Yankees Beat Athletics to Set Up Showdown With Red Sox in A.L.D.S.

October 4, 2018 admin Sport Comments Off on Yankees Beat Athletics to Set Up Showdown With Red Sox in A.L.D.S.

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Refresh here for inning-by-inning updates and analysis from Yankee Stadium.

How to watch (or listen): TBS has the broadcast, or you can listen at ESPN Radio, WFAN 660/101.9 FM and WADO 1280 (local).

The A’s threatened because Aaron Boone left Luis Severino in a little too long, but Dellin Betances cleaned up his starter’s mess and kept Oakland scoreless.

Jonathan Lucroy finally ended the no-hitter with a single to left on Severino’s first pitch of the fifth. That brought up Nick Martini, who singled to right.

Boone had seen enough at that point and pulled Severino in favor of Betances, who faced the difficult task of going up against the A’s best hitters with two on and no outs.

Betances got both Matt Chapman and Jed Lowrie to fly out harmlessly. That brought up Oakland’s top run producer, Khris Davis, and in a power vs. power situation, Betances came out on top, striking out the slugger to end the inning.

David Waldstein: Now it’s a full-on bullpen game. Betances in for the Yankees after Severino finishes a fine night of work, and Shawn Kelley is in for the A’s.

Opting to start Severino against the Athletics was considered a somewhat controversial decision by the Yankees, considering his past history in the 2017 wild-card game, his weak second half of the season and his record against the A’s. But it worked out well enough.

Maybe Lou Trivino is more than a reliever? The rookie pitched a third scoreless inning — matching the longest outing of his major league career — looking absolutely dominant while retiring Giancarlo Stanton, Luke Voit and Didi Gregorius as if they were bottom-of-the-order hitters. The strikeouts of both Voit and Gregorius gave Trivino four in three innings, and he has allowed just one hit.

Trivino has now faced 10 Yankees batters. He is one short of his career-high of 11 and the A’s are in somewhat unexpected territory as they were not expected to allow any of their relievers to face the same batter twice.

David Waldstein: The bullpen strategy is working for Oakland now with Trivino dominating through three innings. The bullpen part of it is working. The opener part — with Liam Hendricks giving up two runs in the first inning before he recorded an out — not so much.

The A’s threatened, with the bases loaded and two outs, but Luis Severino wriggled out of trouble and has still not allowed a hit in four shutout innings.

With one out following Jed Lowrie’s soft fly ball to left, Severino got betrayed by his team’s poor infield defense. Khris Davis, the big Oakland slugger, hit a playable grounder to third, but Miguel Andujar’s throw was short and Luke Voit couldn’t make the scoop.

The Yankees put the shift on for Matt Olson with one on and one out, but Severino appeared to pitch around him in a six-pitch walk.

Severino retired Stephen Biscotty on a fly ball to right, but then loaded the bases with a six-pitch walk to Ramon Laureano in which he seemed to get squeezed by the home plate umpire, Jim Wolf, on a potential strike three. But Severino showed some moxie, recovering to strike out Marcus Semien to end the inning.

Severino has seven strikeouts and four walks, and is up to 81 pitches.

David Waldstein: Andujar’s error highlights one area — corner infield defense — where the A’s have the advantage. Matt Chapman is as good as anyone at third base and first baseman Matt Olson excels at scooping balls out of the dirt, saving numerous runs during the course of the regular season. And the A’s rely on him. Olson played in all 162 games, the first American League first baseman to do that since Carlos Delgado in 2000.

If the Yankees hold this lead into the late innings, there is a good chance Aaron Boone will pull Andujar and Voit in favor of Adeiny Hechavarria and Neil Walker.

Lou Trivino was absolutely dominant in a second scoreless inning.

The A’s second pitcher got an easy first out when Andrew McCutchen grounded into the shift. That brought up Aaron Judge, who Trivino overwhelmed in a three-pitch strikeout in which the slugger looked totally lost on a cutter that darted away from him. Aaron Hicks was third up and he was retired on a soft grounder back to the pitcher.

Unfortunately for Oakland, at two innings and 28 pitches, Trivino is probably nearing his limits of endurance and it may be time to change pitchers again.

David Waldstein: The A’s have stabilized things after a tough first inning, and this is a team that has a record of coming back. Oakland was second in baseball this year with 280 runs scored after the seventh inning, a team record. They were also 25-11 in games decided in the final at-bat. That was also the second-best record in the majors behind Seattle’s mark of 22-9, but Oakland’s 25 last-AB wins were the most in the majors.

The A’s finally made some decent contact against Luis Severino, but it didn’t make a difference in another scoreless inning.

Marcus Semien led off the inning with walk on six pitches. Jonathan Lucroy was quickly erased on a three-pitch strikeout in which he simply flailed at a slider way off the plate. Nick Martini hit a sharp grounder to first that should have set up a double-play, but the A’s got a little from Luke Voit, whose throw forced shortstop Didi Gregorius to dive for it, yielding just one out instead of two. With two outs, Matt Chapman lined out to right to end the inning.

Severino has six strikeouts and two walks in three innings and has yet to allow a hit.

The A’s have already gone to the bullpen, replacing Liam Hendriks with Lou Trivino after just an inning. And while Trivino got himself in trouble, with two on and no outs, he escaped with a scoreless inning.

The right-hander starting things off by allowing a soft infield single to Didi Gregorius and a walk to Miguel Andujar, who had just 25 walks in 606 plate appearances this season. A first-pitch ball to Gary Sanchez prompted a visit to the mound from Oakland’s pitching coach, Scott Emerson, and that got Trivino settled down enough to induce a double-play ball from the struggling catcher.

With two outs and a runner on third, Trivino struck out Gleyber Torres on a curveball in the dirt to end the inning.

Staked to a lead, Luis Severino came out and immediately struck out the major league home run leader, Khris Davis, fanning him on a slider on the fifth pitch of the at-bat. With one out, he was fairly cautious with Matt Olson, throwing the first baseman mostly stuff outside the strike zone in what turned into a fairly epic nine-pitch at-bat that ended with a walk. He continued to have his pitches dart all over the zone against Stephen Piscotty, but this time he won the battle, getting a called strike three on an inside slider that simply froze Piscotty. That left Ramon Laureano, a rookie, up with one on and two outs, and he struck out to end the inning.

The A’s didn’t do any real damage in the inning, and have already struck out five times, but they have gotten Severino’s pitch count up to 37, which could work in their favor going forward.

David Waldstein: We like what Severino did in the second inning, going to his breaking ball more to strike out the side, wrapped around a harmless walk to Olson. Severino threw 28 pitches in the frame after throwing only 9 in the first, but looked a little more artful about it and his confidence is clearly redlining.

Word from the right field stands is that soon after the Yankees went ahead on Aaron Judge’s home run, the fans out there began with the anti-Boston chant. Still 21 outs to go before it’s “On to Boston.”

The Yankees were the first to score when Aaron Judge crushed a two-run homer over the left-field fence off Liam Hendriks, taking advantage of a reliever pressed into starter duty who came in far too amped up and had trouble keeping his pitches in the strike zone.

Hendriks doesn’t have the stamina of Severino but has shown the raw stuff to occasionally dominate. His first half-inning, which is quite likely his entire effort for the day, showed off the foibles of putting out an untested reliever in a pressure situation. He threw a first-pitch strike to Andrew McCutchen but then seemed to be too amped up on his fastballs, walking the leadoff batter on five pitches. That brought up Judge, who laid off the first three offerings, and then when he got a fat 96-mile-per-hour fastball on the inside of the strike zone he crushed it 427 feet, with M.L.B.’s Statcast system recording it as having come off his bat at 116.1-mph.

The Oakland bullpen immediately showed activity, but Hendriks calmed down enough to get Aaron Hicks to line out to first. He struck out Giancarlo Stanton on eight pitches and then finished the inning by retiring Luke Voit on a fly ball to center on just one pitch.

David Waldstein: Yankee Stadium came alive on Aaron Judge’s two-run home to left. He absolutely crushed it and Liam Hendricks, the A’s opener, was fortunate to get out of the inning giving up only those runs. Aaron Hicks hit a ball very hard, but right to first baseman Matt Olson, and so the A’s immediately had action in the bullpen with former Yankees relief pitcher Shawn Kelley warming up.

The top of the first inning didn’t look anything like Luis Severino’s first postseason game last year. He got things started right with a three-pitch strikeout of Nick Martini, catching Oakland’s leadoff batter looking at a pitch down the middle. He needed just two pitches to retire Matt Chapman on a grounder to third and then struck out Jed Lowrie on five pitches. Oakland looked completely lost against the Yankees’ one-time ace, who had been inconsistent in the second half of the season.

David Waldstein: Small sample size, but already the bold decision to go with Severino looks good. The right-hander came out blazing, and the Athletics’ hitters had trouble catching up to his 98 mile-per-hour fastballs as he set the side down in order with two strikeouts.

It was critical for the Yankees that Severino got off to a strong start in order to dispel any doubt that he could rebound from last year’s disaster when he surrendered three runs to the Minnesota Twins in the first inning and only recorded one out. Plus, Severino has a 5.23 earned run average in four career starts against the A’s, and that was 6.23 this year after a dismal start in Oakland on Sept. 5.

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