Thoughts after Game 2 of the 2022 ALCS

Yawn. (Getty)

New day, same ol’ loss to the Astros. The Yankees are down 2-0 in the ALCS because Houston capitalized on the few opportunities they had while the Yankees struggled to get the bat on the ball. They’ve struck out 30 times in two games and have had six or fewer hits in their last nine games dating back to the regular season. That’s the longest such streak in franchise history.

Here are the updated ZiPS odds:

Historically, teams that take a 2-0 lead in a best-of-seven series go on to win the series 85% of the time, so hey, ZiPS gives the Yankees a slight edge there. The last team to erase a 2-0 deficit in a best-of-seven was the Dodgers over the Braves in the 2020 NLCS. The Yankees last did it during the 1996 World Series, also against the Braves. Let’s get to the Game 2 post. I’m sorry it’s shorter than usual. I just don’t have much to say about this series right now.

1. Severino’s one mistake. You know, I’m not even sure the Alex Bregman three-run home run was a mistake pitch. Luis Severino hit his spot! Kyle Higashioka called for an inside heater and Severino hit the target at 97.4 mph. Bregman just beat him to the spot. Sometimes great players do great things.

With a 91.8 mph exit velocity, it was the fifth weakest hit postseason homer of the Statcast era, and if you’re a believer in such things, that ball had a .040 expected batting average. The Minute Maid Park roof was open (only the second time in 2022!) and over the last three years the home run rate to left is 13 percentage points higher with the roof open than with the roof closed. Maybe Bregman’s homer got a little boost there. Either way, it was in the seats for a three-run homer.

Of course, Bregman’s homer was a three-run homer because the Yankees refuse to get Martin Maldonado out. He hit .186/.248/.352 (70 wRC+) during the regular season and that was actually an improvement over last year (61 wRC+). Severino hit him with an 0-2 pitch. Then he left a fastball middle-middle to Jeremy Pena, who singled. Then bang, three-run homer.

Jose Altuve, Yordan Alvarez, and Kyle Tucker are combined 2-for-20 in the series and the Astros are 4-for-32 (.125) with runners in scoring position in their five postseason games. They still have enough power to scrape together enough runs to win a ballgame. Maldonado reached base three times in Game 2. Chas McCormick reached three times in Game 1. The Astros are getting far, far more from their non-core hitters than the Yankees.

The optimistic outlook says the Yankees threw their Nos. 3 and 4 starters in Houston against the Astros’ Nos. 1 and No. 2 starters and lost two close games, and now head home with their Nos. 1 and 2 starters lined up against their Nos. 3 and 4 starters. Of course, the Yankees now have to beat the Astros four times in the next five games. Doable? Sure. Likely? Nah.

2. Two runs ain’t enough. And the Yankees only scored those two runs because Framber Valdez made two errors on one play. Anthony Rizzo and Gleyber Torres did fine work there putting the ball in play in 0-2 counts to get those two runs home, then the Yankees never seriously threatened again. 17 of the final 20 hitters they sent to the plate made outs, including 11 on strikeouts.

Framber Valdez set a new career high with 25 swings and misses. He got 16 whiffs on his curveball alone, the most on a curveball in any postseason game since pitching tracking became a thing in 2008. Higashioka and Oswald Peraza combined to miss with 10 of their 16 swings in Game 2. The Astros are doing what they need to do against the bottom of the Yankees’ lineup.

Yes, Giancarlo Stanton got hosed on that 3-0 pitch in the eighth inning, a bad call that would’ve brought Rizzo to the plate with the two runners on. But Severino got plenty of calls off the plate to righties earlier in the game, and Stanton swung through a 3-1 fastball that was almost identical to the pitch Bregman hit out of the park. Bad calls happen. Overcome them.

Aaron Judge’s rocket in the eighth inning wouldn’t have been out of the ballpark but damn, it was close. I mentioned the home run rate to left goes up 13 percentage points when the roof is open. Well, the home run rate to right goes down five percentage points when the roof is open. Devan Fink notes similar batted balls traveled 70 feet farther on average during the regular season, so yeah, the roof likely cost Judge a homer.

But also I don’t care? I am unmoved by complaints about bad calls in 3-0 counts and the wind knocking down would-be homers. Both teams played in the same ballpark under the same conditions with the same umpires. Deal with it. The Yankees are 9-for-65 (.138) with a 42.9% strikeout rate in the ALCS. In nine games against the Astros in 2022, they’re 41-for-284 (.144) with a 29.9% strikeout rate. 30 strikeouts in two ALCS games. The Astros have eight.

The best thing you can say about these games is they’re close. The Yankees keep losing, but the games are close. You’ll have to excuse me if the games being close doesn’t make me feel better. This is exhausting. I’m tired of writing the same post after every Yankees-Astros game. The Yankees pitched well, the Astros managed to get The Big Hit, and the Yankees had 2-3 baserunners in the final 5-6 innings. Rise, repeat.

For six years now the Astros stuffed the Yankees in a locker and taken their lunch money. They’re simply the better team. Their best players are better and they rise to the moment, the roster is deeper, and they execute at a higher level (the Yankees can’t even make catching a foul pop up look easy). The better team doesn’t always win a short postseason series, but the better team is up 2-0 in this series.

3. Rapid fire thoughts. The Yankees have used three different starting shortstops in the last three games (in the last three days). Totally normal stuff for a final four team. The Yankees don’t even know who their starting nine players should be at the most important time of the year … Gleyber Torres and Oswald Peraza turned a spectacular double play in the seventh inning (video). One of the Yankees’ best defensive plays of 2022. Peraza made a few plays in Game 2 that I’m not sure Isiah Kiner-Falefa could have made … Kiner-Falefa should have pinch-hit in the ninth inning, not Matt Carpenter. Carpenter struck out to end the game and is 0-for-7 with seven strikeouts in the postseason. He is rusty as hell. Kiner-Falefa at least gives you a chance at getting the bat on the ball. It probably wouldn’t have mattered, but that’s the way I would have gone … And finally, there’s rain in the forecast Sunday (Game 4). The weather this postseason is cursed. It doesn’t look like it’ll be a ton of rain, and there’s still a couple days for the forecast to change, but yeah, there’s gonna be rain in New York this weekend. This is potentially a good thing! Friday is the only scheduled off-day of the series. A rainout Sunday would allow the Yankees to push Jameson Taillon’s next start back and roll with their top three starters in the next four games. This would be the new schedule:

• Friday: off-day
• Saturday, Game 3: Gerrit Cole (extra rest)
• Sunday: rainout
• Monday, Game 4: Nestor Cortes (extra rest)
• Tuesday, Game 5: Luis Severino (normal rest rather than Taillon)
• Wednesday, Game 6: Cole (short rest)
• Thursday, Game 7: Taillon/all hands on deck game

A third postseason rainout would be really annoying, but it would help the Yankees. Their best chance to come back in this series is using their top three starters as much as possible. This would allow them to push Taillon’s next start back from Game 5 to Game 7. That could be huge.

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