The Yankees got CRUSHED for the 2nd day in a row by the under-.500 Cleveland Indians in an important pennant-chase game at Yankee Stadium. This time Gerrit Cole took the loss — he didn’t pitch badly but ran into a lot of bad luck early as squibbler hits didn’t go the Yankees way, and things mounted. And the Yankee lineup got shut down by rookie pitcher Eli Morgan who came in with an ERA over 6.00.
Boston, Toronto, and Oakland all won so the Yanks fell 2.5 games behind Boston and 1.5 games behind Toronto, and are only .5 ahead of Oakland. And Gerrit Cole‘s Cy Young might have gone up in smoke as well.
It was a beautiful day weather wise at least — a 70-degree late Summer September day. The Jets lost too for those who follow football. The Giants lost the other night. Many NY fans on Twitter were talking about the Knicks starting preseason in a week.
1. Cole Lost
Gerrit Cole said it was not the hamstring, when asked after the game if the hamstring affected his pitching. So that’s good news. It was simply bad luck with squibbler hits not going the Yankees way, and Cole unable to get the 3rd out in the pivotal 3rd inning.
The game started out fine enough, with Cole striking out the 1st batter, but then a walk, and a little squibbler by lefty batter Bobby Bradley the other way to 3rd, put 1st and 2nd, 1 out. Righty batter Hanley Ramirez hit a grounder the other way down the line just past Rizzo at 1st and it was 2-0 Cleveland.
Harold Ramirez with a 2 RBI single to take the lead early on pic.twitter.com/uZhYIYw3nG
— Bally Sports Cleveland (@BallySportsCLE) September 19, 2021
In the 3rd, two singles put runners on 1st and 3rd with 1 out. Cole struck out Bradley for out #2, but 3 consecutive 2-out singles — by Hanley Ramirez, Yu Chang, and Roberto Perez — made it 5-0 Cleveland. Hanley’s single was a bloop to center that Brett Gardner and Aaron Judge converged on — both almost made the catch on it but if fell between them. It was that kind of afternoon for Cole and the Yanks.
@elpitbull47 with RBI number 4 on the day and @MrLapara with the hustle to score all the way from first! The @indians are rollin'! pic.twitter.com/SUeHuqNTmr
— Bally Sports Cleveland (@BallySportsCLE) September 19, 2021
Cole allowed solo homers to Jose Ramirez in the 5th and Roberto Perez in the 6th to put icing on the cake — making it 7-1 Cleveland.
Cole’s line: 5.2 innings, 10 hits, 7 ER, 7 K’s, 1 walk — his record falls to 15-8 3.03. He has 2 starts left in the year.
2. Rookie Morgan Shuts Down Yanks
Meanwhile, Eli Morgan, the 25-yr-old 5’10” rookie righty — who came in with a record of 2-7 6.03 — shut the Yankees down. He threw strikes. Didn’t walk a batter. He pitched 6 innings of 1 run ball.
Gio Urshela touched him for a homerun to lead off the 3rd inning, and bring the Yanks to within 5-1 at the time.
💥 GI⚾ puts the Yankees on the board!
Watch on YES and Stream it LIVE with the YES app: https://t.co/0cgHA97Iau pic.twitter.com/vTyDwA3PSY
— YES Network (@YESNetwork) September 19, 2021
Gio’s homer was followed by 1-out singles by DJ LeMahieu and Anthony Rizzo — and it looked like the Yanks might break out and get back into the game. But Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton both hit long fly outs to end the inning. The Yanks didn’t challenge the rest of the afternoon.
Yanks Overloaded with High OBP/Power Guys?
The Yankee lineup seems to be overloaded with power hitters who have high OBP’s, but not enough slash hitters who hit for a high average. In a game like this where the pitcher was throwing strikes, and no walks were being given out — the Yankee lineup looked lifeless. The Yankee ‘machine gun bats’ of the last few years are all misfiring or gone: leadoff batter DJ LeMahieu is batting .270 — down 80 points from last year. Miguel Andujar and Clint Frazier are injured (and Frazier was horrid before leaving). And Gio Urshela is just back from injury — ps he got 2 of the Yankees’ 6 hits on the day to raise his average to .261.
When we mentioned this on Twitter, there was a fiery response — a lot of agreement and disagreement.
Yanks have too many On Base Percentage (OBP) guys with Power (OPS). Not enough high Batting Average guys who put the ball in play regularly.
Not enough speed also#BattingAverageISImportant— Yankees.Blue (@Yankees_Blue) September 19, 2021
3. End Game
The Cleveland bullpen did the rest — Trevor Stephan, Blake Parker, and Sam Hentges pitched a shutout inning each.
Cole left trailing 7-1 in the 6th; relieved by Lucas Luetge who pitched 1.1 shutout innings.
Clarke Schmidt came in for the 8th and allowed double, walk, walk, single for 2 more runs sandwiching an out, and make it 10-1 Cleveland. Schmidt allowed another run in the 9th for the final 11-1 score.
Etcetera
- Aaron Judge went 0-4 to lower his average to .284. Gone are the visions of a .300 season — hope he stays above .280.
The Boxscore
https://www.espn.com/mlb/boxscore/_/gameId/401229286
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