NY Yankees News, Information & Community

Masahiro Tanaka to miss Wednesday’s start with Grade I hamstring strain

September 20, 2015 by Mike Leave a Comment

Well this is bad news. Masahiro Tanaka will miss Wednesday’s start against the Blue Jays with a Grade I right hamstring strain, the Yankees announced this afternoon. Tanaka hurt himself running the bases Friday. Stupid NL rules. Ivan Nova will start in Tanaka’s place Wednesday.

Joe Girardi said the hope is Tanaka will miss just one start due to the hamstring issue. Of course, that one start might be the most important game of the season. Tanaka is pretty much the only Yankees starter who has been able to hold down the Blue Jays offense, and depending on how the next few days play out, first base could be on the line Wednesday.

Apparently the injury happened when Tanaka ran down to first base in the second inning Friday. He laid down a sacrifice bunt and the force out was made at second. Tanaka had to run from first to second on Brett Gardner’s single later in the inning, then had to run to first on a ground out in his second at-bat. He threw five innings after the injury supposedly happened.

There was no indication Tanaka was hurt — he was lifted for a pinch-hitter despite throwing 82 pitches because the Yankees were down in the seventh and needed offense — so this injury really came out of nowhere. A Grade I strain is least severe by definition, which is the good news, I guess. Tanaka told reporters he wants to pitch Wednesday, but the Yankees are playing it safe.

Still, losing Tanaka is very bad news, even if it is only one start. Nova has not pitched well this season — the Blue Jays hammered him last time out, as I’m sure you remember — but the Yankees have no other alternatives. Nathan Eovaldi (elbow) is also hurt and Adam Warren’s back in the rotation. It’s either Nova or Chris Capuano at this point. Sigh.

Tanaka and the Dingers

September 20, 2015 by Matt Imbrogno Leave a Comment

Over the course of the 2015 season, it’s hard to argue that anyone other than Masahiro Tanaka has been the Yankee best and most consistent starter. Sure, we could argue that CC Sabathia’s been more consistent, but I’m trying to keep things positive here. Should the Yankees be “forced” to play in the Wild Card play-in game for entry into the ALDS, we can only hope that Tanaka is lined up to start that game; why there’d be any question about this is definitely beyond me. But despite Tanaka’s general goodness at delivering pitches, there’s been a noticeable wrinkle in his game this year: the dinger.

On the year, Tanaka has given up 24 home runs, ninth most in the AL. Shockingly enough, Phil Hughes leads the AL with 29 homers surrendered (though he shares that “distinction” with Anibal Sanchez); Sabathia and his 27 homers are good for fifth. Giving up that many homers is a problem in and of itself, but it’s compounded by the fact that Tanaka’s 17.0 HR/FB% is the worst in the AL among qualified starters (Sabathia is second worst at 16.6). In 2014, homers were also Tanaka’s one-bad-thing; he gave up just 15, but that was in a relatively short amount of time. His HR/FB% last year was better than this year’s at 14.0%, but still high; in fact, it also ‘led’ the AL, clearing the second place finisher (Hisashi Iwakuma, 13.2%) by almost a full point. Given that Tanaka uses a splitter as his main out-pitch, this data makes a bit of sense. His ground ball rates of 46.6 and 47.3% are fairly high, so it’s rare when Tanaka does give up fly balls. The problem is that when he does, they seem to travel a long, long way. While 2014 and 2015 were relatively similar with regards to the long-ball and TANAK, there is one rather striking difference: the way lefties are ripping round-trippers off of the righty.

In 2014, Tanaka gave up a larger percentage of his HR/FB to right handed batters: 15.4% against them and “just” 12.7% against lefties. This year, that trend has reversed itself drastically: 13.6% against RHB (still not good!) and 22.6% (!!!) against lefties. For a microcosm of this issue, we need to look no further into the past than his last start against the Mets on Friday night.

That night, Tanaka threw just three bad pitches. One of them was a double down the right field line by Lucas Duda that eventually led to nothing for the Mets. The other two, however, represented the only runs Tanaka gave up (click to embiggen all images):

The first image is the home run Tanaka gave up to aforementioned Duda. The second is the one he gave up to Daniel Murphy, which put the Mets ahead for good. Both pitches are right in the middle of the plate and the lefties were able to hook them into (deep) right field both times. Both pitches, in fact, are almost in the exact same location, with Murphy’s just a touch closer to the plate. Generally, though, they’re in the same portion of the strikezone. If those pictures were broken down into a 3×3 strike zone grid, they’d be in the same box. So two different hitters, ones whose only real similarity is that they hit from the same side of the plate, hit basically the same-located pitch over the fence. This couldn’t be a coincidence, could it? Well, if it were, you’d be reading something else here. It turns out that this location has been a trouble spot for Tanaka. Take a look at the strike zone grids below that represent the left-handed batters’ collective ISO against Tanaka, broken down by strike zone location. 2014 is first, followed by 2015.

LHB ISO v. Tanaka by location, 2014 (BrooksBaseball.Net)

LHB ISO vs. Tanaka by location, 2015 (BrooksBaseball.Net)

Take a look at the box where the two homers from Friday night would sit. In 2014, lefties tagged Tanaka to the tune of a .350 ISO in that spot. As if that wasn’t high enough, this year, batters are crushing pitches in that location: .682 (!!!). That’s the what, but what’s the why? Like the HR/FB% issue, we can likely point to Tanaka’s repertoire as the “culprit” for this.

Tanaka gets most of his swings and misses on his slider and his splitter; his Whiff/Swing percentages on those pitches are 33.33 and 33.89 respectively. Against LHB, those numbers are even higher: 37.29% and 35.24%. So, why the big time homer numbers against lefties? And why the big time power in that outside location? Think of the action of each one of those pitches. It’s possible that some (attempted) backdoor sliders are getting just too much of that outside corner and lefties are mashing them. The same could be said for splitters looking to drop out of the zone that hang just a bit too much. Taking a look at the outcomes of each pitch against lefties, we can see that the slider and splitter have relatively low HR/(FB+LD) marks at 12.5 each and that the fastball has been the biggest victim (30.77). The curveball (20.00) has also been sent over the fence more than the slider and splitter. While those numbers aren’t broken down by location, they’re also pitches that a righty will try to place on the outside to a lefty. It seems, then, that when Tanaka is trying to locate those pitches in that middle/away box, he’s not getting the movement on his breaking pitches that he wants, nor is he getting the command on his fastball. That combination generally leads to bad things and that’s certainly been the case for Tanaka and his homers in 2015.

Saturday Night Open Thread

September 19, 2015 by Mike Leave a Comment

Here is your open thread for the evening. MLB Network is showing a bunch of regional games throughout the night, FOX Sports 1 will have the Tigers and Royals, and there’s a whole bunch of college football on as well. Talk about those games, this afternoon’s win, or anything else right here.

Yankees shut Mets out 5-0 thanks to Big Mike, big homers

September 19, 2015 by Mike Leave a Comment

How do you rebound from a tough loss? With a shutout win the next afternoon. The Yankees beat the Mets 5-0 in a not so quick yet well-played game Saturday afternoon. It was their fourth shutout and 81st win of the season. Hooray for clinching a .500 record.

More Early Runs
Once again, the Yankees scored in the first inning. They lead baseball with 117 first inning runs this season — the Rockies are next with 107 — and they scored three within the first three batters Saturday afternoon. Jacoby Ellsbury and Brett Gardner led the inning off with back-to-back bloop singles — they were eerily similar; same arc, same spot, the whole nine — then Carlos Beltran followed with a no-doubt three-run homer into the second deck in right. Quick 3-0 lead.

Both Gardner and Beltran recorded their hits in 0-2 counts and I was hopeful that was an indication Noah Syndergaard was off his game a bit. Instead, he settled right down and retired the next 12 batters he faced. The Yankees didn’t have another base-runner until Dustin Ackley smacked a leadoff triple in the fifth. The run didn’t score though. Didi Gregorius and Michael Pineda struck out, and Ellsbury grounded out. The run felt doomed to be stranded as soon as Didi struck out. Can’t count on the pitcher and the current version of Ellsbury to get the run in there.

The Return of Big Mike
Pineda’s first four starts off the DL were pretty crummy. He allowed 14 runs in 21.2 innings in those starts, and the Mets have been tearing the cover off the ball of late, so Saturday afternoon was going to be a big test for Big Mike. The Yankees are going to need him to be better these last two weeks, and Pineda aced Saturday’s test, throwing 5.1 shutout innings. He struck out four, walked one, and allowed four singles. That’s all.

Joe Girardi went to his bullpen surprisingly early (more on that in a sec) even though Pineda appeared to have plenty left in the tank. Either way, this was Pineda’s best outing since his forearm injury by far. I remember two hard-hit balls: Chase Headley made a fabulous diving grab to his right on Wilmer Flores’ ground ball in the second, then Ellsbury ran down a line drive in the right-center field gap later in the game. I don’t remember who hit it, I just remember Ellsbury chasing it down. Pineda was pretty awesome. More of this Big Mike going forward, please.

Insurance Runs
Like I said, Syndergaard handled the Yankees very well after giving up Beltran’s home run, at least until the sixth inning rolled around. Beltran laced a one-out single to center and Brian McCann followed with a mammoth two-run home run in the bullpens. It was a very aesthetically pleasing home run. Syndergaard threw a fastball right into McCann’s bat path and the follow through left zero doubt the ball was gone. McCann put a great swing on that pitch. It looked good and it gave the Yankees a 5-0 lead in the sixth.

Panic Time
I think we reached peak Girardi panic mode in the bottom of the sixth. Pineda was cruising along, then he allowed two soft singles — Kelly Johnson hit a grounder to beat the shift and Curtis Granderson blooped a ball to left — leading off the inning, and Girardi had the bullpen working. Pineda rebounded to strike out Yoenis Cespedes on three pitches … and that was it. Afternoon over at 86 pitches.

Know what the weird thing was? I totally expected it. I did not, however, expect Stephen Drew to be double switched out of the game literally one out after replacing Ackley. Seriously, Drew came in for defense with a five-run lead after Ackley struck out to end the top of the sixth, which made total sense, then he was out of the game on the double switch. So weird. Anyway, Justin Wilson replaced Pineda, walked the lefty Daniel Murphy to load the bases after maybe getting squeezed, then struck out David Wright and Juan Uribe with his patented “fastball after fastball after fastball” approach.

All things considered, it worked. The Yankees need every win possible and Girardi opted for a fresh Wilson over a fatigued-ish Pineda with men on base, and Wilson escaped the jam. Was it was a curious move to pull Pineda with his pitch count so manageable and the bullpen struggling so much lately, possibly because they’re out of gas late in the season after getting 12 outs a game day after day earlier this season? Yes, of course. But clearly Girardi trusts like three guys in the bullpen and these games are too important. Whatever.

Anyway, Wilson went back out for the seventh and struck out the first two batters of the inning. He struck out four in a row — you could argue five in a row considering he was squeezed against Murphy — then gave way to Caleb Cotham, who struck out Kevin Plawecki. Dellin Betances struck out two in a perfect eighth — Yankees relievers struck out seven in a row at one point — and of course Andrew Miller had to come in for the ninth after Chris Martin made a minor mess. He allowed two infield singles, which was enough for Girardi to go to Miller. He got Travis d’Arnaud to ground out to end the game.

Leftovers
The first four spots in the lineup did all the damage. Ellsbury, Gardner, Beltran, and McCann went a combined 5-for-15 (.333) with two homers and both scored and drove in all five runs. The bottom five spots in the order went 2-for-19 (.105) with ten strikeouts. Ackley tripled and Greg Bird ground-rule doubled. Ackley, Drew, Brendan Ryan, and Rob Refsnyder all played second base in the last four innings.

Pineda and the various relievers combined to strike out 12 Mets on the afternoon. It was the team’s 54th game with double digit strikeouts this year. Only that sicko staff in Cleveland has more. They have 55. The Yankees lead the AL with 28 games with at least ten strikeouts and no more than two walks. They did that this game, because duh. Why else would I mention it?

And finally, for some reason the Citi Field crowd broke into a “Let’s Go Blue Jays!” chant after McCann’s homer. What the hell was that about? The Mets are in first place! Don’t worry about the Yankees, root for your own team. That’s way more fun.

Box Score, WPA Graph & Standings
Here are the box score and video highlights, and here are the updated standings and postseason odds. The magic number to clinch a playoff spot is down to eleven. Here are our Bullpen Workload and Announcer Standings pages, and here’s the win probability graph:

Source: FanGraphs

Up Next
The Yankees and Mets wrap up the 2015 Subway Series with the ESPN Sunday Night Game. Blah. CC Sabathia and Matt Harvey will be the pitching matchup in the sixth game of the nine-game road trip.

Game 147: Big Mike or Small Mike?

September 19, 2015 by Mike Leave a Comment

Last night’s loss stunk, and winning the AL East seems like a pipe dream now, but the Yankees are still very much in the postseason race. That’s pretty cool. They’re four games up on the Astros for the first wildcard spot and five games up on the Twins for a wildcard spot in general. The AL East title is not impossible, just unlikely, so the wildcard is the focus now.

Anyway, this afternoon is a pretty big start for Michael Pineda. He hasn’t pitched well since coming back from his forearm injury — 14 runs in 21.2 innings across four starts! — and owns a 5.01 ERA in 16 starts and 93.1 innings since his 16-strikeout game. That is not good at all. AL East title, wildcard spot, whatever. The Yankees need Pineda to be better to help get them to October. Here is the Mets’ lineup and here is the Yankees’ lineup:

CF Jacoby Ellsbury
LF Brett Gardner
RF Carlos Beltran
C Brian McCann
1B Greg Bird
3B Chase Headley
2B Dustin Ackley
SS Didi Gregorius
RHP Michael Pineda

It’s a little cloudy in New York this afternoon but there is no rain in the forecast, which is most important. Today’s game will begin just after 1pm ET and you can watch on FOX. Enjoy the game.

Injury Update: Nathan Eovaldi (elbow) said he hopes to start his throwing program Monday. He pretty much conceded that if he does return this season, it will be as a reliever. There simply isn’t enough time to get him stretched out to start.

Saturday Links: Teixeira, Forbes, Martin, 2017 WBC

September 19, 2015 by Mike Leave a Comment

The Yankees and Mets continue the Subway Series a little later this afternoon. Here are some stray links to help you pass the time.

Teixeira named 2016 Roberto Clemente Award nominee

Mark Teixeira has been named the Yankees nominee for the 2016 Roberto Clemente Award, MLB announced. Each team nominates one player and the winner is determined by fan voting. Here’s the ballot. The Roberto Clemente Award is given annually to the player who “best exemplifies the game of baseball, sportsmanship, community involvement and the individual’s contribution to his team.” Derek Jeter won it back in 2009. It’s a pretty big deal. The voting ends October 9th. Here’s the ballot again. Go vote for Teixeira.

Forbes ranks Yankees as third most valuable sports franchise

According to the latest Forbes rankings, the Yankees are the third most valuable sports franchise in the world at $3.2 billion. Only the Dallas Cowboys ($4 billion) and Real Madrid ($3.26 billion) are more valuable. Well, technically the Yankees are tied with the New England Patriots at $3.2 billion, but who cares about them. Forbes valued the Yankees at $3.2 billion back in March — the Dodgers are a distant second among MLB teams at $2.4 billion — and they post their updated MLB franchise valuations during Spring Training each year.

Martin scraps slider for curveball

Earlier this season, righty Chris Martin was higher up on Joe Girardi’s bullpen depth chart than I think most of us realized, but he struggled for a while and eventually wound up on the DL with an elbow injury. The Yankees sent Martin to Triple-A once he got healthy, and, according to Billy Witz, Martin dropped his slider in favor of a curveball while with the RailRiders.

Martin hasn’t pitched a whole lot this month, so we haven’t seen the new curveball yet. He told Witz he was better able to control his slider, but the curveball gets more swings and misses, and that’s a trade-off he’s willing to make. I’m not sure Martin will be with the Yankees beyond this year — there’s going to be a big 40-man roster crunch this offseason and Martin’s expendable — but he has a new pitch now, and maybe that will help him stick around the big leagues a few more years.

2017 World Baseball Classic qualifiers coming to Brooklyn

Earlier this week, MLB announced qualifying games for the 2017 World Baseball Classic are coming to Brooklyn. The four-team pool includes Brazil, Great Britain, Israel, and Pakistan, and they’ll play their round robin tournament from September 22nd to 25th next year at MCU Park in Coney Island. The winner of the pool advances to the 2017 WBC. MCU Park is really great. One of my favorites. This isn’t Yankees-related, but baseball in Brooklyn is still cool. Anyway, here is the full WBC qualifying round information.

Yankees can’t support Tanaka in Subway Series opener, fall 5-1 to Mets

September 18, 2015 by Mike Leave a Comment

Well, I can’t say I was surprised to see the Yankees held to only one run Friday night given the starting lineup they ran out there. Blame the NL rules, I guess. The Mets won the first game of the second leg of the 2015 Subway Series by the score of 5-1.

Off The Hook
The Yankees lead baseball in first inning runs, and they jumped out to an early 1-0 lead over the Mets with some weak contact against Steven Matz. Brett Gardner worked a leadoff walk, moved to third on Carlos Beltran’s bloop single — Gardner knew Curtis Granderson was in right and took advantage of his arm — then scored on Chris Young’s routine fly ball to center field. Not much hard contact at all, but a run is a run. The Yankees struck first.

Unfortunately, the Yankees never scored again. Two singles and a botched bunt gave them some base-runners in the second inning, but they couldn’t get the big hit with two outs. Matz settled down after that, retiring nine straight batters from the second through fifth innings. The Yankees did have seven hits against the southpaw in six innings, but all six were singles, and only one or two were hard-hit. The game was there for the taking early on — Matz was up over 60 pitches after only three innings — and the Yankees never cashed in.

Tanaka’s Mistakes
Masahiro Tanaka made three mistake pitches in his six innings Friday night. Lucas Duda hit the first off the facing off the second deck in right field for a solo home run in the second, Duda hit the second into the right field corner for a double in the fourth, and Daniel Murphy hit the third into the bullpen for a solo homer in the sixth. Tanaka made three mistakes and paid for them all.

All together, Tanaka allowed just those two runs on five hits in six innings. He struck out four, didn’t walk anyone, and got 12 of his other 14 outs on the infield. Tanaka had to come out of the game after throwing only 82 pitches because Joe Girardi needed to use a pinch-hitter leading off the seventh — they were down 2-1 and you’ve gotta get a real hitter in there — but otherwise he was good. He just paid for his mistakes. So it goes.

Blown Open
The Yankees had their best chance to take the lead in the sixth inning, after Didi Gregorius beat out an infield single with two outs to put runners at the corners. The problem? Brendan Ryan was due to up next. Girardi could have pinch-hit for him — Alex Rodriguez would have been the obvious movewith Matz’s pitch count getting up there — but whoever hit would have been walked to get to Tanaka’s spot, and taking him out of a 1-1 game in the sixth inning with his pitch count hovering around 70 seems crazy.

Anyway, Ryan grounded out on the first pitch, and the Yankees never had a serious chance to take the lead again. Chasen Shreve allowed a two-run homer to Juan Uribe in the seventh to give the Mets two important insurance runs, making it a 4-1 lead. Shreve has now allowed five runs in his last four innings, including three homers. He looks nothing like the guy he was for the first four months of the season.

To their credit, the Yankees did make it interesting in the ninth inning. Dustin Ackley doubled into the right field corner — he has three hits in his last three pinch-hitting appearances — and A-Rod pinch-walked, then Ellsbury lined a ball literally off Jeurys Familia to load the bases with one out. The tying run was at the plate. Gardner then flew out and Chase Headley struck out. Game over.

Leftovers
The Mets scored another insurance run in the eighth thanks to Jacoby Ellsbury’s misplay in center field, giving Daniel Murphy a triple. It certainly wasn’t a routine play, but Ellsbury jumped for some reason and the ball deflected off his glove. Ellsbury also pinch-hit for Tanaka leading off the seventh and flied out weakly on the first pitch. He’s killing them.

Branden Pinder, James Pazos, and Andrew Bailey got one out each in the eighth inning and combined to allow the insurance run thanks to Ellsbury’s misplay. The bullpen allowed three runs in two innings and is up to 22 runs allowed in 33.1 innings over the last week. The relief crew, which was so strong the first four or five months of the season, has fallen apart this month.

Every starter had exactly one hit except Murphy and Tanaka. Ackley and Ellsbury had hits off the bench. Gardner and A-Rod drew the walks. The Yankees went 2-for-8 with runners in scoring position. Hard to believe they actually had eight at-bats in those spots. Didn’t feel like it.

Box Score, WPA Graph & Standings
Here are the box score and video highlights as well as the updated standings and postseason odds. The Blue Jays beat the Red Sox, so the AL East deficit is a season-high 4.5 games with 16 to play. Time to start focusing on the wildcard, folks. The magic number to clinch a postseason spot remains 12. Here are our Bullpen Workload and Announcer Standings pages, and here’s the win probability graph:

Source: FanGraphs

Up Next
Same two teams Saturday afternoon, in the middle game of this three-game series. Michael Pineda and Noah Syndergaard will be the pitching matchup in the matinee.