moonslav59

75 pitches. Let’s get a quick inning, here.

Swung at ball 4.

Not with ERod.

Some emotion and intensity shown that time after that 3rd K! Way to go Pivetta!

That would mean they projected the ball would only go about 50-60 feet beyond the tower. I'm not buying it.

That's all? Is that how far the light tower if from home or the estimated length, if the ball kept going?

Pivetta looks awfully comfortable and relaxed. (Sometimes, visible high energy and intensity does not equate to success.)

That had to be Plawecki's longest HR ever.

I've always been big about pitching and defense, but when you compare our offense to theirs, some numbers pop out. Here's a look at OPS+ Yanks/Sox (in order of most PAs) 600+ 98 LeMahieu/ 130 Devers 147 Judge/ 128 JD 500+ 134 Stanton/ 107 Verdugo, 132 Bogey, 109 Kike, 113 Renfroe 400+ 93 Torres/ 78 Vaz 92 Gardner/ 109 Dalbec 106 Sanchez 94 Urshela 300+ 85 Odor/ none 200+ 110 Voit/ 52 Marwin 76 Frazier/ none 107 Gallo 78 Higashioka 100+ 114 Rizzo/ 101 Arroyo 82 Andujar/ 88 Plawecki 93 Wade/ 155 Schwarber 73 Hicks/ 33 Cordero, 57 Santana, 52 Duran By position and current and healthy players: C NYY 106 Sanchez/ 78 Higgy BOS 88 Plawecki/ 78 Vaz 1B NYY 114 Rizzo/ 110 Voit BOS 109 Dalbec/ 125 Shaw 2B BOS 175 Iggy/ 101 Arroyo NYY 98 LeMahieu/ 85 Odor SS BOS 132 Bogey NYY 93 Torres 3B BOS 130 Devers NYY 94 Urshela/ 93 Wade LF BOS 155 Schwarber/ 107 Verdugo NYY 107 Gallo CF BOS 109 Kike NYY 92 Gardner RF NYY 147 Judge BOS 113 Renfroe DH NYY 134 Stanton BOS 128 JD The Sox have just one position with a sub 100 OPS+. The Yanks have 4. Sox have 8 at 109 or better. Yanks have 3.

He’s facing a tough line up, today.

Enjoy!

1. Kike CF 2. Renfroe RF 3. Devers 3B 4. Bogey SS 5. JD DH 6. Schwarber LF 7. Dalbec 1B 8. Plawecki C 9. Iggy 2B Pivetta has done much better with Plawecki than Vaz. Career 2.70 Plawecki 43 IP (.660 OPS) 5.12 Vazquez 111 IP (.767 OPS) Big game!

I disagree. I do think head to head batter-pitcher data matters, but this sample size is so small. Pivetta was in the NL for years and has very little playing time vs NY. He faced 4 NY batters twice and 5 once in his start, this year. LeMahieu: K, GO Rizzo: Fly out and groundball single Judge: BB, BB Gallo: Fly out, GO Stanton: line drive 1B Sanchez: Bloop single down RF line Gardner: Sac Fly A Velazquez: Ground ball single & SB that led to a run I'm not sure why this has more to do with anything than anything else.

I'm not sure how important that is. For one thing, they don't have much exposure to him, which is usually an advantage given to the pitcher.

I'm hoping the trend continues where Pivetta does well after you criticize him or bring up a not-so-great stat. Yes, his career ERA is 5.20, but much of that is a result of his 6.02 rookie year ERA. That being said, a 4.94 ERA after that year is pretty close to 5.00, so the point you make has merit. His 5.60 ERA from 2019-2020 didn't help, and he only had 15 starts in those two seasons combined. The bright side is maybe this: in his two seasons with 28+ GS'd he put up these numbers: 4.77 in 2018 (164 IP) 4.63 in 2021 (144 IP) Those are decent 4/5 slot numbers, but doing it for a few years in a row is something he has yet to do. No doubt, the guy has some "good stuff, but his BB/9 rate has not improved, this year (3.9 vs career 3.5). A good game, here would go a long way in improving our opinions of him.

It's hard to pin down why some pitchers seem to do much better with one catcher vs another, and often times it goes on year-after-year. Personally, I don't think the major factor for this is pitch-calling, but certainly that can be a big part of major disparities. Sometimes, I'm not so sure it is something one catcher does very well, as much as it might be about the other catcher just not being very good at it. I tend to think this is the case with Vaz, since just about every "other catcher," except Swihart follow the same pattern. The difficult part of determining if major disparities are significant is the usual unbalanced sample sizes with one catcher having a very small sample size. Most know that I am a big stickler on small sample size judgements, but to me when so most small, along with most moderate and higher sample sizes almost all show the same thing, I have to think some force is at play. On Eovaldi, he has just two years to comp with Plawecki, and one was the short 2020 season. Here are the numbers (note the sample size disparities): 2020 0.64 with Plaweckie (.611 OPS against in 14 IP) 4.98 with Vazquez (.970 OPS against in 34.1 IP) 2021 2.66 with Wong (.702 in 20.1) 3.50 with Plawecki (.651 in 90.0) 4.77 with Vazquez (.766 in 66 IP) In his not-so-great 2019 season, we saw this: 4.91 w Centano (.787 in 11 IP) 5.68 w Vazquez (.871 in 38) 7.20 w Swihart (.975 in 10) .7.27 w Leon (.888 in 8.2) 2018 (short time with BOS) 0.55 w Vaz (.436 in 16.1) 3.86 w Leon (.697 in 35) Career (only BOS catchers) 2.66 Wong .702 in 20 3.12 Plaw .646 in 104 4.53 Leon .735 in 44 4.60 Vaz .781 in 155 7.20 Swihart .975 in 10 Using career CERA/OPS Against numbers to compare catchers is not an ideal way to evaluate disparities, as many pitchers go through several "phases" in their career, and using just single season sample sizes often leads to one of both sample sizes being rather small and or unbalanced. That being said, using Sale's career numbers should be pretty accurate, since he was pretty consistently great every season with the Sox. Sale: 2.79 Leon .578 in 436 IP 4.01 Vaz .759 in 119 IP The ERod career is more complex 4.25 ERA 2015-2016 4.19 in 2017 3.82 in 2018 3.81 in 2019 missed 2020 4.97 in 2021 There were different catchers backing up Vaz during these "phases," so the career numbers would reflect that. Here they are, anyway: 3.78 Hannigan .778 in 50 IP (interestingly, he was the catcher during his worst years) 4.05 Leon .700 in 118 4.22 Vaz .727 in 603 4.44 Swi .692 in 75 Let's look year by year: 2015 (No Vaz) 1.29 Leon 7IP 3.89 Hanigan 44 4.08 Swihart 71 2016 3.00 Hannigan 6 4.50 Vaz 22 4.90 Leon 79 2017 0.00 Leon 1 IP 4.22 Vaz 136 As you can see, his first 3 seasons had wildly erratic and unbalanced sample size with various catchers. 2018 & 2019 were not much better... 2018 0.00 Leon just 12 IP 4.21 Vaz 118 2019 3.59 Vaz 180 4.34 Leon 19 10.38 Swi 4.1 2021 even more so... Only Vaz has caught ERod

Each game with the Yanks is a 2 game swing. After today, we are either tied or up 2. That's huge, when so few games are left to play. Looking at the pitchers, especially how well they have been doing recently, the edge should go to Cortes over Pivetta, but the game is at Bodton, and our bats are looking damn good. BTW, it's nice seeing Devers heating up and knowing he has 2 HRs off Cortes in just 4 ABs.

I am certain JD will play at least 2 or 3 games at WSH, even if all 3 starters are righties. I am pretty certain Schwarber plays vs all RH'd starters. Not great for our D, but I think that's how it will go. I'd like to see Dalbec play 2 of 3, even if all righties.

After watching a whole season of see-saws and flip-flops, why keep putting your faith in most recent trends? All year, I've heard people say bench Devers, then Renfroe and Kike, several times Dalbec, and even JD & Schwarber, recently. Almost every time we hear that- BAM! The guy lights it up. Same with team trends. There is no rhyme or reason to when it flips. Some good and bad streaks are just 3-5 games long, some for weeks. Here are two differing views of the Sox season of ups and downs- one based on smaller samples and the other on larger ones- some overlap the goods and bads: 0-3 9-0 3-5 4-1 1-3 4-0 0-3 3-0 0-2 4-0 0-2 3-0 0-3 5-0 2-0 0-2 0-2 3-0 2-4 8-0 4-7 6-1 3-10 4-1 1-3 5-1 0-3 4-0 0-3 2-1 0-2 7-0 0-1 Longer cherry-picked samples 9-3 4-6 9-4 3-5 12-5 7-8 10-1 2-6 7-2 3-11 6-4 6-9 7-1 I could do the same for the Yanks.

Batting (listed in order of most PAs in 2021) .711 LeMahieu .908 Judge (on pace for 2nd most career PAs set in '17) .862 Stanton (On pace for 4X the PAs of 2019-2020 combined) .698 Torres (2nd highest career PAs- continued decline from '20) .692 Gardner (5th in team PAs says all we need to know) .756 Sanchez (Maybe the worst defensive catcher in MLB) .679 Urshela (413 PAs and about 150 pts lower than '19-'20) .679 Odor (351 PAs too many) .768 Voit (240 PAs- was expected to have way more) .633 Frazier (IL) 218 .762 Gallo (201 PAs w Yanks) .658 Higashioka .780 Rizzo .667 Andujar (IL) .688 Wade ERA+ Pitchers listed by most IP 30+ IP 139 Cole (185 in '19> 151 in '20 as he moves past 30) 121 Montgomery (should reach career IP & ERA+ marks) 97 Taillon (2nd highest IP of career) 97 German (2nd highest IP of career) 155 Cortes (the unexpected bright spot) 130 Green (career high IP- last 100 IP of solid pitching) 113 Kluber (hard to project what he was going to do) 157 Luetge (blowing career IP & ERA+ marks away) 191 Loaisiga (more than doubled career IP & ERA+ marks) 132 M King (58 IP) 125 Chapman (Imploded then got hurt) 135 Peralta (39 IP with career highest ERA+) 154 Cessa (38 IP) 82 Abreau (36) 59 Heaney (36)

The "if they play to their potential" is a loaded gun. What if JD hit 100-150 points higher? (His clear potential) What if Devers hit 30-50 points higher? (What he did pre-prime) What if Bogey hit 50 points higher? (His 2018 number) What is Dalec's potential? (150 higher like 2020 or maybe 80 higher-like his last 100gms) What about Vaz? (Near .800 from 2019-2020, but now 130 lower) Verdugo? (60 points higher, least year and nearing prime, now) Sale? (Just about to start to get his inning/game to increase) Pivetta? (Shown stretches of plus pitching) Houck? Whitlock? Barnes? (Just a return to 2016-2019 form would be a huge bump) The biggest Yankee under performer in Torres, but the choice to play him out of position is part of who the Yankees are. I'm done counting injuries as some sort of surprise or bad luck for you guys. It's who you are. Sure, injury prone players often have a ton of "potential," and you made that abundantly clear about Eovalid, Sale and ERod, to name a few last March, but many of your players are expected to be hurt much of the time, so their "potential" should not be an expected entity.

OBP (.444 Iggy) .429 Schwarber .371 Bogey .352 Verdugo .352 Martinez .350 Devers .340 Kike .337 Plawecki .320 Arroyo .319 Renfroe .313 Vaz .306 Dalbec SLG (.600 Iggy) .535 Schwarber .531 Devers .521 JD .511 Bogey .501 Bogey .500 Renfroe .497 Dalbec .454 Kike .447 Arroyo .429 Verdugo .367 Plawecki .354 Vaz .

Sox RBI Leaders 108 Devers (628 PAs) 95 JD (604) 91 Renfroe (539) 79 Bogey (568) 76 Dalbec (398) 59 Verdugo (582) 57 Kike (547) 46 Vaz (441) 25 Arroyo (177) 17 Schwarber (140) RBI/PA .191 Dalbec .172 Devers .169 Renfroe .157 JD .141 Arroyo .121 Schwarber .104 Kike .104 Vaz .101 Verdugo

I was really hoping the Yanks would miss the playoffs, and it might still happen. It would be very nice if we knocked them back 2 pegs, this weekend. One at a time, boys!

Games remaining: BOS 2 v NYY, 3@BAL, 3@WSH NYY 2@BOS, 3@TOR, 3 v TBR TOR 2@MIN, 3 vNYY, 3 vBAL SEA 2@LAA, 3 vOAK, 3 vLAA Match-ups: Saturday NYY (Cortes) @ BOS (Pivetta) TOR (Ray) @ MIN (TBD) SEA (Anderson) @ LAA (Barria) Sunday TOR (Manoah) @ MIN (Jax) SEA (Gonzalez) @ LAA (Ohtani) NYY (Montgomery) @ BOS (ERod) OFF Sox Tuesday: @BAL (Sale) Wednesday: @BAL (Eovaldi) Thursday: @BAL (Pivetta) Friday: @WSH (ERod) Saturday: @WSH (Seabold/Houck) Sunday: @WSH (Sale, if needed)