Tonight, the Yankees lost 8-6 to the Rays in what could have been a huge come from behind win.
The Start
It was ‘s first start with the Yankees tonight, and it all started it off with your routine groundball to shortstop, which was routinely dropped by perennial anti-Gold glove winner Eduardo Nunez. Welcome to New York Kuroda, hopefully you have backing you up next start. It should have been a 1,2,3 inning, but with 2 outs and now on third, Matt Joyce and walk thanks to a very narrow strikezone, and then all around good guy single to to bring 2 unearned runs home. It wasn’t all bad luck for Kuroda though, who ended up going 5.2 inning, 8 hits, 4 earned runs, 4 walks, 2 strikeouts, and a monster solo homerun to Matt Joyce.
The Pen
After yesterday’s intentional walk in the first innings, Joe Girardi reminded us that he was in the dugout when he left to face righties. Righties hold a career .359 average on Clay Rapada, so sure enough facing , he gave up a huge ground rule double that was initially called a homerun. His night ended at 0.2 innings, giving up 2 hits, 2 runs, 2 walks, and no strikeouts. The other bullpen piece was , who may have struggled in spring training, but was lights out tonight. His change up was deadly against the Rays, and he finished the night after 1.2 innings, with all zeroes and 3 strikeouts.
The Shift
Offensively, the night was categorized by the deadly shift. It seemed that the Yankees hit balls on the nose in most of their at bats, but the Rays had a shift to catch line drives up the middle and hard hit balls pulled to right field. The only runs the Yankees scored before the 9th inning were in the 4th, when the Rays helped the Yankees move along the bases with a wild pitch, and a throwing error on a snap throw to Carlos Pena who was picking his nose at first base.
The Comeback?
Then there was the 9th inning, the score was 8-2, an improbable comeback some might say. Granderson led the inning off with a Tropicana triple, a pretty standard deep fly ball that the outfielders simply couldn’t see in the roof. sacrificed the runner home, Russel Martin walked, singled on a high fastball, Derek Jeter struck out, but then hit a bomb. Swisher’s hit made the score 8-6, and a comeback started to seem more and more likely. Now with 2 out and no one on, came to the plate and unbelievably walked to bring the tying run to the plate. replaced the left handed specialist , and with coming to the plate, whispered something in his ear. What he said, we’ll never know, but on the first pitch Rodney threw, Arod hit a lousy groundball up the middle that the Rays of course had the shift set up to field. The Yankees lost 8-6.(Box Score)
- The Empire State Yankees started Manny Banuelos today, and although he didn’t have a problem with walks, it was only because he gave up 11 hits in 3.1 innings. Somehow he managed to only give up up 4 runs, but he also only earned 2 strikeouts. It was a tough start for Banuelos, who only threw 46 strikeouts in his 81 pitches, but he must be working on something. (My money is on the cutter) New Yankee got into the game and went 1.1 innings with 2 strikeouts. Syracuse beat the Empire State Yankees 4-0. (Box Score)
- The Trenton Yankees faced the 11th overall pick in the 2011 draft today, Deck McGuire, who the proceeded to unmercifully pound into dust. Jose Pirella tripled, and Cody Johnson, Zoilo Almonte, Robert Lyerly, Melky Mesa, and Jose Gil each homered off him. Johnson and Lyerly would proceed to homer again off of Ryan Tepera. It was a good day for any Trenton hitter not named Ronnier Mustelier, who went 0 for 5 and had an error. Brett Marshall got the start and went 5.0 innings, giving up 2 hits, 2 runs, 3 walks, and 1 strikeout. Trenton beat New Hampshire 11-2.(Box Score)
- In Tampa, Jose Ramirez got the start and went 5.2 innings, giving up 10 hits, 4 runs, and 8 strikeouts. Offensively, Rob Segedin had the big day, going 2 for 4 with a homerun. Lakeland beat Tampa 2-5. (Box Score)
- In Charleston, the RiverDogs faced a tough starting pitcher in the Rome Braves’ . Nevertheless, Dante Bichette hit two singles off him, Gary Sanchez a double, and Tyler Austin a triple. Gary Sanchez also stole a base today, as well as hit another single. Caleb Cotham started, going 4.0 innings, giving up only 1 hit, 1 run, 3 walks, and 4 strikeouts. Charleston beat Rome 2-1. (Box Score)
- Brad V got started questioning Joe Girardi’s moves this afternoon, and I can’t wait to find out what he has to say about some of the moves from tonight’s game. Seriously, intentionally walking a hitter late in a close important game is somewhat understandable, but in the first inning of the first game of the season? Dumb.
- The Yankee Fans Unite dig down into the reasoning for ‘s demotion and has some quotes from Cashman, Girardi, and Cervelli himself.
- And today’s workouts.
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I’m a Girardi defender but Rapada should never see a right handed batter in a crucial part of the game, especially not Evan Longoria. You should have either used Logan (who said he was available) or bring in Cory Wade.
All in all just looks like guys are leaving spring training, close but not finished products. We should be rolling by the home opener.
It’s easy to second guess manager’s decisions, but the choices he’s making are clearly wrong. Is it possible for a manager to be rusty entering the season?
Yeah leaving Rapada in to face Longoria and walking Pena were clearly wrongh at the time, part of me wonders if Maddon having the evil genius tag makes other managers want to match wits. Probably not but I guess it could make you over think in the moment.
“Crucial”? It was 8-2 at the time.
Sure, we can all now say with the benefit of hindsight that Swisher’s HR would have been more meaningful,but if I’m the manager I’m saving my bullpen for tomorrow with the game in garbage time at that point.
No, it was 6-2 in the 7th inning at that point in the game. That isn’t garbage time pal. Rapada is supposed to be a LOOGY. As much as I detest the whole LOOGY concept, if you have one then USE HIM THAT WAY!!!. Not only that – he failed to do his job. He walked Pena – you know, the guy he’s supposed to get out. Why would you leave him in to face not only a right-hand batter but a really good right-handed batter? Does it really come as a shock that an extra-base hit resulted? Yes, there was another lefty coming up but Rapada failed to retire him either which made the score 8-2.
Yeah, I know. Joyce’s single was a lucky hit but the entire premise of a LOOGY is that he’s death on lefties. If he’s only average against them or on a given night he’s not getting it done then don’t leave him in to face a guy he has no shot at retiring just so he can face another lefty in a situation where a lucky hit can score two runs and put the game out of reach.
This was another bone-headed move by Girardi. But as much as I’m not a Girardi supporter I have to admit that when you average 6 runs/game over two games you should, you know, win at least one of them. The lions share of the blame for the two losses is on CC and Kuroda. Girardi didn’t help and he did hurt the cause but better starting pitching can overcome errors and even bad managing.
The good news is that Jeter got a half day off which must have helped as he was probably exhausted from him not having a days off so far this season. With 2 outs, I would not have walked a guy in the 1st inning to face a different guy. You simply don’t start the match up game in that situation. I also start Jeter, who I believe from the bowels of my soul, would make that 1st inning play that Nunez inexplicably blew. So we are 2 games into a long, long, season and Joe is simply looking as horrible as Maddon is looking like a genius. This shift has been so successful that there seems to be no reason to not continue. My curious nature wonders if this infielder playing behind 2nd base strategy becomes a fixture in baseball.
I don’t second guess starting Nunez, if you want to make a habit of DH’ing Alex and Jeter against LHB then start it early to cement that lineup. Besides I would rather they get regular days off, or half days, throughout the season rather than wait until they wore down in the middle of the season. Any inning in the field you take off early will be available late, is I’m sure the thinking behind it.
In order to play a crazy shift game you have to have pitchers you can trust to pitch into the shift. Most rotations simply won’t have the control and talent to be able to pull off that many differenty shifts, as often as they’ve been doing it.
I agree about Nunez, he’s a necessary evil. I do think he’s gonna have a nice offensive year though, he seems to have improved his bat this offseason.
As for the shift, it seems that Rays go very far with scouting. I wouldn’t be surprised if they have the most advanced scouting department when it comes to fielding placement. Its the small things that keep them competing, and while they’ve gotten very luck the last 2 days, I think they’re doing something with the shifts that every team will be doing in 5 years.
Nunez has a very quick bat with decent pop, but I don’t think he’ll walk enough, or make enough contact to ever start. For our needs though I do like him as a super sub.
There’s a chance you will see teams go to that kind of constant shifting, but there are going to be a decent amount of pitchers who will struggle trying to pitch into advanced shifts like that. I don’t think a poor pitchingh staff should try it.
I’m torn on the addition of a cutter for Banuelos. On the one hand the cutter is a massive reason for the low batting averages across baseball, but on the other throwing a cutter can cause a pitcher to lose both feel and velocity on the 4 seam. I think one of Hughes’ problems came with becoming too attached to the cutter, which lead to discomfort with the 4 seam over time.
He suffered a pretty sizable platoon split last year, which led to his struggles and lack of efficiency. The cutter is designed to help combat that.
http://minorleaguecentral.com/player.php?pid=544365&split=2011
Someone who’s best pitch is a change up shouldn’t have that problem, but maybe his change doesn’t fade in to Righty batters like it should.