New York didn’t do much in the offseason, with much consternation given to the “run it back” attitude towards the roster. Part of that was a lot of debate about whether or not the Yankees should commit to Cody Bellinger long term. For at least one day, that signing turned out to be a great decision, as Bellinger took charge in today’s Yankee win, driving in four in the team’s 9-4 victory over the Orioles.
The Yankees did manage to get their first batter of the game aboard, with Trent Grisham working
a blue-collar walk to start the top of the first. Nothing came of that chance, but no matter, because Cody Bellinger led off the second with a porch job:
Bellinger would stay hot all day, driving in another run with a bloop double in the third, then Trent Grisham and he added some padding to the lead:
(This was supposed to be a reel but MLB Film Room is being stupid today, I beg your forgiveness).
I’m not going to ding Ryan Weathers for giving up a solo shot to Pete Alonso, that is exactly what Pete Alonso is paid to do. The other two runs he was ultimately charged with came off a misplay, where José Caballero failed to cover second base, then with the bases loaded and no out, Jake Bird came in and pitched more like I expect Jake Bird to pitch. The end results you can’t really put on Weathers, except for actually how he pitched.
In my opinion, Ryan Weathers is at his best when he reduces his fastball usage. His breaking and offspeed stuff is better, the fastball is really used to keep hitters honest. The problem with pitching backwards like that is hitters have to have a healthy fear that your breaking or offspeed pitch will come into the zone, or at least the shadow zone. Otherwise, the moment that you can pick up on the rotation of a pitch or the position in the hand, you can immediately spit on it: there’s such a low chance it’ll end up in the strike zone that you can take your chances on a better pitch coming next.
Weathers didn’t have good enough to make that happen. He only walked two, but got himself deep into counts pretty consistently, not by nibbling but by not hitting the zone. That leads to a rise in pitch counts and a more confident approach by hitters in the box. It’s only one earned run, but the journey it took to get through those five-plus innings was a rocky one.
I was getting worried for about an inning there, as the Orioles pushed another run across by taking advantage of Camilo Doval’s inability to hold runners. Fortunately, the Yankees broke out a bit in the seventh, with of course Cody Bellinger at the center of it all — his seeing-eye single scored Ben Rice before Jazz Chisholm Jr. brought Aaron Judge and Cody around with a single of his own.
With the now-five run lead, it was Paul Blackburn’s turn to take over, and he was able to close out the game without issue. That’s seven straight wins at the Stadium for the Yankees, and they clinched their fifth-straight series win. However, against both the Astros and Rangers, New York took the first two games and failed to complete the sweep, and sweeps feel a whole lot better than two of three. Max Fried represents a pretty good chance to lead you to that sweep though, and he’s scheduled to start tomorrow. First pitch is once again at 1:35pm Eastern.
