Two outings, two bombings, two trips to the woodshed, two losses, two Nabokovian felicities
Horrible.
Frankly, he's been sorta awful since July, when he tweaked a hammy. A few Gammonites, summoning scenes from the old Astros, have suggested Luke is tipping pitches. Dunno. Either way, Weaver sure picked the wrong time and national platform to be screwing up.
Last night, one batter into the catastrophe, with Fernando Cruz warming in the pen, everybody knew the three-hitter minimum would kill us. A walk, a single, a double. Horrible. Weaver shouldn't appear in a close game for the rest of this series. Mop-up duty, at best. In fact, his Yankee run might be done. Come Nov. 1, he's a free agent. NYC can be cruel.
But here's the good news: Aaron Boone can "rest" Weaver. Yes, it cuts a divot from the "Circle of Trust." But there are other bullpen arms, other alternatives. Is Mark Leiter still alive?
Which brings us to Aaron Judge. You know where we're going. Against Boston, the Captain produced four singles, one that clanked off an outfielder's glove much like the one that Judge mishandled in the 2024 world series. And later last night, with the game out of reach, Judge hustled a single into a double. Nice gesture. Dully noted. Trouble is, by then, it didn't matter.
Everybody loves a gentle giant with a high beam smile. Judge is bound for Cooperstown. Maybe Hollywood. (Look out, Rock! He's the real Smashing Machine.) Game's greatest hitter. Maybe, the greatest RH hitter in history. (Though, considering Hank Aaron and Babe Ruth, I'd call that a stretch.) We love him. We'd have his baby. But why do we all now cringe when Judge steps to the plate?
Yesterday, it happened again. Bases loaded, game on the line, full count, God in heaven, me - covered in ashes and cowering behind the couch. As Judge stepped in, the Fox announcers started blathering on how he no longer chases pitches low and away, how he's made adjustments, how he's on the verge of bre - STRIKE THREE, swinging. Low and away.
Damn. That was ball four, if he doesn't swing. The Yankees ended up scoring just one run that inning. Considering the final tally - 10-1 - you could say it didn't matter. But at that moment, the game was balancing on a thread, and neither Judge nor Giancarlo Stanton, (still being heralded as an October hero), put a bat on the ball. Horrible.
And here's why it's so scary: Like so many other HR hitters, Judge and Stanton are complete captives to the tides of streakiness. They go hot, they go cold, then repeat the cycle - and a month of playoffs is a long time to carry a team back. Hot or cold. And right now, cold.
A long long time ago, (2012), in a postseason far far away, Joe Girardi pinch hit for Alex Rodriguez - who had been the greatest hitter of his generation. At one point, in a cruel playoff series against Detroit, A-Rod was reduced to batting ninth. With good reason. Against RH pitchers that October, he went 0-18 with 10 Ks. Horrible.
That was then. Toronto is now. It might be over, if you're Luke Weaver. But Judge is too big to disappear. Unless he gets hot - and God knows how that happens - we are finished.
Being the greatest sports star in NYC can be wondrous, or utterly cruel. For Weaver, it's next year. For Judge, the jury is still out.
(Note: Check out JM's 10-takeways from yesterday. Below.)
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25 comments:
JM, when do you touch down in our sovereign city-state off the coast of the US?
"The Tides of Streakiness" sounds like some long-lost B-Side from an acid rock band in 1970. Like their response to "The Sounds of Silence," but they were too high to get the mix right.
Didn't you just sense that Weaver would implode and that the one run game would get out of hand? Too bad our manager has ZERO feel for his bullpen. Any jackass would've NOT brought in Luke Weaver there. Was that deja vu or what? Almost exactly the same as Game 1 of the Red Sox series, except Yankees were trailing by one instead of ahead by 1. I would never have used Weaver in the Red Sox series, and I never would've brought him in yesterday. Well, if we were losing 10-1, that was the time to use Weaver.
And may I add - I'm not a fan of these 4 o'clock games...
HOG - 100% what you said.
They threw one away against Boston but still won the series (probably because it was a 2 out of 3 series). I don't know that the Yankees have what it takes to come from behind and win this series, after throwing away Game 1 again. The fact that it's a 3 out of 5 series actually makes it tougher for the Yankees. That's because, head to head at least, Toronto is far and away the better team. Longer series means the better team has the odds to prevail.
I don't know how all those "experts" calculating the odds, the talk show hosts, the sportswriters came up with the calculation that the Yankees are favored to win this series. I don't know how it's possible that I'm watching the same things they watched. I said it before this series started: Toronto will be a much tougher opponent than Boston, and my head was predicting Toronto in a long series. But if these Bronx Bastards don't win tonight, it's going to be an awful short series.
1) The Yankees need to win the next three in a row or they are done. The last thing they want to do is have a Game Five vs. Gausman in Toronto. Fortunately the pitching lines up but it's three in a row or go home.
2) 13, I'm with you but Pro Football is the King of Sunday and the only sport with big time ratings . The game's on Fox. At least it can be seen by the non-paying public. They will have to fix that next year. I hear Brit Box is looking for a playoff game.
3) Yes they should have used Warren especially after it was clear they weren't going to win. Let him get his feet wet as a reliver.
4) Where IS Jasson? Let him get his feet wet too in a game your trailing by a bunch of runs. Get Belli of his feet.
5) John Fucking Smoltz is the single most infuriating announcer of all time. If a Jay makes a nice play he covers them in laurels. If a Yankee makes the same play it's on to how great the next batter is.
Before yesterday, I thought there was a definite chance that Toronto could sweep this series but that there was virtually zero chance of the Yankees sweeping it. Having lost Game 1 now, of course, the Yankees cannot sweep. The best chance the Yankees have of winning this series is to win tonight and then win the two games at Yankee Stadium. I think if it comes down to a Game 5, Yankees have virtually zero chance. Because if it gets to Game 5, Kevin Gausman will start again for Toronto, right?
+1 Doug
Buffoon Boone has benched Jasson Dominguez for about the last month of the season. We're not going to see him again until next spring training. Funny, but I was thinking that Toronto with the artificial turf is made for a player like Dominguez. But we have Buffoon Boone as our manager, so Jasson won't see any action this series.
Gausman is a completely different pitcher than he used to be in Baltimore. He's now a fastball-splitter pitcher. All those numbers that the Yankees racked up against him, including by Aaron Judge, back when Gausman was in Baltimore, you can flush them down the toilet. Gausman, slowly but surely, has been turning into a Yankee killer since coming to Toronto. After he shuts the Yankees down again in Game 5, he will cement his status as an "A1" Yankee Killer.
The one question that I kept on asking myself during yesterday's game was,
Where are the real-time adjustments ?
Where were they ?
It appeared that Gil might have made some in the third inning but was pulled
immediately by Boone who thought that it might have been a move that
a real manager would make.
The majority of our hitters were still swinging out of their skins trying for a long ball against all of those splitters when maybe a half swing or a poke or
even holding up more late in the count would have been better approach.
It was a painful watch.
AND then there was KIRK the DANGLER . . .
I almost had to turn away from the screen when they cut to those side shots
of the plate when the DANGLER was at bat.
That said (or typed) I raise my coffee:
Here's to FRIED THE FLIPPER getting the job done today !
As a matter of fact, the Yankees don't hit any Toronto pitcher well. The Yankee killers aren't just in the Blue Jays lineup, they're all over the Jays pitching staff too. That's how the Yankees went 5-8 against Toronto this year. Now, it's 5-9, a .357 winning percentage. .357 Colt Python is a very nice gun (see "Magnum Force" for those vigilante motorcycle cops), but it means you SUCK if that's your winning percentage.
I thought Buffoon pulling Gil was a bit early, but okay, it looked for a while like Buffoon was "going for it", playing the game like it was the 7th game of the world series. And then in a one run affair Buffoon brings in Luke Weaver. Why? WTF?
Ben Rice really killed us yesterday. He never made a single adjustment. He might need to get his eyes checked.
Judge was having a good at-bat with the bags jammed. Until that last pitch, when he obviously lost his discipline and got selfish. If you want to be a champion, just can't lose your concentration and swing at that. Someone called it "the worst pitch of the at-bat", but he swung at it. It was definitely the turning point of the game, but it might have been the turning point of the whole damned series, if they go on to get swept.
I never thought the Yankees would win this series, and Gausman was one of the reasons. I’d have started Fried yesterday, for two reasons 1) I don’t subscribe to the theory that starters MUST have 4 days between starts, especially in the playoffs when you’re playing for all the marbles. 2) as HOG writes above, it would put Fried schedule to oppose Gausman in a prospective Game 5.
Boone’s bring In weaver was the latest terrible decision in a long line of them.
We all knew what was going to happen, and it did.
The time for Judge is now. Today. Be the difference maker you are being paid to be.
I’ll be reading you all later, hoping for the best.
Can someone please explain why Paul Blackburn is on this team? He has the worst stuff I've seen in a long time. Worse than the Lighter Fluid. Actually, Lighter Fluid is almost Cy Young compared to Blackburn. I can't believe Cashman thought it was a good idea to pick Blackburn over Lighter Fluid or the Yarlboro Man. Ryan Yarbrough should've made this roster. If Jasson Dominguez is never going to start a game, why isn't Yarbrough on this team? We like to kick around Buffoon Boone, but those moves by Cashman were vintage BRAIN DEAD.
Well, I'd forgot about it when I was writing above, but the pitch before Judge struck out swinging, Gausman came up and in with a heater. (At least, I think he did, if memory serves.) That fastball up and in set up the off speed low and away. Just classic pitching. See, that is the difference b/w the Jays pitching coach and the Yankees. A Yankee pitcher in that situation would have thrown nothing but off speed down and away until the batter ended up drawing the walk. Because the Yankee pitching coach doesn't teach how to get batters out. He merely teaches his pitchers how to throw with higher spin rate and keep throwing his "best" pitch, hoping the batter swings at one. It's obviously an organizational thing. The analytics department runs the show.
October 12th, Bit! Should be in town by 4 or 5. Staying until the 20th.
If we can swing a get together, that would be great!
And if our hitting coach was worth his salt, he'd keep preaching to his hitters to protect the outside corner with two strikes. Joe Torre used to preach "try to never make out on a pitch on the outside corner". What that means is that, with two strikes, the batter should always protect the outside corner. When Gausman threw that inside pitch, Judge has to know that the next pitch is going to be low and away. He's got to do a better job with that than flailing at a pitch too low and out of the strike zone. Bad coaching all year coming home to haunt them when it really counts.
Ben Rice - got to shorten up, hold hands back, and swing late if it's an off speed pitch. Yes, you always look to drive the fastball, but you can't be swinging for the fences with two strikes. Have to change your approach to staying alive/putting the ball in play mode. That he never stopped swinging for the fences the entire game is an indictment of the coaching and the managing. Think a manager like Dusty Baker would have tolerated that kind of putrid approach yesterday?
Aaron Judge is the James Franklin of MLB
They really blew Game 1. They had their chance with the bases loaded. (Another bases loaded blow job. I'm tellin' ya, if the other team had a brain, their pitchers would start every inning by loading the bases - Yanks would never score. Well, maybe a bases loaded walk every now and then, but that would be it.) Sometimes, you don't even need a home run to win. All they needed to blow that game open was two singles. TWO FREAKING SINGLES. With nobody out, that's not too much to ask.
Talk show hosts blubbering about how these days nobody can put 6 or 7 hits together. We're not talking about 6 or 7 hits. Even after the Bellinger walk, a freaking sac fly would've been huge. A dribbler in the infield would've been huge. Strikeouts get you nothing, and nothing happens as long as the catcher caught the ball.
Hell, I was surprised that the Bronx Bastards actually scored a run with the bags jammed and nobody out. Usually, they get strikeout/popup/strikeout with nothing across.
keefetothecity says he still picks the Yankees to win in 4, meaning that he predicts three straight wins. I hope so. I also predicted Yankees in 4 according to my heart, (but with the proviso that my head says Jays in 5!).
keefe thinks the Yankee bats will wake up against the Jays starters in three straight games. I don't know. I think the Game 1 loss was pretty huge. That was a game they really could have/should have/would have won. That might've been the series right there.
Because there's nothing that says the Jays batters will stop hitting the rest of the series. Yanks will have to score at least five runs every game to win. They couldn't even score five against the Red Sox in any of those three games. What makes you think the Yankees will score five runs tonight? What makes you think Yankee pitching can hold the Jays to four runs or less tonight? What makes you think Buffoon Boone won't pull one of his stupid moves out of the hat tonight?
Even if the Yankees win tonight, Game 3 with Rodon on the hill, that's going to be another brush with terror. Rodon, against all these righthanded Yankee killers.
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