Now that the 1915 Phillies season is wrapping up, I'm going to start doing a few different things with the blog. I want to do some shorter projects about sports and history, but I also want to write about current sporting events. Today is a recapped of the playoff baseball game from last night. Enjoy!
Last night’s American League Wild Card game was a contrast
of styles. You could say the Houston
Astros represent the new way of team building while the New York Yankees are a
team of a bygone era, but to say the new school is better than the old school
is a simplification. In a one game
playoff, or a One And Done, as the ESPN hype team repeatedly billed it, there
is so much variance that proclaiming one style to be better than the other is
ignorant. Still, the way each team was
constructed played a significant role in the outcome of the game.
The Yankees have long been the team to spend spend spend
that seemingly endless supply of money on top-level free agents at the detriment
of the players in the minor league system.
This approach worked wonders in the 1970s and helped to supplement their
run of championships in the late 1990s.
But since then only one team (the 2009 championship squad) was a real
threat to win it all. In recent years,
New York took a mild approach in free agency, curbing their yearly spending
sprees to only nab one or two top-level guys, but the club remains a group of
mercenaries. Only four of the fourteen
Yankees to take the field last night came up through their system; the rest
were bought. The result is a lineup
filled with big name players that are getting on in years (though still
collecting pay checks with a lot of zeros) that aren’t producing the way they
were when they became household names.
Case in point: Jacoby Ellsbury, the big Yankee signing in 2013 (who will
“earn” $21M+ every year until 2021), didn’t even start in the all-important One
And Done game.
Houston, on the other hand, hit rock bottom from 2011 to
2013 and chose to harvest players from their farm rather than buy their way out
of the hole. Armed with an analytically
inclined front office, the Astros drafted well and traded aging stars for young
talent that finally began to emerge at Minute Made Park this year. In contrast to the Yankees, seven of the
seventeen Astros in the Wild Card game came up through their system. With so much young, cheap, front-line talent,
Houston was able to supplement them with mid-tier free agents to fill holes in
the lineup. It also allowed the team to
trade for Carlos Gomez, the speedy centerfielder that packs a pop in his
bat.
The Astros also took a different route than the Yankees in
the players they targeted. New York’s
lineup has a ton of power, but not much in the way of defense. Houston, though, has even more power, but
it’s younger and more athletic and therefore does not hurt them when they are
in the field. In fact, the Astros
finished the season with the third most Defensive Runs Saved while New York
swam with the likes of the Braves, Mariners, and Phillies at the bottom of that
list. Both clubs finished within a game
of each other in the standings, but with a closer inspection it is easy to see
the Astros held a slight advantage in this game.
But a real concern was whether the bright lights of Yankee
Stadium would blind the young Astros. I
think John Kruk mentioned the Yankees twenty-seven championships about a
million times last night, and while those past accomplishments are irrelevant
to the One And Done, the New York faithful, so used to outcomes turning in
their favor, were loud enough last night to put the seed of doubt into the most
grizzled veteran’s mind. The Astros’
first turn at the plate sure made it seem like they were a bit jumpy. Masahiro Tanaka toed the rubber and promptly
struck out Jose Altuve and George Springer, Houston’s top hitters. He then got the 21-year-old Carlos Correa to
weakly pop up to end the first. The
crowd went wild, further boosting the Yankee Mystique.
The Yankees did not take advantage in the bottom of the
first, though, which allowed the Astros to settle in and gain a bit of
traction. Houston probably was a little
too relaxed in the first, which gave Tanaka time to work his patented mix of
splitter and slider that resulted in the two strikeouts. Maybe something was said in the Houston
dugout between innings about not letting Tanaka establish a strike because
Colby Rasmus jumped all over the first pitch of the second inning and sent it
deep into the left field bleachers. On
the very next pitch, Evan Gattis smashed a fly ball to right-centerfield that
would have been a stand-up double had Brett Gardner not made a fantastic
running catch against the wall. This was
one of those “what-if” moments of the game.
What happens if Tanaka gives up a towering home run to Rasmus and then a
searing double to Gattis? All of a
sudden the Astros are smashing the Yankees’ ace, the crowd is quiet, and the
Mystique begins to wane.
Gardner’s catch averted disaster, but Tanaka did not seem to
recover with the good fortune. Luis
Valbuena hit a single back up the middle and then Chris Carter and Jason Castro
walked to load the bases. Tanaka
couldn’t control his two vaunted pitches at this point. Everything was outside and nowhere near close
enough for the Astros to sniff at them.
To his credit, Tanaka did not panic.
He didn’t try to place a fastball by the sure-hitting Altuve; instead
Tanaka continued throwing splitter after splitter until he finally got the tiny
second baseman to chop one to third. Inning
over. Crisis avoided. But Tanaka didn’t find his normal command of
his pitches again until the fifth inning and by then he was all but done. The Astros tacked on another run when Carlos
Gomez homered in the fourth to make the game 2-0.
Dallas Keuchel did not cower under the pressure of pitching
in Houston’s first playoff game since 2005.
He had to throw the jitters of adrenaline out in the first and looked
shaky, but, like the rest of his teammates, he calmed down and dominated like
he did all season. New York just
couldn’t figure the Civil-War-General-bearded Keuchel out. All of those big-priced free agents walked to
the plate and struggled to get the bat on the ball. In fact, it was Greg Bird, one of the Yankees
few homegrown starters, that managed to get the best contact against Keuchel
when he shot a single through the right side of the infield in the second
inning. The only other hard contact came
when Alex Rodriguez flied a ball into the corner, but George Springer showed
that his defense plays as well as his bat when he ran the ball down and robbed
the infamous slugger of a double. For
the first five innings Keuchel let only two Yankees on base and struck out
six. At one point ten Yankees in a row
were retired.
After each 1-2-3 inning you could feel the crowd begin to
worry. You could feel that the fans knew
this team of upstarts overmatched their club.
Each inning the Astros gained confidence as they routinely handled
everything the Yankees threw at them.
New York’s only glimmer of hope came in the bottom of the sixth
inning. Didi Gregorius led off with the
Yankees second single of the game. After
Gardner struck out for the second time, Chris Young laced a ball back through
the box for what should have been another hit, but Correa sprinted behind the
second base bag, nabbed the ball before it went into the outfield, twirled his
body in mid-air and made the throw to force Gregorius. This ball had trouble written all over it and
the star-in-the-making Correa snuffed it out.
His catch and throw was so incredible that Altuve had a chance to make
an extremely athletic throw that almost doubled up Young. The Yankees were inches away from having
first and second with one out, but instead had their scoring chances cut
significantly. Correa’s play paid off on
the next batter when Beltran smashed Keuchel’s pitch back up the middle. If Young’s ball got through and Beltran
singled, the Yankees would have had a run in, cutting the lead to one, and a
runner in scoring position for Alex Rodriguez.
But the Astros’ emphasis on defense panned out here. Rodriguez popped up to end the inning and the
Yankees were kept off the board.
The rest of the game was a bullpen contest. All night long ESPN talked about the Yankees
bullpen as rock solid while the Astros were made of puddy. And it’s true; on paper the Yankees have the
ability to shut teams down in the later innings due to their stud
relievers. But in a One And Done, it all
comes down to production. The Yankees
best reliever is Dellin Betances, but he faltered in his first inning of
work. Houston, all night long derided as
relying on the long ball by ESPN, used small ball to squeeze out another
run. Betances walked Carter (the
OBP-deficient slugger’s third drawn walk of the game!), who was replaced on the
base paths by speedster Jonathan Villar.
Betances is notoriously inept at holding runners on and Villar made him
pay by stealing second late in Castro’s at bat (during this at bat Kruk said
that Villar should not steal early because you don’t want to give the wild
Betances an easy out and then completely contradicted himself by saying that
Villar should have run earlier in the count to give Castro a chance to hit him
in, which, you know, is silly). Villar
scored when Altuve singled. Altuve then
stole second, knowing full well that Betances wasn’t going to even try to hold
him one. George Springer ended up
grounding out to end the inning, but this inning proved the Astros aren’t a one
trick pony. So far they scored with
power and with speed, robbed the Yankees of runs with great defense, and
controlled New York’s bats with great pitching.
That, my friends, is doing it in all phases of the game.
Houston’s bullpen, not quite the haphazard mess ESPN made
them out to be, produced three strong innings.
Tony Sipp started the relief party in the seventh, and while he looked
inconsistently wild for much of his appearance, he benefitted from the huge
strike zone that was afforded Astros pitching.
Castro did a fantastic job behind the plate framing pitches (or
“presenting” as guest broadcaster Chris Archer said) and all night the Yankees
were frustrated with being forced to deal with an expanded zone. Some people say framing is a skill, other
believe framing only means the umpire is doing a poor job, but either way it
seemed like every close call went Houston’s way. Will Harris took over for Sipp in the eighth
and did what Will Harris do: groundballs and weak contact. This is another area where the Astros
coaching deserves a lot of credit. Both
Sipp and Harris were low-quality relievers before moving to Houston. But as Astros both have developed and
emphasize pitches they weren’t using before, which has raised their groundball
rates and drastically lowered their hits and runs against. Yankee fans may wonder how their lineup
failed to make good contact on these two scrub pitchers, but the fact is these
guys have found out how to reliably get outs.
The bottom of the ninth went to Luke Gregerson. It seems like he has forever been underrated
as a late inning reliever, or at least it seems like every year there is a
belief that his high-80s pitches will finally fail him. Well, this year was not the year of failure
and last night he looked tremendous.
Like Tanaka (and, really, almost every pitcher), Gregerson needs to get
a strike early so he can rely on his breaking ball. Last night he did just that to Beltran and
A-Rod, breaking off slider after slider that made both sluggers look inept. Brian McCann came up as the last hope of the
New York Yankees. The first pitch was
the get-me-over sinker and McCann buried it right in the dirt. The ball hopped to third, Valbuena scooped it
up and fired to first to end the game.
The new school won.
After a full season of watching the Phillies fall all over
themselves trying to play this game, it was refreshing to see two good teams
play baseball. The Astros are obviously
the more exciting team and it was nice to see how athletic the game can be
played. Springer and Correa both robbed
the Yankees of rally-starting hits in dramatic way, resulting audible “Wow!”
from me watching on my couch. The
Houston bats weren’t exactly on fire or anything, but they took advantage of
mistakes made by Yankee pitching. In a
strange way it was also fun to watch this Yankees team play. They don’t have the most talent, but they do
have a lot of guys that can produce exciting moments. I guess the Yankees have a bigger range of
potential outcomes; they have it within them to throw shutouts and hit four
home runs, but they also have games like last night where they show up and
nothing is working. As for the
broadcast, I can’t stand ESPN. It’s catered
to the non-fan, always having to make everylittlething seem so unbelievable. They treat baseball like new parents treat
their kids on Facebook, “Oh wow would you look at that! Little Timmy picked up a toy AND smiled! This is some special stuff right here. Memories being made for sure!” I don’t know, maybe some people like that
stuff. I thought Jessica Mendoza was a
highlight, though not utilized enough.
Sure she said some obvious things, but she also broke down pitch
sequences and situational plays in a way that is so foreign to ESPN
annoucers. The network relies almost
completely on surface-level narrative, but Mendoza gave actual insight to
strategy in professional baseball. And
for those complaining about her, I don’t think you have a leg to stand on when
the other option is John Kruk and Curt Schilling and their inability to pay
attention to what’s happening on the field for thirty seconds without talking
about themselves. My only compliant was
that Mendoza seemed to hold back a little when I feel like she should have
taken the lead. But she’s new to this
and I’m sure she’ll only get better.
Come back tomorrow for a new post on the 1915 Phillies. The World Series 100 years ago kicked off
tomorrow, so we’ll have a rundown on that.
Also, I’d like to get a post about the Cub vs. Pirates game tonight up
tomorrow, as well. Until then, have fun
watching the playoffs!
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