Yes, the White Sox and Orioles are last-place teams, and the Yankees are possibly a first-place team. Still, you can only play who’s on the schedule, and New York has rounded itself into postseason form over the past week. The bats were loud again today, the starter was excellent, and with the Blue Jays not taking the field until this matinee was already in the seventh inning, pressure was put on Toronto with the Yankees’ big 6-1 win, the club’s seventh straight and 10th of its last 11.
As you can
probably guess, the man who should be MVP got us started in the bottom of the first:
That was Judge’s 53rd of the season, which if his lead in the batting average table holds, will be the most home runs hit by a batting title winner ever. It also tied him on the career HR list with Manny Machado, although Manny has some 3200 more plate appearances.
Leading off the second is the other guy who is seemingly sizzling right now, Giancarlo Santon:
We’re at the point in his career where just about every dinger Stanton hits is historically notable, this one put him past Red Sox legend Carl Yastrzemski for 40th all-time on the big fly list at 453. Judge has generally been hot all year but if he and Stanton can stay hitting like this for another three or four weeks, the Yankees become nigh-impossible to pitch against, even for teams with better rotations than Baltimore.
Then some of the rest of the club got in on the fun, including Ryan McMahon. The rather light-hitting third baseman had a pair of knocks, including a homer of his own:
While all this excitement was going on, Cam Schlittler made a very, very emphatic case to be the #3 guy in the postseason rotation. The rookie was stellar over seven shutout innings, allowing just two hits and a walk, although he did hit two Baltimore batters. You should know by now how much I care about the “shutdown” inning after your team scores, and Cam’s three-up, three-down frames in the second and third after Judge and Stanton gave him a lead and a cushion were perfect examples.
One of the things I loved about Cam today was his use of cutters on lefties, particularly his ability to keep the ball in the zone, or at least in the shadow zone:
At the belt or higher, boring in on your hands at 96-odd mph? Very few hitters in the sport are going to be able to do anything with that pitch — if it’s at the thigh or lower, a lefty with power can drop the barrel down and maybe do damage, but at the navel you’re just not going to get much wood on a ball.
Still with only a 3-0 lead, Schlittler was still walking something of a tightrope, until the Yankees blew it open in the fifth. Cam had kind of a rocky patch in the top of the inning, expending a lot of pitches, and his offense picked him up. You all know who had the big hit:
Cody Bellinger chipped in with a sac fly, the 98th run he’s driven in this year.
We did get a scary moment in that inning, as Jazz Chisholm Jr. was drilled in the left forearm just above his guard. The Yankee second basemen left the game immediately, although initial X-rays were negative per the team.
The Orioles did get one run, as Coby Mayo knocked the first pitch he saw from Paul Blackburn into the left field seats. That’s just about the only blemish in this one, an otherwise-flawless dissection of a team the Yankees should beat, and indeed needed to beat to keep slim AL East championship hopes alive. At time of writing, the Jays are ahead of the Rays, 3-0, but the Yankees have done everything they can do today. No matter what happens, we’re in for one of the most interesting Game 162s we’ve had in some time tomorrow.
Luis Gil gets the ball for that very, very important day against capable righty Kyle Bradish, and all teams will be in action at 3:05pm Eastern.
