Wednesday, October 7, 2020

Game One Wonders

By HoraceClarke66 

Picking up on something Leinstery smartly observed, this ALDS so far has all the makings of giving us yet another Yankees special:  the Game One hallucination.

 

As previously noted, our boys have been eliminated in 14 of their 15 playoff appearances, 12 of them without reaching the World Series, 7 times without even reaching the ALCS.

 

In 7 of those 14 elimination series, the Yanks won the first game, often in commanding fashion. To wit:

 

2002—Yanks belt the Angels, with Bernie’s three-run homer clinching the game in the 8th, 8-5. But in the next two games they blow a one-run lead late, and a big-lead early, and lose, 3 games to 1.

 

2004—Yanks break out big, leading Sox 8-0 after six, and holding Boston to no hits. They hang on for 10-7 win, then win the next two, before…

 

2005—Yanks top Angels, 4-2, in the ALDS. Then A-Rod, and the Big Unit meltdown, in 3-2 series loss.

 

2006—Yanks ravage Detroit, 8-4, in the ALDS. Then, ditto…except that they lose in 4 games.

 

2010—Yanks make stirring comeback to win first game of the ALCS against Texas, 6-5 (Bet you can’t name the winning pitcher in that game. I couldn’t.). Then they drop 4 of the next 5, because it really wasn’t important to get Cliff Lee.

 

2011—Yanks bomb Tigers, 9-3, in ALDS opener, with a great fill-in job by Ivan Nova, in a rain-interrupted game—but still lose series, 3-2.

 

2019—Yanks look like gangbusters, taking apart Houston and Greinke, 7-0, even in Cheatersville. Then, they barely win another game.

 

All told, in those 7 series, after winning the first game, the Yankees went 6-24, or .200 basebaa.

 

Which speaks to their lack of pitching depth, most of all. And which doesn’t bode well for this week.

42 comments:

JM said...

Fair amount of Twitter chatter about last night's umping. Editing together all the balls that were called strikes, you can see why the Yanks struck out so much. They were put into pitchers' counts before they could even get their breath. And they were compelled to swing at bad pitches because so many had been called strikes, they couldn't risk taking them and having them called as strikes.

It really made a huge difference, and it was a serious handicap. Of course, our pitchers sucked, but they did seem frustrated a few times by calls against them. Good pitches that nicked corners or edges that were called balls.

There was something seriously wrong, and the Rays were the beneficiaries of it.

The boneheaded bait and switch move with Deivi and Happ cannot be excused, but we still could've pulled it out with decent umping.

Joe of AZ said...

Last nights umpiring was bullshit. If I were the yanks Id protest lol.

Can we just say it. Higgy at this point is better than the Fat Sanchino and deserves to start the rest of the series

JM said...

Higgy, like Romaine last year, is better than Sanchez. Hell, Kratz is better than Sanchez.

JM said...

Oh dear. Tanaka.

Joe of AZ said...

We'll find out too little too late...that Tanaka played the whole year injured....or with COVID

Leinstery said...

Who saw Tanaka imploding like this? Only everyone that has ever seen him pitch against the Rays.

Anonymous said...

The last pitch by Tanaka as a Yankee. Sad, One of my favorites of all time. Sayonara!

Doug K.

ranger_lp said...

We still can’t beat Morton...

JM said...

The offense looks awful. But Cy Young is on the mound, after all

Judge has really gone to shit in a big way. Hicks, got a double there. That's good.

DickAllen said...

The Yankees didn’t lose that game last night because of umpiring. The guy behind the plate was consistent with his strike zone.

We lost because the Rays relief corps was deadly. Plain and simple, we simply couldn’t catch up with them. And it wasn’t just Sanchez - up and down the lineup guys were whiffing. We had opportunities in both the 8th and 9th and couldn’t get the job done. The game was their for the taking and the mighty Yankees struck out - repeatedly.

Pocono Steve said...

This should come as no surprise. All the Yankees are doing is the same shit they did last Wednesday when they "won" a game against Cleveland that neither team deserved to win. The difference is that the annoying, goddam, stupid fucking dugout-dancing Devil Rays aren't going to be as generous as the Indians were.

JM said...

Richie, the consistently bad umpiring effected the whole lineup. Replay the last or second to last AB by DJ. Disbelief.

DickAllen said...

And we are getting hosed. - see you next year.

JM said...

Green hasn't been doing it. Cessa, fuhgetaboutit.

JM said...

2020 is one suckass year. But with the Yanks, it's just another year of patheticness.

JM said...

I can't watch this. But I am recording it in case of a miracle.

Time to binge watch another couple episodes of Silent Witness.

DickAllen said...

Only losers whine about umpiring

BernBabyBern said...

We FINALLY get the Stanton we hoped we were getting, and everyone else phones it in. Unreal.

JM said...

We'll, if you win, you won't complain about o umpiring. That's true.

Jo-Jo the Dog-Faced Boy said...

Well, you gotta find a silver lining to this dark cloud of a series: at this rate, the Yankees won't be invited to a celebration in the Rose Garden.

Kevin said...

Hal & Cash never patched together a real rotation, and that was before Severino got hurt. So many quality arms who were reasonably priced. I think we all knew where this was going. What still surprises me is how bad our defense has stayed after ten years of "getting younger and more athletic". WTF is with the coaching? My wish is that the first time Cashman utters the the word "analytics" or "metrics" some lunatic would run up and punch him in the mouth. As for Hal..........

smurfy said...

You guys, all of you, Ma Boone as 'she' has been dismissed here is the best example of baseball. They are dealing more shit 'round here than good shit, which I have appreciated. But that he supports players' efforts makes him 'Ma', when any scumbag would throw under the bus, but he never seems to go to bend belief beyond common knowledge. If you have played, you know the did-sapointments, and it is a good manager who can deal with them.

Anonymous said...

This was one of the most appallingly mismanaged postseason games I have ever seen.

1. The Yankees cannot win critical games like this when they are not even fielding their best players. There is NO WAY Gardner should be in the starting lineup. Clint Frazier has overall season numbers that are close to Arozarena's--but there he is on the bench in favor of a fading 37-year-old who happened to have a good last week of the season. We often hear complaints on this blog that the Yankees over-rely on analytics--if only that were true! Cashman and Boone, in critical moments, are whipsawed by fleeting intuitions and panicky small-sample/recency-bias decisions that FLY IN THE FACE of analytics and even basic common sense--the Gardner-Frazier situation being a primary example.
2. You can't grant veteran pitchers the courtesy of a slow trigger in the most important game of the year. In the top of the fourth, when the Rays put two men on base with two outs after having swatted Tanaka around all night and with Kiermeier coming up, that should have been it. This is not a second-guess. At the very moment, I turned to my wife and said, "Why is Tanaka still in the game to pitch to Kiermeier? This is nuts!" If Garcia had been on the mound, he'd have been out of the game--but not Saint Masahiro. I've seen the Yankees operate like this for years--which is why they don't win pennants.
3. Why is Aaron Hicks batting third every night? I understand why he's in the lineup--he's their best option in centerfield--but there is no way he should be batting that high in the order--he should be batting seventh or eighth. Gross incompetence.
4.In the bottom of the eighth, with Gardner coming up against a tough lefty, why wasn't Clint Frazier sent up to pinch-hit? And why was MIKE FUCKING FORD, who cannot hit lefties OR righties, sent up to pinch-hit for Frazier in the ninth? See point one for further elaboration of this ineptitude concerning Frazier. More staggering stupidity and incompetence.

This team as currently general-managed and managed cannot win and most likely will get play its last game of 2020 tomorrow. The Rays are a far smarter and better run organization in every respect. It's not even a close call. The stupidity runs from Hank Steinbrenner down the food chain in this shoddy excuse for a baseball club. Fuck 'em. They're getting what they deserve.

HoraceClarke66 said...

smurfy, it was I who first called Aaron Boone, "Ma," and seriously, it was meant with complete affection. It struck me that this was the sort of name sportswriters would've given him 70-80 years ago. And that is because he does really seem like a caring, players' manager.

That sort of thing is important—maybe the MOST important thing in a manager. Joe Torre, never a great strategist, made that work, and it was beautiful.

Where Boone falls down, of course, in being a cat's paw for Brian Cashman and his brilliant strategies. But I don't blame Boone for that, either. Had he refused to do that, he would not have the job.

Ultimately, these depressing yearly failures all go back to Hal, who lets Brain run everything because he has figured that simply contending every year is just as good as winning.

HoraceClarke66 said...

Pretty much everything said above is right—and it doesn't much matter.

The umpiring WAS awful last night. Guys like Buckner who are widely known to stink should never be in the playoffs—and teams like the Yankees should be raising holy hell about it.

At the same time, Richie Allen has a point. You have to get past that sort of thing.

But you know what? The Yankees mostly did...

HoraceClarke66 said...

...Scoring 5 runs last night despite the adversity was still a good output. Even 4 runs tonight wasn't awful (though will somebody please tell me where in the Holy Fucking Book of Sabremetrics is it written that you can never bat your sluggers back-to-back?).

Having Hicks bat third is idiotic—but the fact is, he's having an excellent postseason. It's Voit who's really killing us, but how can you not have him in a key position, after the year he had? That's just bad luck.

No, the bottom line is this: the Yankees have scored 18 runs off one of the best pitching staffs in baseball in three games. Not too shabby...



Anonymous said...

Correction of point 2 in my post above--Kiermeier came up to face Tanaka with runners on first and second and NOBODY OUT (not two outs, as I mistyped in hasted above), yet mysteriously was not yanked even though he had been getting hit hard all night. STUPID STUPID STUPID STUPID.

HoraceClarke66 said...

What's killing us, once again, is pitching.

We've also ALLOWED 18 runs to the Rays, a team that hit .238 on the season, good for 11th in the AL.

That's unacceptable—at least if you want to win a World Series. This Yankees had two starters going into the playoffs. And Tanaka has been far from a sure thing for a long time now, his arm hanging by a thread for years. He's given us his best, and often come through.

But essentially, we were depending on a staff that had one reliable starter, and one reliable closer (Britton). That's it. And it's not enough. And it hasn't been enough for almost all of the last 20 seasons, but the Yankees won't acknowledge it.

Anonymous said...

HC66--it's very shabby if you look just at the last two nights. It's a bit of tendentious legerdemain to average it out that way. And Hicks looks good RECENTLY? You can't criticize the Yankees for recency bias if you practice it yourself.

DickAllen said...

It’s not that I dislike Boone, or even think he’s such a terrible manager. What really bugs me is the all or nothing character of this team, a team that was largely constructed with analytics permeating the organization. The Yankees are being run by guys whose sole purpose in life is defined by numbers. Sometimes those numbers are meaningful and sometimes they are terribly detrimental. What’s worse is when the whole place is in lock-step together it creates a myopic mindset that allows no room for argument. Or progress.

We live or die by analytics and analytics does not factor in pressure, ignores other teams strengths and weaknesses, takes no human energies into account - it only sees numbers, and as much as baseball is a numbers game, it’s impossible to run a human engine like 25 guys on a locker room by a narrow linear approach. That is where, in my mind, the failure of the Yankees lies.

That’s why Boone is the perfect manager for this organization, but not this team. He follows a prescribed diet that is long on the long ball but cannot win. We’ve seen it even over the course of sixty games. Maybe it will be different over a full season, but I doubt it. A perfect example of this has been Hicks batting third. He supposedly has a terrific OBP (though, ironically, the numbers don’t bear that out), but the ability to draw walks does not belong in that spot. And yet they have stubbornly refused to move him into a place where that talent might prove useful. Years ago the Yankees, I believe, used Gardner in the ninth spot as a “second lead off man.” I don’t really know where he belongs, But it seems like a guy with a downward trending OPS whose high water mark was four years ago belongs at the bottom of a lineup. So I don’t know where he truly belongs.

My point is, the analytics guys have permeated the organization to such an extent that it’s been harmful to the team. Cold hard numbers just don’t hold up long term. Maybe some combination of old and new school will work, but setting home run records one night and striking out 18 times the next does not speak well for the direction of the organization.

As for me, I’m going to sit looking out the window and wait for spring to arrive.

HoraceClarke66 said...

You're right, Anon. But you know, Kiermaier hit .217 this year. He hit .228 last year, and .217 the year before that.

I'm sorry, but staffs from the dynasty years would've been openly drooling to see a guy like that come up in a big situation. Not that the staffs from the dynasty years ever would've encountered someone like that.

Of the 12 teams the Yanks bested to win 4 World Series between 1996-2000, all hit better than the Rays, who batted .238 with a
.753 OPS. The closest the Yanks faced back in the day, taking away the pitcher totals, was San Diego, in 1998, when the Padres batted .261, with a .764 OPS.

That's right: the Rays are 23 points behind the worst team we beat back then. But we still can't get them out.

Anonymous said...

Richie Allen-- you've got this wrong. Cashman doesn't really understand analytics and is subject to panicky bouts of recency bias and small-sample hysteria that fly in the face of analytics. On a team like Tampa Bay, Hicks would be batting at the bottom of the order and Frazier would be an everyday player. Hicks probably wouldn't even be on the team and would certainly have been awarded that kind of lavish contract. Gardner would never have been re-signed for this year. Cashman is an IDIOT, not a really smart analytics guy.

Anonymous said...

HC66--But Kiermaier has good power and Tanaka clearly didn't have it. That was the highest-leverage situation in the game. Leaving him in their was simply idiotic.

Anonymous said...

He had been getting slapped around all night, and had just put two runners on with nobody out. Leaving him in at that point was sheer stupidity or masochism or both in such a critical game.

Kevin said...

Anon: You're still talking about Kevin FCKNG Kiermeier, not a player to base an overall strategy around. If you can't trust Tanaka for at least five innings then you may as well concede when Kiermeier comes to bat. The reason being is that the resultant damage to the bullpen will be catastrophic. Which is where we find it anyway. Even if we're somehow able to win the next two games (we won't) we'd still find the staff (staph) is short, NFW do we have a chance in a seven game series. The song remains the same, we've had at best only fair starting pitching, and poor back of the bullpen relievers for all but a few seasons over the past twenty seasons. People always forget all the great starters that we had during The Dynasty, backed up by some versatile, hardened relievers. We aren't even close to that staff. Unless Hal opens the wallet, and Da Brain can get creative prepare for Groundhog Years.

Anonymous said...

Excuse me, KEVIN, but when Keirmaier strode to the plate in the top of the fourth, there were twoo men on with NO OUTS, and Tanaka had already given up SIX HITS and ONE RUN in four innings. It's not just about Kiermaier--it's about the fact that Tanaka clearly had nothing, was in trouble in a peak leverage moment in the game where a long ball would put the game out of reach. Pay attention. Get your facts in order before you go on your next rant. It's as much about Tanaka's abysmal stuff and performance as whom he was facing.

Kevin said...

Anon, you are right as far as it goes. The rant that I was on concerned the notion that if KK couldn't be stopped by Tanaka the game was lost. Bringing in a reliever would in effect destroy what was left of the bullpen. In hindsight, that happened anyway.

Anonymous said...

Kevin--If you can't relieve a blatantly ineffective starter in the fourth inning in a high-leverage situation in a critical game, you might as well close up the franchise.

HoraceClarke66 said...

Yes, probably he should have pulled Tanaka. But for whom? Hanging Chad gave it up, too. And aside from Zack(h), is there ANYONE you trust in the bullpen?

Kevin's point remains. If we don't even have a second, reliable starter—or a second, reliable reliever—we're not winning anything, anyway.

Sure, do all you can to keep from drowning. Thrash and struggle, change pitchers, change strategies. But if you don't have more than two pitchers—unless their names are Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling, or Spahn and Sain—you're goin' blub-blub anyway.

Anonymous said...

HC66 This was a case of veteran deference. Garcia or Montgomery in that situation would have been yanked.

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