October 27, 2024 • 24 mins
EJ and Domenic discuss the first two losses in the World Series.
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Speaker 1 (00:16):
Joined by Dominic. Klon said, Dominic, how you doing.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Could be better?
Speaker 3 (00:20):
Could be worse personally, professionally, Yankees wise, you know, I
think we'll get into it.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
You know, I'm in good health. I'm in good health,
I'm well rested. My mother in law's visiting, so the
kid is not as much work right now, and the
Yankees haven't won a game, so we're we're gonna talk
about the last one. There not gonna be the most
positive a podcast, but the series isn't over. About one
in six teams that lose the first two games come
(00:46):
back to win it, so the Yankees certainly are still
in the running. Dominic two games in what's your big
picture reaction?
Speaker 3 (00:54):
My My biggest picture reaction is that it's time to talk.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
About Aaron Judge with a little bit more.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
Than saying he's just getting unlucky, because Wow, he is lost.
His swing looks bad, his swing decisions look bad. Everything
with him looks bad. I saw something the other day
about in the playoffs, he has swung and missed at
almost a third of the pitches he's seen outside of
(01:24):
the strike zone.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
It's just bad.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
He's letting pitches in the strike zone go by and
then chasing balls six inches down and away.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
And this goes back to the last.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
Game he played the season, which I actually went to,
when he went zero for five with five strikeouts against
the Pirates, And that day something didn't look right from
my seat in the stands, and he was red hot
before that game. He was coming off the stretch where
he hit five home runs in five games, and he
was That was when it was like, oh, maybe he
(01:59):
can pull out the triple crown. And then that day
something looked weird. I don't know if he was working
on something. I don't know if it's because it was
raining for most of that game. But that version of
Aaron Judge, which was also the version of Aaron Judge
we saw for the first three weeks of the season,
is the Aaron Judge who's playing right now. And any
decision you could talk about by talk about made by
(02:22):
Aaron Boone or any plays good, bad, or indifferent by
anybody else on the team, it all comes back to
Aaron Judge. Because I know we'll talk about this, but
the next door Quarte's decision doesn't happen if Judge doesn't
leave the bases loaded and leave runners in scoring position
multiple times in Game one, and.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
Yeah, it all comes back to him.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
I mean counting that game. So if we started that
game rather than the beginning of the postseason, Judges struck
out in twenty four of fifty four played appearances. He
has six hits in fifty played appearances. It's a one
to eleven on base be batting average or actually a
little bit higher th next, I guess I'm including his
walks in there. He has seven walks, one intentional, one
(03:07):
hit by pitch, two home runs against the Astros. And
it felt like, at least I thought, watching those two
home runs against the Astros, Okay, he's back, the guardians, right,
I'm sorry the guardians. I feel he's back, right, Aaron
Judges is you know? He hit some really clutch home runs.
They were big home runs. They weren't particularly well hit,
(03:27):
but they were judging a hit where they hit off
the end of the bat and they go four and
to ten feet. And I think that on now that
we have a little more context and we just see
how often he is just just completely lost to the plate,
I just think there's got to be something wrong. This
is not him trying to find his timing this is
not him. I don't think you tell me what do
(03:53):
you think is the cause? What's going on here?
Speaker 3 (03:57):
Uh? My wife has actually compared him to somebody who's
a bad test taker. She really stopped watch started watching
baseball religiously this year. But she's been with me a
long time, so she's heard me complain about the Yankees
a lot more often than not, probably, but she, I mean,
she sees the same thing, and she just thinks he
(04:17):
needs therapy, he needs to work through some things because
she's I would hazard she watched at least fifty games
this year straight through, and she's like, she said that
this isn't the guy I've been watching all year, and
that leads me to believe either he's hurt and he's
compensating for something, because he is. One thing that's easy
(04:38):
to see to me is that he's starting his swing earlier,
especially on those balls down that he's chasing. And a
lot of times when a guy cheats like that, it's
because they've lost bat speed. That's what Stanton does. But
Stanton's bad is so fast and he hits the ball
so far far that it often doesn't matter with judge.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
Stant has also turned into a pure guess Yeah, and
like perfected the art of or not perfected he is
he has gotten good at being a pure gas hitter.
Speaker 3 (05:04):
Yeah, and he starts his swing super early every time,
which is why I don't know why anybody throws from
a strike. But that's that's irrelevant here Judge is doing
the same thing. So either his mechanics are borked that's
a technical term, and he has not know what to
do and he's lost, or he's hurt and he's trying
(05:26):
to compensate by adjusting his swing. His swing there was
there's a stat cast measure of swing length where his
swing has went from basically average for a power hitter
to the longest swing in baseball. It's a small sample size,
but with how bad he's looks, it's it's something that
I buy into that the swing is different.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
Why the swing is different, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
I think he's hurt, like I think, and I think
that what Like I look at Aaron Judge and I
don't I really don't believe he's a guy who like
can't handle the pressure. That just doesn't seem to be
his personality. And I also think of him as a
guy who's not gonna admit that he's hurt or is
not gonna keep himself out of the lineup, not gonna
(06:08):
tell Aaron Boone to move him down. But he's costing
the Yankees a lot of games right now. Just over
his last four games, he is two for nineteen with
ten strikeouts. There was actually, you know, there was a
period against both Cleveland and Kansas City where the strikeouts
actually kind of weren't coming. He was actually he was
(06:29):
able to take walks, and you know, it wasn't getting
a lot of hits. You know, he didn't hit those
home runs until kind of late, you know, the middle
of the Cleveland series. But there was this point between
you know, the beginning of the Cleveland Series the end
of the of the Royal Series where he was at
least getting on base and not striking out. I grounded
into a bunch of double plays that wasn't great. But
that's not what's going on now. He's he's just lost,
(06:51):
and I mean, I gotta ask you, if you're in Boone,
what do you do about it?
Speaker 3 (06:57):
I don't know that there's anything you can do because
I don't know that moving him down in the order
really makes sense, because You're not replacing him with anybody
who's doing much better right now, unless it's Stanton. But
I don't think flip flopping Stanton Judge does much. Chisholm
and Wells and Rizzo haven't shown enough to say put
(07:17):
Judge beneath one of them, especially because they're also susceptible
to lefties. That with how lost Judges, you might almost
be compounding the problem when these guys can't hit a
lefty if they bring in Vesia or Banda who or whoever.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
It's just.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
I think you got to stick with him where he is.
This isn't an Austin Wells situation where Austin Wells was
hitting clean up forever and Boone kind of waffled on it.
But Wells is largely an unproven commodity. He had a
few months of hot hitting after being so so for
the first couple of months and then bad for the
last six weeks. So Judge isn't that Judge has You know,
(07:55):
he's on year eight of being the best hitter on
the planet or one of the best hit on the planet.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
So in year three of being the best hitter.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
Ever, yes, exactly.
Speaker 3 (08:05):
And you know one thing, I go back to because
you made the point how you don't think he'd be,
you know, a playoff pariah. There's nothing to suggest that necessarily.
I mean, I go back to the twenty nineteen ALCS
where he was he was great against the Astros, and
that was a hard series, a hard forts series, and
(08:26):
his first three postseasons he had a nine to ten
ops total, and those were in there making deep playoff runs.
Their playoff runs haven't been as long since then. And
unless he suddenly when he became better in twenty twenty one,
that in twenty twenty two, that was him sacrificing playoff
(08:47):
judge to the gods to begin in the regularly.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
I have no clue. I don't know what would have
changed changed.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
I like, I don't think there's a plausible reason to
think that anything has changed. I think if I'm Marin Boone,
there's kind of two like Airboon is more for than
we have. Specifically, he knows is it an injury or not.
If it is an injury. If I'm Aaron Boone, my
back is against the wall. If I lose tonight, I'm sorry.
If I lose on Monday, I have effectively lost the
(09:14):
World Series I'm benching Judge frankly, right, Like, I you know,
Jason Dominguez can't be worse than this if it's not that.
If I know that Aaron Judge is feeling as fine
as a player normally can can feel after this much baseball,
and it's just luck, or he's working you, or he's
(09:38):
trying to find his timing, or he needs a little
therapy whatever, right Like, if it's any of that stuff,
I leave him in, but I move him down and
I say, Okay, Judge, you're batting fifth, Stanton's gonna bat third.
At least if Stan's batting third, you have protection for
want So too, and you have a chance a lot
of chances for want So to be on base. I
(10:01):
think right now the Yankees are killing their rallies by
putting Judge up there, and fifth isn't the perfect solution.
Like there's a part of me that would want to
go further down the line up, but I don't think
that's realistic, and there's really not a lot of other
players batting particularly well to replace him. But I do
think that that spot next to Soto is so important
(10:21):
for the exact same reason that cleanup was so important
this year, and I just I think that you're past
the point of being able to kind of ignore it.
Speaker 3 (10:32):
You certainly can't ignore it. I guess I'm just maybe
I'm just too beaten down by how bad so much
has looked. More so even last night Saturday Night Game two.
Because Game one boast teams look sloppy, Game two really
just looked like a game that was two teams playing
after a long layoff. That was actually one of those
(10:55):
times where I was like, yeah, maybe maybe sitting for
a long time isn't the best solution, even if guys
need rep But last night the Dodgers just looked like
the better team in every way. And when the Yankees
are losing with Garrett Cole pitching a gem and facing
Putting Radon, who looked really good his first couple of
(11:17):
playoffs starts, it's just not a great feeling. And you know,
logically speaking, if Aaron Judge wasn't Aaron Judge, I would
say move him down the order, get somebody better up there.
But I circle back to it, and it's just you
move Stanton up.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
That's fine.
Speaker 3 (11:35):
You want to put a lefty in there because you
want to break up that lefty lane that the Dodgers
are abusing. That makes sense, But I think Judge's ability
to change the game with one swing and the off
chance that he wakes up and at least stops swinging
at crap. You know, if he could at least refine
(11:57):
his approach, even if the swing's too long, even if
he can't make the same quality of contact, just him
not swinging at junk and getting himself on base more
often like he did against the Guardians and the Royals
can make a huge difference because he's a good bass runner.
Once he's on there, he's way faster than a guy
who's six foot seven, two hundred and ninety pounds should be,
(12:18):
And that helps with Stanton and whoever behind him, or
if he moves down with Chisholm or whomever behind him.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
But so, what would be your bating order? So let's
go one through six because the other the bond three
we can all kind of figure out.
Speaker 2 (12:34):
So I so, what are you doing?
Speaker 1 (12:37):
Would you go with the stand? Would you go Judge Stanton?
Would you like? What is your like?
Speaker 2 (12:41):
Like?
Speaker 1 (12:44):
Who's your clean up hitter?
Speaker 3 (12:45):
Like?
Speaker 1 (12:45):
Let let's figure that out.
Speaker 3 (12:48):
I think the best lineup is still the same four guys,
and the fact that the lefty lane exists behind it
is an unfortunate byproduct of team can instruction that I
don't know that you can fix at this point without
starting Trevino or putting Cabrera at first and bringing Rizzo
(13:09):
off the bench, or.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
Or something.
Speaker 3 (13:12):
I think it It just feels so much like a
rearranging guck chairs on the Titanic.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
Yeah, I think there's an element to that. I think
I think the easy one is to put a lefty
and cleanup, which at least gets your right handed hitters
bumped spread out a little bit more your left he's
a little less clumped up. I think that is Chisen
to me right now. Of the players on the roster.
I think he's the best of the non Soto Torres
(13:38):
players right now. He had two really solid singles in
the in game two, was great, has been great at
the bass pass whenever he's been on the base, and
just his at bats looked better than they did against Cleveland,
and so I think he is my number four hitter.
And I actually am with you. I think Rizzo is
(13:58):
out for me. I don't know. You want to talk
about going to therapy, Liz Rizzo looked a little odd
in Game two. He looked pumped up, and I'm not
sure if that was like part of me is like, Okay,
Rizzo is just pumped me. In the World Series, I
wonder if part of this he's in a ton of pain.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
Yeah, he looks so.
Speaker 3 (14:18):
He looks so hesitant on ground balls, and he is
clutching the bat so gingerly and keeping his fingers off
the handle when he makes contact. There's he shouldn't be playing.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
He just he shouldn't. Like.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
I get that he he got some hits in the
in the in the in the Championship series, but also
I don't like adrenaline can take you a certain distance.
But I think it's so telling that he's getting defensively replaced.
Speaker 3 (14:48):
Yeah, the fact that you're replacing your gold glove first
baseman with a guy who never played first base before
this year.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
Can you imagine having two broken fingers and like catching
a ball from a major league short stop right like that?
Like I used to. I used to play catch with
a guy who was like a pretty good college shortstop
and like it hurt right, and my fingers weren't broken. Yeah,
and now Rizzo's gotta gotta do that with two broken fingers. Yeah,
I wonder if they're just a limit to it. And frankly,
(15:18):
before we knew Rizzeau was coming back for the playoffs,
before he hit four hundred something in in the in
the championship series. I still think Oswaldo is a better
choice against Righty's. And if I'm if I am Boonea,
I'm playing Oswaldo, I don't think he's gonna do that.
I I just I'm not sure how many major league
managers would do that. But I don't know. There's something
about a must win game, or a de facto must
(15:41):
win game that I think, I think kind of forces
the issue. I think, at least with the Judge stand thing,
I could see it happening. I don't really see the
Rizzou thing happening, but I do think one of them
should move up to to and probably Chishom should move
up to back clean up. Let's talk about the game three.
(16:04):
I feel kind of good about this one. I don't
know about you, like Walker Buehler is kind of awful,
and Clark Schmid has been you know, good enough.
Speaker 3 (16:14):
See this this just comes back to me just being
in full blown pessimist mode because Jack Flaherty looked bad
in his last start against the Mets, so did Yamamoto.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
And Bylarty was good this season.
Speaker 3 (16:29):
Flaherty was good this season, Almto was great this season,
went healthy. Yeah, but then Buehler, I don't know. I
guess I'm just I'm just generally scared of the Dodgers
at this point and so uninspired by the Yankees offense
that I know. Bueller looked pretty good against the Mets
his last time out, And do I trust the Yankees
(16:53):
to help him when he can't find the strike zone
at this point, I don't know. I don't trust Judge
to do it right now.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
Now, I think he's the kind of player the Yankees
do well against. Right He's got lots of velocity, but
he doesn't have a lot of control. The Yankees can
go up there, work the count, take pitches and force
him out of the game like they did with the
Cleveland starters early and the Royal starters, And you know,
I hope it's not like those games where they get
(17:20):
three guys on base and then don't score or score
one run that that worked against Cleveland because they could
hope Cleveland the Cleveland offense down. I'm not sure it
works against the Dodgers unless Otani is I mean, I
know we have reports that Otani is okay. I'm not
sure I believe it.
Speaker 3 (17:38):
Just I think he's okay enough to play and we'll
see from there.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
And I don't think they will admit what actually, like
how bad his shoulder actually is if he's going to
be in the lineup. No, right, I don't know. I
watched that slide and I mean I thought he was done.
I mean, I mean, it looked like he dislocated his
shoulder right there, and apparently he kind of did, you know,
and so he's probably hurting a lot. But let you know, regardless,
(18:03):
I still, you know, the the Yankees are going to
have to deal with some serious offense coming from the Dodgers,
unlike from the Guardians, and so they can't just score
one run the second and then slowly kind of chip away.
Like I think they need a knock out buller. They
need to force the Dodgers to use their bullpen, because
the Dodgers are throwing a bullpen games day in day
in Game four like this is like the this is
(18:24):
where the Yankees advantage in starting pitching actually matters, where
they have two real starters and Hill and and Schmidt,
and the Dodgers kind of have one and Walker Bueller
and then really don't have one, have anybody for Game four.
So like, I don't think it's crazy. The Yankees can
win the next two games and then it's a tide series.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
No, I don't think it's crazy either.
Speaker 3 (18:45):
If I if I put on my my true analytical
hat and try to set personal feelings aside, Clark Schmidt
versus Walker Buellers is a clear Yankees advantage.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
And they have the off.
Speaker 3 (18:58):
Day, they have the travel day, the bullpen's being all
things equal right now, and the Dodgers knowing they need
to use at least seven pitchers on Tuesday, makes two
games in a row. Yankees advantage for pitching even without Schmidt,
and he'll necessarily being at full strength, given you know
(19:20):
their issues.
Speaker 2 (19:21):
But they need to.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
Hang Garrett and then Garrett Cole in Game five.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
And then Garrett Cole in Game five.
Speaker 3 (19:27):
They need to hit though, And that's see, that's one
of the keys why I said with Judge, you know,
if he gets back to heat the way he was
in the DS and the CS when he was walking
a lot. At least their Yankees are getting to that
bullpen and throwing the Dodgers' plans into flux for two
(19:47):
consecutive games because of their planned bullpen day. If he
can do that, even if he's still not hitting, if
he's coming to er for three with two walks, those
two walks mean the world to getting into the bullpen
into helping get runs on the board. Him hitting into
double plays and popping out and doing nothing to advance runners,
(20:07):
that's what we can't have.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
And Walker Buehler, I think there's a chance that Judge
is better against Like Judge's weakness is not easy to
exploit against Bueler because he's a fastball guy. Yes, he
doesn't throw a big breaking ball like me Yao Moto.
The Judge look bad a gats y'ao Moto, y'all Modo looked.
Speaker 3 (20:25):
Looked nasty, Yammoto looked great. And everything he throws dives.
And Judge's problem has been chasing pitches low.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
Yeah, and and then that was the playbook that the
Dodgers had against him, like he was just like it
was just slider low swinging miss, Spider low swinging miss.
Curveball though swinging.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
That's what Flaherty did too. Buehler doesn't have that same arsenal.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
Yeah, and so Bueller is going to try to hit
him with high fastballs and he's got a cutter and
like he's got a slider. Man, I think it's all
that good. And frankly, nothing was good for Bueller last
year last time. I think Judge can go up there
and take a lot of pitches or swing at high pitches.
So no, maybe maybe there's some reason for timism there.
I think we'll have to see, you know. I also
think Volpi was a picture of player. I was kind
(21:06):
of disappointed in those two games, Like, after looking so
good in the first two series, he just he just
I mean, he didn't look as lost as like Judge does.
Like there was a couple of our bats last night
where he worked the count, got a couple of bad
calls against him, and and then struck out. And I
still think Volpi is playing kind of the better version
(21:27):
of Volpi right now. But he's the one one of
those players of the bomb the line that mattered so
much in the first part of the first series. I
will say, you know, Soda is also looking great, and
I think that Sodo, you know the Yankees, you know
Soda can win a game. So I I'm I'm I'm pessimistic,
and that they've lost two games like that's not good
(21:48):
and that really hurts the Yankee chances of winning a
World Series. But I really do think they have the
advantage in these coming games. And I do think that
this is a better team than we've seen. I think
the Dodgers are the better team. That doesn't mean they're
gonna win, but I think I think they're clearly in
a superior team to the Yankees right now in terms
of depth, and you know, the Yankees, the Yankees could
(22:10):
could match them. When Judges being Aaron Judge, but if
he's not being Aaron Judge, I mean, it's just it's
just clear to me that there's no, there's not really
a contest there who's who's got more talent on the roster.
Speaker 3 (22:23):
No, not at all, especially because the Dodgers. The Dodgers
just know how to play matchups so well with their lineup,
with how flexible Dave Roberts is with moving people up
and down the lineup. You know he'll he'll move Freddy Freeman,
future Hall of Famer guy who has a legit shot
of three thousand hits down in the lineup against the lefty,
(22:45):
and he was doing.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
It Freddy Freeman in the Championship series because he was hurt.
Speaker 3 (22:50):
Yeah, he is not sticking to some rigid playbook for
too long. He will he'll, he'll platoon guys and he
will move his superstars around. And I feel confident that
if they thought Otani couldn't contribute, they would take him
off the roster and they would just put Kirmyer on
(23:11):
there as a defensive replacement Yuzani Pajaz to take those
at bats. I don't think they'd be scared of taking
him off just because of who he is.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
And that's that's an advantage too.
Speaker 3 (23:22):
I mean, granted, having Max Muncy and Will Smith and
Taascar Hernandez be your supporting cast is you know, a
hell of an advantage too. But the manager being able
to maneuver players and there not being any issue whatsoever
from anybody, at least from anything we hear of, really
(23:43):
helps them too.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
All Right, So we got a couple more games come up.
We will probably be back for this podcast after either
the series ends, hopefully not early and or after Game five. Well,
we're gonna I'm gonna kind of my schedule is a
little weird this week, so we're going to see if
that's possible. But everybody, uh, you know, I'll be watching.
I hope you're all watching. This is gonna be fun.
(24:06):
If you're going to the stadium, uh, you know, good
luck or sell your tickets for a whole lot of
money and uh and I'm looking forward to, uh to
the next few games at Yankee Stadium Dominic. Thank you
for joining me, everybody, Thank you for listening. This has
been your Bronx Beat podcast
Joined by Dominic. Klon said, Dominic, how you doing.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Could be better?
Speaker 3 (00:20):
Could be worse personally, professionally, Yankees wise, you know, I
think we'll get into it.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
You know, I'm in good health. I'm in good health,
I'm well rested. My mother in law's visiting, so the
kid is not as much work right now, and the
Yankees haven't won a game, so we're we're gonna talk
about the last one. There not gonna be the most
positive a podcast, but the series isn't over. About one
in six teams that lose the first two games come
(00:46):
back to win it, so the Yankees certainly are still
in the running. Dominic two games in what's your big
picture reaction?
Speaker 3 (00:54):
My My biggest picture reaction is that it's time to talk.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
About Aaron Judge with a little bit more.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
Than saying he's just getting unlucky, because Wow, he is lost.
His swing looks bad, his swing decisions look bad. Everything
with him looks bad. I saw something the other day
about in the playoffs, he has swung and missed at
almost a third of the pitches he's seen outside of
(01:24):
the strike zone.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
It's just bad.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
He's letting pitches in the strike zone go by and
then chasing balls six inches down and away.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
And this goes back to the last.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
Game he played the season, which I actually went to,
when he went zero for five with five strikeouts against
the Pirates, And that day something didn't look right from
my seat in the stands, and he was red hot
before that game. He was coming off the stretch where
he hit five home runs in five games, and he
was That was when it was like, oh, maybe he
(01:59):
can pull out the triple crown. And then that day
something looked weird. I don't know if he was working
on something. I don't know if it's because it was
raining for most of that game. But that version of
Aaron Judge, which was also the version of Aaron Judge
we saw for the first three weeks of the season,
is the Aaron Judge who's playing right now. And any
decision you could talk about by talk about made by
(02:22):
Aaron Boone or any plays good, bad, or indifferent by
anybody else on the team, it all comes back to
Aaron Judge. Because I know we'll talk about this, but
the next door Quarte's decision doesn't happen if Judge doesn't
leave the bases loaded and leave runners in scoring position
multiple times in Game one, and.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
Yeah, it all comes back to him.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
I mean counting that game. So if we started that
game rather than the beginning of the postseason, Judges struck
out in twenty four of fifty four played appearances. He
has six hits in fifty played appearances. It's a one
to eleven on base be batting average or actually a
little bit higher th next, I guess I'm including his
walks in there. He has seven walks, one intentional, one
(03:07):
hit by pitch, two home runs against the Astros. And
it felt like, at least I thought, watching those two
home runs against the Astros, Okay, he's back, the guardians, right,
I'm sorry the guardians. I feel he's back, right, Aaron
Judges is you know? He hit some really clutch home runs.
They were big home runs. They weren't particularly well hit,
(03:27):
but they were judging a hit where they hit off
the end of the bat and they go four and
to ten feet. And I think that on now that
we have a little more context and we just see
how often he is just just completely lost to the plate,
I just think there's got to be something wrong. This
is not him trying to find his timing this is
not him. I don't think you tell me what do
(03:53):
you think is the cause? What's going on here?
Speaker 3 (03:57):
Uh? My wife has actually compared him to somebody who's
a bad test taker. She really stopped watch started watching
baseball religiously this year. But she's been with me a
long time, so she's heard me complain about the Yankees
a lot more often than not, probably, but she, I mean,
she sees the same thing, and she just thinks he
(04:17):
needs therapy, he needs to work through some things because
she's I would hazard she watched at least fifty games
this year straight through, and she's like, she said that
this isn't the guy I've been watching all year, and
that leads me to believe either he's hurt and he's
compensating for something, because he is. One thing that's easy
(04:38):
to see to me is that he's starting his swing earlier,
especially on those balls down that he's chasing. And a
lot of times when a guy cheats like that, it's
because they've lost bat speed. That's what Stanton does. But
Stanton's bad is so fast and he hits the ball
so far far that it often doesn't matter with judge.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
Stant has also turned into a pure guess Yeah, and
like perfected the art of or not perfected he is
he has gotten good at being a pure gas hitter.
Speaker 3 (05:04):
Yeah, and he starts his swing super early every time,
which is why I don't know why anybody throws from
a strike. But that's that's irrelevant here Judge is doing
the same thing. So either his mechanics are borked that's
a technical term, and he has not know what to
do and he's lost, or he's hurt and he's trying
(05:26):
to compensate by adjusting his swing. His swing there was
there's a stat cast measure of swing length where his
swing has went from basically average for a power hitter
to the longest swing in baseball. It's a small sample size,
but with how bad he's looks, it's it's something that
I buy into that the swing is different.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
Why the swing is different, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
I think he's hurt, like I think, and I think
that what Like I look at Aaron Judge and I
don't I really don't believe he's a guy who like
can't handle the pressure. That just doesn't seem to be
his personality. And I also think of him as a
guy who's not gonna admit that he's hurt or is
not gonna keep himself out of the lineup, not gonna
(06:08):
tell Aaron Boone to move him down. But he's costing
the Yankees a lot of games right now. Just over
his last four games, he is two for nineteen with
ten strikeouts. There was actually, you know, there was a
period against both Cleveland and Kansas City where the strikeouts
actually kind of weren't coming. He was actually he was
(06:29):
able to take walks, and you know, it wasn't getting
a lot of hits. You know, he didn't hit those
home runs until kind of late, you know, the middle
of the Cleveland series. But there was this point between
you know, the beginning of the Cleveland Series the end
of the of the Royal Series where he was at
least getting on base and not striking out. I grounded
into a bunch of double plays that wasn't great. But
that's not what's going on now. He's he's just lost,
(06:51):
and I mean, I gotta ask you, if you're in Boone,
what do you do about it?
Speaker 3 (06:57):
I don't know that there's anything you can do because
I don't know that moving him down in the order
really makes sense, because You're not replacing him with anybody
who's doing much better right now, unless it's Stanton. But
I don't think flip flopping Stanton Judge does much. Chisholm
and Wells and Rizzo haven't shown enough to say put
(07:17):
Judge beneath one of them, especially because they're also susceptible
to lefties. That with how lost Judges, you might almost
be compounding the problem when these guys can't hit a
lefty if they bring in Vesia or Banda who or whoever.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
It's just.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
I think you got to stick with him where he is.
This isn't an Austin Wells situation where Austin Wells was
hitting clean up forever and Boone kind of waffled on it.
But Wells is largely an unproven commodity. He had a
few months of hot hitting after being so so for
the first couple of months and then bad for the
last six weeks. So Judge isn't that Judge has You know,
(07:55):
he's on year eight of being the best hitter on
the planet or one of the best hit on the planet.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
So in year three of being the best hitter.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
Ever, yes, exactly.
Speaker 3 (08:05):
And you know one thing, I go back to because
you made the point how you don't think he'd be,
you know, a playoff pariah. There's nothing to suggest that necessarily.
I mean, I go back to the twenty nineteen ALCS
where he was he was great against the Astros, and
that was a hard series, a hard forts series, and
(08:26):
his first three postseasons he had a nine to ten
ops total, and those were in there making deep playoff runs.
Their playoff runs haven't been as long since then. And
unless he suddenly when he became better in twenty twenty one,
that in twenty twenty two, that was him sacrificing playoff
(08:47):
judge to the gods to begin in the regularly.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
I have no clue. I don't know what would have
changed changed.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
I like, I don't think there's a plausible reason to
think that anything has changed. I think if I'm Marin Boone,
there's kind of two like Airboon is more for than
we have. Specifically, he knows is it an injury or not.
If it is an injury. If I'm Aaron Boone, my
back is against the wall. If I lose tonight, I'm sorry.
If I lose on Monday, I have effectively lost the
(09:14):
World Series I'm benching Judge frankly, right, Like, I you know,
Jason Dominguez can't be worse than this if it's not that.
If I know that Aaron Judge is feeling as fine
as a player normally can can feel after this much baseball,
and it's just luck, or he's working you, or he's
(09:38):
trying to find his timing, or he needs a little
therapy whatever, right Like, if it's any of that stuff,
I leave him in, but I move him down and
I say, Okay, Judge, you're batting fifth, Stanton's gonna bat third.
At least if Stan's batting third, you have protection for
want So too, and you have a chance a lot
of chances for want So to be on base. I
(10:01):
think right now the Yankees are killing their rallies by
putting Judge up there, and fifth isn't the perfect solution.
Like there's a part of me that would want to
go further down the line up, but I don't think
that's realistic, and there's really not a lot of other
players batting particularly well to replace him. But I do
think that that spot next to Soto is so important
(10:21):
for the exact same reason that cleanup was so important
this year, and I just I think that you're past
the point of being able to kind of ignore it.
Speaker 3 (10:32):
You certainly can't ignore it. I guess I'm just maybe
I'm just too beaten down by how bad so much
has looked. More so even last night Saturday Night Game two.
Because Game one boast teams look sloppy, Game two really
just looked like a game that was two teams playing
after a long layoff. That was actually one of those
(10:55):
times where I was like, yeah, maybe maybe sitting for
a long time isn't the best solution, even if guys
need rep But last night the Dodgers just looked like
the better team in every way. And when the Yankees
are losing with Garrett Cole pitching a gem and facing
Putting Radon, who looked really good his first couple of
(11:17):
playoffs starts, it's just not a great feeling. And you know,
logically speaking, if Aaron Judge wasn't Aaron Judge, I would
say move him down the order, get somebody better up there.
But I circle back to it, and it's just you
move Stanton up.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
That's fine.
Speaker 3 (11:35):
You want to put a lefty in there because you
want to break up that lefty lane that the Dodgers
are abusing. That makes sense, But I think Judge's ability
to change the game with one swing and the off
chance that he wakes up and at least stops swinging
at crap. You know, if he could at least refine
(11:57):
his approach, even if the swing's too long, even if
he can't make the same quality of contact, just him
not swinging at junk and getting himself on base more
often like he did against the Guardians and the Royals
can make a huge difference because he's a good bass runner.
Once he's on there, he's way faster than a guy
who's six foot seven, two hundred and ninety pounds should be,
(12:18):
And that helps with Stanton and whoever behind him, or
if he moves down with Chisholm or whomever behind him.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
But so, what would be your bating order? So let's
go one through six because the other the bond three
we can all kind of figure out.
Speaker 2 (12:34):
So I so, what are you doing?
Speaker 1 (12:37):
Would you go with the stand? Would you go Judge Stanton?
Would you like? What is your like?
Speaker 2 (12:41):
Like?
Speaker 1 (12:44):
Who's your clean up hitter?
Speaker 3 (12:45):
Like?
Speaker 1 (12:45):
Let let's figure that out.
Speaker 3 (12:48):
I think the best lineup is still the same four guys,
and the fact that the lefty lane exists behind it
is an unfortunate byproduct of team can instruction that I
don't know that you can fix at this point without
starting Trevino or putting Cabrera at first and bringing Rizzo
(13:09):
off the bench, or.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
Or something.
Speaker 3 (13:12):
I think it It just feels so much like a
rearranging guck chairs on the Titanic.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
Yeah, I think there's an element to that. I think
I think the easy one is to put a lefty
and cleanup, which at least gets your right handed hitters
bumped spread out a little bit more your left he's
a little less clumped up. I think that is Chisen
to me right now. Of the players on the roster.
I think he's the best of the non Soto Torres
(13:38):
players right now. He had two really solid singles in
the in game two, was great, has been great at
the bass pass whenever he's been on the base, and
just his at bats looked better than they did against Cleveland,
and so I think he is my number four hitter.
And I actually am with you. I think Rizzo is
(13:58):
out for me. I don't know. You want to talk
about going to therapy, Liz Rizzo looked a little odd
in Game two. He looked pumped up, and I'm not
sure if that was like part of me is like, Okay,
Rizzo is just pumped me. In the World Series, I
wonder if part of this he's in a ton of pain.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
Yeah, he looks so.
Speaker 3 (14:18):
He looks so hesitant on ground balls, and he is
clutching the bat so gingerly and keeping his fingers off
the handle when he makes contact. There's he shouldn't be playing.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
He just he shouldn't. Like.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
I get that he he got some hits in the
in the in the in the Championship series, but also
I don't like adrenaline can take you a certain distance.
But I think it's so telling that he's getting defensively replaced.
Speaker 3 (14:48):
Yeah, the fact that you're replacing your gold glove first
baseman with a guy who never played first base before
this year.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
Can you imagine having two broken fingers and like catching
a ball from a major league short stop right like that?
Like I used to. I used to play catch with
a guy who was like a pretty good college shortstop
and like it hurt right, and my fingers weren't broken. Yeah,
and now Rizzo's gotta gotta do that with two broken fingers. Yeah,
I wonder if they're just a limit to it. And frankly,
(15:18):
before we knew Rizzeau was coming back for the playoffs,
before he hit four hundred something in in the in
the championship series. I still think Oswaldo is a better
choice against Righty's. And if I'm if I am Boonea,
I'm playing Oswaldo, I don't think he's gonna do that.
I I just I'm not sure how many major league
managers would do that. But I don't know. There's something
about a must win game, or a de facto must
(15:41):
win game that I think, I think kind of forces
the issue. I think, at least with the Judge stand thing,
I could see it happening. I don't really see the
Rizzou thing happening, but I do think one of them
should move up to to and probably Chishom should move
up to back clean up. Let's talk about the game three.
(16:04):
I feel kind of good about this one. I don't
know about you, like Walker Buehler is kind of awful,
and Clark Schmid has been you know, good enough.
Speaker 3 (16:14):
See this this just comes back to me just being
in full blown pessimist mode because Jack Flaherty looked bad
in his last start against the Mets, so did Yamamoto.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
And Bylarty was good this season.
Speaker 3 (16:29):
Flaherty was good this season, Almto was great this season,
went healthy. Yeah, but then Buehler, I don't know. I
guess I'm just I'm just generally scared of the Dodgers
at this point and so uninspired by the Yankees offense
that I know. Bueller looked pretty good against the Mets
his last time out, And do I trust the Yankees
(16:53):
to help him when he can't find the strike zone
at this point, I don't know. I don't trust Judge
to do it right now.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
Now, I think he's the kind of player the Yankees
do well against. Right He's got lots of velocity, but
he doesn't have a lot of control. The Yankees can
go up there, work the count, take pitches and force
him out of the game like they did with the
Cleveland starters early and the Royal starters, And you know,
I hope it's not like those games where they get
(17:20):
three guys on base and then don't score or score
one run that that worked against Cleveland because they could
hope Cleveland the Cleveland offense down. I'm not sure it
works against the Dodgers unless Otani is I mean, I
know we have reports that Otani is okay. I'm not
sure I believe it.
Speaker 3 (17:38):
Just I think he's okay enough to play and we'll
see from there.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
And I don't think they will admit what actually, like
how bad his shoulder actually is if he's going to
be in the lineup. No, right, I don't know. I
watched that slide and I mean I thought he was done.
I mean, I mean, it looked like he dislocated his
shoulder right there, and apparently he kind of did, you know,
and so he's probably hurting a lot. But let you know, regardless,
(18:03):
I still, you know, the the Yankees are going to
have to deal with some serious offense coming from the Dodgers,
unlike from the Guardians, and so they can't just score
one run the second and then slowly kind of chip away.
Like I think they need a knock out buller. They
need to force the Dodgers to use their bullpen, because
the Dodgers are throwing a bullpen games day in day
in Game four like this is like the this is
(18:24):
where the Yankees advantage in starting pitching actually matters, where
they have two real starters and Hill and and Schmidt,
and the Dodgers kind of have one and Walker Bueller
and then really don't have one, have anybody for Game four.
So like, I don't think it's crazy. The Yankees can
win the next two games and then it's a tide series.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
No, I don't think it's crazy either.
Speaker 3 (18:45):
If I if I put on my my true analytical
hat and try to set personal feelings aside, Clark Schmidt
versus Walker Buellers is a clear Yankees advantage.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
And they have the off.
Speaker 3 (18:58):
Day, they have the travel day, the bullpen's being all
things equal right now, and the Dodgers knowing they need
to use at least seven pitchers on Tuesday, makes two
games in a row. Yankees advantage for pitching even without Schmidt,
and he'll necessarily being at full strength, given you know
(19:20):
their issues.
Speaker 2 (19:21):
But they need to.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
Hang Garrett and then Garrett Cole in Game five.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
And then Garrett Cole in Game five.
Speaker 3 (19:27):
They need to hit though, And that's see, that's one
of the keys why I said with Judge, you know,
if he gets back to heat the way he was
in the DS and the CS when he was walking
a lot. At least their Yankees are getting to that
bullpen and throwing the Dodgers' plans into flux for two
(19:47):
consecutive games because of their planned bullpen day. If he
can do that, even if he's still not hitting, if
he's coming to er for three with two walks, those
two walks mean the world to getting into the bullpen
into helping get runs on the board. Him hitting into
double plays and popping out and doing nothing to advance runners,
(20:07):
that's what we can't have.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
And Walker Buehler, I think there's a chance that Judge
is better against Like Judge's weakness is not easy to
exploit against Bueler because he's a fastball guy. Yes, he
doesn't throw a big breaking ball like me Yao Moto.
The Judge look bad a gats y'ao Moto, y'all Modo looked.
Speaker 3 (20:25):
Looked nasty, Yammoto looked great. And everything he throws dives.
And Judge's problem has been chasing pitches low.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
Yeah, and and then that was the playbook that the
Dodgers had against him, like he was just like it
was just slider low swinging miss, Spider low swinging miss.
Curveball though swinging.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
That's what Flaherty did too. Buehler doesn't have that same arsenal.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
Yeah, and so Bueller is going to try to hit
him with high fastballs and he's got a cutter and
like he's got a slider. Man, I think it's all
that good. And frankly, nothing was good for Bueller last
year last time. I think Judge can go up there
and take a lot of pitches or swing at high pitches.
So no, maybe maybe there's some reason for timism there.
I think we'll have to see, you know. I also
think Volpi was a picture of player. I was kind
(21:06):
of disappointed in those two games, Like, after looking so
good in the first two series, he just he just
I mean, he didn't look as lost as like Judge does.
Like there was a couple of our bats last night
where he worked the count, got a couple of bad
calls against him, and and then struck out. And I
still think Volpi is playing kind of the better version
(21:27):
of Volpi right now. But he's the one one of
those players of the bomb the line that mattered so
much in the first part of the first series. I
will say, you know, Soda is also looking great, and
I think that Sodo, you know the Yankees, you know
Soda can win a game. So I I'm I'm I'm pessimistic,
and that they've lost two games like that's not good
(21:48):
and that really hurts the Yankee chances of winning a
World Series. But I really do think they have the
advantage in these coming games. And I do think that
this is a better team than we've seen. I think
the Dodgers are the better team. That doesn't mean they're
gonna win, but I think I think they're clearly in
a superior team to the Yankees right now in terms
of depth, and you know, the Yankees, the Yankees could
(22:10):
could match them. When Judges being Aaron Judge, but if
he's not being Aaron Judge, I mean, it's just it's
just clear to me that there's no, there's not really
a contest there who's who's got more talent on the roster.
Speaker 3 (22:23):
No, not at all, especially because the Dodgers. The Dodgers
just know how to play matchups so well with their lineup,
with how flexible Dave Roberts is with moving people up
and down the lineup. You know he'll he'll move Freddy Freeman,
future Hall of Famer guy who has a legit shot
of three thousand hits down in the lineup against the lefty,
(22:45):
and he was doing.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
It Freddy Freeman in the Championship series because he was hurt.
Speaker 3 (22:50):
Yeah, he is not sticking to some rigid playbook for
too long. He will he'll, he'll platoon guys and he
will move his superstars around. And I feel confident that
if they thought Otani couldn't contribute, they would take him
off the roster and they would just put Kirmyer on
(23:11):
there as a defensive replacement Yuzani Pajaz to take those
at bats. I don't think they'd be scared of taking
him off just because of who he is.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
And that's that's an advantage too.
Speaker 3 (23:22):
I mean, granted, having Max Muncy and Will Smith and
Taascar Hernandez be your supporting cast is you know, a
hell of an advantage too. But the manager being able
to maneuver players and there not being any issue whatsoever
from anybody, at least from anything we hear of, really
(23:43):
helps them too.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
All Right, So we got a couple more games come up.
We will probably be back for this podcast after either
the series ends, hopefully not early and or after Game five. Well,
we're gonna I'm gonna kind of my schedule is a
little weird this week, so we're going to see if
that's possible. But everybody, uh, you know, I'll be watching.
I hope you're all watching. This is gonna be fun.
(24:06):
If you're going to the stadium, uh, you know, good
luck or sell your tickets for a whole lot of
money and uh and I'm looking forward to, uh to
the next few games at Yankee Stadium Dominic. Thank you
for joining me, everybody, Thank you for listening. This has
been your Bronx Beat podcast
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