Thoughts following ALDS Game 2

If there is anything we've learned about the 2020 Yankees 64 games into the season, it's that when they win, they look like they're never going to lose again, and when they lose, they look like they're never going to win again. The Yankees were never going to go through the postseason undefeated but they beat themselves more than the Rays beat them last night, and that's hard to swallow. Their attempt to out-Rays the Rays was a disaster and Tyler Glasnow was the first opposing starter to get the Yankees to chase outside the zone. Let's get to the thoughts now that the ALDS is a best-of-three.

1. Garcia the opener. I kinda had a feeling Deivi Garcia would be an opener in Game 2, and the plan backfired in the worst possible way for the Yankees. Garcia allowed a solo home run to Randy Arozarena -- note to the Yankees: stop throwing that guy fastballs -- before giving way to J.A. Happ, who I look forward to never seeing in pinstripes again.

Aaron Boone indicated the plan was not necessarily to pull Garcia after one inning. The plan was to play it by ear, and when Garcia labored a bit in the first, Boone went to Happ. Here is his exchange with Andy Martino:

“Just to make sure I understood your answer before, you didn’t go into this knowing it was going to be one inning for Deivi, it was a little bit of feel it out and see what his stuff looked like?”

“Yeah,” Boone said. “Exactly. Exactly.”

Hard to square that with Happ warming up a handful of pitches into the game. "I knew I was going to go to J.A. pretty early and aggressively as long as they went with the heavy lefty lineup, and that was the reason," Boone added, according to Pete Caldera.

Happ gave up two-run home runs to the No. 9 hitter who hit .147 with a 44.0% strikeout rate this year (Mike Zunino) and a guy who slugged .352 with one homer in 159 plate appearances (Manuel Margot), both in two-strike counts. The homer pitch to Margot was a center cut 88 mph nothingball after Happ shook off whatever Gary Sanchez called initially:

The entire point of the bait-and-switch with Garcia was getting Happ favorable matchups against Tampa's lefty hitters -- they would've had a bunch of righties in the lineup had Happ started -- so of course lefties went 2-for-6 with three walks against him. You had one job, dude. Get the lefties out and keep the righties in the yard.

Happ's body language and curt answers following the game tell us he wasn't onboard with the pitching plan -- he kept deferring to Boone (who'd already spoken) and declined to say whether he felt he was put in a position to succeed -- but my tolerance for Happ being upset with his situation is low. He started an inning clean and had plenty of time to warm up. Get over it. I'm surprised he didn't find time to complain about his vesting option.

"I’ll let Aaron speak to that (strategy)," Happ told Dan Martin. "... When I’m in there, you’ve got 100% of me. wasn’t worrying about when I was coming in. I didn’t get into a groove. I wish I could have performed better, for sure." 

The issue is not so much Garcia only going one inning or Happ getting knocked around by Tampa's weakest hitters, it's Happ throwing important innings in the postseason in the first place. He's had two good (non-consecutive!) months the last two years and the Yankees did nothing to reduce their dependence on him at the trade deadline. The prices were too high, we were told.

The Yankees simply do not have the pitching depth to survive a game like last night's and, even if they did, Boone has shown us in his three years that he is not deft enough to make a plan like that work. Adam Ottavino is unusable against lefties, Jonathan Loaisiga is the epitome of great stuff and bad execution, and Jonathan Holder is as generic as it gets. Zack Britton, Aroldis Chapman, and Chad Green are the only reliable bullpeners. Gotta hold your breath with everyone else.

Everything about last night's plan was reactionary, not proactive. When the Padres had to bullpen their way through Game 3 of the Wild Card Series last week, it was all obviously laid out, with specific matchups in mind. There was none of that last night. The best and most talented pitcher the Yankees used last got three outs. That's not a winning plan.

Last night's appearance likely rules out a longer appearance for Garcia later in the series -- I could see an inning or two in Game 4 or 5, but a full start would surprise me-- which ain't good. I thought Deivi was the team's third best starter coming into the postseason -- I've been calling for him over Happ every step of the way -- and the Yankees intentionally limited him, and burned two starters in one game. Yeesh.

Last night's game tells us two things. One, Gerrit Cole will start a potential Game 5 on short rest. There is really no other option now and I'm fine with that. Go with your best in that game. And two, the Rays are completely in the Yankees' heads. They don't believe they have the pitching talent to beat them straight up and you know what? They're right. They've given up 17 runs in 22 innings when someone other than Cole is on the mound this postseason.

The good news is the Yankees will have Masahiro Tanaka on the mound in Game 3. The bad news is Jordan Montgomery looms in Game 4 -- Garcia as an opener again? -- and I don't feel comfortable with Montgomery against any lineup right now, let alone one that hit lefties hard all season. That's shaping up to be another bullpen game, maybe with the season on the line.

The Yankees painted themselves into a corner with Deivi's (intentionally!) short start and their deadline inactivity. MLB dropping the no LDS and LCS off-days thing on teams in September is no excuse. It was clear the Yankees needed pitching long before that was announced. Luis Severino got hurt in Spring Training. Tommy Kahnle got hurt July 31st. James Paxton got hurt Aug. 21st and looked nothing like himself before that. The red flags have been there for weeks.

Last year the Yankees went with a bullpen game with their season on the line in ALCS Game 6 out of necessity. Last night felt entirely too much like that, except it was not necessary. Garcia is perfectly capable of providing a full start. Happ too, maybe, though I don't trust him at all. Instead, the Yankees got cute-slash-desperate, lost the game, and left themselves vulnerable moving forward. A disaster all around.

2. Rough night for the bats. If Giancarlo Stanton wants to go all 2009 Alex Rodriguez this postseason, that would be really cool. Stanton hit two more home runs last night, including an excuse me opposite field shot -- it looked like he was trying to foul the pitch away -- and a mammoth three-run blast. Here's the video. It sounded like it was shot out of a cannon.

"I thought it was going to hit the scoreboard, where that was going," Aaron Boone told Ken Davidoff about the second homer, adding the first homer came on "a letter high curveball hit to the right of straightaway (right field) on a line ... It’s one of those swings only Giancarlo produces."

Stanton put three balls in play last night: 114.8 mph (homer), 118.3 mph (homer), and 110.8 mph (line out). He is on everything right now. The rest of the Yankees? Well, the offense was bound to have a rough game at some point. The crash back to Earth was never going to be pretty after those first three postseason games, and it was rather ugly last night.

Non-Stanton Yankees went 3-for-28 (.107) with 17 strikeouts in Game 2. They struck out 18 times overall, a new MLB record for a nine-inning postseason game -- the previous franchise record was 17 strikeouts in Game 5 of the 2017 ALDS -- including twice in an inning seven times. The 7-8-9 hitters were a combined 1-for-10 with eight strikeouts. Woof.

With the Rays nursing a 7-4 lead, the Yankees put the first two runners on base to start the seventh and ninth innings, but turned those rallies into just one run. Three straight strikeouts to end the seventh, then two strikeouts and a ground out in the ninth. Aaron Judge has two big homers this postseason and is 0-for-17 with eight strikeouts otherwise. Hmmm.

Unlike Shane Bieber and Blake Snell, Tyler Glasnow was able to throw his breaking ball for strikes at the knees, or at least throw it for strikes often enough that the Yankees had to respect it. Once he established the breaking ball for strikes, the Yankees had to start offering at the pitch, and C.B. Bucknor didn't help matters (more on him soon). Glasnow's pitch locations:

The thing is, the Yankees still scored five runs despite striking out 18 times and despite the Rays trotting out all those hard-throwers and despite Bucknor's strike zone extending into the on-deck circle. How many more runs can you reasonably expect against Glasnow and Tampa's pitching staff? You can't score 9+ runs every game like the Yankees had been.

“There’s going to be challenging nights along the way," Boone told Marc Carig (subs. req'd). "But again for the most part I thought we gave ourselves a chance offensively with a lot of heavy at-bats, a lot of quality at-bats. Tonight, it just resulted in some strikeouts, which the Rays are going to have those nights now and then against you, even when you’re at your best.” 

The 18 strikeouts are an eyesore, undoubtedly, but the Yankees scored enough runs to win last night, and Stanton looks extremely dangerous. The cockamamie pitching plan did them in more than anything. The plan and the pitchers themselves, because they weren't good. Weird plan or not, they still have to get outs and they didn't.

3. Taking advantage of Buckner. C.B. Bucknor damn near got me evicted last night. He has long had a reputation for being one of the worst ball-strike umpires in the game and his 3-1 called strike on Gleyber Torres in the ninth inning was one of the most egregious calls I've ever seen. I mean, look at this (GIF via Pitcher List):

Good grief. Torres eventually drew the walk, so strike zone justice was served, but my goodness. That is horrendous. In the postseason we get this umpiring. Anyway, the Rays did a much better job taking advantage of Bucknor's strike zone than the Yankees. Here are Tampa's pitch locations in Game 2. Note all the orange dots (called strikes) and the lack of green dots (foul balls) away to righties:

Bucknor was giving that outside corner to righties all night and the Rays kept attacking it. They went out there to get ahead in the count and they went out there to finish at-bats as well. That's what you're supposed to do! See what the umpire is giving you and use it to your advantage. Bucknor made that pretty easy, honestly.

It wasn't until the ninth inning that Yankees hitters stopped waiting for that outside pitch to be called a ball and at least tried to foul it off (Clint Frazier's ninth inning strikeout was 100% him swinging at a fastball away because Bucknor might call it a strike). By then it was too late. They had too many at-bats taken away in the first eight innings for it to matter.

I know the strike zone is supposed to be the 17-inch plate but that's not how it works in reality. The strike zone is umpire specific. The Rays recognized Bucknor had a big outside corner and went after it, and their hitters protected that part of the plate. The Yankees did not. Here are their pitch locations. Note how few pitches they threw away to righties:

That is on Gary Sanchez behind the plate, it's on pitching coach Matt Blake and the coaching staff, and it's on the pitchers too. Bucknor hung a "free strikes!" sign off the plate away and the Yankees did not utilize it nearly enough. Just terrible. The Yankees will always outspend the Rays, but when it comes to roster construction and putting players in the best position to succeed and making adjustments on the fly, this head-to-head rivalry is a total mismatch.

Bucknor did not decide last night's game. Umps never do. He was consistent with his zone (consistently bad, but consistent) and only one team was smart enough to recognize it and use it to their advantage. The Yankees lost the game and the game within the game.

4. Rapid fire thoughts. Obvious statement is obvious: the Yankees have to treat tonight's game like a Game 7. Go all-out to win -- that means multiple innings for Zack Britton and Aroldis Chapman, if necessary -- and get that 2-1 series edge because the Game 4 pitching situation is not good, and because winning two straight against the Rays just might not be possible. They're too good. Tonight is not a literal must-win but it's about as close as it gets ... Adam Ottavino has to be traded this offseason. He's unusable against lefties and can't hold runners, and that's just not going to fly as a high-leverage reliever in the three-batter minimum era. He walked a lefty (after being ahead in the count 0-2) and allowed a stolen base, which led to an insurance run last night. When payroll inevitably comes down this offseason, Ottavino is an easy spot to cut costs without sacrificing much production ... Aaron Hicks drew two walks last night and has reached base multiple times in all four postseason games. He was also the only Yankee who didn't strike out. Hicksie's been really great lately even if the power just isn't there at the moment ... And finally, a little roster housekeeping: Domingo German was activated off the restricted list as required yesterday, the Yankees announced. His 81-game suspension is over and he again counts against the 40-man roster. The Yankees had an open spot after dumping Tyler Lyons a few weeks ago and did not need to make a move to accommodate German, who is ineligible to pitch this postseason because he was not on included in the team's 40-man player pool. Just a paperwork move, though it is notable because the Yankees will now have to clear a spot to add a non-40-man roster player to the active roster. Lyons, Rob Brantly, Ryan Buchter, Matt Duffy, and Jordan Mercer are the non-40-man guys on the taxi squad. James Paxton is on the 45-day injured list and would require a 40-man move as well, if activated.