Enter Sandman

So last week, I wrote a post about the Red Sox bullpen and how they have locked down the 7^th, 8^th & 9^th innings. You can read that HERE.  This week, its about the Yankees bullpen locking down the 7^th, 8^th & ….. Usually the 9^th inning.

I love this picture!

9^th Inning:  Mariano is the Yankees go-to guy for the 9^th inning, but this week he showed signs that he may actually be human.  He has now allowed runs to score in the past three games he appeared in.  It started Sunday in Boston when he blew the save, continued on Tuesday blowing the save against the Angels and yesterday again he almost blew the save again.  It this wasn’t Mo, I think everybody would be pulling the hair out of their heads and screaming for Girardi’s job.

Since Rivera is as clutch as you can possibly be, he gets a pass.  The 9^th inning is his and he owns it like no other pitcher.  It is somewhat unusual what is happening though as lefties seem to be hitting him better than before.  The pitch to Abreu on Tuesday which was drilled for a home run was a cutter and so was yesterday’s pitch to Branyan which was also drilled for a big home run.  Both Branyan and Abreu are lefties, who typically have problems hitting Mo’s cutter.  After looking over Mo’s past week, it seems that his cutter is a little flat, but he also had some location issues with it.  For instance, Abreu’s pitch was over the plate and he was able to get the bat head around quick enough to drive the ball, rather than having the cutter end up close to his hands and shatter the bat. 

I’m sure that Mo will bounce back from this, but it should be worth keeping an eye on his cutter against lefties.  Lefties are hitting .269 against Mo this season which doesn’t bode well for his cutter, but I think lefties know which pitch is coming and are cheating a bit and getting out in front of it more.  It could just be the aggressiveness of lefties, rather than a problem with the cutter.  That’s just my theory but all this could just be a ‘blip on the screen’ like Girardi says, and we may not think about this blip again for the rest of the season.  Either way, the 9^th inning is still Mo’s.

8^th Inning:  David Robertson has owned the 8^th inning this season since Soriano went on the DL.  Robertson has a 1.35 ERA and 1.2 WHIP.  His WHIP is inflated as he issues too many walks, but he makes up for it with his strikeouts – 13.7K/9IP! The strikeout ratio is just amazing and blows me away!  Robertson had one bad outing against Oakland on July 24, and since then he has only allowed 1 hit over 7 appearances and no runs.  Prior to the bad outing against Oakland, Robertson had only allowed 1 run dating back to May 11. 

7^th Inning: Soriano was slated to be the 8^th inning, set up man for Mariano when the season started but when he went on the DL his role was taken by Robertson.  Since Robertson has been so hot as the set-up man, it doesn’t look like Soriano will get that role back.  Instead, Soriano took over the 7^th inning and has been dominating since returning to the DL.  He now has pitched 6 innings since returning to the DL and yesterday was the first time he allowed a baserunner since May 13!  Besides the number, Soriano has been stellar and had a great outing on Wednesday in relief of Nova.  Nova left Soriano with a bases loaded jam with no outs and Soriano managed to escape the inning with only 4 pitches.  Although he allowed a run to score, the baserunner scored during a double play and he put the next batter down with no problems.  Soriano had some major issues with inherited runners earlier this season, but it looks like he has figured that problem out, and with him pitching the 7^th, Robertson in the 8^th and Mo for the 9^th – it’s a 6 inning game for the Yankees pitching.