Happ “Gives Good Intervew” — Aug 9, 2019: Toronto 8 NY 2

August 10, 2019 paperbacklou 2019 0

You turned on the TV on it was 2-0 Toronto. Wut? How could the Yanks be behind — winners of 9 in a row and red hot all year basically. And then you remembered they’d been behind 2-0 many times during the 9-game winning streak. No biggie.

And then it was 3-0. And then you turned around and it was 6-1. Uh oh.

A quick check of Yankee Twitter found it inundated with foul and nasty thoughts spilling out about J.A. Happ. “Happ sucks”, “JA Crap“, and “J.A. Happ is one of the worst pitchers in all of baseball. At this point you shouldn’t even get mad when he gives up runs. He has nothing left and it’s best Cashman try to trade him in the offseason,” and “J.A. Happ is dog shit” and “YOU SUCKKKKKK J.A. HAPP YOU CANNOT POSSIBLY START A POSTSEASON GAME FOR US YOU JUST CAN’T” and “I would be ok if J.A. Happ never pitched again for the #Yankees,” and “Happ gives good interview”.

Happ ‘gives good interview’. It is always interesting to hear his balanced, logical thoughts after another beating — you come away rooting for the guy and sure that he’ll turn it around in the next start. Here’s Happ’s interview after last night’s game:

Happ finished with 5 innings; 6 runs.

One must remember the ball is JACKED — and many pitchers are having similar trouble — if you hit the ball it goes out. But Katie Sharp pointed out that:

Katie can really pour it on.

But the other reason for the loss was the Yankee offense mustering only 2 runs on Sean Reid-Foley and the Toronto bullpen.

The Yankee Offense

Aaron Judge got the night off after going 0-5 the night before. But not for long as he had to be put in after Brett Gardner, who was placed into his #2 slot in the order, was thrown out for saying nothing in the 4th. Judge struck out twice so the egg was on him.

Jomboy did a great job as usual providing the details of what was said (and not said) by Gardner:

Mike Tauchman, still at the plate after the Gardner ejection, promptly got revenge with a home run to right for a 3-1 game.

2 Incidents Turn the Game

Two incidents turned this game into a lopsided defeat, which, if they hadn’t happened, might have made this game go a different direction (aka Yanks would’ve had a shot at winning).

In the bottom of the 4th, with 2 on and 2 out, catcher Danny Jansen popped up into foul territory for the apparent 3rd out of the inning — but DJ LeMahieu lost the ball in the Toronto ceiling lights — and the ball bounced harmlessly foul. Jansen then hit the next pitch for a 3-run home run.

In the 5th, with bases loaded, 2 out, Didi Gregorius had a long at bat against Reid-Foley — fouling off pitch after pitch, before lining a shot over 2nd base that was snared on a terrific play for the final out. Yanks were ‘this close’ to making it 6-3 or even 6-4 and a ballgame.

Etcetera

LeMahieu got 2 hits to raise his AL-leading average to .340. Tauchman got 2 hits to raise his average to .301. Mike Ford hit a homer later in the game. Gio Urshela, Cameron Maybin, and Austin Romine — who have provided so much of the offense lately — all went hitless.

Nestor Cortes Jr. pitched 2 more scoreless innings of relief. But Tommy Kahnle allowed a 2-run homer in the 8th which is what you don’t want to see — he has been so light’s out this year. It raised his era to 3.01.

The Boxscore

https://www.espn.com/mlb/playbyplay?gameId=401076469

 

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