Finally Some Good News as the Yankees Sweep the Royals

Nothing less than a sweep of the putrid Royals would have been acceptable and the Yankees got the job done. So that gets them to 53-47 and within 1.5 games of the third wild-card spot, so definitely a progressive weekend. But before I recap the games, I have an idea.  

Saturday afternoon, Gerrit Cole threw 99 pitches, 66 of them for strikes, to 24 Kansas City Royals batters across 6.1 innings and he gave up just two runs on five hits and a walk with 10 strikeouts. It was without question a quality start and he put the Yankees - as he has done almost every time he has taken the mound in 2023 - in a position to win.

Wandy Peralta relieved him with one out and no one on base in the seventh inning - why this had to happen, only Aaron Boone and his nerdy friends know - and he wound up throwing four pitches to retire two batters and end the harmless inning.

However because the Yankees offense was up to its usual standard of looking mostly helpless, even against one of the worst teams in recent MLB history, the game was tied 2-2 as the Yankees came to bat in the seventh, meaning Cole could not get credit for the pitching win.

So, when DJ LeMahieu hit a solo home run to put the Yankees ahead for good at 3-2, because Peralta was the “pitcher of record” he got credit for the win despite working a grand total of about 90 seconds, while Cole got nothing but back pats and high fives for his two hours of labor.

It took us until the last couple decades to fully realize how stupid it is to assign a win or loss to a pitchers’ record and this was the classic example of why. Yes, the starting pitcher is typically the most important man each day, but last I checked, baseball is a team game and one man should not be credited with the win or loss.

You can count individual won-loss records in tennis because it’s a direct competition between two people - one wins, the other losses - but not in baseball, and not in football with quarterbacks, or goalies in hockey. It makes no sense.

If you notice, I very rarely mention a pitchers’ won-loss record because it’s completely meaningless. The numbers I always use are ERA and WHIP (walks, hits per innings pitched), and I’ll also occasionally reference strikeout-to-walk ratio because those are measurements that define how a pitcher is doing in games, and in the season.

His record generally has nothing to do with how good or bad a pitcher pitched. We’ve seen a million games where a starter gave up five, six, even seven runs, then goes into the clubhouse aggravated and kicks a water cooler, yet still gets credit for a win because his teammates happened to score more runs while he was still in the game. Then there are games like Saturday where Cole pitched very well, but it was 2-2 when he left and Peralta got credit for the cheapest win possible for doing practically nothing to deserve it. Dumb.

Even back in the days when starting pitchers often finished what they started, it still seemed weird for that one player on the team to get credit for a win or loss. I mean, he had help. In some cases, lots of it. I know this will sound a little goofy, but why don’t we give batters wins or losses? After all, LeMahieu is the guy who put the Yankees in front for good Saturday. Or how about when there’s a walk-off win, unless there was a wild pitch or passed ball, a batter did something to get the winning run across the plate.

Alas, someone back in the 19th century decided to assign wins and losses to pitchers, and like so many things in baseball it was just accepted as gospel for the next century-plus. Baseball has proven this season that it can change as the newly implemented rules have been absolutely awesome. The pitch timer, bigger bases, reduced pickoff throws leading to more stolen bases, all of it has made the game so much better in 2023 than it was in 2022. I know it would send traditionalists off the deep end, but let’s do away with the pitchers’ won-loss record.

OK, so what can we replace it with? We already have a system in place, Bill James’ game score metric. The father of sabermetrics came up with this years ago, and it’s a way better system for determining the quality of a starting pitchers’ performance.

You start with a baseline of 50 points, then add one point for each out recorded, two points for each inning completed after the fourth, and one point for each strikeout. You subtract two points for each hit allowed, one point for each walk, four for each earned run allowed, and two for each unearned run. Add it all up and that’s your game score, and it matters not whether your team wins or loses the game, it’s merely a measure of how you pitched.

There is no game score for relievers, but put James on it and I’m sure he could tweak the system to produce another game score metric for the bullpen guys.

Let’s use Cole’s season as an example. By any measure, he’s having a terrific year with his 2.78 ERA, 1.082 WHIP and 4.00 strikeout-to-walk ratio. Yeah, he’s 9-2, but we don’t care.

In terms of James’ game score, Cole’s average score across 21 starts is 60. To put that into perspective, San Diego’s Blake Snell leads MLB with a 2.57 ERA and his average game score is 59, same as Shohei Ohtani of the Angels. Spencer Strider of the Braves leads MLB with 14.5 strikeouts per nine innings, and his average game score is 59. So you can see, Cole’s average is outstanding.

Not surprisingly, the best game score recorded this season was Domingo German who put up a 96 in his perfect game against the A’s. Cole has the second-best game score this year, a 92 in his complete game two-hit, 10-strikeout shutout of the Twins on April 16. Those are two of only seven 90-plus game scores in 2023.

Cole has also had three games of 70 or more, also very good. His worst score is 33 which came May 7 against the Rays when he gave up six runs (five earned) on eight hits and two walks in just five innings, with only six strikeouts. All told, he’s had only four starts below the baseline of 50.

To me, game score would be the ideal replacement for won-loss record, so rather than saying Cole is 9-2 with a 2.78 ERA, we should just say Cole is 60 with a 2.78 ERA. Simple.

Thanks for listening! Maybe this is the dumbest idea going, but maybe not. I’d love to hear some thoughts or ideas. Just email me because I’m always interested in what you have to say about anything in the newsletter.

➤ Another week, another injury, and this one is big as Jose Trevino needs wrist surgery and is done for the season. He’s been very good defensively, absolutely terrible offensively. So now Kyle Higashioka is the No. 1 catcher and Ben Rortvedt was called up from Triple-A. I’m interested to see what Rortvedt can do. He was the third wheel in the trade that brought Josh Donaldson and Isiah Kiner-Falefa from the Twins, but he was hurt most of last year. He’s supposed to be very good defensively and a meh hitter, but he was swinging it well in Scranton.

➤ The Yankees are bringing back former great Andy Pettitte as an advisor to Boone who will also help Matt Blake with the pitchers. “I never wanted Andy to leave,” Boone said of Pettitte, who had been an advisor to Brian Cashman until 2019. “I've been trying to make this happen for a long time. Andy and I talk frequently during the season. ... I'm excited to have him back in the mix. As I tell him, you know, the more he can be here, the better.”

Here are my observations on the three games against the Royals.

July 21: Yankees 5, Royals 4

➤ My son Holden and I went to this game and we had great seats halfway between third base and the left-field wall in the third row of the 200 level. It was announced as the Yankees’ 12th sellout of the season at over 46,000, and it looked pretty close to that. Surprisingly, not a lot of booing for a team that has played so terribly, though it was a Friday and it tends to be a younger crowd, many of whom are only there for a good time and then hit the big city after the game. For instance, we had four guys behind us just talking nonstop the entire game barely paying attention to what was going on. Drove me nuts.

➤ Billy McKinney had quite a night. He played center field with Harrison Bader injured again and he made two outstanding catches - one sliding into the gap in left-center and the other leaping at the wall in right-center, plus he had the big blow in the game, a three-run homer in the fourth. That was all fun to see.

➤ What wasn’t fun to see was Aaron Boone taking out Clarke Schmidt in the sixth inning at just 64 pitches. Yes, he gave up a three-run homer to someone named Michael Massey who ended up having quite a weekend, but outside of that wonky fourth inning he was rock solid against this Triple-A level Royals lineup. I saw someone tweet out that he looked like he was really fighting it in the fifth and sixth but when you’re at the game you can’t see things like that. He looked fine from my seat.

➤ Anyway, Boone needed to get in his requisite two or three mid-inning pitching changes so Wandy Peralta was first and he cleaned up Schmidt’s mess in the sixth by getting a fly ball. Then it was Michael King, Tommy Kahnle and Clay Holmes to finish it. Kahnle continued to struggle as he gave up a homer to Massey in the eighth, and then in the ninth, Holmes was not great but he was bailed out by two great defensive plays. One was a diving catch up the middle by second baseman Oswald Peraza with a man on second that might have tied the game. And then by Anthony Volpe who fielded a grounder in the hole, knew he had no play at first so he threw to third to nail the runner trying to advance with DJ LeMahieu putting down a nice tag to end the game.

➤ As usual, the offense was lame, but thankfully, among their five hits, three were homers as Franchy Cordero and Gleyber Torres hit solo shots to go with McKinney’s three-run blast. So, it was a win, but it certainly wasn’t promising that it took a life and death struggle to beat a team that began the day 28-70.

BOX SCORE

July 22: Yankees 5, Royals 2

➤ OK, another day of taking care of business, but another day when it sure wasn’t easy against one of the worst teams in recent modern MLB history. Two bats that have been lifeless for so long, those of LeMahieu and Giancarlo Stanton, decided this game late as LeMahieu hit a go-ahead solo homer in the seventh and then Stanton guessed right on a pitch thrown by Dylan Coleman who had just entered the game, the ball happened to hit Stanton’s bat and it went over the wall in left-center for a two-run shot in the eighth. That hit, plus the RBI single he had in the first, brought Stanton’s average right to the Mendoza line at .200. For LeMahieu it was his first home run in 24 games dating to June 13.

➤ As I said above, Cole was once again very good, albeit against one of the weakest lineups he’ll ever see. Still, you gotta make pitches and he made enough of them to keep the Yankees in it until the late home runs. My only wish for Cole is that he could find a way to be more efficient and pitch to contact a little more. His stuff is more than good enough to get weak contact, and it would allow him to save pitches and go deeper into games. Yes, Boone shouldn’t have pulled him when he did, but Boone can’t help himself, we know that. He apparently didn’t mind using three of the four relievers he used Friday when he pulled Schmidt way too soon. But now, Peralta, Kahnle and Holmes weren’t going to be available Sunday of need be.

➤ Holmes has been very good this season, but here was another save situation in the ninth when he made us sweat. Handed a three-run lead thanks to Stanton’s homer, he got the first two men but then gave up a single and a walk, so Drew Waters came to the plate as the tying run. Waters is the No. 8 hitter who has nine career homers in 266 plate appearances so I wasn’t too worried, but we’ve seen way crazier things happen in baseball than this guy hitting a tying homer. In the end he whiffed, game over.

BOX SCORE

July 23: Yankees 8, Royals 5

➤ It sure felt like it was way more difficult than it needed to be, but the Yankees won all three games to complete a sweep of a truly awful 28-73 Royals team. My God, we bitch and moan about the Yankees but can you imagine being a fan of that team? Then again, they played in the World Series in 2014 and 2015, winning it that second year. That’s more than the Yankees can say since 2009. Also, they have Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs so screw Kansas City fans.

➤ Luis Severino had a nice outing going, and then he kind of ruined it with that meatball he tossed up in the sixth inning to Massey who launched it for a two-run homer. That pissed me off so much because it’s exactly the kind of mistake that can cost you a game. He was ahead in the count 1-2 and to give that up was brutal because all of the sudden, a game that should have been well in hand was 5-3. Still, Sevy has been much better in his last two starts so hopefully he’s starting to figure it out.

➤ Hey, Anthony Rizzo emerged from his two-month coma with the first four-hit game of his Yankee career which also included his first home run in 45 games. So, miracles do exist. The Yankees jumped all over Royals starter Jordan Lyles for four runs on five hits in the first inning including Rizzo’s RBI double plus a two-run homer by Torres and an RBI single by Bader. The Yankees desperately need Rizzo to get locked back in so maybe this was the start of something.

➤ After that big inning, the Yankees did mostly nothing for six innings, the exception being Rizzo’s homer that made it 5-0 in the third. Finally in the eighth, with the game too close for comfort they broke it open with three runs. Rizzo started it with a single, eventually the bases were loaded, and then Oswald Peraza hit a cue shot to first that Pratto bungled into a two-run error, and Kyle Higashioka tacked on a sacrifice fly.

➤ It’s a good thing all that happened because in the ninth, Ron Marinaccio was once again terrible, giving up a pair of solo homers before finally putting the mighty Royals to sleep.

BOX SCORE

 ➤ July 24, 1983: The infamous Pine Tar Game turns 40 years old today, and how appropriate that the Yankees just finished a series with the Royals. The video of this will live for as long as the earth remains inhabitable which, given the recent temperatures, may not be long!

With the Yankees leading the Royals 4-3 in the top of the ninth at Yankee Stadium, Kansas City’s George Brett crushed a go-ahead two-out, two-run homer off Goose Gossage. As Brett was circling the bases and then celebrating in the dugout, Billy Martin came out of the Yankees dugout and asked umpire crew chief Jim Brinkman to inspect Brett’s bat to see if he had too much pine tar on the handle.

As Brett and the Royals looked on in confusion, Brinkman confiscated the bat and found that there were more than the allotted 17 inches of pine tar measured up from the nob. When home plate umpire Tim McClelland signaled that Brett was out, the home run was wiped out and the Yankees were proclaimed 4-3 winners.

In an unforgettable scene, Brett raced out of the dugout looking like he was going to kill McClelland and had to be restrained by several of his teammates as the Yankees happily jogged off the field. During the mayhem, Royals pitcher Gaylord Perry tried to confiscate the bat - in other words, the evidence - but like the days when he would try to slip a spitball past an umpire - he was caught and like Brett was ejected, even though he wasn’t playing.

“I can sympathize with George,” Gossage said, “but not that much.”

Here’s the video of the incident via the Yankees broadcast that day:

The Royals obviously protested the game and four days later it was upheld by the commissioner’s office and the home run counted. With the Royals now leading 5-4, the the game had to be resumed so the Yankees could bat in the bottom of the ninth.

That happened on Aug. 18, an off day for both teams, and the Yankees lineup featured these changes: Pitcher Ron Guidry played center field because the original center fielder in the game, Jerry Mumphrey, had since been traded; second baseman Bert Campaneris had gotten hurt in the interim, so Don Mattingly shifted over to second and Ken Griffey Sr. took over at first; and George Frazier relieved Gossage.

Frazier struck out Hal McRae for the final out in the top of the ninth, and then in the bottom half, Royals closer Dan Quisenberry mowed down Mattingly, Roy Smalley and Oscar Gamble. The resumption took all of 12 minutes. The Yankees invited fans to attend at a cost of $2.50 for all seats, and the announced crowd was 1,265, though it was probably half that many.

After a day off Monday, the Subway Series concludes with two games at Yankee Stadium Tuesday and Wednesday against the crosstown rival Mets, a team that has spectacularly underachieved this season, more than even the Yankees.

Who could have imagined that the Mets, with the highest payroll in MLB history at around $360 million, would be 46-53 and in fourth place in the NL East, 18.5 games behind the Braves and 7.5 games out of the third wild card spot? If you thought the Yankee fans who call WFAN are livid, you should listen to some of the Mets fans.

Buck Showalter’s team just lost two in a row at Fenway to the Red Sox, and as we inch closer to the trade deadline the Mets might actually be sellers rather than buyers. Again, simply incredible what has happened. As a team the Mets rank 20th in runs per game (4.42), one spot ahead of the Yankees (4.40), they’re 20th in OPS at .716 and 21st in on-base (.317). On the pitching side they’re 20th in ERA (4.41) and 23rd in WHIP (1.354).

The pitching matchups are as follows: Tuesday at 7:05 p.m. on YES it’s German (4.52) against Justin Verlander (3.47), and Wednesday at 7:05 on YES it’s Carlos Rodon (7.36) against Jose Quintana (3.60).