The Yankees are down three games to one. Overcoming a 3-1 lead has become a meme of sorts, thanks to the Cleveland Cavs’ comeback in the 2016 NBA Finals. But the Yankees don’t have a LeBron James, and Kyrie Irving plays for another New York team. The odds are long for the Yankees pulling out a series win, having to beat Justin Verlander, and then, Gerrit Cole.
But there are lessons to be learned, even when you hang another L.
THIS IS WHY GARY SANCHEZ STARTS
One pitch encapsulated an entire thesis on Gary Sanchez, both why he can be frustrating to watch and why he absolutely needs to start every game.
Josh James, a player that depends on a high 90s four-seamer, which he throws over 60% of the time, hurled a 98 mph fastball ever so slightly off the plate. Considering the funky calls at home, it might have rung Sanchez up. It was, basically, a perfect pitch, the kind you take and hope gets called in your favor.
The pitch being 1) outside and 2) otherwise flawless, did not matter. Sanchez clubbed it, pulling James’ heat left field for a two-run homer that briefly restored hope to the Yankees universe. Even though Austin Romine is a much-improved hitter, he has no chance of doing anything with that pitch.
Sanchez’s strikeout-to-walk ratio is 12 to 3 this postseason, and 36 to 5 over his career. The ratio is toppling over itself because he swings at pitches like this. But he’s Gary Sanchez because he can drive it over the fence anyway.
TANAKA WAS GUTTY AS HELL, BUT GUTTY ISN’T GOOD ENOUGH
Masahiro Tanaka got five whiffs all night. He was dependent on strong defense — again, Aaron Judge — and there were more than a few splitters that weren’t fooling anyone and he allowed four runs.
Tanaka has thrown this kind of start all year. The 30-year-old righty kept up the parlor trick of winning games without his best pitch, and made his second American League All-Star team. It wasn’t until after the break, during a midseason slump, that he adopted a new grip that could harness the new ball (No, not this new ball. The old new ball.) He found it again, and excelled down the stretch, and through the playoffs until Thursday night.
Whatever it is, Tanaka didn’t have it. But there’s a glory to the pitcher giving something despite having nothing. This doesn’t mean something is enough, but, still, it’s something that with the right lens, you can appreciate.
WHERE’S STANTON?
If there was one place to send Giancarlo Stanton, still allegedly a pinch-hitting option, it came in the fifth inning. Despite Grienke having a sharp slider, the Yankees worked the control artist into a bases-loaded situation. Ryan Pressley came in to relieve the veteran Astros hurler.
It wasn’t the bottom of the ninth, but it was unquestionably the most important event of the game. Torres shouldn’t get pinch-hit, he’s been the only fuel in the Yankees’ tank the entire round. He struck out, but you’ll live with it. Edwin Encarnacion is revered by his teammates for his hitting savvy. But the team does not have time for the bat he’s swinging (.067 batting average in the ALCS) to catch up with the intelligence and track record.
In an endeavor to showcase a team’s chances of winning at any point in the game, Fangraphs features a stat called Win Expectancy, which it calculates by looking at the count (say, a bases-loaded, two-out game in the fifth) and every other identical situation to see how past teams performed.
So, in this critical juncture, Encarnacion struck out and it was the biggest drop from any Yankee hitter all game, plummeting the Bombers’ chances of winning from 33.6% to 23.2%. It was, empirically, the biggest moment of the game. Boone was adamant that he had no plans to pinch-hit for Encarnacion there, telling reporters that this at-bat “wasn’t the situation.”
So, if Stanton is available, but not playing at the biggest juncture of the year — what’s the situation?
