After a pretty encouraging weekend in Baltimore, the Yankees took a step back this week going 3-4 against the disappointing White Sox and Tigers. There were some short-lived positive moments, including a Neil Walker walk-off and an interesting comeback on Friday against the Tigers. But aside from that, it was a pretty terrible week.
Here’s a stats roundup from the past week of baseball.
The acquisition of Andrew “Cutch” McCutchenÂ
Let’s take a brief intermission from the bad and talk about the good. The biggest news of the week was the Yankees acquisition of outfielder Andrew McCutchen. “Cutch” is primed to have an immediate impact for the Yankees as they continue to try to fill the gaping hole that Aaron Judge’s injury has left them.
McCutchen is a five-time All-Star and has a career average of .287, but notably he’s fared well against A.L. East teams. In 43 games against the division, McCutchen boasts a .351 average and has six home runs, 33 RBI, and 25 walks. His value to the team has already been evident, as Boone has slotted Cutch in the leadoff spot in both games he’s appeared in.
While Judge is irreplaceable regardless, Cutch will be a far better option than Shane Robinson was. In 25 games this season, Robinson is batting .143 with only 7 hits and a brutal .432 OPS. For you non-baseball experts – that is really really bad.
Obviously, we can’t expect Cutch to be the All-Star he once was, but we can expect him to have a serious impact as the team faces their most important stretch of the season.
A bad, bad series against the White Sox
The whole week was bad, but the series against the White Sox was especially rough.
In the 27 innings the two teams played, the Yankees were tied with or were trailing the White Sox for 24 of them. Keep in mind… it’s the White Sox.
The White Sox give up an average of 4.8 runs a game, fifth-worst in the majors. The Yankees only managed to garner seven runs in three games against them. One interesting note about that – six of those seven runs came from a home run.
To top it all off, the Yankees struggles with RISP continued as they went 2/19 in the series.
Gleyber Day came early
At least there was one bright spot coming from this week’s play. Gleyber Torres continued his tear with a phenomenal week of hitting. He recorded at least one hit in each of the team’s seven games, and also added three multi-hit games as well.
In 23 at-bats, Torres batted .478 with three home runs and 10 RBI’s. There were only two games this week that Torres did not record a RBI.
Gleyber Torres’ average is now up to .282, when it was a .258 on August 16th.
300
Another bright spot from the week was Giancarlo Stanton’s milestone 300th home run. He became the 147th player in MLB history to achieve the feat and the 15th player to do it as a Yankee.
Looking to the week aheadÂ
Boy, do the Yankees need to shake this last week because this is a big week coming up. The Yankees are 4.5 games up on the Oakland Athletics and 10 up on the Seattle Mariners in the Wild Card race, and they will play both of those teams on the road this week.
Athletics
The Yanks will kick the week off in Oakland for a three game series. Coming into the game, the A’s are 6-4 in their last 10. In those 10 games, there was only one game in which the A’s scored less than 4 runs.
The A’s and Yankees have faced off three times this season, with the Yankees triumphing twice (one in an 11-inning battle).
The A’s are projected to pitch Mike Fiers on Wednesday, who the Yankees have hit well in the past. Against Fiers, the current Yankees players have an average of .320 with as many strikeouts as extra base hits. Notably, new acquisition Andrew McCutchen has a .316 lifetime average against Fiers with four home runs in 20 plate appearances.
MarinersÂ
The Yankees will stay west for their next series against the Mariners, who are trending in an opposite direction. They are 2-5 in their last seven but they were on the road for all of them – they are 38-28 on their home field.
In the lone three-game series the Yankees played the Mariners, the Yanks got the sweep at home.
Tanaka is projected to take the mound for the Yanks on Friday, and he has historically pitched well against the Mariners current roster. The current Mariners have a combined average of .211 against Tanaka in 133 plate appearances with 37 strikeouts.
YES Network Research Team Tweet of the Week
If you don’t already, you must follow the YES Network research team (@JamesSmyth621, @yestoresearch, @SethDRothman). They do a great job finding incredible stats, so I figured I’d have a little spot for them in my weekly stats column. Here’s the YES Network Research Team Tweet of the Week:
Yankees get their 11th win of the season when tied after 7 innings, and their 34th comeback win of the season.
They are 60-15 this season when scoring 5+ runs, and an MLB-best 52-9 when their starter throws 6+ innings.
— Seth Rothman (@SethDRothman) September 1, 2018
This tweet came after the thrilling 7-5 comeback victory over the Tigers.
It will certainly be an interesting week with the playoff implications, but the Yankees will have to turn things around if they want to return to the W column.
