Giancarlo Stanton Powers The Yankees To Their 7th Consecutive Series Victory
Slowly, but surely Giancarlo Stanton is coming around. Today he continued to pummel left handed pitching, going 4 for 4 with 3 RBIs, including this home run.
Against lefties on the year, Stanton is hitting .457 with seven homers. Righties are a different story, but that will begin to show up as we progress through the season. To think that by next game, if recent trends continue, Stanton might have a higher average than Didi, especially after the start the Yankees shortstop. Obviously Didi is stuck in a pretty bad rut and has lowered his average to .260, but still. The good news, to little surprise, is that Giancarlo is seeing the ball much better. In the month of May, so far, he’s at .309 with 5 homers and 11 RBIs in 12 games. G will get another lefty to feast on Tuesday night when he faces Gio Gonzalez.
Luis Severino got the ball today on a heavily delayed, rainy Sunday afternoon and did not have his best stuff. Of course Sevy not having his best stuff still means he can throw six innings of one run ball and strike out seven. He had trouble locating breaking ball and saw his pitch count rise over 100 pitches by the 6th frame. A matured Severino was able to rely on his changeup today as a third pitch, something he’s worked hard to develop over the past year (Thank you Pedro Martinez). The A’s only real threat came in the 5th when Khris Davis stepped to the plate with two men on and two out in a 3-1 ball game. Davis, who already had 2 bombs in the series, put a drive into one but found the deepest part of the park, flying out to Hicks in dead center. That was really it. Oh, Dellin Betances made a really cool play so let’s watch that real quick.
Dellin for one inning is Good Dellin! The A’s never had a chance in this one after that, except for the 9th when Chasen Shreve got into a bit of trouble. He got out of it and secured the Yankees 7th straight series victory.
In their path of destruction the Yankees have conquered the Jays, Twins, Angels, Astros, Indians, Red Sox, and A’s. Don’t worry I’m not going to write a letter to Rob Manfred asking where the worthy competition is. Just ask Carrabis how that one turned out for his Sox. Who might I ask is next? That would be the Washington Nationals which should be a very fun two game set. The Yankees get the day off on Monday before heading to our nation’s capital.
For an injury update, the Yankees will have to make a decision on Brandon Drury soon as his rehab time comes to a close in the next few days. Drury has reached base in all 11 games in AAA while experimenting with special glasses for night time to help counteract his migraine issues. On Tuesday his rehab stint ends and the Yankees can either call him up, or if they believe he is still not comfortable being used in MLB games they can shut him down for five days and give him a new 20 day rehab stint. Miguel Andujar has been awesome all around at third base this year and collected two more hits on Sunday raising his average to .282. Cashman will have to decide who he wants to go with moving forward. If I were to bet I would say they don’t rush Drury back until he’s 100% comfortable and will keep him in Scranton for the time being while they get as long a look as possible with Andujar.
Clint Frazier seemingly does not get out anymore in the minors and has hit .323 between games in Trenton and Scranton. He’s got 9 extra base hits in his last 12 games and just continues to look 100% healthy after being sidelined with a bad concussion. The problem is that there is nowhere to put the red headed beast on this team. Brett Gardner is turning around his awful April, Hicks is the everyday starting centerfielder, Aaron Judge is Aaron Judge and Stanton is Stanton. There are only so many spots on this team and unfortunately I don’t know where Clint fits in the plans at this point. All he can do is continue to mash and force the issue.
Greg Bird played in his first minor league game the other day and didn’t die. He’s probably three weeks away from taking Tyler Austin’s spot on this team if all goes well. TA was awesome to start the year, but he’s been invisible since his suspension.
We’ll be recording another episode of The Short Porch tonight so if you have any DMs send them to either myself or Tommy.
