The Yankees Have a Letdown Game Against the A's as Sonny Gray Gets Shelled By His Former Team
The rollercoaster of Sonny Gray continued Friday night and this time it was headed downwards. Following back-to-back 6 IP of 2 earned run starts against Houston and Cleveland, Sonny relapsed last night and got shelled by the Oakland A’s. In the 2nd inning Sonny fell behind 3-1 to Khris Davis and piped in a fastball right down the middle of the plate. As you can expect, Davis destroyed this baseball.
Yeah maybe don’t leave a fastball right down the middle to the guy who has hit the 3rd most homers in all of baseball in the last three years? Just my advice. Two batters later Sonny would throw another fastball right down the middle to Matt Chapman who also launched a home run giving the A’s a 3-0 lead. A Friday night in the Bronx was being ruined because Sonny Gray couldn’t get the Oakland A’s out. He constantly fell behind hitters, generated very few swings and misses, and saw lots of hard contact. All three very bad things you want to avoid as a starting pitcher. Sonny shows us glimpses of getting back on track and then throws in this shit storm of an outing. He’s one of the more frustrating starting pitchers we’ve seen in quite some time. Would you rather Sonny Gray right now or Matt Harvey? It’s a real question.
The lead grew to four before Gleyber Torres finally got the Yankees on the board with solo shot over the left-center field wall. None of Gleyber’s three homers have been cheap as all he continues to do is mash since making his major league debut. Some people are beginning to wonder when Gleyber gets moved up in the lineup. Some want him hitting leadoff with his average currently sitting at .344 with an OBP at .386. I’d say it’s too early right now and I kinda like him hitting 9th to turn the lineup over, for now. Gardner has started to look better at the plate and reached base three four times last night so he may be getting out of that horrible start, thankfully.
The A’s lead grew to 5-1 in the 5th before the Yankees bats began to get going. Aaron Judge stepped to the plate with two men on and two outs against Kendall Graveman. Judge wasted no time and drove a first pitch fastball effortlessly over the right center wall.
I swear he put zero effort into that swing and it went 111 mph off the bat and 391 feet. The Yankees were back in the game.
After a Jed Lowrie solo shot off of David Hale the Yankees trailed by 2. Why David Hale was allowed to pitch THREE innings last night just baffles me and it’s hard to not fault Boone for that one. Yeah the bullpen is shorthanded but I think we can avoid David Hale throwing multiple innings in a close ball game.
The bottom of the 7th rolled around which has typically been this team’s comeback inning, and that’s what seemed to be happening. Andujar reached on an infield single and Romine followed with a line drive through the right side. A funny moment happened here because Romine thought he had popped the ball up into the sky as he looked up for it, but instead had ripped a ball for a single. The Yankees were set up with first and second and nobody out for Gleyber Torres. Instead of letting the rookie phenom swing the bat, Boone called for a bunt and Torres obviously laid down a good one advancing both runners.
*Correction: Boone did not call for the bunt, Gleyber did it on his own.
Gardner worked a four pitch walk which set up the bases loaded for Aaron Judge. Ryan Dull could not find the zone and walked Judge, bringing the Yanks to within one run.
The badly slumping Didi was due up and lifted a fly ball to right field, but it was not deep enough for Romine to tag. The Yankees shortstop is now in a terrible 0 for 28 slump since lighting the world on fire in the month of April. He’ll be fine, he’ll get out of it, it’s just one of those slumps everyone gets into. You can’t stay that hot for 162 games.
Stanton was up next with two outs but popped up to second to end the inning. That was the game right there as the A’s opened the flood gates against the struggling David Robertson, in the 9th. It was a classic letdown game for the Yankees following an emotional, hard fought series against the Red Sox. They were asleep at the wheel for the first half of this game and Sonny Gray was terrible. Domingo German gets his second career start today, but the weather is not supposed to be great. They may be able to squeeze this one in and be okay, but it may get dicey. I’m excited to see Domingo on the bump, let’s get back on track.
P.S. I do want to note a very cool moment for Dustin Fowler. In his first start of the 2018 season Fowler ripped his first major league hit off of the man he was traded for, Sonny Gray. In case you forgot, Fowler was a Yankee and came up last year when they were in Chicago for a series against the White Sox. Leading off the next inning, Fowler raced towards the right field stands and collided with the railing. The result was a gruesome patella injury that ended his season right then and there. Brett Gardner called it the worst injury he’d seen on a baseball field while Joe Girardi was in tears. It was a horrible moment for a great kid. Last night his family was in the stands to see his big moment and I’m so happy he got the hit. It’s been a long fight for him to get back to this moment. He’s going to be a good player for Oakland.
