Dallas Keuchel Executed, the Yankees Executed Better

Dallas Keuchel didn’t overwhelm the Yankees like usual on Wednesday. Rather than continuing his career domination of the New York nine — which includes 14 scoreless innings in the postseason and a 1.09 ERA in eight starts overall — he did what Joe Girardi said before the game he rarely does: lay an egg. Keuchel was chased in the fifth, having surrendered seven hits and four runs.

In the lefty’s opinion, the egg was a matter more of results than process. Following the game, he wasn’t so much self-critical as he was complimentary of his competition.

“Outside of Castro’s double in the second — it was a backup cutter and he put a good swing on it — I don’t think I can pinpoint another mistake pitch,” Keuchel told reporters. “Sanchez’s double down the line was a pretty good pitch down and in, and he hadn’t had great success on that pitch. Judge… [the] cutter was in; maybe it wasn’t in quite far enough, but it was in enough to get an out. [Greg Bird] hit a good pitch. It was inside — it was off the plate — and he just stuck his hands in enough to get it over Yuli’s head.”

Yankees hitters expressed multiple viewpoints regarding Keuchel’s performance. Todd Frazier — presumably referring to more than just Castro’s knock — opined that his teammates “hit the mistakes.” (What constitutes a mistake from Keuchel is a point on which Frazier elaborates below.)

Aaron Judge and Greg Bird suggested the Yankees were hitting pitches they wanted to hit. The emerging superstar said they were “having patient at-bats and trying to pick out the right one,” while the young first baseman said, “You’ve got to stay disciplined, but you’ve got to be aggressive… and you’ve got to get him on the plate. When he is, you’ve got to make it hurt.”

While it might hurt A.J. Hinch to admit it, the Yankees seem to be winning the adjustment game. Houston’s manager hinted at that possibility when addressing his club’s offensive doldrums — but this applies to the pitching side as well.

“[A]dvance scouting and exposing weaknesses… if they get you to crack a little bit outside of your game plan, then they’ve got you,” said Hinch. “We haven’t stayed in our game plan quite well enough to make adjustments… [Tanaka] changed his game plan, threw a few more splits today and some finish fastballs which are rare for him. He’s usually a secondary pitcher late in at-bats.”

Basically, Tanaka was one step ahead of Houston hitters, while New York hitters were one step ahead of Keuchel. The savvy southpaw went into the game thinking he had a great plan in place, only to have the opposition “make the necessary adjustments and put the ball in play in the right spots.”

The primary adjustment was a simple one.

“We looked middle of the plate,” explained Frazier. “Sometimes you can cut it in half and look inside or outside, but his ball moves so much. The cutter is coming in to righties and the two-seam fastball is going to go away, [so] if you’re thinking middle, the cutter that kind of stays out over — which we hit very well today — we have better opportunities to get guys in. Same thing with the two-seamer.”

Which brings us back to Keuchel’s belief that he only made one mistake pitch. That may very well be true, but the bottom line is that the hitters he faced executed better than he did. Keuchel pitched his game, and the Yankees beat him at it.