Just Win Baby, And That's What Yankees Are Doing

I’m not sure how they’re doing it, but the Yankees have not lost a series all season. They’ve won five and split a four-game set with the Twins - that after they had lost the first two games - and now stand 12-7 on the season after taking two of three from the Angels. It feels like they haven’t played great, but wins are wins, right? I hope you enjoyed Chapter 2 of Hardball Hyperbole the other day. Remember, if you miss any of the newsletters, they’re all right here: https://salmaiorana.beehiiv.com

With all the guys the Yankees have on the injured list; the lame lineups Aaron Boone has had to trot out on some nights; the ongoing struggles they’ve had for several years hitting with runners in scoring position; and the fact that every team they’ve played except the Giants will probably be in the playoff hunt late in the season, this solid start is hard to figure.

You can almost make the case that their 12-7 jump out of the gate against the competition they’ve faced (55-56 combined record) is more impressive than the 16-3 start the Rays have had playing a steady diet of the worst teams in baseball who are a combined 43-68.

Think about all the great Yankee teams there have been since 1957, yet this is just the third time since that season that they’ve gone unbeaten in their first six series. The only others to do this were the 1976 team (4-0-2) and the 2003 team which pushed the magic to nine series (8-0-1). Both of those clubs won AL pennants.

You know that I bitch an awful lot in this space, but I have to concede that for this team to be 12-7 with all that it has already dealt with in terms of injuries is impressive. They certainly aren’t pretty, they’re certainly not a juggernaut, but they have found ways to win and you can never sniff at that skill.

Now, if they can just get Carlos Rodon and Luis Severino into the rotation, and get Jonathan Loaisiga, Tommy Kahnle and Lou Trivino back in the bullpen, they’ll have a chance to really get going. Sadly, we’re probably still several weeks away from any of that happening, so they have to continue to hang on the way they are. Even with their earlier resiliency, they’re already 4.5 games behind the friggin’ Rays.

➤ So, speaking of injuries, there was very little good news to start this week. Giancarlo Stanton’s hamstring injury, as I fully expected, is serious and he’ll be out six to eight weeks, and with Stanton, you know it’ll be closer to eight than it is six. … Rodon’s rehab had to be put on hold because his back was acting up, so my prediction is we’re not seeing this guy for at least another month. … Josh Donaldson said his hamstring was barking in his first rehab game Tuesday so he’ll probably be delayed further, a development that doesn’t exactly make me sad because that means Oswald Peraza will remain with the team a little longer. … The only semi-encouraging news is that Severino is slowly moving forward, not backward like Rodon, and Harrison Bader is getting closer to returning.

➤ One thing that really stood out in this series was the Yankees fielding. They made some outstanding plays including two incredible diving plays by Anthony Volpe at short and two great catches by Aaron Judge in center Tuesday, then two great catches in center by Isiah Kiner-Falefa and a couple excellent plays by Peraza at second Wednesday. The only two errors in the three games were by catcher Kyle Higashioka on Monday, and one of those was an accident, a catchers’ interference.

➤ Anthony Rizzo has been on a pretty good roll lately. He had 14 plate appearances and was on base eight times (five hits, three walks). Thursday, he was on base all five times, the first time in his career he’s done that. His OPS of 1.027 is eighth in MLB. … On the flip side, after his great start, Gleyber Torres was really in a rut. He did come through with the walk-off sacrifice fly Tuesday, but until his RBI single in the eighth Wednesday, he was 1-for-24. This is what Torres does; he can get hot, and then he can get really cold. … And Oswaldo Cabrera is in a 1-for-17 slide.

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

April 18: Angels 5, Yankees 2

➤ I will repeat the tweet I sent out as soon as this game ended: “What a sleepy, shitty loss that was for the Yankees.” Anyone care to dispute that? What a waste of two hours and 45 minutes. The only good thing I can say is that thanks to the new pitch timer, this would have been a waste of three hours, 15 minutes last year.

➤ Clarke Schmidt once again sucked, which has become a full-blown trend. This guy just isn’t a starter, and the Yankees are now finding that out about their 2017 first-round pick. Trouble is, they have no one else to make these starts right now. This was the fourth time he failed to get past the fourth inning. He has thrown just 14.1 innings and his ERA is now 8.79.

➤ He started terribly as Taylor Ward doubled, Shohei Ohtani crushed a two-run homer, and Mike Trout singled, but then escaped more trouble when Trout got caught napping and was doubled up on a pop fly to Rizzo. Schmidt then briefly looked like the pitcher the Yankees hope he can be. He went 1-2-3 in the second and third, but quickly reverted to his typical form in the fourth. Trout double, Anthony Rendon RBI single, Hunter Renfroe RBI double, and after two outs, Schmidt hit rookie Zach Neto with a pitch. 4-0, night done.

➤ I had to laugh when Michael Kay referenced the 4-0 deficit and said something like the Yankees have the “firepower” to come back. What? Did you see the lineup Boone used for this game? Peraza was making his first appearance of the season, and four other guys - Volpe, Higashioka, Kiner-Falefa and Aaron Hicks - are all batting under .200 and have combined for three home runs and nine RBI. And Boone’s pinch-hitting move in the eighth, Franchy Cordero? Yeah, reality is starting to hit for him as his average dropped to .200 after he grounded out. Firepower? I guess he was referring to Judge, Rizzo, Torres and DJ LeMahieu who went a combined 1-for-13 as the Yankees managed just four hits all night.

BOX SCORE

April 19: Yankees 3, Angels 2 (10)

➤ Well, this game was certainly more interesting and definitely more dramatic than the opener, and it’s a shame that many of you may have missed it if you don’t have Amazon Prime. Believe it or not, it had a bit of an October feel to it - and not just because of the temperature. There were some big performances, several tense moments, great fielding plays, and some more walk-off magic from Torres. On the downside, a very pre-2023 length of three hours, 20 minutes.

➤ What a start. In the top of the first inning, Ohtani launched a ball to deep center off Jhony Brito and Judge leaped at the wall, stopped it from going over, then corralled it with his bare hand to complete the home run-robbing catch. “He got up there pretty good and then played a little volleyball with it,” Boone said. And then in the bottom of the first, Volpe - who had his best game to date with two hits, a walk, a stolen base and two great plays at short - led off with a single and Judge ripped a two-run homer. Boone joked that Judge was a plus-3 in the first meaning he saved one run and produced two.

➤ However, from that moment on, the Yankees offense was horrible. Again. They managed only one run on four hits the rest of the way and only won because the bullpen was great. Angels starter Griffin Canning really settled in after the Judge blast and made it into the sixth inning. Then the Angels bullpen, which was also very good, kept the Yankees at bay long enough for them to tie it.

➤ They scored a run in the fifth when Brito - who had a pretty good bounce back start - exited with men on second and third and Michael King gave up an RBI grounder. However, King struck out Ohtani to end it. King then put two men on in the seventh but came back to whiff Ward and Ohtani again in a very big showdown. But the pesky Angels tied it in the eighth against Wandy Peralta. He gave up a two-out single to Renfroe, then committed a balk, and that proved costly because Gio Urshela golfed a pitch that nearly hit the ground for a blooper to center that sent home Renfroe. Ugh!

➤ Another huge moment came in the ninth. Once again, Clay Holmes made us sweat. He got the first two men out, then hit Ward with a pitch and walked Ohtani, so now he had to face Trout. On a 3-2 pitch Trout checked his swing, and I really thought he checked it and should have walked to first, but the first-base ump said he went too far. Major break for the Yankees there.

➤ Finally in the 10th, Ian Hamilton set the Angels down in order, leaving the automatic runner at third. And in the bottom half, Kiner-Falefa was the runner at second and after Volpe failed on a bunt - God, I hate bunts in so many ways - Matt Moore intentionally walked Judge, hit Rizzo, and then gave up a sacrifice fly to Torres. This is the eighth time Torres has walked a game off which is tied for the most in MLB since 2018 when he made his debut. Hell of a game.

BOX SCORE

April 20: Yankees 9, Angels 3

➤ This game should have been over long before it actually was as the Yankees scored five times in the bottom of the first matching their season high for an inning. But five straight innings of nothing allowed the Angels to chip away before the Yankees finally decided to start hitting and scoring again and they wound up pulling away at the end.

➤ They jumped all over Patrick Sandoval, who started the day with a 1.23 ERA. Five of the first six batters reached base which produced two runs, and then Jose Trevino came through with a big two-out, three-run double that made it 5-0.

➤ Nestor Cortes wasn’t at his best, and Boone acknowledged that. “I didn’t think he was great Nestor today, but he was really good at times,” Boone said. “And he’s Nestor. Six strong on a day when he was a little bit in and out. The stuff was good at times. But he can just really pitch. He made some mistakes, and he’s still able to have that kind of an outing, which just speaks to the kind of pitcher he is.”

➤ Cortes had his streak of consecutive games allowing two runs or fewer snapped at nine, but this makes 16 in a row where he’s allowed three or less. He has given up three runs or less in 25 straight home starts and 42 of 46 starts overall since 2021. Man, what a gem that guy is.

➤ Cortes was great against the Angels stars - Ohtani, Trout and Rendon - who went 0-for-9 against him. But the bottom of the order drove him crazy and ultimately out of the game. LA scored twice in the fifth before Cortes got Ohtani to ground out. And then to start the seventh he walked Luis Rengifo and that was it. Ron Marinaccio came on and immediately gave up an RBI double to Logan O’Hoppe that made it 5-3. Two outs later, Peralta entered and he walked Ohtani and gave up a single to Trout to load the bases and all of the sudden the game was on the line. However, he induced Rendon to fly out.

➤ From there, the Yankees cruised as they scored three times in the seventh, the big hits an RBI double by LeMahieu and a two-out, two-run single by IKF that put it out of reach. It was crazy how fast things changed in the seventh. One moment the Angels were poised to take the lead, and the next they were down five runs. That’s baseball, Suzyn.

➤ Props to IKF. It’s clear he’s still struggling to figure out his routes to the ball in center, but he made two diving catches that were big, and he finally drove in his first two runs of the season. Big day for him.

BOX SCORE

➤ April 18, 1923: It was dubbed the House That Ruth Built because Babe Ruth’s enormous popularity had warranted the Yankees building a massive new ballpark in the Bronx to call their own after years of being a tenant of the New York Giants at the Polo Grounds. And it opened for business 100 years ago this week.

The relationship between the Giants and Yankees crumbled after the 1920 season when Yankee attendance - boosted by Ruth who had joined the team that year - doubled to 1,289,422. That was around 100,000 more than the Giants, and it essentially brought an eviction notice for the Yankees who were told to leave as soon as possible.

Spurred into action, Yankee co-owners Jacob Ruppert and Tillinghast l'Hommedieu Huston put out a press release on Feb. 6, 1921 to announce a $675,000 purchase of 10 acres of property in the west Bronx from the estate of William Waldorf Astor which sat directly across the Harlem River less than a mile as a crow flies from the Polo Grounds.

Within two years, at a cost of $2.5 million, baseball’s first triple-decked structure was completed, and with an advertised capacity of 70,000, it would also be the first baseball venue to be labeled a “stadium.”

Quite appropriately in the first game played there, Ruth hit the stadium’s first home run, a three-run shot to right field, and the Yankees defeated the Red Sox 4-1. Before the game, Ruth said, “I’d give a year of my life if I can hit a home run in this first game in this new park.”

Ruth would go on to hit 259 of his 714 career home runs at Yankee Stadium which rank second to Mickey Mantle who hit 266 of his 536 career homers in the Bronx.

The Yankees are 12-7 and are in second place, four games behind the Rays.

➤ Tampa Bay (16-3): Another ho-hum series win for the Rays against an inferior opponent. They found a way to lose 8-1 to the Reds Monday, then pounded the shit out of them 10-0 and 8-0. Their run differential is plus-83. They did get bad news about lefty Jeffrey Springs as he’ll be having Tommy John surgery and is done for this season. It doesn’t even matter because they’ve probably got five guys who can step in and take his place. The Yankees lose two starters and they’re staring at Schmidt and Brito as the best options. Next up for the Rays, they host the White Sox who are off to a poor start, in keeping with every other team the Rays have faced.

➤ Baltimore 11-7: The Orioles swept two from the absolutely putrid Nationals, 1-0 and 4-0. And going back to their 8-4 victory over the White Sox on Monday, the Orioles’ pitching staff has thrown 26 consecutive scoreless innings. Dean Kremer’s 6.2 shutout innings keyed the Tuesday win, and Kyle Bradish went six scoreless Tuesday before four relievers closed it out. The Orioles didn’t hit in this series, but their offense is good and if they can pitch anywhere close to this, as I’ve said right along, this team is dangerous. Baltimore next hosts the lousy Tigers for three.

➤ Toronto 11-8: The Jays went down to Houston and lost two of three, both losses in blowout fashion, 9-2 and 8-1, sandwiched around a 4-2 victory. Bo Bichette, Vlad Guerrero and Matt Chapman are still raking, but George Springer is off to a slow start. Of course, he’s always been a royal pain in the ass for the Yankees, so I’d expect he’ll wake up this weekend. Wednesday, Jose Berrios gave Toronto seven strong innings but the bullpen imploded during a six-run eighth inning. In the Monday loss, Kevin Gausman had a rare bad performance as he was lit up for seven earned runs.

➤Boston 10-10: The Red Sox got back to .500 as they took two of three from the Twins. Corey Kluber was awful in the 10-4 Wednesday loss and it looks like he’s pretty much shot. But Chris Sale who had been terrible in his first two starts, looked more like the guy he once was on Tuesday. He struck out 11 and gave up only one run in six innings. That night, the Twins scored twice in the 10th to go up 4-2, then gagged it up in the bottom half as Boston’s Reese McGuire had a two-run single and Alex Verdugo walked it off with a single. Boston heads to Milwaukee for three against the NL Central-leading Brewers.

Toronto comes to the Bronx for three this weekend and while I’m impressed with the Yankees start, there’s still nothing convinces me they are better than the Jays this season, especially on offense. Toronto’s lineup is so talented and dangerous, it’s actually a little shocking that the Jays rank only 13th in OPS at .732, just ahead of the Yankees. However, they rank fourth with 173 hits, 31 more than the Yankees who sit 26th in that department.

On the pitching side, the Yankees have clearly been better as their team ERA is fourth-best at 3.02 compared to the Jays who are 21st at 4.90. The problem for the Jays is that their pitchers have given up 27 home runs while the Yankees have allowed just 14, sixth-fewest in MLB.

Here are the scheduled pitching matchups: Friday night is a 7:05 Apple TV game, Domingo German vs. Yusei Kikuchi (4.70 ERA). Saturday is a 1:05 YES game, a beauty with two aces, Gerrit Cole vs. Alek Manoah, though Manoah has really struggled early with a 6.98 ERA. And then Sunday’s 1:35 YES game will feature Schmidt against Gausman (3.65).