every day I look at the lineup and wonder how the Yankees are going to score, but they keep making it work. This season has been pretty fun so far and most definitely not in the way I expected.

Paxton Labors Early, Labors Late
How bad have the Giants been offensively this season? They went into Friday’s series opener with a .272 OBP and a .349 SLG as a team. For reference, Austin Romine went into the game with a .268 OBP and a .350 SLG in 2019. No offense to Romine, he’s carved out a nice little career for himself as a backup catcher, but imagine watching a team that collectively hits like Romine? Oy vey.

Naturally, the terrible hitting Giants scored in the first inning against James Paxton. Former Yankee Tyler Austin punched a single to right field, Brandon Belt lined a double to right field, and Buster Posey lifted a sacrifice fly to right field. Voit came maybe a few inches away from making the leaping catch on Belt’s line drive. If he makes the catch, he steps on first base for an inning-ending double play. Game of inches. Some stats:

• It was the first run the Giants scored in the first inning this year.
• It was the first earned run the Giants scored in the first inning in 44 (!) games.
• Belt’s double was their first extra-base hit in the first inning this year.

This isn’t even a Giants blog and I am still compelled to note those stats. Voit hit two first inning home runs in the Angels series! The Giants did not have a first inning run or a first inning extra-base hit this season until Friday. I am having a hard time wrapping my head around that. It is bonkers. I’d be more upset about the Yankees allowing San Francisco’s first first inning run (and extra-base hit) had they hadn’t won the game.

The Giants made Paxton work in the first inning and in the sixth inning. A leadoff walk, a Buster Posey one-out double, and a Yangervis Solarte one-out single gave San Francisco their two sixth inning runs. Posey went down to get a cutter diving out of the zone …

… and he hooked it into the corner. The ability to hit that pitch in an 0-2 count down the line for extra bases is why Posey’s (possibly) going to the Hall of Fame. The Solarte single? That was a mistake out over the plate. Paxton’s 106th and final pitch might’ve been his worst, and I reckon the Yankees would not have let him throw that many pitches if there weren’t two off-days before his next start. He’s going to get plenty of rest now.

Between the tough first inning and tough partial sixth inning Paxton retired 13 of 14 batters with seven strikeouts. Four of those 14 batters hit the ball out of the infield. To me, this seemed like a classic “he needed some time to settle in early and ran out of gas late” start. Paxton’s final line: 5.2 IP, 5 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 2 BB, 8 K. Not great, obviously, but also not all that bad either. When that qualifies as a down start, you’re doing a-okay.

The Super Good Enough Bullpen
Unlike Thursday night, the Yankees were leading when their bullpen got involved Friday, so Aaron Boone elected to use his good relievers. Hooray. Tommy Kahnle inherited a runner on first with two outs from Paxton and struck out Brandon Crawford to end the inning. Remember when he gave up two runs in two-thirds of an inning in Houston? Kahnle’s retired 28 of 33 batters with 13 strikeouts in his other ten appearances. That’ll work, Tommy Tightpants.

Zack Britton was on his way to an easy seventh inning before completely losing the plate with two outs. He got Pablo Sandoval to ground out and struck out Steven Duggar, and got ahead in the count 0-2 on Kevin Pillar. Everything was going swell … then eleven straight balls and three straight walks overall. Britton’s pitch locations:

Seems bad. Britton walked the bases loaded after two quick outs and an 0-2 count on Pillar. Adam Ottavino had to bail him out. Ottavino caught Posey looking at a slider strike three. Exhale. Britton has walked seven batters in eleven innings this season with a 14.9% walk rate. It’s still early and this outing certainly skewed his numbers, but also maybe throw strikes? Could be cool. Hopefully Britton gets reacquainted with the strike zone soon.

Anyway, Ottavino walked a batter of his own in an otherwise spotless eighth inning — to be fair, it appeared Solarte went around on the 3-1 pitch, but home plate umpire Ramon De Jesus never bothered ask third base umpire Mark Wegner for help — and Aroldis Chapman pitched around a one-out walk in the ninth. Would be cool to go one night without the bullpen walking three or four batters. Voit was kind enough to provide two insurance runs with a homer to dead center field against Mark Melancon in the ninth.

Leftovers
The 1-2-3-4 hitters: 10-for-18 (.556) with four doubles, one homer, one walk, one strikeout, six runs scored, and five runs driven in. Everyone else: 5-for-20 (.250) with no extra-base hits, no walks, and six strikeouts. The top of the order carried the Yankees in this game and hey, that’s perfectly fine. That’s why they’re atop the lineup. Nothing wrong with counting on your best players to be your best players.

Voit extended his MLB leading on-base streak to 37 games. It is the longest by a Yankee since Mark Teixeira had a 42-gamer in 2010. Voit went in 3-for-4 with a double and a homer in this game and is 11-for-27 (.407) with a .483 OBP and four homers in six games since Aaron Judge got hurt. Dude has stepped up huge lately. He’s hitting .276/.388/.551 (150 wRC+) on the year overall. Pretty awesome.

Estrada’s first career game in left field — first career game in left as a professional, majors or minors — went well. He had one fly ball hit his way and it was a routine catch, so yes, he survived. Wade pinch-ran for Estrada following his run-scoring single in the sixth. Wade’s not the most proficient outfielder himself, but he’s certainly more experienced than Thairo, so the Yankees put him in late for defense.

And finally, the Giants played a tribute video for CC Sabathia in the middle innings. Here’s (part of) the video. Sabathia grew up a little north of San Francisco in Vallejo. Neat gesture. The Giants are the first team to recognize Sabathia during his farewell season (to be fair, this is only the fourth road series).

Box Score, WPA Graph & Leftovers
MLB.com has the box score and video highlights, ESPN has the updated standings, and we have a Bullpen Workload page. Here’s the win probability graph:

Source: FanGraphs

Up Next
The penultimate game of the RAB era. The Yankees and Giants continue this three-game series with the middle game Saturday afternoon. That is a 4:05pm ET start. Veteran lefties J.A. Happ and Derek Holland will be on the mound.