MLB Network | Michael Kay GOES CRAZY on New York Yankees lose to Red Sox 3-1 in Game 1 AL Wild Card

MLB Network | Michael Kay GOES CRAZY on New York Yankees lose to Red Sox 3-1 in Game 1 AL Wild Card

Yeah, this is your biggest fear if you’re the Yankees when you have a couple of aces out on the mound. Maybe an ace for the Red Sox is going to step up and be the hero. Garrett Crochet was that guy tonight pitching all the way into the eighth inning, 117 pitches. Max Freed was fantastic, but the Yankee bullpen, we talked about it all year, it was up and down. They finished strong, but the bullpen had a tough night tonight. This night had a chance to be exhilarating for the Yankees, and instead it turned into a night that was exasperating. They’re eight outs away from winning this game because of the combination of Freed and Anthony Vulpi taking a very difficult crochet deep. You hand the ball to your bullpen with eight outs to go and you have to have confidence they can get the job done. Luke Weaver did not get the job done. He came into tonight with six scoreless outings to finish the regular season. But Michael, he was unable to suppress the Red Sox. And even though the Yankees rallied in the ninth against Chapman and loaded the bases and heightened the drama and the tension, they lose game one. Well, it comes down to this, and it’s going to come down to this for how far the Yankees go in the postseason. How’s their bullpen going to do? Their bullpen has been unreliable toward the end of the year. Looked like they were getting better, but there’s still no lights out there. A big run for the Red Sox in the ninth inning as well. So, when the Yankees loaded the bases with nobody out in the bottom of the ninth inning, they had a score two, not one to tie it. uh comes down to that. If you look at Luke Weaver, you can’t get out the eighth and ninth batters in the lineup. I mean, what are you gonna do? This is on Luke Weaver. People are going to blame Aaron Boon for taking out and we’ll get into that. Get taking out Max Freed with 102 pitches. That’s the way he has done it all year. And you bring in your bullpen, they get eight and nine, they can’t get it done. This is on the bullpen. This is on Jeff Weaver. And the Yankee offense couldn’t do anything against Garrick Crochet. And what we should point out about that number eight hitter that Michael’s talking about, Raphaela Weaver gets ahead of him 02. He’s in position. You’ve got weapons now to be able to retire him. Raphaela fouls off five more pitches. It becomes an 11 pitch at bat. And a batter who had the fourth lowest walk percentage in the league in Raphaela about 5% gets a walk. And what do they say? It’s a baseball axiom. Walks kill. And that walk helped kill the Yankees as did Sogard’s hustle turning a single into a double there. I was just going to bring that up in games like this where you have two aces out on the mound. You know it’s going to be a tight game. Usually it’s the little plays that make a difference. Scattering report for the Red Sox all over Aaron Judge and right field. So guard takes advantage, stretches a single into a double. That turns out to be a huge extra run. And then Alex Cer, the manager, obviously Crochet did his part, but he was able to go right to his closer Chapman for a four out save and kept Ben Rice out on the bench and that wasn’t a factor all game. And that was the fear at the beginning of the game with the Yankees sitting out Rice and sitting out um Jazz Chisum Jr. who ended up hitting because he came in for defense while the Yankees were down. But the bottom line is this. He eliminated Ben Rice from this game. So, if you’re not going to start Ben Rice against Crochet, and Crochet could take you right up until Chapman, he becomes a non-player. So, one of your best players this year is a non-player in this game. He never got off the bench. So, so when I walked into the studio, I was all for the decision, you don’t put your guy to where he can’t go, and he hasn’t gone that far all year. But when you hear Aaron Boon say, you know, after you came in in the sixth inning, just give me one more batter. Well, why? It’s the eighth and ninth batters in the lineup. This is your ace. This is the guy you gave an eight-year contract to. That’s why you give the guy the money to be that person if he’s not saying I’ve got to come out. Now, maybe there was a private conversation that we’re not privy to, but all I can react to is what Aaron Boon just said that that was the time for Weaver. To me, that sounds like a blueprint move. That’s not the time for Weaver. That’s the time to keep in Freed. You keep Freed in until Freed can’t go any longer. The Red Sox did that with Crochet, who has never been a starter except for last year and this year. He’s never pitched that many. But you try to get the most out of your ace. That’s surprising to me that it wasn’t Freed saying, “I’m done. It wasn’t a pitch count thing.” Well, we just think that that was the lane for Weaver. Well, to me, that’s a decision that was made before the game. And I don’t agree with it because Max Freed was was coasting. And you can say, “Well, he struggled in the fifth and six.” But guess what? He got out of it because he’s Max Freed. He’s the ace of your team. I think you have to stay with him as long as he can go. Yeah. We were listening to Boon’s press conference and at one point he used the term punch about the Yankees punching back. I’m going to give you a hackne analogy here. But if this were a boxing match, a heavyweight boxing match, you look at what happened with Freed, his trainer pulled him out maybe a round or two early. Crochet got to stay in the boxing ring, so to speak, and he got to knock out who came in next, which was Luke Weaver for the Yankees. If you follow my logic there, it’s just that the Yankees had the opportunity to let their ace finish things out. But all that being said, I’m not surprised. This is the way that they have utilized him throughout the season. Yes, the stakes have risen. Yes, the games are more important, but for them to get to where they want to go, their bullpen needs to excel. I put this game on Luke Weaver more than I put it on anybody Well, I I agree with you, but what I don’t understand is what’s the urgency to get to a bullpen that has been the big variable all year. It has not been the bullpen that last year’s bullpen was. If it was automatic like Luke Weaver was last year, completely different story. But you kind of hold your breath when you bring in Weaver, when you bring in Cruz, uh when you bring in Devin Williams. So, I’m not that anxious to get there when I’ve got a guy on the mound that’s absolutely dealing. Michael, you were working the games. We were in the studio. We were talking about the bullpen, how it figured itself out coming down the stretch. And we mentioned these names every night at this desk. Weaver, Williams, Bedar, that had to be the rocks out of your bullpen. Luke Weaver came in and had a bad game, but I think if you’re Aaron Boon, you’re saying my ace got to over a 100 pitches. I’m not going anywhere as a ball club if Luke Weaver, Williams, and Bedar aren’t locked in. You saw it the last week to 10 days of the season. But don’t you think that you have to hedge it just a little bit because the last 10 days of the season, I don’t take anything away from victories. You win who’s put in front of you. They weren’t facing top flight teams at that point. They pitched a little bit better during the gauntlet, but at the end, Orioles, White Sox, Orioles, you’re not exactly, you know, facing last year’s Dodgers. Luke Weaver came in for the eight and nine hitter in the Boston Red Sox lineup. Come on, Michael. I mean, it’s not coming in to face Story. Oh, I get it. But why not Freed there? That’s Max Freed. Luke Weaver’s got to be a part of this, right? And he had him O2. And if you weren’t complaining about it in the moment that it happened to complain about it now and make a second guess, was it a first guess? No, it wasn’t a first guess because I said, “Well, it’s 102.” But when he says that, it wasn’t a pitch count and it wasn’t fatigue. Now, I can change my opinion a little bit because I’m sticking with the guy who has the eight-year contract who you he is your ace. Without Garrick Cole, he is the guy. Now, I know what you’re talking about, John. They’re not getting anywhere without their book being being right. But if you don’t win two games against the Red Sox, you’re going home. So, what’s your ch best chance to win this game? Yeah. And the difference is we’re talking about Crochet staying in there and Freed coming out. Crochet had what was it a six pitch seventh inning? I mean, yeah. The Yankee lineup also helped him out a little bit where the Red Sox made Freed work a little bit more. Yeah, that’s what we always talk about, right? When you get a guy like Crochet put some heavy at bats on him. They did at times during this game, but not in that seventh inning. That inning was so pivotal to Kor’s decision-making because you know that he’s thinking let me get Crochet through here and when the Yankees had those really quick and quite honestly feeble at bats and I know how great Crochet is, but that inning helped set everything up perfectly for Kora. Yes, he did push his ace. You saw him take Crochet to a level of pitch count that he’s never been this season and it worked out well for the Red Sox. Michael, you brought this up on the pregame. They were able to go lefty lefty instead of Garrett Whitlock who was warming up in the bullpen that kept the lefty on the bench. Absolutely. So he pushed you know Crochet as far as he can go and then he asked Chapman to get for us and Chapman was teetering. So you know we can question and and micro analyze taking out Freed bring in Weaver and that’s I think all legitimate. The Yankees lost a game first and second in the first inning. Nobody out they don’t score. First, second and third bases loaded in other words in the ninth inning and they don’t score. You don’t win playoff games scoring one run. All right, guys. Want to uh bring up one other play. And you mentioned this. You showed the Soard hustle double. Yep. And when you look at that play, I mean, isn’t it bottom line, the Red Sox and every other opponent are going to look at Aaron Judge with the compromised right away. Yeah. And we take the look at the throw, you can see there’s not a lot of steam on it. I mean, Aaron Boon is defending Aaron Judge, and I get that when he said he was trying to deliver the one hop in the second base, but you can see when he goes after it and he comes up with the throw, we know he’s not 100%. And you give the Red Sox and all these other teams credit because the advanced scanning report will say challenge Aaron Juds to throw the ball in right field. So, guard coming out of the box did not even hesitate. And in these close games, these playoff games, little moves like that can really make a big difference. We’ve watched Aaron Judge play right field at a gold glove level. And that play that we just showed right there. I think he was very eager to get to the baseball, but I don’t think in that play we saw him sort of circle around the baseball and almost come up and be ready to throw to second. The velocity on that throw, by the way, was 73 m an hour. When Judge was at his best pre-elbow injury, he was up around 90 m an hour. And at the end of the season, we saw teams say they’re going to challenge him. And you know, Kora and the Red Sox, their scouts are going to do the same. And and so guard showed that immediately and and the guys on the broadcast were like celebrating the first base coach of the Red Sox. That base was taken in all the pregame meetings. I mean, there’s no knock on Aaron Judge. And then one of the people in the in the the postgame press conference asked Boon did did was he caught surp. He’s nursing that arm. He’s throwing harder as the games go on, but 75 is not 90.

MLB Network | Michael Kay GOES CRAZY on New York Yankees lose to Red Sox 3-1 in Game 1 AL Wild Card

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