Yankees 4, Rangers 3
Yankees 4, Rangers 3
- That sucked, on a number of levels.
- Missed opportunities. Leaving the bases loaded twice in the late innings. Ending the top of the ninth on a reversed replay call. The bullpen failing once again.
- Jacob deGrom was, once again, awesome. The $30-something million a year he is getting paid is a bargain if he does this all year. Even in a day of disappointment, watching deGrom do his thing is magical.
- deGrom allowed just three hits and one walk in seven innings, striking out nine. Unfortunately, one of those three hits was an Anthony Volpe fly ball that Sam Haggerty misplayed into a triple, with Volpe ultimately scoring on a ground out.
- That triple had an 80% catch probability. It was a play that should have been made, and it cost the Rangers. Between that play and Haggerty having to make a leaping snag of a fairly routine flyball he got a bad jump on and took a bad route on the day before, its kind of underscoring the fact that Haggerty is, defensively, problematic in center field.
- Incidentally, about three hours before the Haggerty misplay, Leody Taveras homered for Seattle to win the game for them.
- One of the other two non-misplayed-triple hits was a home run by Cody Bellinger that highlighted deGrom’s one weakness right now, his gopher ball tendency against lefties.
- Gonna be honest here…that homer, after the Rangers had just taken a 3-1 lead, made me feel like the game was lost. I’m not generally a doomer, a “the Rangers are going to screw things up because everything is bad and awful” person. But once Bellinger made it 3-2, knowing that the pen was going to have to handle the final two innings, with the lack of confidence the offense inspires…
- The Rangers were went to the two guys who, with Chris Martin out, are the late game relievers, the guys Bruce Bochy turns to to protect a lead in the final innings. Both failed.
- Robert Garcia was uncharacteristically wild, walking Paul Goldschmidt and Trent Grisham with one out before getting Ben Rice to fly out, bringing Aaron Judge up with two on and two out.
- I’m not sure there was a right or wrong choice to be made at that point. Garcia has been one of the Rangers’ best relievers this year, and historically has been as effectively against righthanders as he has been against lefthanders. I think it would have made sense to leave him in to face Judge.
- On the other hand, righthanders have hit Garcia better than lefties this year by a fair amount (602 OPS v. 331 OPS), and Garcia had walked two of the four hitters he faced. If he walked Judge — who, you know, draws a lot of walks — the bases are now loaded and lefty Cody Bellinger is up. (I want to congratulate myself on finally breaking my habit of typing “Clay Bellinger” in reference to him.)
- So you can understand pulling Garcia and going with Luke Jackson, your putative closer.
- On the other hand, Luke Jackson is Luke Jackson, and both lefties and righties have hit him well this year.
- The real problem is that Aaron Judge is really really good — he’s hitting .402/.491/.755 on the season right now — and your bullpen is not. Chris Martin is probably the guy you want facing Judge in that situation, and he’s on the injured list.
- So we can blame Bruce Bochy for going and getting Luke Jackson, and that’s understandable. But the bigger problem was Garcia walking Goldschmidt and Grisham, and Sam Haggerty misplaying a fly ball into a triple, and the offense not scoring more runs.
- And Chris Young and Ross Fenstermaker not doing a better job getting high leverage relief options this offseason. I mean, Luke Jackson is the team’s closer. His struggles this season notwithstanding, Luke Jackson is a perfectly acceptable major league reliever, but he’s someone you want filling the role that, say, Jacob Webb is filling for the Rangers this year. He’s not the guy you want to be turning to to face Aaron Judge with the game on the line.
- Anyway, as you know, Judge singled to tie the game, and the Rangers were fortunate that they got out of the inning when Grisham tried to advance to third base. Never make the third out at third base, kids! But it didn’t matter because Jasson Dominguez homered in the ninth off of LuJack to walk it off.
- Speaking of Dominguez, either Mike Bascik or Dave Raymond — I don’t remember which — talked about the unbelievable pressure Dominguez has faced since he was signed, saying he was being touted as a combination of Mickey Mantle and Joe DiMaggio. While I don’t read every single word of prospect coverage that there is out there, I do pay attention to those things, and I don’t think anyone was saying that about him. I could be wrong, though.
- Once again, the Rangers got hits, but not timely hits. All three runs scored on solo home runs, two by Jake Burger, who seems of late to be more of a Big Mac than the value menu single with no cheese we saw at the beginning of the year, and one by Sam Haggerty.
- Texas had seven singles and two walks to go with those homers, but couldn’t bring any of them in. They were particularly ineffective against Ryan Yarbrough, who allowed a Burger solo bomb but only two hits otherwise while striking out eight.
- It seemed like the Rangers might do some things in the sixth against Jonathan Loaisiga, who was very wild — they loaded the bases with two out on a Josh Jung single, an Adolis Garcia walk, and a Marcus Semien HBP. However, Jonah Heim had left the game in the bottom of the second because he couldn’t throw the ball back to the pitcher anymore because of a compressed nerve suffered when he singled in the top of the inning, and Kyle Higashioka was already DHing, which meant Tucker Barnhart was the batter who was asked to cash in on the bases loaded situation. Tim Hill was summoned from the pen and struck out Barnhart.
- Same situation occurred in the eighth — bases loaded, two outs, due to Semien and Burger singles, a Burger stolen base, and Joc Pederson, pinch hitting for Higashioka, drawing a walk. Josh Smith swung first pitch and grounded out, though, and that was that for that rally.
- A chance again in the ninth, when Haggerty led off with a single, didn’t advance on a Wyatt Langford lineout (108.4 mph, barreled, .620 xBA, just to rub salt in the wound) or a Josh Jung fly out, and then was called safe stealing second but then called out on replay. Once again, no dice.
- For the night, the Rangers as a team hit .278/.333/.528. That’s normally going to be good enough for more than three runs.
- Jacob deGrom topped out at 99.3 mph with his fastball, averaging 97.7 mph. Robert Garcia’s fastball hit 94.9 mph. Luke Jackson reached 94.2 mph with his fastball.
- Jake Burger’s home runs were 110.4 mph and 106.5 mph, and he had a 101.8 mph ground out and a 100.2 mph single. Wyatt Langford had a 108.4 mph line out and a 104.5 mph single. Sam Haggerty had a 107.2 mph home run. Kyle Higashioka had a 103.2 mph ground out.
- Maybe the Rangers can avoid the sweep Thursday. Or maybe they’ll get rained out. Either one would be fine, really.