A new season has begun. The front office went out these last few weeks and added some help, most notably Sonny Gray prior to Monday’s trade deadline, and now the Yankees are in full blown “let’s win this damn division” mode. The Yankee started this new go-for-it season with a 7-3 win over a Tigers team that seems to be caught between going for it and rebuilding. That’s a bad place to be. The Yankees have won seven of their last eight games and nine of their last eleven games.
Turning A Gift In To Four Runs
Reigning AL Rookie of the Year Michael Fulmer is a really, really good pitcher, and he carved the Yankees up for the first three innings Monday night. He was running his two-seamer off the plate inside to lefties and outside to righties, and getting it to dart back toward the plate to catch the corner. Plus he had a nasty slider working too. Fulmer needed only 33 pitches to get through the first three innings.
The Yankees finally broke through in the fourth and the they had some help. Aaron Judge drew a leadoff walk, then Gary Sanchez hit a tailor-made 4-3 double play ball back up the middle, but Ian Kinsler led the ball sneak under his glove and roll into shallow center field. Rather than getting two outs on the play, the Tigers got none. Run expectancy with the bases empty and two outs: 0.10 runs. Run expectancy with runners on first and second and no outs: 1.44. Pretty big swing.
The Kinsler error was followed hard-fought Matt Holliday walk to load the bases — he fouled away two two-strike pitches as part of an eight-pitch at-bat — which set up Chase Headley and Todd Frazier to be the heroes. Headley jumped all over a first pitch heater for a right-center field gap shot double to score two runs. Headley’s been so good the last few weeks. Frazier lined a single to right to score another two runs for a 4-1 lead. That error really came back to bite the Tigers. Hooray for the Yankees for taking advantage.
Severino Grinds Out Five
Last season, when Luis Severino had a bad start, he’d give up five or six runs in maybe four innings. His bad starts were really bad. This year, when Severino has a bad start, he still figures out a way to get through five innings of one-run ball. That’s what great pitchers do. Even their bad starts are still pretty good. Severino needed 116 pitches to allow one run on four hits and three walks in those five innings Monday night. He struck out eight.
The Tigers scored their run against Severino in the fourth inning and they needed some defensive help. Mikie Mahtook pulled a single to left field that Clint Frazier let slip under glove, allowing Mahtook to reached second on the error. The next batter, James McCann, defensive-swung a fastball into the right field corner that was juuust out of the reach of a diving Aaron Judge. Judge is a big dude. His dives cover a lot of ground.
Severino almost did not make it out of the fifth inning. He walked Miguel Cabrera and Nick Castellanos back-to-back with two outs, then ran the count full against Victor Martinez. His 116th and final pitch of the night was a 97.7 mph fastball for a swing and miss and strike three. That’s noteworthy because Severino’s velocity was down early in the game. From Baseball Savant:
Severino’s fastball was mostly 94-96 mph in the first inning, which is good velocity for most pitchers, but is down for Severino, who went into Monday’s start with the highest average fastball velocity among all qualified starters in baseball (97.6 mph). I think we all got a little scared when Joe Girardi and trainer Steve Donohue visited the mound in the first inning too. I know I did.
Fortunately, Severino stayed in the game and was throwing his usual upper-90s gas a few innings later. Sometimes it takes guys a little while to get up to speed. He seemed to be favoring his left leg anyway. Whatever it was, it was a non-factor aside from that first inning. Severino labored a bit and had some really long counts — only eight of the 24 batters he faced saw a first pitch strike, and 12 of the 24 saw at least five pitches — hence the elevated pitch count. If this is a bad Severino start now, I’ll take it.
Insurance Runs
One thing the Yankees have done well this season, at least outside that miserable month, has been tack on insurance runs. They added three in this game. Judge swatted a solo home run in the fifth — Fulmer left a 2-0 fastball up in the zone and Judge hammered it — though the Tigers answered right back with a run against Tommy Kahnle in the sixth. He hit a batter, allowed an infield single, then allowed a two-out single to score the run. Drat.
The Yankees added two more runs in the seventh inning courtesy of the Tigers acting tough and drilling Jacoby Ellsbury as retaliation for Mahtook getting hit twice. Severino hit him in the back and Kahnle hit him in the head. Not intentionally, of course. Ellsbury got hit, took his base, stole second, then scored on Clint Frazier’s hilarious triple into the left-center field gap. The ball landed just beyond the infield dirt and rolled all the way to the warning track it was hit so hard. Ridiculous.
Scoring a run after a retaliatory hit-by-pitch is always a blast. I mean, I get why the Tigers did it. Mahtook had been hit twice and the perpetually wild Dellin Betances came inside on Cabrera a few times — not intentionally, that’s just Dellin not knowing where the ball was going — and Miggy chewed out his teammates in the dugout. Fulmer did what he had to do and beaned Ellsbury in the butt. A Gary Sanchez sac fly drove in Frazier for a 7-2 lead.
Leftovers
Another longish night for the bullpen. The Yankees got no length from Jordan Montgomery or Caleb Smith over the weekend, then had to ask the bullpen for four more innings Monday night. Kahnle allowed his run, then Jonathan Holder was charged with a run in the ninth. He loaded the bases on two soft singles and a hit batsmen, and Aroldis Chapman allowed the run on a fielder’s choice. The bullpen: 4 IP, 5 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 1 BB, 7 K. Those guys could really use back-to-back eight inning starts, you know?
Three-hit night for Headley, who came into the game hitting .357/.410/.500 (147 wRC+) since the All-Star break. He’s up to .274/.356/.395 (103 wRC+) on the season overall despite that massive slump. No power at all. I mean, geez. But a .356 OBP? Sign me the hell up. One hit apiece for Judge, Tyler Wade, and the Fraziers. Judge drew two walks and Holliday drew one. Even with his recent slump, Judge is still hitting .303/.429/.639 (179 wRC+). What a year for him.
Box Score, WPA Graph & Standings
For the box score and updated standings, go to ESPN. MLB.com has the video highlights and we have a Bullpen Workload page. Here’s the win probability graph:
Source: FanGraphs
Up Next
The Yankees and Tigers will continue this three-game series Tuesday night, as the dust from the trade deadline continues to settle. CC Sabathia and Anibal Sanchez are the scheduled starting pitchers for the penultimate game on the homestand. RAB Tickets can get you in the door to that game or Wednesday’s game.
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