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Greg Bird is still having trouble catching up to fastballs

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(Presswire)

A possibly surprising fact: Greg Bird has already set a career high in plate appearances this season, and by quite a bit too. He’s batted 228 times this year. Last year it was 170 plate appearances — if you want to include the postseason, it was 224 total plate appearances — and back in 2015 he had 178 plate appearances. It feels like Bird just got back into the lineup, but, in reality, he’s been in the lineup more than ever this season.

In those 228 plate appearances this year Bird is hitting a decidedly below-average .218/.307/.416 (95 wRC+). Below-average among all hitters and especially below average among first basemen. The league average first baseman has a .249/.330/.435 (106 wRC+) batting line this season. Bird came back, started slow, got hot for a bit, and now he’s slowed down again. A graph:

Bird has started bunting against the shift recently, which is great — I think he’s picked good spots for it too, there are times to push a bunt and there are time you need to swing the bat, and Bird’s bunting at the right times — and he did sock that game-tying home run against the Royals a week ago, so that’s cool. Overall though, Bird has not been an impact bat. He remains more potential than production.

One thing Bird has not done since returning: Hit fastballs. Pitchers have been attacking him with fastballs, especially elevated fastballs up in the zone (or higher), since the day he arrived in the big leagues. Teams scout the minors more thoroughly than ever before. Prospects come up nowadays and the opponent already has a book on him. The book on Bird says to go after him with fastballs.

And, since his MLB debut in 2015, Bird has been getting progressively worse at hitting fastballs, at least in terms of exit velocity and expected results (xwOBA) given the quality of his contact. Some numbers:

2015 2017 2018 MLB AVG vs. FB
AVG .252 .152 .202 .268
ISO .185 .218 .169 .175
Exit Velo 93.4 90.1 88.4 88.9
xwOBA .390 .350 .345 .361
Whiff% 24.1 26.9 21.5 19.2

Even in 2015, his most effective stint as a big leaguer, Bird was not a great fastball hitter. This year he is comfortably below average. A very low batting average — I think he’ll be a low average hitter going forward anyway as a shift friendly pull heavy left-handed batter — and only a league average isolated power rate despite being a left-handed hitter in Yankee Stadium. Eek.

Of course, we don’t have huge sample sizes here. Bird only recently crossed the 200 plate appearance threshold for the first time in his big league career. He’s seen 598 fastballs this year. Not a big sample! It is a meaningful sample though. Exit velocity and contact quality stats tend to stabilize quickly, and, so far, Bird is trending the wrong way against fastballs. Look at the exit velocity and xwOBA in the table. That’s not a good direction.

One one hand, yes, this could all be sample size noise and not indicative of the real Greg Bird. On the other hand, we have a hitter who was susceptible to heaters when he first broke into the league — opponents told us that with the way they attacked him — who has since had one major shoulder surgery and two ankle surgeries. That’s not nothing. His front shoulder and plant leg have been compromised.

This is where I’m going to remind you that yes, Greg Bird can still hit a fastball on occasion, even really good elevated fastballs near the top of the zone with velocity.

Overall though, Bird’s fastball production is sorely lacking in a league dominated by fastballs. There is more velocity in baseball right now than ever before, and I see no reason to think the league average velocity won’t continue to climb in the coming years. It seems like every pitcher who comes up from the minors sits 94-95 mph and touches 97 mph these days, even the up-and-down non-prospect guys.

Bird hasn’t played much baseball the last few years — including the minors, he has 660 total plate appearances since Opening Day 2016, so one full season’s worth of plate appearances in two and two-thirds seasons — so perhaps he’s still working to get his timing all the way back, especially following his most recent surgery. It’s possible. Three surgeries to two body parts crucial to hitting mechanics in such a short period of time is no joke.

Whatever the reason, Bird has not hit fastballs much this year. He didn’t hit them all that well last year either, and he’s been even worst against them this year. The Yankees love Bird. Love love love him and they’re going to stick with him. They don’t really have much of a choice at this point anyway. The Yankees love Bird, but he has a real problem with fastballs, and the injuries make it fair to wonder how long it’ll be until he can consistently handle the league’s current velocity, if ever.

Yankeemetrics: Taking care of business (July 26-29)

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(AP)

Back to business
The Yankees headed back to the Bronx, and returned to bashing baseballs with a 7-2 victory in the opener over the Royals. Didi Gregorius was swinging the hot bat on Thursday, scoring the Yankees’ first run in the opening frame after belting a one-out double, and then breaking the game open with a three-run homer in the fourth inning.

Those were his 20th double and 18th home run of the season, the third straight year he’s reached those double and homer totals. #FunFact Alert No. 1: Didi and Trevor Story are the only MLB shortstops to put up both those numbers in each of the last three seasons. #FunFact Alert No. 2: Gregorius is the only Yankee shortstop ever with back-to-back-to-back seasons of at least 18 homers and 20 doubles.

(AP)

Sonny Gray continued his dominance of the league’s worst teams but — in a shocking twist — also delivered a solid, homer-free performance in the Bronx. He scattered three hits across five scoreless innings, the first time since joining the Yankees last July that he didn’t allow a run in a start at Yankee Stadium.

This season Gray has made five starts against the AL’s three last-place teams (two vs. Royals, three vs. Orioles, zero vs. Rangers), producing a 1.45 ERA and 0.77 WHIP across 31 innings. Among the 33 players lucky enough to pitch at least 20 innings versus those teams this season (through Thursday), Gray’s ERA ranks fourth-best and his WHIP is second-best.

Zach Britton took the mound in Yankee pinstripes for the first time, needing just 10 pitches to record a perfect inning via two groundouts and a strikeout. After Thursday’s debut outing, his 65.9 percent groundball rate in 2018 was the highest among AL pitchers with at least 15 innings pitched.

(Getty)

Sevy’s slide
Any momentum from the series-opening win was erased after Friday’s rainout, and the Yankees produced an embarrassing and disappointing performance in losing the first game of Saturday’s doubleheader. With the 10-5 loss, the Yankees still haven’t swept a twinbill since April 16, 2014 vs. the Cubs, their longest drought since a 14-doubleheader sweepless stretch spanning the 1969-70 seasons.

The Yankees’ RISP woes were on display again as they went 1-for-8 with runners in scoring position and stranded nine men on base. The worst failure came in the second inning when they loaded the bases with no outs and didn’t plate a single run. This season, teams scored at least one run 85 percent of the time in that situation.

The Yankees had another excruciating bases-loaded failure with two outs in the sixth inning when Giancarlo Stanton lined a laser to right field that was caught near the warning track. Based on the combo of exit velocity (102.3 mph) and launch angle (22 degrees), that type of batted ball is a hit 76 percent of the time.

Their terrible clutch hitting was exacerbated by the fact that they were playing from behind the entire game thanks to the continued struggles of Luis Severino. His summer slump extended to four games as the Royals mashed him for six runs on eight hits — including three doubles and a homer — before he was pulled in the fifth inning.

*Hard-hit rate per Fangraphs.com
IP ERA HR GB% K% Hard%*
Last 4 Starts 19.1 8.84 7 32.8% 20.9% 43.3%
First 18 Starts 118.1 1.98 6 45.6% 30.1% 31.8%

This is arguably either the worst or second-worst stretch of his career:

  • Only other time he had four-game span (all starts) with an ERA of at least 8.00 was April 26-May 13, 2016
  • First time allowed at least six runs in back-to-back games
  • First time allowed at least eight hits in three straight games
  • Second time allowed at least four extra-base hits two games in a row (also August 9-14, 2016)

And, sorry, we’ll cap it off with this #NotFunFact: Before Severino, the last Yankee to give up at least six earned runs and eight hits — including at least four for extra bases — in a game was Jeff Weaver in July 2002.

(AP)

Survive and advance
The Yankees avoided what would have been an demoralizing doubleheader sweep thanks to a 5-4 back-and-forth win in the night game of Saturday’s twinbill. There is no doubt that this team has the #FightingSpirit, especially compared to last year’s frustrating late-inning dumpster fire:

Yankees in Games Decided by One Run

  • 2018: Overall 17-11; Home 11-3
  • 2017: Overall 18-26; Home 11-9

Despite a shaky performance by CC Sabathia and a rare implosion from the middle relievers, Yankee pitchers on Saturday night held the Royals to just two hits in 12 at-bats with runners in scoring position while stranding 15 men on base. That’s the most men left on base by a Yankee opponent in a nine-inning game since the Red Sox stranded 16 in a 5-2 loss to the Yankee on August 30, 2011.

And when you factor in that Saturday’s game was a narrow victory, the number of men left on base becomes even more important — and rare. The last time Yankee pitchers stranded at least 15 guys in a nine-inning one-run win was July 25, 1992 against the Mariners. The pitchers in that game: Curt Young, Tim Burke, Rich Monteleone, Greg Cadaret, Steve Farr. (Yes, those guys all pitched for the Yankees in the same game.)

Greg Bird ignited the final rally of the game with a solo shot to lead off the eighth inning that knotted the score at 4-4. It was the first game-tying home run of his career, though he’s had his share of dramatic go-ahead homers in his career.

Aaron Hicks then capped the comeback a few batters later with a bases-loaded sacrifice fly that put the Yankees up 5-4. Hicks earns our Obscure Yankeemetric of the Series for his heroics: he’s the first Yankee with a go-ahead bases-loaded sac fly in the seventh inning or later against the Royals since Bernie Williams on May 1, 1998 (hmmm … another #randominterestingstat).

Happ-y day
The Yankees finally did what they’re supposed to do as the second-best team in baseball — take games and series against bad teams. Sunday’s mostly stress-free 6-3 victory capped off another winning weekend in the Bronx, where they have dropped just one series all season (April 5-8 vs. Orioles).

J.A. Happ etched his name in the franchise record books when he stepped on the mound. He became the first guy to start a game for the Yankees and Blue Jays in same season since David Cone in 1995. Cone’s first start as a Bronx Bomber came exactly 23 years ago, on July 29, 1995 against the Twins.

Happ produced an impressive pinstriped debut, holding the Royals to one run on three hits in six innings. A couple #FunFacts to chew on for Happ:

  • The only other left-hander in the last 15 seasons to allow no more than one run and pitch at least six innings in his first game as a Yankee was Randy Johnson in 2005
  • Happ is the first lefty to pitch at least six innings and give up three hits or fewer in his Yankee debut since Jimmy Key in 1993

Aaron Hicks provided the muscle and sparked the offense with a monster game, going 3-for-3 with a homer, double, walk and two RBI. This was his fourth game in the cleanup spot this season, and in those four games he’s 6-for-11 with two dingers, a double, a triple, six walks and five RBI. We love #SmallSampleSizes.

Oh, and the Yankees are still looking for their first hit with the bases loaded since July 11.

2018 Midseason Review: The Infielders

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Torres and Gregorius. (Tom Szczerbowski/Getty)

A large portion of the Yankees off-season was spent worrying about who would be manning the keystone and the hot corner. There was buzz, of course, that Gleyber Torres and Miguel Andujar would be given the keys eventually – but it seemed unlikely (at best) that the organization would be starting two rookies on Opening Day. It wasn’t until late-February that they added a legitimate veteran option to the mix in Brandon Drury, and three weeks later Neil Walker was signed; and the short-term fates of Torres and Andujar felt sealed.

Of course, nothing ever quite goes according to plan.

Miguel Andujar

Midseason Grade: B

It feels a bit strange to hang a ‘B’ on a 23-year-old rookie that finished the first-half slashing .279/.316/.489 (116 wRC+) with a rookie-best 41 extra-base hits, but here we are. And so I’ll start with the negative:

Andujar is a bad defensive third baseman.

Defensive metrics are notoriously fickle, particularly when small sample sizes are at issue, but Andujar ranks dead last among third basemen in DRS (-12) and UZR (-6.8), second to last in Total Zone, and third to last in FRAA. He’s sure-handed, as evidenced by his ranking 8th in converting routine plays at the position per Inside Edge fielding data – but he’s third to last in ‘likely’ plays, and last in plays with ‘even’ odds. And that matches the eye test.

Offensively, however, Andujar has been quite good. The 4.7% walk rate is disconcerting, but he makes plenty of contact (17.4% strikeout rate), hits the ball hard (90.1 MPH exit velocity against a league-average of 88.6), and hits for power (.210 ISO). And he’s already shown a penchant for heroics:

Andujar has had his ups and downs offensively, but it’s notable that he has posted a 98 (or better) wRC+ each month so far, and has avoided any prolonged slumps. And his walk rate might just bear watching, as he has worked a free pass in 10.3% of his July plate appearances, which does correspond with a small but noticeable dip in his swing percentage.

Greg Bird

Midseason Grade: C

I was tempted to give Bird an incomplete, as he spent all of April and most of May on the disabled list. But he has been a fixture in the lineup since coming back for good on May 26, and he’s healthy and hitting right now. And, with the All-Star break upon us, we now have three relatively equal sample sizes of Bird’s performance to look at – and the similarities of his three partial seasons may surprise you:

Bird’s walk percentage, strikeout rate, and isolated power are all within spitting distance on a year-to-year basis, so the shape of his production is something of a known commodity. The greatest outlier here seems to be rooted in his BABIP, which is all over the place – and for good reason, as his batted ball profile has varied dramatically:

There are three tremendous differences to be noted here (two of which are dependent upon each other): his grounders, his flyballs, and his pull percentage. Bird’s putting the ball on the ground way more, which naturally means that he’s getting the ball into the air less often, and he’s pulling the majority of his batted balls to the right side of the field. And, given that he hits against the shift quite often, that’s why he’s batting .059 on grounders … against a league-average of around .240. Some of that is undoubtedly luck, as well, but a lead-footed slugger pulling lots of balls into the teeth of the defense isn’t a great means to an end. Though, to be fair, his groundball percentage is lower than league-average – it’s simply higher than it should be for a hitter of his ilk (and trending in the wrong direction).

On the plus side, Bird’s quality of contact is quite good. His soft-hit percentage is nearly eight percentage points better than average, and that difference is split between medium and hard contact, both of which are around four percentage points above-average. Put that all together, and his average exit velocity is 88.5 MPH, which is … well … average.

All told, Bird is batting .214/.317/.457, which is good for a 109 wRC+. That puts him right in-line with the league-average first baseman, who’s batting .249/.331/.438 (108 wRC+).  nd he posted a .281/.359/.625 slash line in his last nine games of the first-half, which works out to an average grade for me.

Didi Gregorius

Midseason Grade: A

I am not sure that I have ever seen any one player be as good as Gregorius was in March/April and as bad as he was in May in the course of one season, let alone back-to-back months. Take a look for yourself:

  • March/April: .327/.421/.735, 24 R, 10 HR, 30 RBI, 18 BB, 200 wRC+
  • May: .149/.184/.213, 9 R, 1 HR, 5 RBI, 4 BB, -1 wRC+

From a broader perspective, Gregorius was the third-best hitter in baseball in March/April (by wRC+), just behind Mookie Betts (210 wRC+) and Manny Machado (201). He followed that up by ranking dead last among 173 qualified hitters in May. That’s nothing short of impressive. Gregorius has righted the ship, though, and is hitting .292/.341/.468 (119 wRC+) since the calendar flipped to June. And he finished the half slashing .263/.326/.474 (114 wRC+) with 17 HR and a career-high 10 SB. He also continued his ownership of Corey Kluber in the final series of the half:

The most noteworthy tidbit about Gregorius’s season involves the three true outcomes. He’s three walks shy of a career-high, he’s on-pace for 30 home runs (against last year’s best of 25), and his strikeout rate is the second-best of his career (and nearly ten percentage points better than league-average). You can see that charted out here:

All of those lines are trending in the right direction, and work together to give us the best version of Gregorius to-date. It is interesting to note that he did walk at an above-average rate way back in 2013 with the Diamondbacks, and then developed an itchier trigger finger over time. Perhaps this is simply his final form.

Gleyber Torres

Midseason Grade: A+

Were you expecting something else?

Torres hit the DL with a hip injury on the Fourth of July, but that has been the only aspect of his season to-date that has even the slightest tinge of disappointment. The 21-year-old is slashing .294/.350/.555 (143 wRC+) with 15 HR, and he has already shown a flair for the dramatic multiple times over. In True Yankee™ fashion, Torres hit a walk-off home run against the Indians in his fifteenth big league game:

How about that?

What otherwise stands out the most about his season thus far is his power. Those 15 bombs have come in 241 PA – or one every 16.1 PA. Torres hit 24 HR in the minors, across 1591 PA … or once every 66.3 PA. It isn’t uncommon for a player to develop more power over time, and the majority of his time in the minors was spent in pitcher’s parks – but most scouting reports saw him as a guy that could hit 15 to 20 home runs in a season. At his current pace, he would hit 40 home runs in a 650 PA season. That’s quite the difference.

On the off-chance that you want some cold water thrown on you, consider his plate discipline rates:

The top row represents Torres, and the bottom is league-average. The short version: Torres swings more often at pitches in and out of the zone, and makes less contact than the average batter on pitches in and out of the zone. It is worth noting, however, that his swing percentage on pitches outside of the zone has been declining at a slow-and-steady pace.

Defense has been a mixed bag for Torres, as well – but it’s kind of difficult for me to make much out of that. Heading into 2018, Torres had played just 18 games at second base, so he is essentially learning the position on the fly. Moreover, unlike Andujar, Torres has long drawn strong marks for his defense, with most believing that he could stick at shortstop long-term. And, also unlike Andujar, Torres’s defensive metrics are all over the place. DRS has him as a +2 defender, whereas UZR has him at -4.3. I’m confident that his defense isn’t a concern.

Neil Walker

Could Walker look any less enthusiastic after hitting a home run? (Jason Miller/Getty)

Midseason Grade: F

I wanted to be cheeky and go with an F+ or a D-, but I simply couldn’t justify it. Walker is hitting .197/.278/.285, which translates to a 55 wRC+ … which ranks 248th among 258 hitters with at least 200 PA. And his -0.7 WAR is even worse, ranking 253rd among that same group of players. Saying that Walker has been bad is an understatement.

As there’s no real arguing that Walker has been anything less than awful, let’s just dig into some of the few good things about his 2018. There was this walk-off:

There’s also the fact that he’s only making $4 MM, which is a veritable drop in the bucket. And he has – as far as we know – taken his utility role with quiet dignity and grace, playing 280.2 innings at first, 122.0 at second, and 42.0 at third. And you could always hold out hope that a player that was as good as Walker for so long couldn’t possibly be so bad all of the sudden … right?

It seems likely that Walker would have been gone already if the Yankees didn’t have Bird, Drury, and Torres go down with injuries at different times, doesn’t it? And that means his time in pinstripes may be running out as Torres is slated to return shortly.

Yankeemetrics: Treading water into break (July 12-15)

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(AP)

Kluber Klobbered
The Yankees kickstarted their final pre-break series with a crazy comeback win, roughing up Corey Kluber while overcoming multiple deficits to beat the Indians 7-4 on Thursday night.

The Indians and Yankees traded punches all night, and Aaron Hicks eventually delivered the decisive blow with a tie-breaking RBI double in the eighth inning. That sealed the Yankees eighth win this season when tied at the start of the eighth inning, three more than they had all of last year and the second-most in baseball this season (behind the A’s).

Before Hicks’ clutch hit, a couple other guys got to wear the hero’s cape for a few innings.

  • Brett Gardner smoked a two-run homer in the third to knot the game at 2-2, his eighth homer of the season and sixth that either tied the game or gave the Yankees a lead.
  • After the Yankees fell behind yet again, Didi Gregorius evened it up with a monster 430-foot shot in the fourth inning, the longest home run he’s hit since Statcast tracking began in 2015.
  • Three batters later, Greg Bird put the Yankees back in front with a booming RBI double off the wall. In case you’ve been under a rock, Bird is finally heating up and making this already-stacked Yankees lineup even scarier.

Gardner capped off the scoring with another longball in the top of the ninth, his seventh career multi-homer game. Six of those seven have come while batting at the top of the order, matching Alfonso Soriano and Derek Jeter for the most career multi-homer games out of the leadoff spot in franchise history.

Its a good thing the Yankees were swinging hot bats because Luis Severino was approaching freezing temps against the Indians. He struggled from the start, giving up a double on his second pitch of the game, an RBI single and then a homer later in the first inning. The two runs and two extra-base hits he allowed on Thursday in the first inning nearly matched the total number of runs (3) and extra-base hits (3) he had allowed in the opening frame of his first 19 starts this season combined.

(Getty)

Down and out
The Yankees once again dug themselves into an early hole on Friday night thanks to shoddy starting pitching, but this time couldn’t complete the comeback, falling 6-5.

Domingo German was blitzed by the Indians, giving up four runs in the first two innings and then two more in the fifth. While he’s certainly not an ace after the first two frames, his innings splits as a starter are interesting, to say the least:

Domingo German As Starter
IP ERA Runs K/BB OPS
Innings 1-2 24 7.50 21 29/10 .840
Innings 3+ 39.1 5.03 23 44/13 .738

German really struggled with his fastball command, getting strikes on only half (22) of his fastballs thrown (44) against the Indians.

Yikes, that’s a lot of blue circles that are not even close to the zone. This is actually the second time this season he’s had a start with a fastball strike rate of 50 percent or less. No other Yankee pitcher who has thrown at least 30 fastballs in a game this season has done that even once.

German — not unlike many talented yet raw young pitchers — has flashed brilliance and dominance, but too often delivers duds. He has as many starts this season with zero or one earned runs allowed (4) as he does starts with at least six earned runs allowed (4). Through Friday, the only other MLB pitchers this season with four starts of six or more earned runs allowed are a trio of Royals — Jason Hammel, Jakob Junis and Danny Duffy.

Romine the Speed Demon
The Yankees and Indians both did their best to try and lose the game on Saturday with sloppy defense, but it was the Yankees who ultimately prevailed on a wacky play in the seventh inning by Austin Romine.

The Bronx Bombers got to work early, as Didi Gregorius clubbed a hanging changeup over the wall in centerfield for a 3-0 lead in the first inning. Since the start of last season (and through Saturday), the only shortstop who had hit more homers than Didi (42) was Francisco Lindor (56).

CC Sabathia looked solid through the first five innings, allowing just two hits and two runs. But then he got into trouble in the sixth as he faced the Indians lineup a third time, surrendering two more runs before getting pulled with two outs. As strong and effective as Sabathia has been this season, its not shocking he started to unravel in that final frame:

CC Sabathia Times Thru Order
BA OBP SLG
1st/2nd PA .215 .288 .345
MLB Avg .240 .311 .402
—- —- —- —-
3rd+ PA .350 .393 .612
MLB Avg .265 .334 .458

Austin Romine saved the game from being a disaster loss when he broke a 4-4 tie with a “Little League homer” — a double and two errors — in the top of the seventh.

His mad dash around the bases actually shouldn’t be that shocking for Romine, a guy that actually has better-than-average legs among his positional peers. According to Statcast’s speed metric (“Sprint Speed”), Romine ranks 10th out 37 catchers with at least 50 tracked runs.

Hanging Chad, Green not money
The Yankees head into the break coming off yet another disappointing loss, another game where they snatched defeat from the jaws of victory, blowing an early two-run lead and falling 5-2 to the Indians on Sunday afternoon.

Still, they finished the first half 62-33 (.653), their best pre-break record since 1998 (61-20, .753). Since the first All-Star game in 1933, this is the 13th time the Yankees have entered the break with a .650 win percentage or better. Of the previous 12 seasons it happened, the Yankees made the World Series 10 times and won it all seven times.

(Getty)

Masahiro Tanaka was sharp through the first few innings before coughing up the #obligatoryhomer to Edwin Encarnacion in the fourth, a two-run shot that tied the game 2-2. That was the 53rd dinger allowed by Tanaka since the start of last season, more than any other pitcher over the last two years (and remember, he was on the DL for a month, too). Those were the only runs he gave up over six-plus innings, which has become a trend for the homer-prone Tanaka: 64 percent of his runs allowed have come via the longball this season, compared to the league average of 40 percent.

Chad Green, who allowed a late game-tying two-run homer to Manny Machado in his previous outing on July 10, imploded for the second time in as many appearances. He surrendered three runs in the eighth inning — including a tie-breaking solo homer to Michael Brantley — and wore the goat’s horns again. It was the first time in his career he got tagged for multiple runs in back-to-back relief outings, and the three runs he gave up were his most ever in a game out of the bullpen.

Despite Green’s mess, the bullpen enters the break with a 2.69 ERA, the best first-half mark for any Yankee team in a non-strike season since 1976 (2.43). The potent lineup is putting up historical numbers so far, too, with a .463 slugging percentage. That’s the fourth-best pre-break slugging percentage by any Yankee team dating back to the first All-Star game in 1933. The only better years were 1936 (.511), 2002 (.476) and 2009 (.471.).

Yankeemetrics: The Camden Yards rollercoaster (July 9-11)

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(AP)

Sabathia’s newest kryptonite
As exciting as this season has been for the Yankees, they hadn’t been able to beat up on the dreadful Orioles. Their frustrations against baseball’s cellar-dweller continued in the opener of Monday’s doubleheader as they blew a three-run lead and lost 5-4.

This was the fourth time this season the Yankees have blown a lead of three-or-more runs and lost against a team that entered the day with a win percentage below .400. That’s the most such losses of any team in the majors this season. And here’s an unfathomable stat to chew on: from 2011-17, they suffered only four such losses in those seven seasons combined.

CC Sabathia cruised through the first three innings, before getting into trouble in the fourth and then imploding in the sixth. This continued a string of awful starts against the Orioles, as he’s now winless with a 5.96 ERA in his last eight starts against them since mid-2016. And it’s somehow been even worse recently:

Should Aaron Boone have sent Sabathia out for the sixth inning, with the heart of the Orioles order coming to bat for the third time? The numbers say he’s really struggled in that situation this year:

CC Sabathia This Season
Batters Faced BA/OBP/SLG
1st PA 153 .213/.275/.305
2nd PA 152 .230/.3016/.393
3rd+ PA 102 .344/.382/.617

So, the third/fourth time through the order, he’s almost turned every batter into J.D. Martinez (.330/.393/.649) this season.

Hail, Gritty Gutty Brett Gardner
The Yankees avoided the ultimate embarrassment — getting swept by the worst team in baseball — and destroyed the Orioles, 10-2, in the nightcap of Monday’s doubleheader.

The bats finally woke up (17 hits) and came through in the clutch (7-for-15 with RISP) as they produced one of their best offensive games in Baltimore in more than a decade. Its the first time since a 10-2 win on September 2, 2009 that they scored double-digit runs and had more than 15 hits at Camden Yards.

And if you want to consider the power display — seven homers and two doubles — this game was nearly unprecedented. The only other time the Yankees scored at least 10 runs and had nine extra-base hits in a game in Baltimore was a 16-0 win over the Orioles on April 30, 1960!

(AP)

Brett Gardner sparked the offense, going 4-for-6 with a homer and three RBI. Dating back to the start of 2017 (and including the postseason), the Yankees are 22-3 when Gardy homers in a game. His awesome effort also earned him our coveted Obscure Yankeemetric of the Series: this is Gardner’s fourth career game with at least four hits and three RBI from the leadoff spot. That’s the most 4-hit, 3-RBI games by any leadoff batter in franchise history.

Luis Cessa delivered one of the best performances of his career, throwing six scoreless innings and getting his first win as a starter since August 26, 2016 against the Orioles. Gio Gallegos pitched the final three frames and converted the rare three-inning save, his first career major-league save. It also produced this cool note: Cessa and Gallegos are the first Mexican-born tandem to earn a win and save in the same game for the Yankees.

(AP)

Deja Vu All Over Again
The Yankees mediocre play against the Orioles reached dire levels on Tuesday night as they blew multiple leads and again snatched defeat from the jaws of victory when the Orioles won it on a game-ending hit in the bottom of the ninth.

The fact that the Yankees have struggled to string together wins here in Baltimore is not surprising. They entered this series with a 13-25 (.342) record at Camden Yards over the last five seasons, easily their worst at any AL ballpark since 2014. In fact, its also by far the worst record at Camden Yards for any of the AL East teams in the span; the Rays, Blue Jays and Red Sox have each won at least 43 percent of their games there since 2014.

Masahiro Tanaka came off the DL to make his first start since June 8, and he was back to being the typical Tanaka, giving up the #Obligatoryhomerun. It was an 89-mph fastball perfectly placed in the meatball zone, ready for Manny Machado to crush 444 feet into the left-centerfield seats.

Tanaka has allowed 52 homers in 44 games (255 1/3 innings) since the start of 2017, tied with Ian Kennedy for the most in the majors over the last two seasons. His home run rate in 2018 is now 2.0 per 9 IP, which is on pace to be the worst ever for any Yankee pitcher with at least 20 starts in a season.

Machado delivered the biggest blows, tying the game twice with a solo homer in the fifth and a two-run shot in seventh. Those were his 19th and 20th homers against the Yankees since 2015, five more than any other player has hit in the last four seasons. It was also his fourth career multi-homer game versus the Yankees, the most of any player against them since his debut in 2012.

(AP)

Deja Vu All Over Again, Part II
Two down, two up for the Yankees as they routed the Orioles, 9-0, to split the four-game series. It was their largest shutout win ever at Camden Yards, and their largest against the Orioles in Baltimore since a 10-0 blanking on June 19, 1985 at Memorial Stadium. This was also the Yankees seventh shutout in 2018, matching their total from all of last year.

Greg Bird broke the game open when he went deep with the bases loaded in the third inning, belting his first career grand slam to give the Yankees a 5-0 lead. Bird was 1-for-14 with seven strikeouts in his career with the bases full before hitting that homer. He joined a sweet group of Yankee first baseman to hit a grand slam in Baltimore:

  • Tino Martinez May 1, 1996
  • Don Mattingly Sept. 25, 1987
  • Bill Skowron April 22, 1961 and April 14, 1959

It was also his second straight game with at least four RBI, the first Yankee to do that since Alfonso Soriano in 2013. And he also earned this #FunFact: Bird is the only player in franchise history to drive in at least four runs in back-to-back games against the Orioles (since the team changed its nickname and moved to Baltimore in 1954).

Giancarlo Stanton quietly had another huge game at the plate, going 4-for-5 with two RBI. His five games with at least four hits are the most in MLB — and the same number that the rest of the Yankees have combined this season.

Sonny Gray bounced back from his two worst starts as a Yankee to throw one of his best starts as a Yankee, holding the Orioles scoreless over six innings while striking out eight. In four starts against the Royals and Orioles this season he is 4-0 with a 1.73 ERA; against all other teams this season he is 2-7 with a 6.96 ERA.

If only he could pitch all his games at Camden Yards against the Orioles …

Yankeemetrics: Summer slam, Yanks beat Sox (June 29-July 1)

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(AP)

CC The Stoppah
The Yankees kicked off the Most Important Series of the Season with a cruise-control win, 8-1. It was the first time this season Boston lost a game by at least seven runs; prior to Friday, they were the only MLB team that hadn’t suffered a loss of more than six runs.

Gleyber Torres ignited the offense with a his first career triple to lead off the second inning. Congrats to him for being the youngest Yankee to hit a triple in a game against the Red Sox since a 20-year-old Mickey Mantle on September 25, 1952.

Miguel Andujar and Greg Bird turned the game into a rout, belting consecutive homers in the fourth inning to put the Yankees ahead 5-0. It was the sixth time this season the Yankees went back-to-back, tied with the A’s for the most in the majors (through Friday), and more than halfway to their 2017 total (11).

Bird’s dinger was a 392-foot rocket to left-center field, a rare type of homer for the pull-heavy lefty. It was just his second career opposite-field shot and the farthest left that he’s gone deep in his career.


Aaron Judge joined the dinger party in the seventh inning, muscling a chest-high fastball over the wall in right-center. It was his 50th longball at Yankee Stadium, as he became the fastest player in MLB history to hit 50 homers at home, doing so in his 259th career game.

CC Sabathia delivered a masterful performance, and it was no surprise that he was absolutely brilliant on the biggest stage. He is now …

  • 12-0 with a 2.47 ERA in 18 regular season starts following a Yankee loss since the start of 2017.
  • 3-0 with a 2.34 ERA in six starts this season against teams with a .500 record or better.
  • 6-0 with a 1.83 ERA in his last seven starts vs. the Red Sox dating back to September 2016.

Sabathia is the first Yankee to win six straight decisions against the Red Sox since Ron Guidry also went 6-0 in eight starts against them spanning the 1977-79 seasons.

(Newsday)

Nightmare on River Avenue
Twenty-four hours after celebrating one of their most satisfying wins of the season, the Yankees produced one of their most miserable losses on Saturday night.

They were blitzed, 11-0, tied for the worst shutout loss ever by the Yankees against the Red Sox in the Bronx (also lost 11-0 on Sept. 6, 2003). And the only other time that the Yankees suffered a worse shutout loss to the Red Sox was a 13-0 defeat on May 30, 1941. Saturday’s disaster was the Yankees fourth time being shut out this year (all of them since June 10!), one more than they had for the entire 2017 season.

Chris Sale plowed through the Yankees lineup, overpowering them and making them look silly with his fastball-slider combo. He gave up one single and struck out 11 over seven scoreless innings, nearly matching the 1-hit, 10-strikeout performance he had against them in 2014. Sale is the only pitcher in MLB history to have multiple career games with double-digit strikeouts and no more than one hit allowed against the Yankees.

While Sale was doing his best peak-Pedro impression, Sonny Gray was in full Carl Pavano/A.J. Burnett mode. He was destroyed early and often by the Red Sox, coughing up six runs on seven hits before getting pulled with one out in the third.

Given this matchup — at Yankee Stadium, against the Red Sox — Gray’s awful outing was hardly surprising. The gory details:

  • Gray is the first Yankee ever to pitch consecutive games versus the Red Sox allowing at least six earned runs and throwing no more than three innings (remember April 12?).
  • He is now 0-4 with a 9.35 ERA in four starts against the Red Sox as a Yankee. The only pitchers in franchise history to have a worse ERA in this rivalry (min. 4 starts) are Jose Contreras (16.43) and Andy Hawkins (14.44).
  • His ERA at Yankee Stadium this season ballooned to 8.25 in eight starts. That would be the highest ERA at home for any Yankee pitcher in a single season (min. 5 starts), ahead of Jaret Wright (7.86 in 2005) and Phil Hughes (7.83 in 2011).
  • Gray’s overall ERA is 5.44, putting him on pace to own the worst qualifying ERA in a non-strike season in Yankees history. The current record-holder is Bump Hadley (5.30 in 1937) followed by A.J. Burnett (5.26 in 2010).

Okay, that’s enough ugly stats, here’s something positive: The bullpen, despite allowing five runs in 6 2/3 innings, finished June with a 1.32 ERA. That was the lowest ERA (min. 40 IP) by a Yankee bullpen in any calendar month in the Divisional Era (since 1969).

Home Run Derby in the Bronx
One night after getting embarrassed by their rival, the Yankees got their revenge in style, routing the Red Sox 11-1 to improve to 54-27 at the midpoint of the season. Since the American League went to a 162-game schedule in 1961, this is just the second time that the Yankees have won at least 54 of their first 81 games. The other season was 1998, when they started 61-20.

(NJ.com)

Aaron Hicks was the star of the home run derby with a trio of longballs in the second, fourth and eighth innings. He is just the third Yankee to hit three homers in a game against the Red Sox, joining Mark Teixeira (May 8, 2010) and Lou Gehrig (June 23, 1927), and the first one to do it in the Bronx. Hicks also became the first Yankees leadoff batter ever to go deep three times in a game.

Gleyber Torres broke the game open with a three-run opposite field blast in the first inning to put the Yankees ahead 4-0, his 15th career homer. Playing in his 60th big-league game, he is the first AL player age 21 or younger to hit 15 home runs this early into his career. It was also his sixth homer with at least two men on base this season, the most of any player in MLB.

Kyle Higashioka crushed a homer in the fourth inning for his first career hit; he had been hitless in his first 22 MLB at-bats, the longest hitless streak to start a career by any Yankee to debut in the Live Ball Era (since 1920).

It was deja vu all over again for the Yankees against their perennial punching bag David Price, who allowed a career-high five homers and eight runs before getting the hook in the fourth inning. Let’s recap the cold, hard facts:

  • Price is the first Red Sox pitcher to surrender at least five longballs and eight or more runs at Yankee Stadium (old and new).
  • He is the only pitcher in MLB history to have three games against the Yankees of fewer than four innings pitched and at least eight earned runs allowed (he also did it in 2014 and 2015 with the Tigers).
  • Price’s ERA in nine starts against the Yankees since joining the Red Sox in 2016 is 8.43, easily the highest of any player with at least four starts against them in the last three seasons. And his 10.44 ERA in five starts at Yankee Stadium with the Red Sox is also the worst of any pitcher that has made more than one start there since 2016.
(NJ.com)

The Yankees had their ace on the mound and Luis Severino tossed a gem, allowing just two hits across 6 2/3 scoreless innings. He’s given up no more than three runs in 15 straight starts, matching the Yankees longest such streak in the Live Ball Era (since 1920), set by Ron Guidry during his 1978 Cy Young-winning campaign.

Since the start of 2017, he has allowed one run or fewer in more than half (25) of his 49 regular season starts.

Greg Bird has had trouble with fastballs since returning from the disabled list

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(Presswire)

A little more than one month ago, Greg Bird returned to the Yankees after having his second ankle surgery in as many years. Tyler Austin and Neil Walker did okay enough at first base in the interim. Although the Yankees weren’t having trouble scoring runs without him, adding Bird’s lefty power bat to the righty heavy lineup really helps balance things out.

Twenty games into his 2018 season, Bird is hitting .211/.300/.451 (104 wRC+) overall with three home runs, and things have been much better of late. Including the completion of the suspended game, he’s gone 6-for-20 (.300) with three doubles, a homer, five walks, and four strikeouts in the last seven days. Not surprisingly, Bird needed some time to get settled in following ankle surgery. He’s on the path to being dangerous now.

“I’m happy where I’m at right now, but there’s room to get better for sure. Get better, stay the course and turn this thing around,” said Bird to Zach Braziller over the weekend. “I try to figure it out all the time. It’s just the ups and downs. You want to be consistent in this game. I just feel like when you’re coming back like that, there’s more obstacles.”

One thing Bird has not done early in his 2018 season is hit fastballs. He’s hitting .162 with a .189 ISO against heaters so far, whereas the league averages are .265 and .177, respectively. He’s also posted a .301 expected wOBA against fastballs this year. The league average is .365. The results aren’t particularly good because the contact hasn’t been particularly good.

Furthermore, Bird has missed with 20.9% of his swings at fastballs so far this season. The league average is 19.3%. Given what we’ve seen from Bird the last few years, I don’t think it’ll surprise you to learn that most of his whiffs against heaters have come on pitches up in the zone. Here are the pitch locations of his whiffs on fastballs (colored by pitch velocity):

As soon as he got to the big leagues in 2015, pitchers started attacking Bird with elevated fastballs. Teams scout the minor leagues like crazy these days. When a kid comes up, they already have a book on him, and those elevated heaters are Bird’s weakness. Is it something he can correct? Possibly. Elevated fastballs are hard to hit, especially when behind in the count.

Anyway, Bird has not hit fastballs in the early going and the swings and misses concern me more than the low AVG and ISO, especially since so many of those swings and misses in the plot above are 92-94 mph. A 92-94 mph heater over the plate is a pitch I want Bird to hammer. We know Bird, when he’s healthy and right at the plate, can murder fastballs. Quality fastballs too. Need I remind you?

Bird can hit fastballs. He just hasn’t since coming back from the disabled list. There’s a big difference between not being able to do something and not doing something at this moment. Bird is not hitting fastballs at this point in time. It doesn’t mean he won’t hit fastballs forever.

The question is why isn’t Bird hitting fastballs right now? I’m inclined to say this is all small sample size noise. Not just small sample size noise, but small sample size noise from a dude who recently returned from ankle surgery. Simply put, Bird is not yet in midseason form. Ankle surgery is not nothing — if you don’t have a solid base underneath you, you’re not going to hit properly — and he’s just coming back from (another) one.

You’re welcome to feel differently, but I think we’re very far away from saying Bird has a problem with fastballs. Is he susceptible to elevated fastballs? Yes. Lots of hitters are. But do those swings and misses at 92-94 mph heaters out over the plate point to a larger problem? It’s always possible, sure. We need more information though. No one ever likes to hear this, but the best thing the Yankees can do is be patient. Give Bird time and let him figure it out.