Luke Voit, Mike Ford, and Domingo German Keep The Red-Hot Yankees Rolling Out West
Uhhhh ohhh, the Yankees learned how to hit. This team is on a roll right now and the vibe is a complete 180 from a few weeks ago. Everyone is hitting, especially the bottom of the order. The starting rotation is flat-out dominating and despite a still inconsistent bullpen, they’re holding on for victories instead of blowing them. The New York Yankees are playing great baseball.
I think the biggest kept secret so far early in the MLB season is that Domingo German is pitching as good or better than anyone in the league. Tonight Domingo kept the balling rolling with a strong six and two-thirds one run (unearned) performance, striking out five and walking just one. I cannot describe to you the confidence I have in this man every time he steps on the mound. I’ve hammered home on the podcast how enamored I am with his stuff and if he ever managed to control it and pitch with consistency he’d be a monster. You are seeing that monster right now. I legit thought Pujols was going to retire after this at bat. I gasped at home.
It’s only been four starts and one relief appearance, but in those spots he’s compiled a 1.75 ERA in 25.2 innings holding opponents to a .143 batting average. Over his last three appearances (14.2 IP) he’s walked just one batter, which might be the most telling sign of all. If he knows where his stuff is going, it’s game over. That’s how good it is. This man was supposed to be a bandaid until Sevy got healthy. Well you’d have to look and hard to find a guy off to a better start in the sport as a pitcher. Every time I bring up German to Carrabis he says he stinks, but I’m pretty sure he’d be their ace right now.
Offensively this team is really hitting its stride, despite putting out a lineup we never thought we’d see ever. Brett Gardner is now 7 for 10 out of the 3 hole. We tried telling you guys he shouldn’t be leading off anymore. He’s been long destined to be the Yankees 3 hitter this entire time, duh! Rookie Mike Ford blasted his first career home run and picked another hit, having himself a night. John Sterling’s home run call? “For the Yankees, there’s a Ford in your future. Mike is Ford tough!” I’ll take it!
I could not be happier for Ford. I knew his bat was going to come around. You can see how comfortable he looks at the plate and how he always works counts. I don’t mean to pick on Greg Bird here (wait yes I do) but Ford is leaps and bounds a better hitter than that bum. He’s as humble as can be and just wants to do anything he can to stay up here. I’m all for it.
After a slow start, which had many of you buffoons turn on the guy, Luke Voit has risen. He’s back to doing that thing where he hits every single ball out of the park. If I was a mean person I would go back and find every tweet of you guys giving up on Voit five games into the season, even though most of you gave Greg Bird three years to do anything. Maybe if Eric gets a little drunk this weekend he’ll do it, but I’m bottom line Voit is here to stay. Luke’s major league leading on base streak is now up to 34 consecutive games. Luke had not one, but two bombs on the night. If I were to toot my own horn, which I’m not going to do, I would say how I told you on The Short Porch that this man was going to heat up on the West Coast. Spoiler alert: He’s en fuego.
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Now it wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows. Despite entering the game with the game seemingly in hand, Chad Green managed to make us all want to throw up. He started off the 8th inning by giving up back to back singles before walking Mike Trout to load em’ up with nobody out. Justin Bour proceeded to blast a grand slam to cut the lead to just two. Unfuckingbelievable. Listen, I love Chad Green as much as the next guy, and I do feel bad for him, but the guy cannot be pitching in major league games right now. He has an option left, send the guy down to Scranton and have him figure out his shit. We’re talking 14 earned runs in just 7.2 innings pitched. That’s good for an ERA of 16.43 and a WHIP of 2.48. You can’t continue to hope he’ll fix himself in the big leagues. Stop this shit now, it’s killing us.
Thankfully, Luis Cessa and Britton righted the ship and shut the door on the Angels to secure the Yankees 7th win in 8 games, and fifth in a row. I can’t believe this team is doing this with the current, but everyone has bought into the next man up mentality. Mostly everyone is doing their job and it’s showing. In the words of Aaron Boone, I think we might be turning the corner finally. Oh yeah and Gary Sanchez is back on Wednesday!
We’ll end the blog on a positive note. This might be one of the funniest tweets I’ve ever come across on Twitter.com. Tip of the cap, Emily.