The New York Yankees had a day off. Aaron Judge didn’t need to crush baseballs into the seats. Juan Soto didn’t need to command the strike zone like few in baseball can. Gerrit Cole could let his wicked change-up rest for a while. The New York Yankees and their fans could just watch baseball, four games of baseball. Two wild card games in the American League and two games in the National League, without the New York Yankees, consumed the day. But were there any lessons the Yankees and their fans could learn on a day of rest and observation? Perhaps yes. Perhaps no.
Road Teams Flourished
The Detroit Tigers, Kansas City Royals, and New York Mets all invaded home ballparks and came away with victories in game one of their respective series. Only the San Diego Padres held serve. For a team like the New York Yankees who hold home-field advantage throughout the playoffs, Tuesday’s results couldn’t be comforting. Could it be that after surviving the 162-game slog that is a Major League Baseball season, the playoffs offered little respite for the teams that could sleep in their own beds?
Pitching Dominated Day One Of the Playoffs
Except for their cross-town rival Mets’ game in Milwaukee, pitching dominated the day. If you are a degenerate gambler and bet the under on 6.5 runs across the board yesterday, you cashed three out of four tickets. The Tigers beat the Houston Astros 3-1. The Royals beat the Baltimore Orioles 1-0, and the Padres beat the Atlanta Braves 4-0. Only the Mets with an 8-4 victory over the Milwaukee Brewers bucked the low-scoring trend. It’s the postseason after all. Runs come at a premium. They always have.
Unfortunately for the Yankees, pitching hasn’t been the strongest component of the team during the regular season. The staff and the bullpen are mostly average. In Fangraphs’ version of WAR, the Yankees ranked seventh out of the 15 teams in the AL. Both the Royals (first) and the Orioles (fifth) rank higher. The winner of that series will be the Yanks’ first opponent. ERA tells a slightly different story, with the Yankees ranking sixth just behind the Royals and ahead of the O’s in eighth
But They’re the New York Yankees
On the side of the plate where teams get to hit baseballs instead of throwing baseballs, the Yankees were elite. Ranked third in baseball and first in the AL in fWAR, Yankees bats crushed an MLB-leading 237 home runs, accounted for an AL-leading 815 runs, and generated an AL-leading wRC+ of 117, roughly 17% better than league average.
The bottom-line takeaway from the sample size of exactly one game per series? High-scoring games favor the New York Yankees. That’s nothing new. Nor is it indicative of things to come. There’s more baseball today. Waiting to play isn’t nearly as much fun as playing. The New York Yankees will just need to be patient.
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