Friday, June 9, 2017

Game Thread: New York Yankees vs. Baltimore Orioles 6/9


Friday night baseball here in the Bronx, now that is my idea of how you kick start a weekend. Tonight the New York Yankees and Yankee Stadium will play host to their American League East Division rivals the Baltimore Orioles. What will Buck Showalter complain about this time? Your guess is as good as mine. Tonight in the opener of the three-game set the Yankees will send Jordan Montgomery to the mound to square off with Dylan Bundy which should be a good pitching matchup. The game will have a bit of an odd start time at 7:35 pm ET inside Yankee Stadium and can be seen on the YES Network, MLB Network, MASN and MLB TV. You can also follow along in your cars and on the radio with the WFAN broadcast.

Follow us on Twitter by following @GreedyStripes. Enjoy the game and your weekend. Go Yankees!


Yankees Mock Draft 2017

2017 Highlights from D.L. Hall

We are less than one week away from the June Major League Baseball First Year Players Draft and teams are still presumably scrambling trying to finalize their decisions on their first round picks and beyond. Who will the Yankees choose in the first round on June 12th? I’m not sure but Baseball America, MLB.com’s Jim Callis and Keith Law from ESPN both took a crack at it with their annual mock drafts and here are their results.

John Manuel over at Baseball American has the Yankees taking left-handed pitcher David Peterson out of the University of Oregon. Peterson is the big build pitcher that the Yankees have seemingly fallen in love with standing at 6’6” and 240 lbs. Like most tall pitchers Peterson struggles with his command at times but he has a fastball that can touch 95 MPH when he needs it to.

Keith Law of ESPN has the Yankees selecting first baseman Nick Pratto out of Huntington Beach High School in Huntington Beach, California. Pratto is a left-handed hitter, insert swing made for Yankee Stadium line here, and may be the best pure hitter of any of the high school players in the draft this season. Law also mentioned LHP Trevor Rogers out of Carlsbad High School in New Mexico and left-handed pitcher D.L. Hall from Valdosta High School in Georgia. Many think Hall could be a Top 5 pick but makeup concerns may cause him to fall giving the Yankees an opportunity to snag another great player like they did with Blake Rutherford last season.

Finally we have MLB.com's Jim Callis who has the Yankees taking outfielder Austin Beck from North Davidson High School out of North Carolina. Callis does state that it is likely that Beck will go 8th to the Philadelphia Phillies but if he were to fall that far the Yankees would undoubtedly take him there. If Beck isn't there then Callis mentioned outfielder Bubba Thompson from McGill-Toolen High School in Alabama as a potential Plan B. 

Me personally? I want D.L. Hall. I can see Hall, as I stated above, being another Blake Rutherford. A steal. Let's hope he falls that far, stay tuned Monday to find out.



Game Preview: New York Yankees vs. Baltimore Orioles 6/9


The New York Yankees spent the week renewing a rivalry with the Boston Red Sox but you have to wonder if the Yankees true rival lately is even the Red Sox or if it is their opponents for the weekend, the Baltimore Orioles. I mean I don’t have any fancy stats or examples to back up a mere question and observation, I’m just asking. Are the Baltimore Orioles more of a rival than the Red Sox right now? I mean aside from the Alex Rodriguez and Jason Varitek scuffle from forever ago when have we seen these two not be just business as usual for the most part? Oh yeah, when Ryan Dumpster took four tries to INTENTIONALLY hit Alex Rodriguez. Sorry, couldn’t pass that up and no that isn’t a typo. He’s a dumpster. Anyway, on to tonight’s game.




Montgomery was much better in his last start throwing six shutout innings against the Toronto Blue Jays inside the Rogers Centre. Montgomery allowed just three hits in the start which was a breath of fresh air after his last start. The last time Montgomery faced the Orioles the lefty allowed three runs, one of them earned though, in just 4.1 innings. That was the shortest outing of his short MLB career.




Bundy, speaking of shortest starts of the season, heads into tonight’s start fresh off the shortest start of his season last time out. Bundy lasted just five innings in his last start against the Red Sox allowing two runs on four hits. That doesn’t sound like a terrible stat line but Bundy was at 100+ pitches when he left the game after just five innings.




The game will be played at 7:35 pm ET inside Yankee Stadium and can be seen on the YES Network, MLB Network, MASN if you’re in the Baltimore/Washington D.C. area and MLB TV wherever you and your device are. You can also tune into the WFAN broadcast in your cars and on the radio to listen to John Sterling and Suzyn Waldman.

Enjoy the game, screw the birds and as always… Go Yankees!


For Gary, the Price is Right!…

Credit:  Mike Stobe-Getty Images

Yankees 9, Red Sox 1...

Admittedly, I was glad that it was David Price on the mound Thursday and not Chris Sale.  For an ace, I’ve never been worried when Price is pitching against the Yankees as they generally seem to come up big against him.  Thursday was no exception.  

Credit:  Mike Stobe-Getty Images
As John Sterling says, “Gary is scary”.  A night after Chris Carter almost hit two home runs, Gary accomplished the feat for his second multi-homer game in a week.  They had meat in them as both occurred with runners on base (solo homers seem don’t carry the same bang for the buck in a statement of the obvious).  Like Wednesday’s game, the Yankees scored first with Brett Gardner’s run-scoring single in the bottom of the 2nd.  Then, like Chris Carter the day before, Gary Sanchez got a hold of David Price’s pitch with Aaron Judge and Matt Holliday on base and deposited it over the left-center wall to give the Yankees a nice cushion.  Sanchez went deep again in the 5th, with a blast to center off Price, scoring Starlin Castro.  Gary was 2-for-4 with 5 RBI’s and 3 runs scored.  

Gary has hit Price well in his brief career.  He is 4-for-7 with four home runs.  As Gary starts to heat up, it is scary to think what the Yankees offense is capable of when it is hitting all cylinders.  Even when they are not, it seems like someone is coming up big (unless your name is Chase Headley).  

It was also an impressive night for Aaron Judge, even without any homers.  He was 3-for-4, with two runs scored, pushing his season batting average to .330.  His single in the sixth inning off Red Sox reliever Fernando Abad was the hardest hit ball of the year according to Statcast.  With exit velocity of 119.8 mph, Judge pushed two of his own prior efforts to second and third on the Exit Velocity leaderboard.  

Credit:  Randy Miller-NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
Brett Gardner took the lead in the Bald Brothers Battle with his 13th home run of the season, a fly to center in the 8th when the game was no longer in doubt.  I was really hoping that Matt Holliday would be able to match Gardner two batters later, but he was hit by a pitch, taking the bat out of his hands prematurely.  

I have to mention the great running catch by Ronald Torreyes in the 9th.  As a defensive substitution for Didi Gregorius after Austin Romine had pinch hit for Didi, Torreyes ran toward the left field foul area after Xander Bogaerts hit a sharp fly.  Sliding past the foul line, Torreyes made the catch to record the first out.  Plays like this show the 2017 Yankees are a team that likes to have fun.  You could see the appreciation from his teammates as Torreyes walked back on field.  

Just when you thought Chris Carter was finally starting to hit, he was 0-for-4 as his batting average slipped below .200 again (.195).  He was the only starter not to reach base through a hit or a walk.  Chase Headley committed his 10th error of the season, matching his season total last year.  

Lost among the stellar night by Sanchez was a tremendous start by Michael Pineda (7-3).  After the disaster in his last start against the Toronto Blue Jays, Pineda was on top of his game against the Sox.  He held Red Sox batters to only four hits over seven innings, and only allowed one unearned run.  He walked two and struck out eight in the dominating performance.  

Credit:  Randy Miller-NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
The quartet of Pineda, CC Sabathia, Luis Severino and Jordan Montgomery have really been fun to watch with the most recent run through the rotation.  Masahiro Tanaka, not so much…

As for the bullpen, I thought Adam Warren and Giovanny Gallegos did good jobs.  Warren pitched a clean 8th inning, recording one strikeout.  Gallegos came on in the 9th, and easily got the first two batters out.  Manager Joe Girardi then made a pitching change to bring Dellin Betances into the game.  Betances clearly had rust, having not pitched for about five days.  He walked Hanley Ramirez.  Ramirez subsequently took 2nd on defensive indifference.  Dellin struck out the next batter, Jackie Bradley, Jr, but the ball got away from Gary Sanchez for a wild pitch, and JBJ made it safely to first with Ramirez taking third.  Like Ramirez, JBJ then took 2nd on defensive indifference.  Josh Rutledge followed with a walk to load the bases.  I have to say that I was getting a bit concerned, even with a 9-1 lead.  Fortunately, Dellin ended the game with the next batter, Pablo Sandoval, on a called third strike.  For what should have been a short one-out stint, Betances ended up throwing 17 pitches.  Hopefully, the work proves beneficial for the upcoming Baltimore series.  

Credit:  Charles Wenzelberg
Coming into the Boston series, the Red Sox could have taken the AL East lead with a sweep.  But thanks to two Yankees victories following the opening game loss, New York (34-23) increased its lead to 3 games.  The Baltimore Orioles lost to the Washington Nationals, 6-1, dropping 3 1/2 games back.

I never thought that we’d hold Boston to only one run in two games, but it’s been a very fun couple of nights.  I am hoping for a similar result in the upcoming series against the Baltimore Orioles at Yankee Stadium.

Odds & Ends…

Greg Bird should be back soon.  He is saying that he is as close to 100% as he has been since spring training.  On Thursday, he moved up from High-A Tampa to AAA-Scranton/Wilkes-Barre on rehab assignment.  He was 1-for-3 with a single and two walks in SWB’s 3-2 loss to Lehigh Valley.  I liked his comments when asked how will he know when he’s ready:  “Some magical sign. Lightning will strike my bat”.  He was kidding, of course, but if he starts hitting like he did in Spring Training, it’s going to be a very fun summer.

Here are the pitching match-ups for the three-game series with the Baltimore Orioles that begins tonight.  

FRIDAY
Orioles:  Dylan Bundy (6-4, 2.93 ERA)
Yankees:  Jordan Montgomery (3-4, 3.67 ERA)

SATURDAY
Orioles:  Chris Tillman (1-3, 5.59 ERA)
Yankees:  Luis Severino (4-2, 2.90 ERA)

SUNDAY
Orioles:  Kevin Gausman (3-4, 5.86 ERA)
Yankees:  Masahiro Tanaka, Yikes!  (5-6, 6.55 ERA)

Have a great Friday!  As always, Go Yankees!

Peter Gammons Says Yankees Will Land Bryce Harper


And water is STILL wet and the sky is, you guessed it, STILL blue.

MLB Insider Peter Gammons was talking about Bryce Harper and his potential landing spots when he hits free agency after the 2018 season and two teams were specifically named, the Chicago Cubs and the New York Yankees. Gammons, who gave an interview to Rich Eisen on his show, was quoted as saying the following about the possibility of Harper going to the Cubs:

"That was very simplified; it was a Reader's Digest version of the interview," Gammons said Monday on the "Rich Eisen Show." "The interview was about Kris Bryant. ... [Harper] and Bryant grew up in Las Vegas so they know one another, they're both great guys. And people say 'Well, he would love to play for the Cubs,' but I said they're not going to be able to afford both guys, so probably it'll never happen. But somehow that went into I said he wanted to play for the [Cubs]."

Then Gammons speculated where he thought Harper would ultimately land since the Cubs couldn’t “afford” Harper:

"If I were to guess one place, it would be the Yankees," Gammons said. "Because they're going to have so much money to spend at the time he's out there. And there's no doubt in my mind that Bryce could take the pressure of playing in New York. I mean, this guy was on the cover of Sports Illustrated at 16, was made out to be a divisive figure by the time he would have been a freshman in college--which, he wasn't a divisive figure, but that's the image, because he's brash.

"But I think that he can handle New York, and I think that they would pay huge money. And by the time he would get there ... I think two years from now when Gleyber Torres is there and a couple more kids come along, I think they're going to be an absolute monster powerhouse for years. And add Harper to that, it could really be something. It's a great investment because they could own the city, and we know that all the television ratings and attendance go with it. I think it would be a great pick." 


Why share this? It is Peter Gammons, why not? When he is wrong it makes it all the more sweeter to say I told you so. Even though, obviously, this time I hope the blind squirrel finally finds a nut. 

So it Seems the MLB Draft is Monday!


Monday, June 12 is every self-professed Prospects Humper’s dream! It’s the annual MLB First Year Players Draft!!! I can’t wait, I’m really excited about adding potentially another high-end prospect to an already stacked farm system. Be sure to tune in Monday on MLB Network at 6:00 pm ET to see who the Yankees take with their picks.


I hope that everyone has a great Friday and an even better weekend. Tomorrow is my soulmates birthday so I can’t wait for that. Everyone be good and know that I love you all. Especially you. Hey you. 

This Day in New York Yankees History 6/9: MLB Draft Day 2016


On this day in 2016 the New York Yankees selected Blake Rutherford with the first round pick of the 2016 MLB First Year Players Draft. 


Also on this day in 2005 Alex Rodriguez went 4-4 with two home runs to join the 400 home run club earlier than any other major league player. A Rod was 29 years and 316 days old and passed Ken Griffey Jr. for the honor when he hit a solo home run off the Milwaukee Brewers pitcher Jorge De La Rosa in the eighth inning.



Also on this day in 1946 the New York Yankees hit the one million mark in attendance earlier than any other team in major league history. The Yankees would draw over two million fans this season at Yankee Stadium.