Happ Happy; Yanks Beat Mets 2-1 to End 7-Game Losing Streak — Aug 29, 2020

August 30, 2020 paperbacklou 2020 0

Dellin Betances threw a wild pitch back to the screen allowing Clint Frazier to score from 3rd base in a walkoff, bottom-of-9th-inning win for the Yanks, 2-1, to break their 7-game losing streak.

Frazier had led off the 9th with a walk, and gone to 3rd on a Jordy Mercer single after a Brett Gardner strikeout.

Emily Nyman tweeted…

Moments later, Betances obliged:

It was either a good call, or as Joe T theorized, witchcraft.

Boone’s Seemingly Bad Decision Not So Bad

The win saved Aaron Boone from seemingly one of his worst decisions of the season in a week where he’s pulled the wrong plug time after time. In this one, J.A. Happ was brilliant — Cruising with a 3-hit shutout in the 8th inning, and a 1-0 lead on a Luke Voit homer in the 1st.

Happ got the first out on a weak comebacker by Robinson Cano, and was at only 90 pitches. But Aaron Boone inexplicably pulled him to bring in Adam Ottavino. Ottavino promptly allowed a game-tieing homerun to Wilson Ramos that hit the foul pole in left.

Mets fans were giddy — expressing on twitter how happy they were when Boone pulled Happ, who had been shutting them down all day. Someone said he screamed so loud when Ramos hit the homerun he shocked his 86-yr-old grandmother who doesn’t know English and knows nothing about baseball, so it was impossible to explain to her how happy he was Boone had pulled Happ, but I can’t find that tweet (twitter’s search engine is not very good).

Yankee Twitter erupted in the opposite way.

After the game, Boone said he “felt (Happ) kind of ran out of gas at the end of the 7th; I kind of wanted him to go back out and at least face Cano and he felt up to do that.”

Happ Happy

Happ was happy after the game, despite not getting the win. He said he had “gotten into a rhythm with my delivery and was able to kind of take a little bit off, and change my fastball speeds a little bit, and keep them just a little bit off balance.” He added he “can’t say enough about Erik Kratz either; I think he did a great job. We were on the same page, he threw out a runner, and helped me out a lot.”

Happ didn’t mind being taken out, saying he and Boone “had sort of talked about that — you know after the layoff, it was fine; we kind of talked about how that would play out. That was fine by me… We trust Ottavino 100 %; he just got it hit off the foul poll.”

The plan was to go after Cano and that would be it. “I was trying to leave everything out there.”

Aroldis Chapman — with his legs under him now after blowing the save the previous game — pitched a scoreless top of the 9th after the Mets had tied it in the 8th, and picked up the win.

Yanks Blew Chances Earlier

The Yanks had 2 (two) runners thrown out at home plate in the 4th inning — Mike Tauchman was out at home when he tried to score on a ground ball by Clint Frazier, and then Brett Gardner doubled to right but Clint Frazier was out at home by “this much”.

In the 7th, the Yanks had 1st and 2nd nobody out, and then loaded the bases with 2 outs, but DJ LeMahieu grounded out on a 3-2 pitch.

Etcetera

DJ LeMahieu was back in the lineup after the thumb injury, and went 1 for 4.

Robert Gsellman started and pitched 4 good innings for the Mets, allowing only the Voit homer. Stephen Matz pitched a shutout inning, and the rest of the Mets bullpen — Jared Hughes, Brad Brach, Jeurys Familia, and Justin Wilson — came in to shut the Yanks out until Betances’ wild pitch.

The Boxscore

https://www.espn.com/mlb/boxscore?gameId=401226180

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