"I'm living in a movie, and I want to make sure the ending is pretty good, and I want to be able to rewatch it."
- Luke Weaver on earning another save and advancing to the ALCS
I miss Brett Gardner.
Fans groaned every time he was in a lineup those last few years but he was never appreciated the way he should have been. He always figured out a way to get on base even when his bat was cooked.
If you combine the fake 2020 season and 2021, he had a .334 OBP and 13.9% walk rate. Gardy also averaged 4.3 pitches per plate appearances — a wild 4.5 P/PA his last season. Guy with no juice left in his bat was still grinding out pitchers and raising pitch counts.
Alex Cora talked about this over the weekend. Even if you don’t score against a starter, you can still win an inning by stringing together long at-bats. That’s what Gardy did.
I miss having a guy like that in the lineup. Outside of Aaron Judge, guys aren’t taking their walks and grinding out at-bats, it feels like. This is the one complaint about the Yankees I never thought I’d have, but here we are.
If the Yankees are going to retool this lineup, my big hope is they can get guys who aren’t allergic to taking ball four and won’t swing wildly at everything, leading to a two pitch groundout to third. I give credit to Jake Bauers who saw 34 pitches last night, with 19 of those pitches coming in the first two AB’s, but overall, more guys need to do that.
Senior bullpen catcher only his 5th career at bat, with a close family member batting terminal illness in attendance, hits a home run on senior day. Very emotional. Top 2 emotional home runs I’ve witnessed at our park.
Baseball is MAGIC