Like most things in baseball, baserunning is a blend of skills and smarts. It helps to be one of the faster guys in the league, but there are players who provide above average value on the bases despite not having above average speed, as instincts and feel can often make the difference between being safe or out.
One of my favorite parts of baserunning is the judgement calls that players are forced to make while running at full speed and expelling all their power and athleticism. In those moments, they have split seconds to weigh the many factors that can impact their chances of getting the extra base. While basestealing may be the single most exciting part of the game, the decision of whether to try and swipe a bag is much more black and white than other base-running plays.
Say you’re a major leaguer leading off first base and are determining whether to attempt to steal second. You already know the catcher’s pop time, and you have a pretty good idea of how long it takes the pitcher to deliver his pitch. You’re also familiar with the pitcher’s pickoff tendencies and footwork, as well as your own speed and ability to time your jump. Yes, maybe you can pick up on a pattern in real time that gives you a slight competitive advantage, or you notice either the pitcher, catcher, or both of them aren’t paying you much attention, allowing you to catch them by surprise. But for the most part, your decision to take off for second is still almost entirely going to come down to how fast all parties involved can boogie.
On the contrary, if you’re at the plate and lace a liner in the gap that splits two outfielders, you’re faced with several different variables that affect your decision outside of just your speed. How quickly do you get out of the box? Are you thinking two right away, meaning you’re running hard and already taking the angle that will allow you to cut the corner of first base and make a good turn that will give you a direct line to second.
From there, it’s based on feel and whatever data points you have in your head about the outfielders going for the ball. Which one is going to get there first? Does he have a strong arm? If so, is he accurate? Are his throws any weaker and less accurate if he’s pacing on a diagonal toward the gap and has to plant and throw off his back foot? Or, is the outfielder going to get to the ball quickly and have time to circle it, set his feet, crow-hop, and fire? There are other factors on top of these, too.
Let’s check out a few examples from some of the best base-running plays of the year. I’ll be using Statcast’s Runner Runs metric as a guide for choosing plays. This metric estimates the success rate for each base-running opportunity based on variables such as runner speed, outfielder arm strength, and distance from the given bag. Below, I’ve selected three plays — one at second, one at third, and one at home — that were worth at least .20 runs added.
Sheesh! Out of the box, this looked like a clear single, even when you consider Witt’s 100th percentile sprint speed. This is a typical line drive to center field, not one that splits two defenders. But Witt knew that in this situation — runners on second and third with one out in the seventh inning and the Royals leading 4-2 — the Tigers might throw to the plate instead of second; he also knew who was playing center field.
Riley Greene, an above average left fielder, had shifted shifted over to center earlier in the game, and his skills don’t exactly fit as well there. He has 66th percentile speed and 48th percentile arm strength. On top of that, Greene throws left-handed, meaning that because he was roaming to his right side (toward the left-center gap), he’d either have to take a few steps to line his body up with second (as he did) or plant his feet in the ground and pirouette before getting rid of the ball. In other words, this play is easier for a right-handed thrower. Add up all those factors, and you have a perfect recipe for Witt to take a calculated risk with only one out. If Matt Vierling were still playing center, as he was at the beginning of the game, his speed and righty throwing might have kept Witt at bay. Every single one of these details matters!
The next play features Anthony Volpe pushing for a triple on a line drive down the right field line. Volpe has very good, but not elite, speed (28.6 ft/sec, 86th percentile), and because of that he’s a bit more reliant on his decision-making than Witt. On this play, he had a favorable spray angle, but it was going to be bang-bang as long as Jo Adell played it right:
To me, Volpe seemed to realize that he had a shot at a triple as he rounded first and saw the ball bouncing around off the curved fence in right field. He didn’t have a particularly great turn around the bag, but the slight ricochet gave him enough leeway. Typically, runners should look up at the third base coach once they’re getting to second base, but in this case, Volpe was going three no matter what and kept his head down.
Adell delivered a great throw to the cutoff man, but the relay to third was short-hopped, which made it more difficult for the third baseman to field it cleanly and apply the tag before Volpe slid in safely. This is an example of a challenge play, where Volpe put the pressure on the fielders to do everything correctly, and because there were multiple steps that had to be executed perfectly, Volpe liked his odds that one part of the chain would be off by just enough for him to make it.
Coincidentally, our final play comes from the same Royals-Tigers series that also featured the Witt double from above. And like that play, the outfielder was Riley Greene. Though this time, the runner was MJ Melendez, who despite his 68th percentile speed has done well on the basepaths this year, with +2 Runner Runs. The play we’re about to watch shows how a runner with just slightly above-average speed can put himself in a position to have above-average outcomes. Here it is:
Wait a sec, how did he get around to score on a fly ball that seemed likely to be caught? You can’t see it on the broadcast, but Melendez played this exactly right. On a towering fly ball like this one, a runner who begins the play at first should be waiting on second base, ready to pivot in either direction. Once Greene dropped the ball, it was time to take off, and even though the ball landed right at Greene’s feet, there was enough time for Melendez to make it home ahead of the throw. That’s despite the fact that Melendez stumbled on his way around third base; he made up for that because he was in the right place when the ball dropped. Also, remember that Greene doesn’t have a particularly strong arm and was all the way out at the warning track.
We could keep going, but by looking at plays at second, third, and home, we now have a better idea of the circumstances that affect base-running decisions. We saw how electrifying speed can manifest plays out of nowhere, but also how sound fundamentals can put runners in a strong position for success. As you’re watching ball for the rest of the summer, pay attention to these types of plays and see if you can pick up on the factors that baserunners must consider when weighing whether to take the extra base. These small details can have a major impact.
The Guardians rate as one of baseball’s bigger surprises. After finishing 76-86 last year — their worst record since 2012 — they’ve rebounded to go 57-33 thus far, and entered Wednesday with the AL’s best record. Their offense is much more potent than it was last year, and despite losing ace Shane Bieber for the season due to Tommy John surgery, they rank second in the league in run prevention at 3.87 runs per game.
While Cleveland’s staff owns the AL’s second-highest strikeout rate (24.2%), a good amount of credit for the team’s run prevention belongs to its defense. By my evaluation of a handful of the major defensive metrics — Defensive Runs Saved, Ultimate Zone Rating, Statcast’s Fielding Run Value (FRV), and our catcher framing metric (hereafter abbreviated as FRM, as it is on our stat pages) — the Guardians rate as the majors’ second-best defensive team thus far this season. The Yankees, who spent much of the first half atop the AL East before a 5-16 slide knocked them into second place, are the only team ahead of them.
On an individual level, even a full season of data isn’t enough to get the clearest picture of a player’s defense, and it’s not at all surprising that a 600-inning sample produces divergent values across the major metrics. After all, they’re based on differing methodologies that produce varying spreads in runs from top to bottom, spreads that owe something to what they don’t measure, as well as how much regression is built into their systems. Pitchers don’t have UZRs or FRVs, catchers don’t have UZRs, and DRS tends to produce the most extreme ratings. Still, within this aggregation I do think we get enough signal at this point in the season to make it worth checking in; I don’t proclaim this to be a bulletproof methodology so much as a good point of entry into a broad topic. Read the rest of this entry »
Welcome to another edition of Five Things I Liked (Or Didn’t Like) This Week. The parenthetical part of the title is largely just a nod to Zach Lowe, whose ESPN basketball column inspired this one. He occasionally mentions flaws or foibles holding a particular team or player back, in lovingly GIF’ed up detail. I’m more of a rah-rah type, and plenty of weeks I don’t have a single Didn’t Like in the column at all. This week, though, I can’t help it; mental lapses, baserunning errors, and overall sloppiness are all over the column. That’s not to say I don’t love watching it, because part of what’s fun about baseball is when a theoretically staid game gets messy, but let’s be clear: A lot of these plays are not good plays. We’ve got superstars getting confused, on-field collisions, and absolute howlers. Let’s get started.
1. The Profligate Nationals
The Nats are one of the unheralded fun stories of the baseball season. They’re hanging around .500 and playing like better days are ahead. CJ Abrams and MacKenzie Gore look like franchise mainstays. James Wood, another part of the return from the Juan Soto trade, isn’t far off. Mitchell Parker and Jake Irvin might be mid-rotation starters. Jacob Young is an elite defender. They have plenty of interesting role players, and the whole team plays with reckless and joyful abandon.
That’s particularly true on the basepaths, where the Nats rank third in steals but only 11th in total baserunning value. They’re always angling for how to advance another base, whatever the costs. Sometimes that ends in tears. Read the rest of this entry »
Welcome to another edition of Five Things I Liked (Or Didn’t Like) this week. I’m not sure if this is by design or simply a scheduling coincidence, but this week was full of compelling matchups between current rivals. The Cubs and Cardinals squared off. So did the Yankees and Orioles. The Guardians and Mariners aren’t exactly rivals, but their series rocked too, and I’m sad I couldn’t find a way to squeeze them in this week. That said, there’s a ton to talk about, so let’s get to it, after our usual nod to Zach Lowe of ESPN, who is surely enjoying a well-deserved vacation after the conclusion of the NBA season. To baseball! Read the rest of this entry »
If you’ve been in a ballpark a half hour or so before game time, you’ve probably noticed the starting pitchers playing catch with a teammate or a coach in the outfield. You’ve likely also observed them subsequently going into their respective bullpens to warm up, readying themselves to face hitters once the contest begins. This is integral to a starter’s pregame preparation, but it’s only part of the start-day routine. That routine, which varies from pitcher to pitcher, is typically scripted. From going over scouting reports to the number of throws mades before taking the game mound, everything is planned out.
How exactly does a big league starter prepare for a game? A pair of New York Yankees — pitching coach Matt Blake and veteran left-hander Nestor Cortes — detailed the process in separate interviews last weekend at Fenway Park.
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Matt Blake:
“Some guys are a little more scripted than others. They’re all going to be in the vicinity of 25-35 pitches. You might have some outliers who are closer to 20 or 40, but generally 25-30ish pitches is usually the target to get yourself ready. That’s in the ’pen. There is some level of catch-play before, whether it’s long toss or PlyoCare work, to get your body prepared to get on a mound for the 25-30 pitches.
“Depending on their arsenal, they might carve out a certain amount for each pitch. For instance, Gerrit [Cole] is pretty scripted. He might do 12 or 13 out of the windup, then 12 or 13 out of the stretch, and then assess if he needs any more than that. Some guys might be mostly out of the windup and a couple out of the stretch at the end. We’re always trying to identify the foundational routine. What is it they need to work on to get ready for the game plan that night? Maybe you’re facing a couple of batters at the end of your bullpen. You’re saying, ‘This is the first batter and these are the areas I want to get to. Here is the second batter.’ You’re putting together some sequences that are akin to what you’re going to throw to start the game off. Read the rest of this entry »
Even before he fractured his right arm during Sunday’s 9-3 loss to the Red Sox, Anthony Rizzo had already endured a rough 12 1/2 months. His 2023 season was wrecked by the aftereffects of a May 28 collision with Fernando Tatis Jr., which manifested themselves as post-concussion symptoms that sapped his production before he was shut down in early August; he didn’t play again that season. He started slowly this year, and while his bat perked up in late April, he fell into a deep slump at the beginning of June and was benched during the Yankees’ recent series against the Dodgers. He showed a few positive signs upon returning to the lineup, but now he’s expected to miss the next eight weeks.
Rizzo’s injury occurred during the seventh inning of Sunday night’s game at Fenway Park. After Alex Verdugo and Giancarlo Stanton both singled off pitcher Brennan Bernardino to start the inning, Rizzo grounded to the right side of the infield. First baseman Dominic Smith ranged over to field the ball and started to throw to second base before realizing he had no shot at forcing Stanton out. He then threw to Bernardino — or rather, behind him. The pitcher dropped the ball as he got to the bag, where a sprinting Rizzo swerved to his right to avoid a full-on collision. He lost his balance and went down hard, rolling over on his right arm. He remained on the ground in obvious pain while being tended to by the Yankees’ athletic trainers, then left the field and was replaced by pinch-runner Oswaldo Cabrera.
Initial imaging with a fluoroscope at Fenway Park was negative, but further testing in New York on Monday revealed that Rizzo had fractured the radial neck of his right arm — that is, the part of the radius near the elbow. Such injuries are more common in children than adults, and often occur on a traumatic fall onto an outstretched hand, which, bingo. Such fractures are usually not displaced, and that would appear to be the case with Rizzo, who won’t need surgery. While initial reports placed his absence in a four-to-six week window, on Tuesday the Yankees said that Rizzo will need about eight weeks before returning to games, with the first baseman saying he was told it’ll be “probably four, five weeks” of no baseball activity. Read the rest of this entry »
Welcome back to Top of the Order, where every Tuesday and Friday I’ll be starting your baseball day with some news, notes, and thoughts about the game we love.
No division race is tighter than the AL East, with the Yankees leading the Orioles by just 1.5 games ahead of their three-game matchup that begins tonight in the Bronx. Both teams are virtual locks to make the playoffs, but securing the division title is crucial because of the almost-certain bye that would come with it. This is a fierce race that looks like it’ll go down to the wire, but these head-to-head games might not be as important for their divisional hopes as their off-the-field showdown leading up to the trade deadline.
While the Orioles and Yankees won’t have much overlap in terms of trade needs — and as such won’t be competing for many of the same players — they’re obviously competing to get better and build more complete rosters so they can outlast the other and make a deep October run. The thing is, considering there are only five teams right now that are out of the playoff picture — the White Sox, Marlins, Athletics, Rockies, and Angels — actual upgrades available on the trading block might be in short supply. That means the Yankees and Orioles will need to capitalize on whatever improvements they can make. This environment could set the stage for New York and Baltimore to be among the most active teams over the next month and a half.
The Yankees have arguably the two best hitters in the entire league in Aaron Judge and Juan Soto, and though the rest of the lineup is good, it doesn’t inspire nearly as much confidence. Anthony Volpe’s flattened swing path has helped him cut down on his strikeout rate and spray more hits to the opposite field, but this month his strikeout rate is back up to 27% and he hasn’t walked since May 30. Alex Verdugo has been solidly above average and stabilized left field, which had a cavalcade of players come through last year, and Giancarlo Stanton’s streakiness has worked itself out to a 121 wRC+ and 17 homers, even though his on-base percentage is below .300. The catching duo of Jose Trevino and Austin Wells has come around too, though Trevino’s throwing issues were firmly on display on Sunday, when the Red Sox stole nine (!) bases against him.
And then there’s the triumvirate of underperforming infielders: Anthony Rizzo, Gleyber Torres, and DJ LeMahieu. I’d be shocked if Torres didn’t keep his job; after an anemic start, his bat has started to come around (112 wRC+ since May 12). But LeMahieu hasn’t hit much at all since signing his six-year deal before the 2021 season, and Rizzo has struggled for a full calendar year now, though at least some of his 2023 woes can be attributed to the post-concussion syndrome that caused him to miss the final two months of last season. Further complicating matters is Rizzo’s latest injury, a fractured right arm that won’t require surgery but will keep him out for an estimated four to six weeks, according to The Athletic. In the short-term, the Yankees are expected to play Oswaldo Cabrera at third and LeMahieu at first, with catcher/first baseman Ben Rice likely to replace Rizzo on the roster. A bat like Rockies third baseman Ryan McMahon would go a long way toward lengthening the lineup while also improving the defense.
The Orioles, on the other hand, have gotten strong production up and down the lineup, with the exception of Cedric Mullins, who has made up for his offensive struggles with excellent defense. But their pitching — widely viewed as a strength coming into the offseason — has been hammered by injuries.
The Yankees weathered the loss of Gerrit Cole with aplomb — so much so that I’m not sure they’ll need to be in the market for starting pitching, even as Clarke Schmidt is expected to be out for a while with a lat strain. Cole is slated to be activated and make his season debut tomorrow night. Meanwhile, the sheer quantity of Orioles starters on the IL all but necessitates making an acquisition on that front. Dean Kremer will be back soon from triceps tightness, but Tyler Wells and John Means are out for the year, and Kyle Bradish could be destined for the same fate. He recently landed on the IL for a second time this year with a sprained UCL in his elbow. That leaves AL Cy Young frontrunner Corbin Burnes, Grayson Rodriguez, and Kremer as the top three starters of a playoff rotation, with the revelatory Albert Suárez and Cole Irvin right behind and rookie Cade Povich potentially pushing for a spot as well.
There would certainly be worse playoff rotations around the league, but the O’s would be doing a disservice to their deep offense if they neglected to improve their starting pitching, especially after they failed to address last year’s rotation before the deadline and then were pounded by the Rangers and swept out of the ALDS. Their wealth of position player depth in the minor leagues should allow them to add at least one or two of the top available starters: Garrett Crochet, Erick Fedde, Tyler Anderson, Cal Quantrill, and Jesús Luzardo.
The one mutual need for the Yankees and Orioles is where all teams overlap at the deadline: the bullpen. Both teams have excellent back-end duos — Baltimore has Craig Kimbrel and Yennier Cano, while New York boasts Clay Holmes and Luke Weaver — but there’s a steep dropoff after that. The shallow seller’s market ought to create a lesser supply of available relief arms, which would likely inflate the cost that teams would ask for in return. This is where the strength of the New York and Baltimore farm systems (both of which are excellent) really come into play. These two organizations can afford to overpay for a third high-octane reliever — such as Carlos Estévez, Tanner Scott, Michael Kopech, and perhaps even Mason Miller — without sacrificing their long-term outlook.
The final distinction is the two teams’ disparate payroll situations. While it doesn’t appear as if the Yankees have any restrictions for this season — and the pursuit of keeping Soto surely will be unaffected — owner Hal Steinbrenner certainly sounds like a man who wants to decrease payroll from the $302 million it’s at this season. Next year’s payroll is already at $182 million, and that’s before factoring in arbitration raises to key players like Trevino, Schmidt, and Nestor Cortes — not to mention the exorbitant price that’ll be required to re-sign Soto. Torres and Verdugo are also set to hit free agency this offseason, and the current payroll figure for 2025 doesn’t include what it will cost either to bring them back or backfill their positions. That could make them less interested in trading for players on guaranteed contracts beyond this season, even those who would fit well, like McMahon.
On the flip side, the Orioles have an extraordinary amount of flexibility under new owner David Rubenstein, who hasn’t publicly commented on specific payroll plans but essentially can’t do anything but spend more than the Angelos family did in the last several years of its ownership. Huge raises are coming for Adley Rutschman, Gunnar Henderson, Ryan Mountcastle, Bradish, and others, but Baltimore has a paltry $2 million committed to next season. That should give GM Mike Elias carte blanche to acquire anyone he wants at the deadline no matter how many years of club control the player has remaining, provided he’s willing to give up the necessary prospects.
All of this will play out over the next six weeks before the deadline. In the meantime, the battle for the AL East begins in earnest tonight.
Welcome to another edition of Five Things I Liked (Or Didn’t Like) This Week. I was under the weather late last week, which was not fun at the time. On the bright side, it gave me plenty of time to sit on the couch and watch baseball. To be fair, that’s what I do even when I’m not sick, but this time I had a good excuse. Baseball cooperated, too: There were some elite series and fun matchups over the past week. Stars facing off? We’ve got that. Baserunning hijinks and defensive lapses? You bet. Beleaguered backups bashing baseballs belligerently? Absolutely, alliteration and all. Shout out to Zach Lowe – now let’s get down to business.
NEW YORK — For a matchup with so much history — the most common World Series pairing, and the most storied as well — meetings between the Dodgers and Yankees have been curiously rare since the introduction of interleague play in 1997. It took until 2013 for Major League Baseball to bring the Dodgers back to Yankee Stadium for the first time since the 1981 World Series clincher, and until this past weekend they had made just one other visit (2016). The more balanced schedule adopted last year has made meetings between the two teams an annual occurrence, but even so, this still feels like the best kind of novelty that interleague play can muster.
Particularly so to this scribe, for whom the 1978 and ’81 World Series were foundational experiences as a young third-generation Dodgers fan who never dreamed that he would one day cover baseball, let alone in the Bronx. This was the first of the Dodgers’ three visits where I was able to enjoy games as both a fan (Friday night, from my ticket group’s regular seats in section 422) and a member of the media. Getting paid to have this much fun? I recommend it.
With both teams leading their respective divisions, with national television on hand for all three games, and with Yankee Stadium filled with sellout crowds of 48,000-plus — including a substantial, colorful contingent of Dodgers fans, many of them decked out in Shohei Ohtani jerseys — this past weekend brought an electrified, playoff-like atmosphere to the Bronx. Not that the Yankees, who entered the series having won eight straight and who still own the AL’s best record (46-21), weren’t already doing their best to create one. Offsetting their sluggish play over the past few weeks, the Dodgers (41-26) rose to the occasion by taking two out of three tension-filled games, winning 2-1 in 11 innings on Friday and turning a tight game on Saturday into an 11-3 laugher. The Yankees avoided a sweep and rewarded their frenzied fans by winning a seesaw battle on Sunday night, 6-4, thanks to a well-timed three-run homer by Trent Grisham, who was only playing because Juan Soto spent the series on the bench due to inflammation in his left elbow; the go-ahead blast came off Tyler Glasnow as Yankees fans chanted “We want Soto! We want Soto!”
Trent Grisham was up and heard some LOUD "we want Soto chants"…
“This whole series has been fun,” slugger Aaron Judge told ESPN’s Buster Olney afterward. “I know they took the series, but these are the games you want to play in, back and forth like that and it comes down to an MVP with two guys on — those are the moments you live for right there.” Judge was referring to the game’s final out, where Clay Holmes struck out Mookie Betts chasing a low-and-away slider with runners on first and second.
Unofficially, it may as well have been Teoscar Hernández Weekend. While the Yankees held the Dodgers’ 1-2-3 of Betts, Ohtani, and Freddie Freeman to a combined 7-for-35 performance with 11 total bases in the series, Hernández himself went 6-for-12 with two doubles and three homers while driving in nine of the Dodgers’ 17 runs. The 31-year-old left fielder snapped the seal on a scoreless game with a two-run double in the 11th inning on Friday night. His grand slam — his second home run of the night — broke open Saturday night’s game, and his double and solo shot on Sunday accounted for two of the three extra-base hits collected against Yankees starter Luis Gil, with the last of those hits temporarily giving the Dodgers the lead before Grisham’s home run.
Both teams played the series at less than full strength, with the Yankees not only missing ace Gerrit Cole — whose rehab from a bout of nerve inflammation in his elbow is progressing well — but also Soto. The superstar right fielder started each of the Yankees’ first 64 games, but he left Thursday’s contest against the Twins during a 56-minute rain delay due to lingering discomfort in his left forearm. Though it had bothered him for the past couple weeks, it apparently hadn’t prevented him from destroying opposing pitching; prior to his absence, his .603 slugging percentage, 190 wRC+, and 4.1 WAR ranked second in AL only to Judge, with the two outfielders ranking first and second in the majors in the latter two categories to that point. An MRI taken Friday revealed only inflammation in Soto’s forearm, much to the Yankees’ relief. In addition to fetching Cole Gatorade during an in-game interview with the Fox Sports booth on Saturday, Soto served as a decoy off the bench all weekend, though Dodgers manager Dave Roberts saw through the ruse.
“Where they’re at in the standings, with how well they’re playing and what’s at stake this year, I really wasn’t too concerned about him being played this weekend,” he told reporters after Sunday’s game. Yankees manager Aaron Boone, who had hinted before Sunday’s game he might use Soto, said he expects the right fielder back in the lineup for the series against the Royals, which begins on Monday night.
As for the Dodgers, in addition to being without Clayton Kershaw as he recovers from shoulder surgery, they’ve been without third baseman Max Muncy since May 15 due to an oblique strain. Though hardly as central to the Dodgers offense as Soto is to the Yankees, Muncy is hitting .223/.323/.475 for a 123 wRC+, his best mark since 2021. What’s more, his fill-ins — mainly Enrique Hernández, with Miguel Rojas and Chris Taylor also chipping in — have combined to hit just .171/.241/.276 (52 wRC+) with two doubles and two home runs in 83 plate appearances. Hernández, who’s hitting just .207/.273/.314 (72 wRC+) overall, hit one of those doubles on Friday, and one of those homers on Saturday.
Muncy is of particular importance to the Dodgers because his presence lengthens a top-heavy lineup that’s gotten just a 77 wRC+ (.210/.273/.334) showing from its 6-7-8-9 hitters this year (including seven games for which Muncy himself batted sixth). Without him, the Dodgers had gone 10-9 — all against sub-.500 teams (the Reds, Diamondbacks, Mets, Rockies, and Pirates) — from the time of his injury to the start of Friday’s series, scoring three or fewer runs in nine of those games, and averaging just 4.05 runs per game in that span, with two double-digit blowouts padding that average by three-quarters of a run.
On paper, Friday’s pairing of ace-in-the-making Yoshinobu Yamamoto and injury fill-in Cody Poteet (subbing for Clarke Schmidt, who’s out due to a lat strain) looked like a mismatch, but it turned into a pitchers’ duel. Each team collected just four hits through the first nine innings; five times, a half-inning ended with a runner stranded in scoring position. Yamamoto was phenomenal, holding the Yankees to two hits and two walks over seven innings while striking out seven, lowering his ERA to an even 3.00. He ended the first inning by striking out Giancarlo Stanton swinging on a slider in the dirt with a runner on second, escaped the second by whiffing Jose Trevino on a slider outside with runners on the corners, then retired the next 11 in a row before walking Judge with two outs in the sixth. Yamamoto followed by striking out Stanton again, this time by elevating a 97-mph heater.
The closest the Yankees came to scoring was in the eighth, when reliever Anthony Banda notched two strikeouts, yielded back-to-back singles to Anthony Volpe and Alex Verdugo, and gave way to Blake Treinen, who has been absolutely dominant since returning from a nearly two-year absence due to shoulder woes, throwing 11 scoreless innings with 16 strikeouts and two walks. One of those walks was wisely issued to the red-hot Judge. Stanton followed, just getting under a sinker that was hit into the left-center gap but didn’t quite reach the warning track before Teoscar Hernández hauled it in.
On the other side, Poteet, a 29-year-old righty whose previous major league experience was 58.2 innings with the 2021–22 Marlins, did an impressive job of working his way through the Dodgers’ lineup twice. Though he didn’t have a single clean inning, he held the Dodgers to just two hits, two walks and a hit batsman, using a double play and a pickoff — Enrique Hernández, who reached on an error by second baseman Gleyber Torres — to reduce traffic.
Poteet departed with two outs in the fifth following a walk of Enrique Hernández and single by Betts. Lefty reliever Victor Gonzalez — one of three ex-Dodgers who took the mound for the Yankees in the opener — induced Ohtani to line out to Anthony Rizzo to end the threat, but the early move to the bullpen created a ripple effect that carried through Saturday night, forcing Boone to turn to his less-trusted arms. He used six relievers after Poteet, calling upon both thrice-DFA’d Michael Tonkin and Ian Hamilton to get more than three outs. After working a scoreless 10th, Hamilton walked Freeman to start the 11th, then one out later gave up the big hit to Teoscar Hernández, a 109-mph two-run double into the gap. Dennis Santana (another ex-Dodger) relieved him and almost made matters worse by issuing a two-out walk to Andy Pages before retiring Gavin Lux. The Dodgers won, but only after Yohan Ramírez allowed an RBI single to Judge, then held on to notch his first save as a Dodger.
Saturday night’s game pitted a pair of pitchers who have successfully shaken off miserable 2023 campaigns, righty Gavin Stone and lefty Nestor Cortes. Stone, who was rocked for a 9.00 ERA and 6.64 FIP in 31 innings last year, moved to a bigger glove to help him combat a pitch-tipping issue; relying more on a sinker-slider combo than before, he’s turned in a 2.93 ERA and 3.46 FIP in 67.2 innings. Cortes, who made three trips to the injured list last year due to hamstring and rotator cuff strains, has been healthy this season, lowering his ERA from 4.97 to 3.68 and his FIP from 4.49 to 3.77.
The two teams traded runs in the second and third innings, with a Teoscar Hernández homer and an Ohtani RBI single (one of his two hits in a relatively quiet series) producing the runs for Los Angeles, and an Austin Wells groundout and a Judge home run driving in those for New York. The Dodgers pulled ahead 3-2 in the fifth on Enrique Hernández’s solo homer off Cortes, then padded that lead in the sixth when Teoscar Hernández followed a Freeman double and a Will Smith single with an RBI groundout.
The Yankees had a chance to claw back that lead when they loaded the bases with two outs in the sixth, chasing Stone — who scattered eight hits and two walks — in the process; lefty Alex Vesia retired Volpe on a fly ball, ending the threat. The Dodgers broke the game open in the eighth when Teoscar Hernández clubbed a grand slam off Tommy Kahnle. After Santana allowed two runs in the ninth in what turned out to be his final appearance before being designated for assignment, Boone called upon utilityman Oswaldo Cabrera to get the final out. He did, but not before walking both Teoscar Hernández and the nearly unwalkable Pages, bringing in the 11th and final Dodgers run. Judge homered for the second time in the game with two outs in the ninth.
Sunday offered the series’ most tantalizing pitching matchup, with Gil, the AL Pitcher of the Month for May, up against Glasnow. The Yankees claimed their first lead of the series in the third inning, when Cabrera pounced upon a 97-mph first-pitch fastball on the inside edge of the plate, homering off the foul pole in right field. The Yankees added another run when Verdugo doubled into the right field corner, then scored when Pages crashed into the wall trying unsuccessfully to hold onto a 104-mph, 390-foot drive to center field off the bat of Judge; that went for a double as well.
Through four innings, Gil allowed just two baserunners, walking Freeman with two outs in the first inning and surrendering a leadoff double to Teoscar Hernández in the second. The Dodgers, who have been one of the worst teams in the majors against four-seamers 97 mph and higher — their .220 wOBA is the majors’ fifth-lowest — couldn’t solve Gil’s fastball-changuep-slider combination until the fifth, when Pages ripped a 108-mph double into the left field corner off a hanging slider. Lux then laced a fastball to left; any thought Pages had of scoring was undone when he missed third base and doubled back. Yankees pitching coach Matt Blake checked on Gil, but Boone stuck with him. Lux stole second as Enrique Hernández struck out, then Betts fought off a high inside fastball for a two-run double into the left field corner. With two outs in the sixth, Teoscar Hernández finally ended Gil’s night with a solo homer off a changeup, giving the Dodgers a 3-2 lead.
The 26-year-old righty’s three runs allowed matched his total from his previous seven starts, across a combined 44.2 innings. He struck out five while giving up five hits and walking one as his ERA rose to 2.04, but he was hardly disappointed. “I really liked this outing, actually,” he said via an interpreter. “They have a really good lineup. To be able to go out there and battle these guys, it’s fun.”
The Yankees picked up their Gil, as Verdugo and Judge both collected infield singles on hard-hit balls that bounced off the gloves of corner infielders (Freeman for the former, Enrique Hernández for the latter). That brought up Grisham, who tormented the Dodgers with his defense and timely hitting during the 2022 Division Series as a Padre, but who has languished on the Yankees bench since arriving in the Soto blockbuster. Treated to a rare start on Thursday, he collected his first hit since April 29, ending an 0-for-20 slide by clubbing a three-run homer off the Twins’ Pablo López. Here he did the same. Glasnow left a 97-mph fastball in the middle of the zone, and Grisham launched a 108-mph missile into the right field stands to give New York a 5-3 lead as the Yankee Stadium crowd erupted. Though he’s now hitting just .100/.258/.280 in 63 plate appearances, three of his five hits have been three-run homers.
“Yes, I heard them,” said a good-natured Grisham of the Soto chants. “It wasn’t about [sending a message]. I was just happy that I was able to stay present in the moment, worry about myself, and put a good swing on one.”
“Grish can get to a heater, and he didn’t miss it,” said Boone.
“Grisham works his butt off every single day,” said Judge. “I wasn’t too happy with [the chant], but I think he made a good point.” To their credit, fans chanted “We want Grisham!” when he batted again in the eighth, drawing a walk.
Grisham’s big hit undid an otherwise strong effort from Glasnow, who reached double digits in strikeouts for the fifth time this season, striking out 12 in six innings to lift his NL-leading total to 116 over 86 innings. “Bad counts, bad pitches right over the zone,” he lamented. “I wish I could have located them a little differently.”
The Dodgers continued to apply pressure, putting runners in scoring position in each of the final three innings. Lefty reliever Caleb Ferguson, yet another former Dodger, walked Pages (his fourth straight game of drawing a base on balls, accounting for five of his 10 walks) to lead off the seventh, then took second on a Lux single. Boone went to Luke Weaver, his most heavily used reliever this year. Enrique Hernández tried to bunt, first popping one foul that Trevino dropped; both he and Boone lobbied for interference, but Hernández hadn’t left the batters’ box as the catcher made his way around. With the infield drawn in, Hernández got his second attempt down, but Trevino quickly fired to Cabrera, and Pages, who had gotten a good secondary lead, nonetheless missed the bag with his front leg as he slid; by the time his back foot touched, Cabrera had gotten the forceout. Betts followed by grounding into an inning-ending double play.
In the eighth, Ohtani doubled off Weaver and eventually scored on Smith’s sacrifice fly, but the Yankees answered when Judge won a six-pitch battle against Ramírez with a thunderous, towering 434-foot solo shot to left field. It was his major league-leading 23rd home run and his third hit of the night. He went 7-for-11 with three walks, two doubles, and three homers in the series, raising his seasonal line to .305/.436/.703 (214 wRC) with 4.9 WAR; all of those figures save for the batting average lead the majors.
In the ninth, Holmes got two outs before allowing back-to-back singles to Lux (his third hit of the night) and Enrique Hernández. That gave Betts one more chance to play the hero, but the closer whiffed him for his 19th save of the season.
Remarkably, it’s been 43 years since the Yankees and Dodgers met in a World Series. That was after the two teams squared off 11 times in the Fall Classic over the 41-season span from 1941 to ’81. Both managers acknowledged the possibility of meeting again down the road but downplayed it, though Roberts saw it as a good test for his team. “I think that playing with this media attention, sold out [crowds], the energy – you feel it — a team that you potentially could meet in the World Series, is sort of a barometer,” he said before Sunday’s game.
“Both teams brought our best and fortunately for us, we won the series,” he said afterward, hardly disappointed by taking two of three on the road against top competition. “It was just a good environment all weekend. Good to show well against those guys. They’re a heck of a ballclub.”
When we last checked in on Aaron Judge on April 24, the big slugger was scuffling, hitting just .180/.315/.348 through the Yankees’ first 24 games. He had homered just three times, and was approximating league-average production thanks mainly to his 15.7% walk rate. A smattering of fans had booed him on his own bobblehead day at Yankee Stadium, when he struck out in all four plate appearances, and the haters on social media were sure that he was washed. Since then, he’s turned his season around in emphatic fashion, destroying opponents’ pitching, taking his place atop a few key leaderboards, and helping New York assemble the AL’s best record at 42-19.
Judge homered three times in a three-game series against the Giants at Oracle Park this past weekend while helping the Yankees to a sweep. It was the Linden, California native’s first time playing at the park of his favorite childhood team, and the ballpark he would have called home had Yankees owner Hal Steinbrenner’s last-ditch effort to re-sign him in December 2022 not succeeded. He went yard twice off Jordan Hicks in Friday night’s 6-2 win, first with a three-run shot and later a solo one, then connected off Logan Webb for a two-run blast in a 7-3 win on Saturday; the 464-foot projected distance on that one made it his third-longest of the season. He merely went 2-for-3 with two singles, two walks, and two steals in Sunday’s 7-5 win, with Juan Soto filling the power vacuum by homering twice.
