ESPN: Following their 3-0 win over the Athletics on Friday night, Aaron Boone announced that Marcus Stroman would be activated from the IL to start the series finale on Sunday. Last Monday’s spot starter, Allan Winans, was subsequently optioned to make room after appearing in relief at the end of yesterday’s loss.
Stroman posted an 11.57 ERA in three starts before going down for two-and-a-half months with left knee inflammation — pain that Stroman attributes to a torn ACL in the same knee ten years ago. The 34-year-old veteran logged a 6.97 ERA in three rehab appearances with Double-A Somerset and gave up five runs on ten hits and two walks over 3.2 innings in his most recent start. Boone acknowledged that Stroman will need to command his pitches to both edges of the zone given the fact that his arsenal ranks fourth-worst by Stuff+ among pitchers with at least 160 innings pitched since the start of last season.
New York Daily News | Gary Phillips: Devin Williams has done an impressive job of righting the ship after a disastrous start to his Yankees career resulted in him temporarily losing the closer job. After pitching to an 11.25 ERA in his first ten appearances, Williams made the decision to start calling his own pitches on a PitchCom device attached to his belt, feeling that overuse of his airbender changeup was the culprit. Since making the change, Williams has pitched to a 2.42 ERA with seven saves and a 30:5 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 24 appearances. He’s not the only pitcher on staff who calls his own pitches, Max Fried using the same PitchCom device — though Fried’s reasoning comes more from an efficiency standpoint with a seven-pitch arsenal that can lead to a lot of shake-offs if the catcher is calling the pitches.
MLB.com | Bryan Hoch: Yankees top prospect Spencer Jones made an instant impact upon his promotion to Triple-A, homering in his first at-bat at the new level. Jones is ranked as the organization’s second-best prospect according to MLB Pipeline and led all Eastern League hitters with 16 home runs and a .594 slugging percentage while placing second in the league with a .983 OPS in 49 games. He missed three weeks in May with an intercostal injury but really turned it on since his return, slashing .393/.477/.768 with a 256 wRC+ and 24.6-percent strikeout rate in his final 15 games at Double-A.
As an aside and a personal site plug for us, check out Scott Walsh’s live report on Jones’ debut, which he wrote up for Pinstripe Alley yesterday following interviews with Jones and RailRiders skipper Shelley Duncan.
The Athletic | Brendan Kuty ($): We’ve reached the halfway point of the regular season and Kuty provided his picks for the best and worst performers on the team. Aaron Judge is unsurprisingly the MVP as he leads MLB in most categories while Will Warren earns the nod as the best rookie, posting a 4.37 ERA while leading all MLB rookie pitchers in starts (17), strikeouts (103), and fWAR (2.0). DJ LeMahieu is the LVP with his .384 OPS over the last 13 games. On the pitching side, Max Fried is the obvious first-half Cy Young leading MLB in wins (10) and placing second in ERA (1.92), placing himself in contention to start the All-Star Game. Meanwhile, Carlos Carrasco gets the Cy Yuck after going 2-2 with a 5.91 ERA in eight appearances (six starts).