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Yankeemetrics: Road Bombers Rolling (June 4-6)

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(UPI)

Severino goes beast-mode
The Yankees three-city road trip continued with a short stop in Detroit for a double-header on Monday, their first twinbill against the Tigers since May 12, 2010. They took the afternoon contest thanks to another brilliant start by Ace Severino, who was backed up by one of the Bronx Bombers’ patented explosive innings at the plate in the 7-4 victory.

After the Tigers took an early 1-0 lead in the first, the Yankees knotted it up at 1-1 in the third with another clutch homer by Gleyber Torres, the 10th of his career. At 21 years and 173 days old, he became the second-youngest Yankee to reach double-digit home runs, trailing Mickey Mantle (19 years, 323 days) and just ahead of Joe DiMaggio (21 years, 216 days). That’s quite the legendary pinstripe sandwich (sorry!).

Greg Bird untied the game with his own solo homer in the fourth inning, sparking a six-run frame during which the Yankees had six straight hits before the Tigers even got one out. Obscure, yet sweet, stat alert: It was the fourth game that the Yankees scored at least six runs in an inning, tied with the Cubs and Astros for the most such games in MLB (through Monday).

Severino was a beast on the mound, mowing down the Tigers lineup after a first-inning hiccup, as he went eight innings while allowing two runs (one earned) with 10 strikeouts and no walks. In other words, just another typical Sevy gem:

And just for fun … the only other Yankee pitcher to strike out at least 10 guys, walk none and allow one earned run or fewer in a game against the Tigers was Roger Clemens on July 19, 2000.

(AP)

Two is not enough
The bats went cold in the nightcap as the Yankees dropped the second game in Motown, 4-2, in one of their more frustrating losses of the season. They went 0-for-10 with runners in scoring position, left 10 men on base, and twice loaded the bases without plating a run.

The split meant that the Yankees still haven’t swept a twinbill since April 16, 2014 against the Cubs, an eight-doubleheader sweepless drought that is the longest by a Yankee team in nearly 50 years (14 straight in 1969-70).

Miguel Andujar provided one of the few offensive highlights with two booming doubles, his team-leading 19th and 20th two-baggers of the season. He is the eighth Yankee since 1908 to reach 20 doubles this early into the season, and the only rookie in that group.

It’s only the first week of June, but he is already the first Yankee rookie third baseman with 20 doubles in a season since Gil McDougald, who would go on to win AL Rookie of the Year in 1951 to kick off a productive (yet largely forgotten) 10-year career in pinstripes.

While Miggy was spraying balls into the gap, Aaron Judge was whiffing and watching called strikes pass by him at the plate. He got his first career five-strikeout game on Monday night, and combined with his three punchouts in the afternoon game, became the unfortunate record-holder for the most strikeouts by a player in a doubleheader. Six guys previously had struck out seven times in a twinbill, and the most recent one was Shea Hillenbrand on Sept. 27, 2005.

(Getty)

#PapaSlam
The final leg of their road trip to them north of the border to the Rogers Centre, a place that had recently been a house of horrors for the Yankees. Entering the series they were 8-16 at the venue since the start of 2016, their worst record at any AL ballpark over the last three seasons. A combo of Baby Bomber power and Vintage Veteran pitching helped the Yankees get a rare win there on Tuesday.

CC Sabathia rebounded from an awful four-start stretch to deliver a turn-back-the-clock performance that was reminiscent of the pitcher who had a 1.39 ERA through his first six starts of the season. He kept the Blue Jays off the board through the fifth inning, and the only runs he gave up were on two solo homers in the sixth and seventh frames.

Facing an all-righty (including switch-hitters) lineup, Sabathia relied on his changeup — a season-high 20.2 percent usage rate — to complement his other off-speed pitches, and the pitch was super-effective for him. It was all about location, location, location, as he pounded the outer edge of the zone:

None of his 18 changeups resulted in a hit or walk, and they netted him four called strikes, four swinging strikes, a couple foul strikes and just three balls hit into play with an average exit velocity of 70.8 mph.

It was Sabathia’s 240th career regular-season win, matching Frank Tanana for 55th place on the all-time MLB list, and his 123rd regular-season win in pinstripes, tying Mike Mussina for 12th place on the all-time franchise list.

Miguel Andujar made sure that Sabathia earned the win, crushing his first career grand slam in the seventh inning that turned a 1-0 deficit into a 4-1 lead. Let’s celebrate with our traditional bullet-point salute:

  • Youngest Yankee with a go-ahead grand slam in the 7th inning or later since a 20-year-old Mickey Mantle did it on July 29, 1952.
  • Third rookie third baseman in franchise history to hit a grand slam, joining Mike Pagliarulo (1984) and Horace Clarke (1965).
  • First Yankee since Dave Winfield (1987) to hit a go-ahead grand slam against the Blue Jays when trailing in the game.
(AP)

Lucky No. 13
Another day, another game, another drama-filled and stunning win for the Yankees. Ho Hum.

The Fighting Spirit was strong on Wednesday night as the Yankees capped off their mini-sweep in Toronto with a 3-0 win in 13 innings. The only other time in the last 25 years that the Yankees beat the Blue Jays in a game that went 13 or more innings was April 19, 2001, a 6-5 win that lasted until the 17th. Neither team put any runs on the board until the Bronx Bombers exploded for three in the 13th. This was the 623rd game played between the Yankees and Blue Jays, and the first one that was scoreless through nine innings.

Aaron Judge wore the hero’s cape after his 404-foot monster blast to center untied the 0-0 game in the top of the 13th inning.

The only other Yankees in the last 90 years to break a scoreless tie with a homer in the 13th inning or later were Alex Rodriguez, who hit a 15th-inning walk-off homer on August 7, 2009 against the Red Sox, and Bill Skowron, who hit a solo shot in the top of the 14th on April 22, 1959 to beat the Senators.

Perhaps the most amazing stat of the game: this was Judge’s first career extra-inning hit of any kind; he was 0-for-14 with 10 strikeouts in extras prior to the homer on Wednesday night.

Giancarlo Stanton added an insurance run in the 13th inning with a 119.3 mph laser shot into the left-field seats. Not only was it the hardest-hit homer by any player this season, it was also the hardest-hit extra-inning homer hit by any player since Statcast tracking began in 2015.

Lost in the extra-inning madness was an outstanding gem thrown by Sonny Gray, who retired the first 12 batters he faced and allowed just two hits over eight scoreless innings. It was the first time in 25 starts as a Yankee (including the postseason) that he didn’t give up a run.

Yankeemetrics: Rain, rain go away (June 1-2)

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(AP)

Return of Good Sonny
The Yankees kicked off their 11-day road trip in Baltimore, and after enduring yet another weather-related postponement on Thursday, finally were able to take the field at Camden Yards on Friday and do what they’re supposed to do against the team with the worst record in the major leagues: win.

After the 4-1 victory, the Yankees improved to 28-1 when allowing four or fewer runs. That’s by far the best record in MLB in that situation. In fact, every other team in MLB has lost at least six games in which they allowed four or fewer runs.

The Yankees explosive bats have helped them win many games — they entered the series tied for the AL lead in games with multi-run innings — they beat the Orioles by scoring exactly one run in four separate innings. This offense may be on pace to break the single-season home run record, but you can’t call it one-dimensional. After Friday’s win, the Yankees improved to 4-6 (.400) in games without a multi-run inning; the MLB average win percentage in those games this season is .196.

Sonny Gray continued his mystifying, Jekyll-and-Hyde act on the mound, bouncing back from a disaster start against the Angels last week to throw a solid six innings, with one run allowed on four hits. The most encouraging number might be zero — the number of times he walked a batter. It was his first zero-walk start since joining the Yankees last summer.

Although he started 12 of 22 batters with ball one, he was able to battle back and retire 11 of those 12 guys. That’s a waaaaay different Sonny Gray than we’ve seen this season. Entering Friday, he’d put 102 batters into a 1-0 count, and nearly half (49) of them had reached base; his .480 OBP allowed in that situation ranked 10th worst in baseball (min. 70 batters faced).

His biting curveball was electric as the Orioles whiffed on five of their six swings against the pitch (the only contact was a foul ball) while taking six more curves for called strikes. None of the 22 curves he threw were put into play by the Orioles hitters.

Greg Bird gave the Yankees the lead for good with his first career triple in the fifth inning, driving in Brett Gardner from second base to put them up 2-1. He entered the game slugging .778 with runners in scoring position since the start of 2017, the best mark in the AL and fifth-best in MLB (min. 50 plate appearances) through Friday.

(AP)

Saving Tanaka
After waiting out a non-rain-delay of one hour and 44 minutes prior to Saturday’s contest, the Yankees went to work against the Orioles pitchers, pounding them for eight runs on 13 hits — including seven for extra bases — and cruised to an 8-5 victory.

They improved to 37-17, the earliest into a season (54th game) they’ve been 20 games over .500 since 1998, when they first reached that mark with a record of 29-9 on May 19. The parallels don’t end there: both teams started slowly, with the 1998 club going 1-4 in their first five games and the current 2018 squad treading water at 9-9, before ripping off massive runs.

There’s another other season-long stat that deserves mention here: The Yankees still haven’t lost more than two games in a row. This is the deepest the Yankees have gone into a season (54 games) before suffering their first losing streak of at least three games since 1955, when they didn’t lose three straight until their 58th game on June 12.

In order to get this win, they had to overcome another bout of homeritis by Masahiro Tanaka, who surrendered three home runs in a game for the 11th time in his career. Since his debut in 2014, the only pitcher with more three-plus-homer games than Tanaka is James Shields (15).

Despite all the balls flying over the fences for Orioles, the win was hardly a stunner. Masahiro Tanaka has gotten the highest run support among major-league starters this season, with the Yankees scoring an average of 6.75 runs in his starts after Saturday’s eight-run outburst.

Miguel Andujar and Giancarlo Stanton provided the thump in the lineup, as Miggy turned a 1-0 deficit into a 2-1 advantage with a home run in the second inning and Stanton went deep in the third inning for his first homer since May 19. For Andujar, it was his first career home run that gave the Yankees a lead.

He also added an RBI double in the eighth, his 20th career two-bagger. Playing in his 51st career game, Andujar is the second-fastest Yankee to reach that milestone. The only guy who got there in fewer games was Joe DiMaggio (46 games) in 1936.

(Presswire)

Mother Nature wins again
Sunday’s game was postponed due to rain in the Baltimore area, the sixth postponement — five rain-outs and one snow-out — that the Yankees have endured this season (not including their suspended game against the Nationals). That’s one more postponement than they had all of last year and their most in a season since they had nine in 2011.

So now they’ll play three doubleheaders this season, the same number they played in 2017. If you’re curious (and I know many of you are based on my twitter mentions), the most doubleheaders played in a season by any MLB team is 46(!) by the 1945 Braves. Yes, that’s 46 days of doubleheaders — 92 games — in a 154-game season. The most the Yankees have played in a single season in the Wild Card Era (since 1995) is six in 1996.

Yankeemetrics: Dethroned in the Bronx (May 28-30)

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(New York Post)

Bird is the only word
For one night, at least, the old adage “good pitching beats good hitting” held true, as the Yankees were totally dominated in Monday’s 5-1 loss by Justin Verlander and a historically great Astros pitching staff.

Verlander spun another gem, and in two starts against the Yankees this year, has a 0.61 ERA with 19 strikeouts and no walks. With this being the final series between the two clubs during the regular season, Verlander became the first pitcher — since earned runs became official in 1913 — to strike out at least 15 batters, walk none and post a sub-1.00 ERA in a single season against the Yankees.

One of the guys that Verlander handcuffed was Aaron Judge. After going 0-for-3 in their latest matchup, he remains hitless in 13 at-bats against Verlander with more than half (7) of those outs via strikeout. The 13 at-bats are his most versus any pitcher he doesn’t have a hit off in his career.

Domingo German flashed electric stuff but also suffered from inconsistent command. His final line was a mixed bag with three earned runs (plus an unearned run) allowed on five hits, including a homer, and seven strikeouts in 5 2/3 innings.

The good? He was excellent in missing bats and getting hitters to chase his pitches. He matched a career-high with 16 whiffs, and 11 of them came on pitches out of the zone. The only other guys this season to get that many out-of-zone swings-and-misses (11) in a game against the Astros were Trevor Bauer and Corey Kluber. Pretty good company for the rookie!

All seven of his strikeouts were swinging, including two each to the best Astros hitters in the lineup — Carlos Correa and Jose Altuve. Here’s German making Correa look silly in the first inning:

The lone offensive highlight for the Yankees was Greg Bird taking Justin Verlander deep in the seventh inning. It was the first homer that Verlander allowed to a left-handed batter all season; the 120 lefty swingers he had faced entering the week were the second-most of any pitcher in baseball this season who hadn’t yet allowed a home run to a lefty.

(New York Post)

Happy Gleyber Day
After a relatively quiet few days in the Bronx, wild and wacky baseball returned with a bang on Tuesday night, as the Yankees staged yet another epic comeback en route a 6-5 extra-inning win over the defending AL champs.

It was the Yankees AL-leading fifth walk-off win of the season, and also matched their entire total from last year. The only other time in the last 50 seasons that they compiled five-or-more walk-off wins within their first 52 games played was 2009.

But this wasn’t just any ordinary walk-off celebration, it required a two-run rally in the ninth inning, which has almost become the norm for this Yankee team. It was their …

  • MLB-best fifth win when trailing at start of the ninth inning (same number as last year)
  • MLB-best third win when trailing by multiple runs at start of the ninth (one more than last year)
  • 10th one-run win of the season, more than halfway to last year’s total (18)

Sure the Yankees have been piling up these Fighting Spirit-fueled wins, but this one was perhaps the most improbable. The Yankees committed five errors — their most in a win in more than two decades (April 17, 1997 vs White Sox) — and also struck out a whopping 17 times. They are the first team since at least 1908 (and probably ever) to win a game despite making five or more errors and striking out at least 17 times. Congrats?

Trailing 5-2 at the halfway point, the Yankees used their traditional power bats to save the game and then added a dose of Baby Bomber situational hitting to win it. Aaron Judge started the comeback with a 109.1 mph rocket into the second deck in right leading off the fifth inning. It was his fifth opposite-field homer of the season, and fourth with an exit velocity of at least 108 mph — that’s twice as many as anyone else through Tuesday.

(AP)

Brett Gardner made sure we’d enjoy free baseball with a thrilling two-run game-tying homer in the ninth inning. It was his second home run of the game, after he led off the night with a solo homer in the bottom of the first. That statistical combo gave us our Guest Yankeemetric of the Series, courtesy of stats maven Doug Kern: Gardner is the second Yankee ever to lead off the game with a home run and then hit game-tying or go-ahead homer in the ninth inning or later, joining Snuffy Stirnweiss on August 27, 1947 against the St. Louis Browns.

Gleyber Torres — who else?! — then won it with a two-out RBI single in the 10th, padding his incredible clutch stats and boosting yet again his ever-growing legendary pinstriped career. After his latest heroics, it seems worthwhile to present this relevant chart:

Gleyber Torres OPS in “Clutch” Situations

*PA in 7th or later with batting team tied, ahead by one, or tying run on deck
PA Torres League Avg
RISP 37 1.260 .732
High Leverage 28 1.519 .717
Tie Game 25 1.663 .721
Late & Close* 21 1.357 .675

Torres — at the age of 21 years and 163 days old — became the youngest Yankee with an extra-inning walk-off hit since Ben Chapman on April 25, 1930. And combined with his May 6 game-ending homer vs Cleveland, Torres also entered the record books as the youngest Yankee (since at least 1925) with multiple walk-off RBI in a single season.

(New York Post)

Welcome to the Sevy and Sanchez Show
Yankees continued their domination of the defending champs this season, taking another series against Houston after their 5-3 victory on Wednesday night. The Yankees are the only team to win multiple series against the Astros this season. Some other stats of note as the Yankees improved to…

  • MLB-best 14-4 in games started by left-handers
  • MLB-best 20-7 against teams with a .500 record or better
  • MLB-best 24-2 in games that their starter pitches at least six innings
  • MLB-best 24-1 when allowing fewer than four runs

Luis Severino showcased his ace stuff as he struck out 11 batters and held the Astros to two runs on four hits over seven innings. All 11 of the punchouts were swinging — a career-best for Sevy — and eight of the 11 came on his slider.

His masterful outing capped off a dominant month during which he struck out a total of 50 batters, whiffing 10-plus guys in three of six May starts. He is just fifth Yankee in the last 50 seasons with 50 or more strikeouts in a single calendar month. This list is pretty good, eh?

Gary Sanchez delivered the game-changing blow in the fifth inning, a bases-loaded two-run single that turned a 2-1 deficit into a 3-2 lead. That hit snapped an 0-for-19 slump and was his first RBI since May 19. Sanchez has no fear when coming to plate with the bases juiced — he is now 11-for-22 (.500) with the bases loaded since the start of 2017, and has driven in 22 runs in those 22 at-bats.

Yankeemetrics: Heaven in the Bronx (May 25-27)

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(AP)

It’s Torres’ world, and we’re just …
After enduring yet another travel nightmare and coming off back-to-back stinging losses to the Rangers, the Yankees were happy to be back home on Friday night, and even more exited to see their perennial Bronx punching bag in the other dugout. They entered 2018 with a 28-10 record against the Angels at the new Yankee Stadium (including the postseason), their best record versus any AL team at the ballpark.

Gleyber Torres made sure that the Yankees would remain the only team in MLB without a three-game losing streak, delivering his bazillionth historic, clutch performance in their 2-1 victory. With the win, the Yankees also improved to 9-3 in one-run games, the best record in MLB, and put them halfway to last year’s one-run win total (when they were 18-26).

Torres wouldn’t have been able to extend his assault on the record books without a gutty performance from Luis Severino. The Yankees ace grinded through six innings, holding the Angels to one run despite putting eight runners on base, including a career-high-tying four walks. Still, even lacking his best stuff, we get to update our favorite chart:

Aaron Judge also helped keep the Angels in check with a run-saving assist to nail Kole Calhoun at home plate in the third inning, his second assist to home this season. The last Yankee right-fielder with multiple assists to home in a season was Ichiro Suzuki, who had three in 2013. The throw was measured at 100.5 mph by Statcast, the fastest throw by a position player this season.

Back to our hero, Mr. Torres, who added yet another chapter to his storybook rookie season. He sent the Yankee Stadium crowd into a frenzy when he crushed a tie-breaking solo home run in the seventh inning, his fourth game in a row going deep. You know the drill … to the bullet points! He is the:

  • Youngest player in AL history to homer in four straight games, and the fourth-youngest in MLB history. Only Miguel Cabrera (2004), Albert Pujols (2001) and Andruw Jones (1998) were younger than Torres.
  • Third Yankee second baseman to homer in four straight games, joining Hall-of-Famers Tony Lazzeri (1936) and Joe Gordon (1940).
  • Third player in MLB history to homer in four straight games while batting ninth in the order. The others were White Sox catcher Jim Essian in 1977 and Phillies pitcher Ken Brett in 1973.

It was also Torres’ fifth career go-ahead homer, all of them coming since May 4; in that span, over the past three weeks, all other Yankees combined to hit five go-ahead homers.

(AP)

Very dark skies in the Bronx
One day after one of the season’s most exhilarating wins, the Yankees crashed back to Earth with one of their biggest duds of the season. They jumped out to a 4-1 lead after two innings, but it was all downhill from there, as the Angels outscored them 10-0 the rest of the way. It’s the third time this year they’ve coughed up at least 11 runs in a game; last year they did that only twice the entire season.

This was not only an embarrassing loss, but also a rare one for the Yankees: it’s just the second time in the last 15 seasons that they blew of lead of at least three runs and ending up losing by seven or more runs. The other two instances were a 14-7 loss to the White Sox on June 29, 2012 and a 13-4 loss to the A’s on August 3, 2004.

Sonny Gray delivered another brutal outing, increasing his ERA to 5.98 overall (third-worst among MLB qualified pitchers) and a miserable 7.22 at home (worst in MLB). We’ve detailed here his struggles to get ahead early in counts, but there’s another potentially bigger issue that continues to plague Gray this season and again played a large role in his awful performance on Saturday — his massive struggles against right-handed batters.

Fifteen of the 21 Angels batters he faced hit from the right side, and they went 7-for-13 with two doubles, a homer, and four singles. The Angels righties pummeled him, as the nine balls they hit fair had an average exit velocity of 98.3 mph.

For the season, he’s allowed a .312/.395/.533 line and .397 wOBA to righties, basically turning every right-handed batter he faces into Jose Abreu (.398 wOBA this season). His OPS, OBP and Slugging Percentage allowed to righties each rank among the five worst in MLB for right-handed pitchers. [For reference, lefties are hitting .240/.348/.323 with a .306 wOBA against Gray.]

Much of that right-handed damage on Saturday was done by Mike Trout, who authored his own historic performance. He went 5-for-5 with three doubles, a homer and a single. He’s the first visiting centerfielder ever with four extra-base hits at Yankee Stadium (old or new). After Saturday’s game, Trout’s slugging percentage in the Bronx was .819, the highest by any player (min. 70 PA) at Yankee Stadium (old or new).

The game started out on a positive note, with Brett Gardner and Aaron Judge smacking homers back-to-back in the bottom of the first inning. For Gardner, it was his 12th career leadoff homer, the seventh-most in franchise history (Derek Jeter is first with 29). For Judge, it was his 70th career homer, a milestone he reached quicker (231 games) than any other player in MLB history (Ryan Howard is second, 233 games).

(New York Post)

This is heaven for Tanaka
The Yankees rebounded from their Saturday night disaster with a 3-1 win on Sunday afternoon, taking the series behind justenough offense and a dominant pitching performance from Masahiro Tanaka.

They scored all three runs in third inning, and the only hit in that frame was a leadoff single by Aaron Judge. We actually should call it a leadoff missile — the baseball left his bat with an exit velocity of 119.9 mph, the hardest-hit ball in play this season. Since the start of last season, there have been six balls hit with an exit velo of 119-plus mph in MLB — Judge has five of them and Giancarlo Stanton has the other one.

Tanaka produced his own bounceback performance, holding the Angels to one run on three hits in six innings. He struck out eight and the only mistake he made was a fourth-inning home run by Andrelton Simmons. He consistently froze the Angels batters, painting the corners and changing eye levels, getting a season-best 20 called strikes on the 60 pitches that the Angels took.

If only the Yankees played in the AL West … After Sunday’s brilliant outing, Tanaka improved to 6-0 with a 1.59 ERA in six career starts against the Angels. That’s the third-lowest ERA against them among active MLB pitchers (min. 5 starts), and the second-lowest against them by any pitcher in Yankees history (min. 3 starts), behind Mel Stottlemyre (1.49 ERA over 27 starts).

Yankeemetrics: Nightmare Slugfest in Texas (May 21-23)

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(USA Today)

”I feel sorry for the baseballs”
The Yankees opened their series in Texas in historic fashion, as the offense went bonkers and put on an insane power-hitting show in a 10-5 win over the Rangers.

The final tally was five homers and five doubles, and when combined with the offensive explosions from their previous two games in Kansas City, produced these staggering stats:

  • First time in franchise history that they hit at least four homers in three straight games.
  • First team since the 1963 Twins with four or more home runs in three straight road games, and the first team since the 1961 Braves to do that on the same road trip. Those two teams, by the way, featured three of the top-25 home run hitters of all-time: Hall-of-Famers Harmon Killebrew (Twins), Eddie Mathews (Braves) and Hank Aaron (Braves).
  • First time in franchise history that the Yankees recorded at least eight extra-base hits in three straight games.
  • Only three other teams have done that in baseball history: 1935 Senators, 1999 Indians, 2003 Red Sox. And the best thing we can say about those three clubs is … I’ll just leave you with this clip:

And finally, putting it all together for our Obscure Yankeemetric of the Series: Yankees are the first team in MLB history (or at least since 1908) with at least eight extra-base hits, including four homers, in back-to-back-back games.

And that might not have even been the best #FunFact from this game

Gleyber Torres kicked off the dinger party with a 418-foot blast to left-center field, but he was just getting warmed up at that point, as he went deep (425 feet deep, to be exact) again in the sixth for his first career multi-homer game.

He became the second-youngest (21 years, 159 days) Yankee ever to hit two or more homers in a game, sandwiched between two hackers named Mickey Mantle (20 years, 296 days on August 11, 1952) and Joe DiMaggio (21 years, 212 days on June 24, 1936). And he’s also the third-youngest second baseman with a multi-homer game, trailing Harmon Killebrew (1956) and Bobby Doerr (1939).

Aaron Hicks capped off the homer parade with a two-run shot in the ninth inning. Combined with their five-homer outburst on Saturday in Kansas City, it was their second five-homer game in three days. That last time they pulled off that feat on the road was June 28, 1939 in both games of a doubleheader at Philadelphia’s Shibe Park against the A’s.

(AP)

Doomed by Domingo
For the second night in a row the Yankees were handicapped by a mediocre starting pitching performance, but on Tuesday they couldn’t match Monday’s record-breaking offensive fireworks, and suffered a 6-4 loss to the Rangers.

The hole that Domingo German dug was simply too deep even for this peak 2018 version of the Bronx Bombers, as he allowed six runs before getting pulled in the fourth inning. The wheels came off for him in the second frame, during which the Rangers lead swelled from 3-0 to 5-0 without getting a hit, thanks to three wild pitches, two walks and a plunking. German is first Yankee starter to have three wild pitches in an inning since Roger Clemens on September 8, 2002 against the Tigers.

His final line is something you probably couldn’t even re-create in a video game: 3 2/3 innings, six runs, three walks, four hits, three wild pitches, two homers, hit batter. It also forced us to give out a second Obscure Yankeemetric of the Series.

German is the first Yankee pitcher ever to throw three wild pitches and allow two homers while facing no more than 20 batters in a game. And when you add in the six earned runs he coughed up … only one other pitcher in MLB history has managed to do all that in outing of 20 or fewer batters faced: Senators righty Jim Duckworth against the Twins on August 29, 1963. Duckworth (-3.4 career WAR in 267 innings) is probably not a guy you want to be mentioned in the same sentence as.

(Getty)

The offense did try to rally, spearheaded by a third-inning home run off the bat of Gleyber Torres. At 399 feet, it was somehow the shortest of the seven homers he’d hit in his career through Tuesday. Following his two-homer spectacle on Monday, it still produced another batch of #GleyberGood fun facts.

He was the youngest Yankee to homer in back-to-back games since a 20-year-old Mickey Mantle in July 1952. Even more impressive, at 21 years and 160 days old, he was the youngest player in franchise history with at least three homers in a two-game span, and also the youngest in MLB history to do that as a second baseman.

(USA Today)

#TooManyHomers
It was deja vu all over again for the Yankees, who for the second straight night suffered from an awful starting pitching performance and lost a slugfest to the Rangers, 12-10. This loss, however, was far more painful, as the Yankees blew 4-0 and 10-5 leads and were on the verge of winning their ninth series in a row.

It was the first time in a decade they suffered such a heart-breaking loss, in which they coughed up multiple leads of at least four runs in the same game. The last time it happened was a 10-9 loss on May 27, 2008 against the Orioles.

Didi Gregorius put the Yankees up early with a two-run blast off Rangers southpaw Doug Fister in the opening frame. It was his first homer since April 27, snapping a 75 at-bat homerless streak. That should have been a good omen for this Yankees team, which, prior to Wednesday’s game, led the majors with a 24-3 record when scoring first.

But CC Sabathia couldn’t hold the 4-0 lead, coughing up five runs in the bottom of the fourth, with four of those runs scored via homers by lefties Ronald Guzman and Nomar Mazara. It was just the second time in his career that two lefty batters went deep against Sabathia in the same inning — Johnny Damon and Casey Kotchman homered in the third inning of a 5-1 win by the Rays on August 12, 2011.

The Yankees rallied from that mini-implosion, erupting for six runs in the fifth, and the big blow was a three-run homer by Gleyber Torres. Onto the bullet-point recap for the scorching-hot rookie! At 21 years and 161 days old, he is the ….

  • Youngest Yankee ever to homer in back-to-back-to-back games.
  • Youngest in MLB to pull off the feat since a 20-year-old Giancarlo (Mike) Stanton for the Marlins in September 2010.
  • Third-youngest AL player to go deep in three consecutive games; only guys younger than Torres were Babe Ruth in 1916 (21 years, 128 days) and Ted Williams in 1939 (21 years, 0 days).

It was also the Yankees’ third homer of the night, as they established a new franchise record with their fifth straight game hitting at least three home runs. Incredibly, all five games have been away from the Bronx. They are just the fourth team in MLB history to hit three or more homers in five straight road games, joining the 2017 Cardinals, 1996 A’s and 1996 Orioles.

(AP)

The home run derby continued a couple batters later when Aaron Judge destroyed a 92-mph fastball, sending it 471 feet and way over the center-field wall for the third-longest homer of his career. He is the only MLB player with three homers of at least 470 feet since the start of last season.

And that gave the Yankees 21 homers in their last five games, matching the Major-League record for the most homers in a five-game span, set by the 1977 Red Sox and 1999 Reds (Aaron Boone had three homers during that streak!).

Alas, all those homers were for naught as the Yankees still lost despite putting up double-digit runs and hitting a quartet of longballs. Howevahhhhhhh …

If you need something to feel good about, and you’re into weird coincidences, there’s this stat: The last time the Yankees lost a game in which they scored at least 10 runs and hit at least four homers was a 12-10 loss to the Rangers in Texas on August 23, 1998. That season turned out okay, right?

Yankeemetrics: The Royal Dinger Party in KC (May 18-20)

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(AP)

Road less traveled
The Yankees arrived in Kansas City a travel-weary and rusty team, having endured a nightmarish trip out of D.C. and a stretch of four straight days without completing a game. And, well, the Yankees predictably played like a travel-weary and rusty team on Friday night in their 5-2 loss to a Royals team that entered the series with the second-worst record in baseball.

It’s actually pretty rare that the Yankees would lose to a team as bad as the Royals — who were 13-30 (.302) before Friday — this late into the season. It was only the second time in the last eight years (since 2011) that the Yankees were beaten by a team with a win percentage of .302 or worse at least 40 games into the schedule. The other instance was a 7-4 loss to a 20-48 Twins team on June 19, 2016.

While there were multiple cold bats in the lineup on Friday, none have been as deep in the freezer as Didi Gregorius. After going 0-for-4, this became officially the worst 10-game slump of his career, no matter what offensive metric you use. In the 10 games from May 4-May 18, he had a .024/.089/.024 slashline, .113 OPS, .051 wOBA and -83 wRC+. All of those stats are the worst he’s ever had in any 10-game stretch in his career. Yikes!

Prior to Friday, CC Sabathia had been so dominant at Kauffman Stadium in his Yankee career, going 5-0 with a 1.42 ERA in five starts. That was the lowest ERA by any Yankee pitcher who had made at least two starts at the ballpark. But he was in trouble from the start, and while he was certainly hurt by a couple misplays in the field, he still had a subpar night with four runs and eight baserunners allowed in five innings. This was his second straight poor outing in a row, after he’d put together one of the best four-start stretches of his career from April 19-May 4:

CC Sabathia Since April 19
ERA IP R ER H BB
Last 2 Starts 6.00 9 8 6 13 4
Previous 4 Starts 0.39 23.1 4 1 14 3
(USA Today)

Bronx Bombers are back
The Yankees rebounded from one of their most sluggish efforts of the season with a typical Bronx Bomber-style offensive explosion, belting five homers en route to an 8-3 win. Even before they took the field, the Yankees made history. All nine guys in the starting lineup were 28 years old or younger, the first time the Yankees have done that since Sept. 26, 1970, and the first time ever this early into the season (43rd game) they’ve had a starting nine with every guy under age 29.

Luis Severino battled through six innings without his best stuff, allowing 10 baserunners and three runs while striking out six. It’s that last number that’s important for Yankeemetrics, because it meant that he joined an exclusive — though sorta arbitrary — club of decent pitchers:

Most Consecutive Road Starts with at least 6 K
Starts Years
Randy Johnson 33 1998-00
Pedro Martinez 28 1999-01
Randy Johnson 25 2000-02
Luis Severino 20 2017-18

Aaron Hicks kicked off the dinger party with an inside-the-parker to the corner in deep right field, his second home run of the season that didn’t go over the fences. Here they are, side-by-side, one as righty and one as a lefty:

(mlb.com)

An amazing statistical feat like this gets our finest bullet-point treatment:

Gleyber Torres was the next Bronx Bomber to go deep, breaking a 2-2 tie in the fourth inning with a monster three-run shot to left field, his first career homer on the road. That gave him 15 career RBI, making him the youngest Yankee (21 years, 157 days old) to that milestone that since a 19-year-old rookie named Mickey Mantle in 1951.

Although this was just his fourth homer as big leaguer, he definitely hasn’t produced any cheapies or boring blasts so far. All four have gone at least 407 feet, and three of the four have been tie-breaking shots in games the Yankees eventually won.

Gary Sanchez extended the lead with a homer in the seventh and another in the ninth. He now has 10 career multi-homer games, just the fourth Yankee to have double-digit multi-homer games before age 26. The guys he’s chasing? Joe DiMaggio (17), Mickey Mantle (14) and Lou Gehrig (13).

(Getty)

Finally, a Sonny Sunday
The Yankees won their eighth straight series thanks to a 10-1 rout on Sunday, as Sonny Gray delivered an absolute gem and the Yankee bats produced another explosive power-hitting show in Kansas City. It’s the first time they’ve won eight series in a row since a nine-series streak in July/August 1998.

For the second straight day the Yankees were spraying balls deep into the outfield gaps and over the fences, crushing four homers, two doubles and two triples among their 14 hits. And with that combo, the entire team earns our Obscure Yankeemetric of the Series: This is just the second time in the last 50 seasons that they’ve piled up at least four homers, multiple doubles and multiple triples in a game. The other was a wild 15-13 win over the Rangers in Texas on May 6, 1998.

Probably more impressive — given historically how tough it is to go deep at the K — is this note: the Yankees are just the second visiting team in the history of Kauffman Stadium (built in 1973) to hit at least four home runs in back-to-back games within a series at the ballpark (2003 White Sox are the other). Or maybe you prefer this comparison:

The big bopper on Sunday was Tyler Austin, who belted two homers for his second career multi-homer game (both this season), including a mammoth 440-foot blast in the fourth inning that is the longest of his career. Combined with his 405-foot shot in the ninth, he now has six 400-plus-foot homers this season, tying Gary Sanchez and Giancarlo Stanton for the team lead.

Miguel Andujar had a day at the plate, too, falling a double short of the cycle. The only other Yankee third baseman since 2000 with a home run and a triple in the same game was Alex Rodriguez on September 15, 2005 at Tampa Bay.

The best highlight of the game, however, was the brilliant outing by Gray. He retired the first 14 Kansas City batters and tossed eight sparkling innings, allowing just one run on four hits. He was sharp, efficient and in total control nearly the entire afternoon, and most importantly, pitched aggressively early in the count. He threw first-pitch strikes to 22 of 29 batters (75.9%), his best rate in any game as a Yankee. Gray entered Friday with a career-low 53.2 percent first-pitch strike rate, 10th-worst in MLB. How important is strike one for Gray?

OPS Allowed (before Sunday)
Gray MLB Avg
After 0-1 .626 .609
After 1-0 1.045 .828

Yankeemetrics: Gatorade showers, comeback kids (May 11-13)

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(Getty)

The losing streak
Looking to get back in the win column on Friday night after the Red Sox finally cooled them off, the Yankees came out flat and were overmatched in a series-opening loss to the A’s. Oakland pummeled the Yankees pitching, going deep four times while scoring 10 runs in the rout. Friday was the 954th game that the two teams have played in the Bronx (at any stadium). And it was the first home game that the Yankees allowed at least four home runs and 10 runs to the A’s.

The one silver lining in defeat? The Red Sox also lost on Friday night, so the two teams remaining tied atop the AL East heading into the weekend. It was the first time all season that the two rivals lost a game on the same day.

That previous note was possible mostly because the Yankees and Red Sox both went on incredible 17-1 runs in April and May. This was the first time since 1988 that two teams from the same league went 17-1 or better in an 18-game span in the same season. That year the A’s and Red Sox each did it — and then ultimately met in the ALCS.

Aaron Judge provided one of the few offensive highlights, belting a three-run opposite-field homer in the fifth inning. It was his 10th homer of the season, the second straight year he’s had double-digit home runs before the team’s 40th game of the season.

#FunFact alert! The only other Yankees to pull off that feat in back-to-back years were Curtis Granderson (2011-12), Yogi Berra (1955-56), Mickey Mantle (1955-57), Lou Gehrig (1929-30), Babe Ruth (1920-21, 1923-24, 1926-1930!).

Gleyber Torres also gave us some fireworks with a solo homer in the third, extending his hit streak to nine games. He is the second-youngest player in franchise history with a hit streak of nine-plus games, behind only a 20-year-old Mickey Mantle, who had 10-game and 11-game hit streaks in 1952.

(Getty)

Fighting Spirit is strong
The comeback mojo and late-game magic returned to the Bronx on Saturday as the Yankees snapped their two-game slump with another wild and crazy win, 7-6. A byproduct of their remarkable resiliency and never-say-die grit, the Yankees are still the only team in MLB that hasn’t had a losing streak of more than two games.

This was their fourth walk-off win of the season, already one shy of the total they had all of last year. It is just the second time in the last 30 years the Yankees have had at least four walk-off wins within the team’s first 40 games — the other instance came in 2009, when they had five of them at this point in the season. That World Series-winning club would go on to finish with 15(!) walk-off wins, one shy of the franchise record set in 1943.

It was also their ninth comeback win in the last three weeks (since April 24). In that 19-day span, no other MLB team even has more than six comeback wins.

The amazing depth of the Yankees lineup once again proved to be a difference-maker in this game.

Gary Sanchez and Aaron Hicks put the Bronx Bombers up early with back-to-back solo blasts in the second inning. For Sanchez, it was his 10th of the season, making him the third Yankee with double-digit homers in 2018. It’s the first time in franchise history the Yankees have had a trio of 10-homer players before the team’s 40th game played.

(AP)

And Neil Walker capped off the win with a walk-off single and Gatorade shower in the 11th inning. He’s the eighth different guy to produce the game-winning run (via hit, walk, reach on error, etc.) in the Yankees last nine wins. Time to update our favorite list!

  • May 1: Gary Sanchez go-ahead homer in top of ninth.
  • May 2: Giancarlo Stanton two-run homer in top of first.
  • May 3: Aaron Judge go-ahead RBI groundout in top of ninth.
  • May 4: Miguel Andujar walk-off single in ninth.
  • May 5: Ronald Torreyes reaches on error in fifth, go-ahead run scores.
  • May 6: Gleyber Torres walk-off homer in ninth.
  • May 8: Judge go-ahead bases-loaded walk in seventh.
  • May 9: Brett Gardner go-ahead triple in eighth.
  • May 12: Neil Walker walk-off single in 11th.

Walker has been so clutch over the past two weeks as his bat has started to heat up. Small sample size alert! In the month of May, when batting in high-leverage situations, he is 4-for-5 with two singles, two doubles, a walk and three RBI.

Finally, Walker also earns our Obscure Yankeemetric of the Week for his heroics: before Walker, the last Yankee first baseman with a walk-off hit against the A’s was Don Mattingly on August 23, 1988.

(Newsday)

Stanton & Sevy Show
The Yankees big bats and big arms shined on Sunday, leading the team to a 6-2 win, capping off yet another successful series. They’ve now won seven consecutive series, their longest streak since June/July 2011. The Yankees hit the 40-game mark with a 28-12 record and plus-65 run differential, the first time since 1998 they’ve reached both those marks through 40 games, and the 13th time in franchise history. Of the previous 12 seasons, nine were capped off with a World Series trophy and three ended with the AL Pennant.

Giancarlo Stanton was the big star at the plate, going 4-for-4 with a homer, double and three RBI. He became the fourth Yankee this season to reach double-digit homers, begging the question, is that good? Uh … yes! No other team this season has more than two 10-homer players, and the Yankees are just the fourth team in MLB history to have four players hit 10-plus homers in the team’s first 40 games (2003 Rangers, 2000 Blue Jays and 1964 Twins are the others).

Stanton has steadily been breaking out of his early-season slump and his numbers are starting to look eerily familiar to last year at this point in the season ….

Stanton Through 40 Games
BA OBP SLG HR
2018 .252 .339 .516 10
2017 .263 .339 .533 11

Luis Severino didn’t have his best stuff, but still somehow ended up going six strong innings, giving up one run and striking out seven. It was his MLB-best 21st start with no more than one run allowed since the beginning of last season, padding his lead on Max Scherzer (20) and Chris Sale (19). Five of those have come this season, as Severino became the youngest pitcher in franchise history with five one-run-or-fewer starts in the team’s first 40 games.

Sevy couldn’t get the A’s to chase his off-speed stuff — he didn’t get a single whiff on 52 sliders and changeups — but his fastball was electric. He threw 54 four-seamers, generated 10 swings-and-misses with the pitch, and all seven of his punchouts ended with his fastball. As you can see below, his ability to consistently locate his high-90s heater on the outside corner against lefties, while jamming righties inside, was key to keeping the A’s off-balance and holding them to one run on five singles.