The Yankees start the unofficial second half of the season in the Bronx, taking on the club that has superseded them as the main characters of Major League Baseball. The Los Angeles Dodgers boast the best record in the sport, and an 11.5-game stranglehold on the NL West. Shohei Ohtani, who skipped All-Star festivities to receive treatment for knee inflammation, won’t be seen on the pitcher’s mound in any of this series’ three games, but that doesn’t mean there’s still not plenty of pitching talent
for the Yankees to contend with. While Ohtani won’t pitch against the Yankees, LA manager Dave Roberts announced that he expects the reigning MVP to DH in the series, although you’re free to speculate about the status of his knee.
Do note that two of the games this weekend are national. Friday’s contest will be on YES, while Saturday you’ll need to go to FOX, and Sunday Night Baseball will feature this rivalry on Peacock/NBC.
Friday – Gerrit Cole vs. Roki Sasaki (7:05pm Eastern)
Sasaki is a pitcher I’m a little obsessed with. As dominant a Japanese career as you can have, the Monster of the Reiwa Era has never been able to translate that talent into MLB production. He was worth negative value in just 36.1 innings last season, and even once he was used out of the bullpen in the Dodgers’ successful World Series run, he still struck out six batters against five free passes.
This season Sasaki is somewhat of an earned disaster. A 5.33 ERA and 5.58 FIP is somewhat undercut by a 4.33 xFIP that assumes he will stop allowing home runs at the rate he is — and to be fair, he probably won’t run a 20 percent HR/FB rate all year — but on the whole Roki needs to figure out some things. His fastball pops the radar gun, comfortably sitting 97 mph, but there’s no shape to it. It’s as flat an “elite” pitch as you’re going to see, and he’s also failed to develop any impressive secondary offerings, so naturally he’ll go seven shutout to kick off the series.
Cole has been pretty mediocre himself in his return from Tommy John surgery, with a 4.04 ERA that exactly matches his FIP. Age and rehab means that his stuff hasn’t been quite as good as it used to be, and that’s to be expected, but his strategy seems to be to fill up the strike zone, running the lowest walk rate of his career this season albeit in just 49 innings so far.
That stuffing of the zone means he’s going to get touched a bit, allowing eight home runs across his first nine starts. The good news is he managed to work through a Rays lineup last weekend without surrendering a dinger but still…maybe bring your glove to the game if you’re out on Friday night.
Saturday — Ryan Weathers vs. Emmet Sheehan (8:05pm Eastern)
Sheehan has been a very useful depth piece for the Dodgers over the last three years. The club clearly orients itself almost like a basketball powerhouse — be the best team in the league for the regular season, even if the way you manage your talent means you won’t necessarily be the best team of all time, and then bring every single gun you have to bear in the playoffs. Sheehan has been one of those guys that has stabilized a rotation that’s seen a lot of guys move in and out, all the while being a bang-on league average pitcher with a 99 FIP-.
His slider against righties and curve against lefthanders are his primary weapons, with the fastball itself a little meh. His home run rate isn’t as egregious as Sasaki’s, but you can still take him out of the ballpark. Continuing the trend that we may get another Home Run Derby sequel, meet his opponent Ryan Weathers!
Weathers has been a stabilizing force of his own while various Yankee pitchers have been hurt or recovering. He’s been exactly league average by both ERA and FIP, even if I feel like the whole is less than the sum of the parts. Weathers has run a hilarious 4.24 ERA and 1.62 FIP across his last four starts, and really does seem to alternate between a solid outing and one that makes you grind your teeth. His last performance was pretty darn good against the Nationals, 5.1 innings with one run allowed and a 6:0 K:BB ratio. Here’s hoping he bucks that alternating trend on FOX.
Sunday — Cam Schlittler vs. Yoshinobu Yamamoto (7:25pm Eastern)
All of the attention in the sports world will be directed at the World Cup final on Sunday, but damn if the Yankees and Dodgers don’t make for a compelling encore — or at least terrific background noise for your celebrations or lamentations depending on which side you’re rooting for. Were this college baseball, this would be your Friday night start, coming on Sunday Night Baseball.
Yamamoto has overcome a difficult start to the season to get back to the ace-level status we’re used to seeing him be at. If he gets to 30 starts like last year, he should comfortably have a 4.5-5 win season while possibly being the Game One starter in a playoff push. His fastball-splitter combination is his bread and butter, and indeed one of the best one-two pitch offerings in all of baseball. He’s fun to watch and I sure hope the Yankees don’t find themselves in the place of trying to salvage a game against him.
Meanwhile, we get to send our guy out on Sunday, as Schlittler should be well-rested after being the only American League pitcher to not appear in Tuesday’s All-Star Game. Two-thirds-ish of the way into his season, he’s been everything the Yankees could have asked for, on pace for a five-win season of his own and in the pole position for the AL Cy Young Award. This is a banner pitching matchup, exactly what the league would want for a Sunday primetime game.
