Make it nine consecutive wins for the molten hot Yankees. They completed the three-game sweep of the Angels with a 2-1 win at Yankee Stadium West on Sunday night. It’s their first sweep in Anaheim since 2003 and their first nine-game winning streak since winning ten in a row in June 2012. Hooray for the winning streak and hooray for getting the hell away from Angel Hernandez and that umpiring crew. Good gravy are they bad.
CC For Seven
Late career CC Sabathia was in peak form Sunday night. Lots of weak contact. Lots and lots of weak contact. Even the run he allowed came on a grounder to second — Neil Walker probably ranged too far to get it and Sabathia didn’t cover first because he never covers first (being 36 with a bum knee has something to do with it) — a broken bat bloop just out of the reach of a leaping Didi Gregorius, and a very wild pitch. A dumb rally, it was.
Sabathia’s final line: 7 IP, 5 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 1 BB, 4 K. There’s a lot to unpack here. First, he threw seven innings! First time since August 25th of last season, 14 starts ago if you include the postseason. Aaron Boone let Sabathia go through the lineup a third time and even let him face Ian Kinsler a fourth time even though he represented the go-ahead run. I thought CC was done after the sixth, but nope, he got the seventh too. Awesome.
Secondly, Sabathia faced 28 batters and threw 23 first pitch strikes. Goodness. His first pitch strike rate has hovered right around 60% over the years, which is more or less league average. Sunday night he was at 82%. Pitching ahead in the count in a wonderful thing. Third, Sabathia held the Angels to an 84.1 mph average exit velocity, which is absurdly low. His ability to induce weak contact is truly remarkable.
And fourth, Sabathia allowed only two runners to make it as far as second base. Kinsler doubled and was stranded in the third, and then Justin Upton reached on the grounder to Walker and eventually scored. Five starts, five earned runs allowed for Sabathia so far this season, and three of the five came in one game. That’ll work. Late career Sabathia is still the man. How can you not love this dude?
Two Against Skaggs
Truth be told, Tyler Skaggs pitched pretty darn well Sunday night. He struck out eight and held the Yankees without a hit until the fourth inning, but because this lineup treats at-bats like a fight to the death, Skaggs needed 99 pitches to throw 5.1 innings. His pitch count by inning: 19, 23, 17, 20, 16, 4 (one batter). Skaggs faced 21 batters and 15 saw at least four pitches. Yup. The Yankees’ll do that.
The Yankees finally broke through in the fourth inning, when Giancarlo Stanton jumped on a fastball — it was the seventh pitch of the at-bat — and hooked it into left field for a double and his team’s first hit of the game. Skaggs started the next batter, Gary Sanchez, with a curveball for a swinging strike. The next pitch was a very poorly located fastball …
… that Gary hit over the bullpens and into the left field seats for a 2-0 lead. It was the 60th homer of his career in his 201st game. Only Aaron Judge got to 60 homers in fewer games in baseball history. For real. (Judge did it in 197 games.) Gary’s last eight hits dating back to the final game of the Blue Jays series: double, double, homer, homer, homer, double, double, homer. Singles are for the weak!
The Yankees didn’t muster much against Skaggs either before or after the Sanchez homer. He allowed three hits and two walks in his 5.1 innings, and got a dozen swings and misses with his 99 pitches, many of them on his curveball. The Yankees worked Skaggs pretty good, but tip your cap, the young man did a nice job grinding through it. Two runs in 5.1 innings against this lineup is a good outing.
Leftovers
A laborious eighth inning for Chad Green, who walked Mike Trout and allowed a ground ball single to Andrelton Simmons, but ultimately protected the one-run lead. He threw 23 pitches and got just one swing and miss, on his final pitch to end the inning. The crowd cheered so loudly that I half expected the P.C. Richard & Son whistle to play after the strikeout. Aroldis Chapman pitched around a one-out walk in the ninth for his sixth save.
Only four hits for the Yankees, tying their season low. Stanton doubled, Sanchez homered, Aaron Hicks doubled, and Gleyber Torres singled. Good thing they stacked Stanton’s double and Sanchez’s homer back-to-back, huh? Timing is everything. Stanton, Hicks, and Gleyber drew walks. Those three went 3-for-9 (.333) with three walks and the rest of the lineup went 1-for-22 (.045) with no walks.
And finally, no ESPN, Gregorius will not be a free agent after the season. They said it twice Sunday. Once during the pregame and then again during the game itself. Apparently no one bothered to alert the national broadcast booth about the contract status of the player they were planning to highlight all night. Good grief. (Didi will be a free agent after 2019.)
Box Score, WPA Graph & Standings
For the box score and updated standings, head over to ESPN. For the video highlights, go to MLB. Here’s our Bullpen Workload page and here’s the win probability graph:
Source: FanGraphs
Up Next
The non-Eastern Time Zone road trip continues with four games in Houston as the Yankees and Astros rekindle their newfound rivalry. Things didn’t go so well the last time the Yankees visited Minute Maid Park, but last year is last year, and this year is year. Hopefully things go better this time around. Sonny Gray and Charlie Morton as the scheduled starting pitchers for Monday night’s series opener.
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