Tag: Yankees

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The Yankees look to the future

With the seventh game of the American League Championship Series scoreless and one out in the bottom of the second inning on Saturday, Houston first baseman Yuli Gurriel hit a fly ball to right field that appeared to be heading over the fence for a home run.

That is, until Aaron Judge, the Yankees’ fielder, leaped and extended his gloved hand over the fence to snare the ball and maintain the tie.

The catch was the second by Judge that preserved the postseason for New York.  In the third game of the AL Division Series, with Cleveland leading two games to none, Judge robbed Francisco Lindor of a likely home run in the sixth inning of a scoreless game that the Yankees won 1-0.

The skill that Judge shows on defense may not earn him the fandom that comes with hitting 52 home runs during the season – his first in the majors – or four in the postseason. But they underscore that Judge brings to the outfield the powers he shows at the plate.

Judge, 25, stands six feet seven and weights 282 pounds. Together with Greg Bird, a first baseman in his second season with the Yankees, and catcher Gary Sanchez, the runner-up for the Rookie of the Year Award last season, he forms a trio that earned the Yankees the moniker Baby Bombers.

Though youth alone could not propel the Yankees past Houston and into the World Series, the team, which battled from a wild card to Game 7 of the ALCS, exceeded expectations.

Judge likely will be the American League’s Rookie of the Year. He also could be named the league’s most valuable player. Or at least runner-up. Either way, the rookie made the Yankees a delight to follow this season.

In the locker room after Saturday’s game, Judge looked to the future. “We have a lot of young guys on this team,” he told reporters. “Getting as far as we did is going to be beneficial down the road for us, getting the taste and the feeling of this. We’re all excited for next year and what it holds for us.”

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Yankees send ALDS to game four

The Yankees survived elimination on Sunday by defeating the Indians 1-0, powered by the pitching of Masahiro Tanaka and a home run by Greg Bird.

New York will host Cleveland in game four of the AL Division Series on Monday following a performance by Tanaka that saw the right-hander yield no runs, three hits, seven strikeouts and one walk in seven innings.

The home run by Bird in the seventh inning broke a scoreless tie.

An inning earlier, Aaron Judge made a leaping catch at the right field wall that robbed Francisco Lindor of a two-run home run and might have saved the Yankees’ season.

Aroldis Chapman came on in the eighth inning to save the game for New York.

Luis Severino, who gave up three runs on four hits in the Wild Card game against the Twins, is slated to start game four for the Yankees. The right-hander yielded four runs on four hits in a loss at Cleveland on Aug. 28. As of Sunday night, the Indians had yet to name a starter for game four.

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For the Yankees, it’s win or stay home

The Yankees and Indians are set to square off in the Bronx on Sunday night for the third game of the AL Division Series in a matchup that has the potential to end the Bombers’ season.

On the mound for the Cleveland will be Carlos Carrasco, a 30-year-old right-hander who yielded six hits to the Yankees when the teams met in Cleveland on Aug. 6.

The Yankees will answer with Masahiro Tanaka, 28, a right-hander who had 13 wins in the regular season and no appearances against the Tribe.

Here are a few of the story lines that we’ll be following:

How the Yankees’ bullpen might perform

Yankees’ relievers struck out nearly one of every three batters they faced during the regular season, a performance that led the majors. The bullpen posted an ERA that was 24 percent below the league average.

Still, the Yankees on Friday night failed to stop Cleveland from scoring nine runs after starting pitcher CC Sabathia left the bullpen a five-run lead. The Indians tied the game on a solo home run by Jay Bruce off David Robertson, who had not yielded a home run since July 29.

The performance by Yankees’ relievers contrasted with the team’s relief pitching on Tuesday, when the bullpen got 29 outs that included 13 strikeouts on the way to an 8-4 win over the Twins.

How will Joe Girardi handle reviews of replays?

In the bottom of the sixth inning on Friday, home plate umpire Dan Iassonga awarded Indians batter Lonnie Chisenhall first base after ruling that a pitch from Chad Green brushed Chisenhall’s hand.

Replay showed the pitch should have been ruled an out – the ball glanced off Chisenhall’s bat and was caught by Sanchez – to end the inning. But Yankees’ Manager Joe Girardi failed to challenge the call. The next batter, Francisco Lindor, hit a grand slam that narrowed the Yankees’ lead to one.

Following the game, Girardi told reporters he did not request review of the replay because he hesitated to hold up play and possibly disrupt Green’s rhythm.

But on Saturday, after being flayed by the news media, the skipper apparently reconsidered. “I screwed up,” Girardi told reporters. “In hindsight, yeah. I wish I would have challenged it.”

Writing in the Times, Billy Witz called the mea culpa “a startling admission from a manager who takes great pride in being fastidiously prepared and always in search of an edge.”

Will Carrasco be able to silence the Yankees’ bats?

The silver lining for the Yankees: They’ve already faced Trevor Bauer and Corey Kluber.

A reunion with Carrasco holds the potential for the Yankees to build on their success against him in August, when the pitcher gave up a home run to Aaron Judge, a triple to Jacoby Ellsbury and a double to Todd Frazier.

Judge has yet to get a hit in the ALDS. Ellsbury, who did not play on Thursday, went hitless on Friday in three tries as designated hitter. Frazier notched three hits on Friday after getting none a night earlier.

A win by the Yankees would allow them to host the Indians again on Monday, with the potential to return the series to Cleveland for a fifth game in the best-of-five series.

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Aaron Judge Homers as Yankees Advance to ALDS

The AL wild-card matchup between the Yankees and Twins lived up to the name of the initial playoff round, which Yankees’ General Manager Brian Cashman predicted would be a “steel-cage match.”

Fourth inning

Yankees are up by one in their half of the fourth inning. Both starting pitches left the game by the second inning. Aaron Judge hits a two-run home run to left field. Over the auxiliary scoreboard. The Yankees take a 7-4 lead.

Judge, the rookie who led the AL with 52 home runs during the regular season, has just hit the first playoff home run of his career.

That’s three home runs for the Yankees in four innings. (The Twins hit two in the first.) Twins’ relievers are warming up in the bullpen. The Yankees get two runs on two hits, and lead by three at the end of four innings.

Sixth inning

Zack Granite singles for the Twins. Brian Dozier walks. Tommy Kahnle comes into the game in relief of David Robertson. Khanle gets Joe Mauer out to end the inning. Trevor Hildenberg, who throws side arm, starts the bottom of the sixth inning. Retires the Yankees in order.

Seventh inning

Yankees’ runners on second and third. Twins walk Didi Gregorious, whose home run in the first inning tied the game. Bases loaded, no outs. Twins walk in a run. Yankees take an 8-4 lead. The Twins won’t score again.

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New York set to ban smokeless tobacco from ballparks

It may be time for the Mets and Yankees to buy more Bazooka.

The New York City Council this week is expected to vote on a bill that would ban smokeless tobacco from sports arenas throughout the five boros. The bill, which would take effect upon being signed into law by Mayor de Blasio, would make both Citi Field and Yankee Stadium tobacco-free.

The measure also would make New York the fifth major league city to prohibit use of smokeless tobacco at ballparks. In the past year, Chicago, San Franciso, Los Angeles and Boston have enacted similar bans, which are backed by Major League Baseball, as well as by both the Yankees and Mets.

The main sponsor of the measure says distinguishing tobacco based on how players consume it reflects stereotypes about snuff that no longer hold sway.

“I couldn’t imagine us being OK as a city or society as a whole with a baseball player standing in left field smoking a cigarette while the game was going on, on national television,” Councilman Corey Johnson, a Manhattan Democrat who chair’s the council’s health committee, told the Daily News in February. “But… just because of culturally what has existed for a long time, it’s OK for professional athletes to stand in left field or in the dugout and chew wads of smokeless tobacco.”

Though the sight of players dipping has marked baseball for decades, the habit takes a toll. Two years ago, Tony Gwynn, a Hall of Fame outfielder, died from cancer of the salivary glands that he attributed to chewing tobacco.

Curt Schilling, the retired pitcher for the Red Sox, blames smokeless tobacco that he chewed for three decades for cancer of the mouth that he has battled since 2014.

“You will develop sores, you will lose your sense of taste and smell,” Schilling wrote last year in a letter to his younger self that was published in The Players’ Tribune. “You will develop lesions. You will lose your gums — they will rot. You will have problems with your teeth for the rest of your life.”

Smokeless tobacco contains nitrosamines, which form during the curing of tobacco and can cause cancer and heart disease, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. As many as one-third of major leaguers use smokeless tobacco despite the dangers.

Efforts to ban smokeless tobacco have met with pushback from the players’ union, which asserts that baseball cannot ban snuff so long as it remains legal. As the union sees it, smokeless tobacco presents no danger to others from second-hand smoke.

Still, the union supports efforts to persuade players to quit the habit. “It’s definitely an addiction and it’s a tough addiction to get away from, because you’re always around it and there’s certain triggers,” an unnamed player for the Mets told the New York Post. “But I think if they apply a rule, we should abide by it.”