River Avenue Blues

That was a satisfying win. The Yankees staved off elimination in the AL East race another night with a lopsided 10-1 win over the Red Sox on Wednesday. As of this writing, the Yankees are three games up on the Athletics in the loss column for homefield advantage in the Wild Card Game. It’s four games when you factor in New York owning the tiebreaker. Eleven games to go.

Long Live The Short Porch
David Price in Yankee Stadium will never not be funny. He went into this start with a career 4.75 ERA and a .280/.342/.467 opponents’ batting line in 121.1 innings in this ballpark. On Wednesday night the Yankees punished Price again in the Bronx, and yes, all three home runs were short porch jobs. That’s a feature, not a bug. The Red Sox get to hit with the same dimensions too. Not the Yankees’ fault they didn’t take advantage.

The Yankees jumped on the board with a three-run second inning that really should’ve been a one-run second inning. Miguel Andujar tomahawked a high fastball into the short porch for a solo home run and a 1-0 lead, then the Yankees loaded the bases. Gary Sanchez walked, Luke Voit pulled a single through the left side, and Andrew McCutchen worked a walk. Bases loaded, two outs, Aaron Judge at the plate!

Judge brought home two runs but not with a booming single or a double off the wall. He rolled over on a first pitch fastball and hit a weak 82 mph ground ball right at third baseman Eduardo Nunez. As routine as routine gets. Nunez should’ve fielded the ball cleanly and fired over to first base to end the inning. Instead, he Bucknered it. Right through the legs for a two-run error and a 3-0 Yankees lead. Welcome back, Eduardo Scissorhands.

The Yankees hung three more runs on Price. Voit swatted a short porch solo homer in the fourth, then he added a short porch two-run home run in the sixth. Price had thrown 87 pitches heading into that at-bat and he wasn’t really fooling the Yankees, and the game was within reach. The Yankees were up 4-1 at the time! Joe Kelly was warm and he seemed like the better option there. How Red Sox manager Alex Cora let Price face Voit a third time, I’ll never understand. I’m glad he did.

Price’s final line: 5.1 IP, 5 H, 6 R, 4 ER, 4 BB, 2 K, 3 HR on 93 pitches. In four starts against the Yankees this season, he’s allowed 20 runs in 15.2 innings, and that includes six innings of two-run ball in their last meeting at Fenway Park. The Yankees have struggled offensively the last few weeks — going into this game, they’d scored more than four runs only six times in 15 games this month — but you can always count on David Price to wake up the bats.

Return of Good Sevy
There were signs last time out. Luis Severino threw the ball quite well against the Twins, better than he had in weeks. I was cautiously optimistic. On Wednesday, Severino built on the progress he made last time, and turned in his first truly dominant start since before the All-Star break. And, naturally, it started with a four-pitch walk and six straight pitches out of the strike zone. Figures.

In fact, Severino had trouble locating his fastball pretty much all night. He was missing his spot quite often. He compensated with sliders and changeups. A lot of changeups. Twenty-two of them, in fact. Only the third time he’s thrown that many changeups in an outing this season. Severino threw more sliders and changeups (56) than fastballs (52) on Tuesday night. Not the first time that’s happened, but it doesn’t happen often.

Severino put two runners on base in the first inning and escaped with a Xander Bogaerts popup and a Mitch Moreland tapper back to the mound. He retired eleven of the next 12 batters he faced before the Red Sox finally touched him up for a run in the fifth inning. Nunez doubled to left and Sandy Leon singled to right. Severino limited the damage to one run and was able to get through seven innings. His 109th and final pitch of the night:

Hell yes. Been a while since we’ve seen that lock-up slider and a fist pump. His line: 7 IP, 6 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 1 BB, 6 K on 109 pitches. First time he completed seven innings since August 8th in Chicago and his first start of seven innings with no more than one run allowed since June 26th in Philadelphia. There are still some fastball command issues, for sure. But, overall, this was the best Severino’s looked in a long time.

Tack-On Runs
To the delight of everyone, the Yankees did not stop scoring once Price was out of the ballgame. They kept tacking on runs. McCutchen and Judge strung together back-to-back two-out singles in the sixth against Kelly, then Aaron Hicks ripped a rare triple into the Yankee Stadium right field corner. You don’t see that often. Then again, the Red Sox had J.D. Martinez positioned somewhere in right-center field.

The Hicks triple really broke the game open. That gave the Yankees an 8-1 lead and, I don’t know about you, but that’s when I considered the game out of reach. The Yankees were up 6-1 after Voit’s second dinger and a five-run lead against the Red Sox in Yankee Stadium doesn’t feel too safe. An 8-1 lead? You can breath a little easier with that.

Anyway, the Yankees added two more runs in the eighth inning. Voit and Gleyber Torres led off with back-to-back singles, McCutchen moved the runners up with a weak grounder, and pinch-hitter Greg Bird got a run in with a ground out. (Bird pinch-hit for Judge and, after the game, Aaron Boone said Judge is fine. Just a chance to get Bird an at-bat.) Hicks added a two-out single to score another run and give the Yankees a 10-1 lead. Love that Boston bullpen.

Leftovers
Welcome to the big leagues, Justus Sheffield. Sheffield made his MLB debut in the ninth and it didn’t go smoothly. He walked the first batter he faced on five pitches, then stumbled on a weak little tapper up the line and couldn’t get the out. Eventually he walked another runner to load the bases for Mookie Betts, which is suboptimal even with a 10-1 lead. Sheffield got a game-ending double play from Betts, which was unexpected. Welcome to the show, kid. Things’ll go better when there are less butterflies.

Two homers and two singles in a 4-for-4 night for Voit. He’d been in a little 4-for-22 (.182) skid going into this game. Hicks had two hits (single, triple), Andujar had two hits (double, homer), and McCutchen reached base three times (single, two walks). McCutchen’s been on base 24 times in his last eleven games and has a .414 OBP as a Yankee. What a pickup. Judge flared a single to right for his first base hit back from the disabled list. Eleven hits, four walks, four strikeouts. Fourth time in the last eight games the Yankees had no more strikeouts than walks.

And finally, Voit’s second homer was home run No. 245 for the Yankees on the season, tying the franchise record set in 2012. It is the ninth highest single-season home run total in baseball history. The all-time record in 264 home runs by the 1997 Mariners. Can the Yankees hit 20 home runs in the final eleven games to set a new record? Won’t be easy with only four Yankee Stadium games remaining, but it is doable.

Box Score, WPA Graph & Standings
ESPN has the box score and updated standings, MLB has the video highlights, and FanGraphs has the postseason odds. The magic number for a postseason spot is down to four, hence Lou Gehrig in the sidebar. Here’s our Bullpen Workload page and here’s the win probability graph:

Source: FanGraphs

Up Next
The fourth-to-last home game of the 2018 regular season. Also a chance to sweep the series. Masahiro Tanaka and Eduardo Rodriguez are the scheduled starters for Thursday’s series finale.

LOL good grief. It’s never easy. At least we can laugh about it now. The Yankees tried their best to give the Red Sox the AL East title Tuesday night, but eventually the 27th out was recorded, and the Yankees picked up a 3-2 win. No division clincher for Boston on this night. As of this writing, the Yankees remain two games up on the Athletics in the loss column for homefield advantage in the Wild Card Game. Three when you include the tiebreaker. Twelve games to go.

They Call Him Neil Dinger
We’re going to start in the seventh inning, because that’s the best part. The Yankees were down 1-0 heading into that seventh inning and they’d just blown a golden opportunity in the sixth. You’ll read about that in a bit. With Nathan Eovaldi out of the game, Red Sox manager Alex Cora went to his sketchy middle relief crew, and the first man out of the bullpen was righty Brandon Workman.

Workman gifted the Yankees a rally. Aaron Hicks worked a five-pitch leadoff walk, Miguel Andujar popped up on what might’ve been ball four in a 3-1 count for the first out, and then Gary Sanchez drew a six-pitch walk. Workman got ahead in the count 1-2 on Sanchez, then lost him. With runners on first and second with one out, Cora yanked Workman and went to rookie righty Ryan Brasier, who’s been really good this year (1.53 ERA and 2.37 FIP in 29.1 innings).

I thought Aaron Boone was going to go to the bench there, both to pinch-run for Sanchez and pinch-hit for Walker. I figured you’d want the go-ahead run to be able to score from first base on a double. And Walker, well, he’s been bad lately. Went into this game in a 6-for-46 (.130) skid. Luke Voit? Greg Bird? No, Boone stuck with Walker (and Sanchez), and was rewarded with a go-ahead three-run home run into the second deck. To the action footage:

Cement mixer right out over the plate. Walker knew it was gone off the bat — everyone knew it was gone off the bat — he watched it, and then he pointed to the dugout. That is the good stuff. As big a hit as the Yankees have had all season, I’d say. Between this dinger and his two walk-off hits, Walker’s had some pretty big moments in pinstripes despite an overall disappointing year. The three-run blast turned the 1-0 deficit into a 3-1 lead.

Third Time’s A Charm
On their third attempt in the ninth inning, the Yankees finally turned the game-ending double play. Holy cow what a mess. Zach Britton entered for the save, struck out Brandon Phillips, then walked Brock Holt with one out. Annoying. That brought the tying run to the plate. Britton was very wild when he first joined the Yankees, but, going into this game, he’d walked one batter in his last 13 appearances and 14 innings. That covers 52 batters faced (1.9 BB%).

After the one-out walk, Britton got the double play ball. He’s a ground ball machine and Christian Vazquez hit a chopper to Third Base Defensive Replacement Adeiny Hechavarria. Third Base Defensive Replacement Adeiny Hechavarria threw wide of second base, Gleyber Torres couldn’t reel it in, and the ball sailed into center field. Everyone was safe. Torres got the error but it could’ve easy gone to Third Base Defensive Replacement Adeiny Hechavarria. Not a good throw at all when the second baseman has to reach as far across his body as Torres did.

Okay. Fine. The Red Sox had runners at the corners and the Yankees were still a ground ball away from ending the game. Britton got that ground ball, right back to himself, and he … threw it into center field. I literally facepalmed when it happened. Britton threw a sinker to second base and Torres couldn’t make the grab. It didn’t help that Tzu-Wei Lin was bearing down on him. Lin slid right into Torres, in fact. (He’s fine.) A run scored and the Red Sox had runners on first and second with one out.

As ugly as that inning was, Britton had his sinker going. The two botched double play balls registered at 73.5 mph and 86.4 mph, so they weren’t hard hit. Britton got back after it, and he got yet another potential double play grounder. This one the Yankees turned. Britton fielded it himself, he made a clean throw to second, and Torres made the throw to first to end the game. Nice stretch by Walker at first. He had a few of them Tuesday night. Game over. Exhale.

That’s What Happ-ening
What a gutsy outing for J.A. Happ. He was in bend but don’t break mode in the early innings before finding it and settling down in the middle innings. His first inning pitch locations tell the story:

Happ always pitches up in the zone with his fastball. That’s what he does. But he was really up in the first inning. He was up in the zone in the second and third innings too, though not as much. Happ had to pitch around a one-out walk in the first inning and a two-out single and walk in the second inning. He needed 36 pitches to get his first six outs.

The Red Sox scored their lone run against Happ in the third inning and Sanchez’s latest passed ball was a big factor. Ian Kinsler singled to left, Happ balked him up to second — I have no idea what the balk was, I didn’t see it on the replays at all — and Steve Pearce drew his second walk of the game. That’s when the passed ball moved the runners to second and third with no outs. It was bad. Pitch didn’t even hit the ground.

Happ did well to limit the Red Sox to one run in that spot considering the 3-4-5 hitters were due up. J.D. Martinez got the run in with a sacrifice fly to right field. Aaron Judge made a good on-line throw, but it didn’t have enough on it, so Walker cut it off. Two more fly balls and Hicks’ arm — Hicks held Pearce at third on a Xander Bogaerts fly ball — allowed Happ to strand the runner at third and limit the damage.

The final line: 6 IP, 4 H, 1 R, 0 ER, 3 BB, 6 K on 102 pitches. Happ allowed a one-double to Bogaerts and a one-out single to Eduardo Nunez in the sixth and I thought he should’ve been out of there. Boone stuck with Happ, who stranded the runners at the corners with a pop-up and a strikeout. It wasn’t easy in the first three innings, but Happ was able to avoid the big inning, and he turned in a dandy of a start.

Blown Chances Early
In two starts against the Yankees since being traded to the Red Sox, Nathan Eovaldi has put eight men on base in 14 scoreless innings. In the seven games between starts against the Yankees, Eovaldi had a 6.58 ERA (4.27 FIP) in 26 innings and opponents hit .361/.405/.529 against him. Every team other than the Yankees has lit Eovaldi up since the trade deadline. How so very frustrating.

The Yankees had two quality opportunities to score against Eovaldi. First, in the third inning, Walker drew a leadoff walk and Andrew McCutchen drew a one-out walk. Judge then banged into a tailor-made 6-4-3 double play on the first pitch. (More on Judge’s night in a sec.) Then, in the sixth, Torres doubled to right field and scampered over to third on Judge’s fly ball into the right field corner. (Again, more on Judge’s night in a bit.)

With Torres at third and two outs, Eovaldi flung a 95 mph cutter way inside and to the backstop. Gleyber ran home and crossed the plate, but the run did not count. The pitch hit — and by hit I mean grazed — Didi Gregorius in the shin. Hit-by-pitch and a dead ball. Torres went back to third and Didi went to first. If the Yankees didn’t have bad luck, they’d have no luck at all. Eovaldi blew Giancarlo Stanton away with an elevated 97 mph fastball to end the sixth inning and that was that.

Return of the Judge
In his first at-bat back Judge did exactly what I was hoping to see him do. Well, no. I was hoping he’d put a ball into orbit. That didn’t happen. Instead, Judge handled premium velocity and ripped a hard-hit line drive. Eovaldi gave him a 99 mph heater out over the plate and Judge hammered it to right field on a line. The exit velocity: 112.1 mph. Unfortunately the ball was right at J.D. Martinez for an out, but still. Great velocity and great contact. An encouraging sign in the first at-bat following a two-month layoff.

Judge’s second at-bat was a letdown. Two one, one out in the third inning, and he hit into an inning-ending double play on the first pitch. Swung at a good pitch — it was a fastball right down the middle — but bad result. In his third at-bat, Judge nearly hit a ball out of the ballpark. He skied a high fly ball to right field and Martinez caught it here:

So close! A first game back dinger would’ve been cool. Judge struck out on a borderline check swing in his fourth at-bat and finished the game 0-for-4. If you’re curious, the exit velocities on his three batted balls, in order: 112.1 mph, 93.9 mph, 94.9 mph. Considering the long layoff, I am really pleased he was able to catch up to Eovaldi’s fastball, even though the results weren’t there. It’s all about timing right now. Judge’s looked pretty good Tuesday night, all things considered.

Leftovers
Walker’s homer was his tenth of the season, giving the Yankees eleven (!) players with double-digit home runs. They join the 2004 Tigers, 2015 Astros, 2016 Twins, and 2017 Astros as the only teams in baseball history to do that. Voit is sitting on seven home runs, so if he gets hot and goes on a tear these last 12 games, the Yankees could finish the season with 12 players with double-digit homers.

David Robertson totally bailed Hicks out in the eighth. Martinez dunked a double to center, Hicks took a weird route and let it get by him, then he took his sweet time retrieving the ball. That allowed Martinez to get to third with one out. Pretty terrible, Hicksie. Robertson got a popup and a fly out to strand the runner. Chad Green went three up, three down in the seventh.

Only three hits for the Yankees. Hicks blooped a single in the second, Torres doubled in the sixth, and Walker went deep in the seventh. McCutchen, Hicks, Sanchez, and Walker drew one walk each, and Gregorius was plunked twice. Eighth time in 15 September games the Yankees had no more than six hits. Thank goodness for dingers.

Box Score, WPA Graph & Standings
ESPN has the box score and updated standings. MLB has the video highlights and FanGraphs has the postseason odds. Here’s our Bullpen Workload page and here’s the win probability graph:

Source: FanGraphs

Up Next
The fifth-to-last home game of the 2018 regular season. The season isn’t over yet but I already miss baseball. Anyway, Luis Severino and David Price are the scheduled starters for Tuesday night’s game. Hope that one goes as well as the last time Severino and Price squared off.