I think the Yankees are in for a disappointing West Coast road trip

The Yankees will begin a 9-game road trip tonight in Oakland that will take them next to Dodger Stadium and then up to Seattle.  Before I begin to explain why I think they'll fare terribly out west, I'd like to first lavish them with praise - because they certainly deserve it.  The 2019 New York Yankees have proven to be so much more than the sum of their parts.  Despite a total of 28 players spending time on the Injured List, this amazing team has compiled the best record in baseball at 83-43.  They've done this without their best starting pitcher, Luis Severino, who has been out all season but may return next month.  They've done this without Dellin Betances, their hard throwing set up man who has also missed the entire season. They've done this without Giancarlo Stanton, who's missed 117 of their 126 games.  Aaron Judge missed two months of action from late April to late June, and 57 games overall.  Didi Gregorius didn't play his first game until June 7th after he had Tommy John surgery last October. Miguel Andujar, last year's starting 3rd baseman, played only 12 games before undergoing right labrum surgery in May and also being lost for the season. First baseman Greg Bird went down with a left plantar fascia tear in the middle of April and has missed 112 games.  Other guys barely worth mentioning have also missed the entire season - lefty Jordan Montgomery, righty Ben Heller, and Jacoby Ellsbury.  Ellsbury misses every season.

And that's far from the complete list. The Yankees, though, have had new heroes emerge.  D.J. LeMahieu came over from the Rockies and has led the team with a .339 batting average, 156 hits, and 86 RBIs.  Gio Urshela has taken over for Andujar at third base and hit .336 while leading the team with a .951 OPS.  He also leads the team with 29 doubles and has hit 18 home runs.  He also happens to be far superior defensively to Andujar.  Gleyber Torres has done it all, leading the team with 29 home runs and up there in almost every offensive category. He also leads the team in another important category - games played!  He's missed only twelve. Luke Voit emerged as another valuable player, and not just on the field.  Said manager Aaron Boone about how much Voit has meant to the team, "He's brought so much to the table for us. He's loved coming here and being a Yankee. They love him in that room. He brings something to the park every day, just from an energy standpoint, and so we're lucky to have him."

The bullpen's been a strength all season. Five Yankee relief pitchers have an ERA under 3.00. Four of them - Adam Ottavino, Zach Britton, Aroldis Chapman, and Tommy Kahnle - have pitched at least 50 innings. Chapman has 35 saves.  Britton's ERA is 2.26.  Ottavino's is 1.67!  Kahnle was named the AL reliever of the month for July, posting a 0.77 ERA in twelve appearances. Here's an incredible stat - NINE Yankee relief pitchers have winning records this season! Which brings me to the end of my lavish praise.  It's time to take a look at that starting staff.

How can a team that's forty games over .500 have starters with these ERAs?

Masahiro Tanaka 4.56

J.A. Happ 5.40

Domingo German 3.96

James Paxton 4.53

C.C. Sabathia 5.01

Well, the answer is all those awesome players I mentioned previously, not to mention a great rookie manager and a highly respected coaching staff.  Still, though, this staff can't continue like this because the Yankees' injury situation has been unrelenting. Luke Voit went out on July 31st with a core muscle pull and won't be back until after this road trip.  Aaron Hicks and Edwin Encarnacion both got hurt on the same day during separate games of a doubleheader and are both hoping to be back in September. The Yankees need better starting pitching but I trust none of these guys. 

Domingo German has been the one shining bright spot with his glittering 16-2 record, but he's not pitching in Yankee Stadium tonight, and that's a bad thing.  German has started 11 times on the road in 2019 and the Yankees have gone 9-2 in those games, but they hardly have him to thank.  His road ERA is a shocking and ugly 5.58.  So how the heck did the Yankees lose only twice on the road with this guy? Because they backed him up with 97 runs! That's almost 9 runs per game.  German's worst start of the season by far happened on July 23rd in Minnesota.  He was pulled in the 4th inning after having allowed 9 hits and 8 earned runs.  So he lost that one, right? NO. The Yankees took him off the hook by scoring 14 runs.  German hasn't had one road game this season where his teammates underperformed but he bailed them out with a terrific performance.  It's been pretty much the other way around.  I don't think that's gonna cut it tonight against an A's team that's won 13 of its last 19 games and is 18 games over .500 at RingCentral Coliseum.

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Domingo German and the Yankees opened as a -135 favorite over Homer Bailey and the A's yesterday and that line is nothing short of an insult.  The A's are 14-4 at home since the All-Star break and just took 3 out of 4 from their division leader, the Astros.  Homer Bailey is no All-Star, obviously, but since being traded to the A's in early July, he's started three games at home and turned in a quality start each time.

August 1st vs. the Brewers - 6 innings and 2 earned runs in a 5-3 win

July 27th vs. the Rangers - 6.2 innings and 2 earned runs in a 5-4 win

July 17th vs. the Mariners - 6 innings and 2 earned runs in a 10-2 win

For what's it's worth, Bailey did well in his final four home starts for the Royals, pitching 22.1 innings and allowing only 6 earned runs against the Indians, Twins, Tigers, and White Sox.

Compare Bailey's first three home starts for the A's with German's three most recent road starts.

August 8th in Toronto - 5 innings and 3 earned runs in a 12-6 win

July 28th in Boston - 5.1 innings and 3 earned runs in a 9-6 win

July 23rd in Minnesota - 3.2 innings and 8 earned runs in a 14-12 win

Pitching matchup aside, you take the home dog when the home team plays this well at home.  It's a strategy that pays off every season and it paid off this weekend against the Astros.  It will work again vs. the Yankees.  On Thursday night Tanner Roark and the A's will again be a home dog against Masahiro Tanaka. There is only right side in both of those games and the price dictates it. Tomorrow night Mike Fiers will be favored over J.A. Happ, but it won't be as high as it oughta be.  The value will be on the side of the A's each of the next three nights.

Two crucial questions you should always ask yourself before choosing between Team A and Team B is - who wants this game more and who needs this game more? If the answer is obvious, you've probably just identified the right team.  The Yankees wanna win, yeah, sure (shrug)...but how much do they want it?  Do they need it?  No.  They're freaking 83-43.  They have a 10-game lead in their division.  Their spot in the playoffs is assured.  They have a 3-game lead over the Astros for home field in a potential October matchup.  The Yankees are in pretty good shape.  If they lose tonight, or lose all three games, the media and fans aren't gonna freak out.  How much do the A's want to win tonight?  How much do they need it?  They really need it.  They are 71-53 and one game behind the Tampa Bay Rays for the second wild card spot. Beyond that, they're gonna be fired up to have the mighty Yankees and their best record in baseball coming to town.  The A's have excelled at home as of late, they just passed a difficult test by beating the Astros three times, and they're going to treat this series as a major challenge as well.  You can bank on that. They may not know what the exact betting line is, but they'll know they're underdogs, and nothing gets a home team more focused than when they feel they shouldn't be the underdog but nevertheless are. 

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After the Yankees finish getting wrung out in Oakland, the doo doo gets even deeper.  The Dodgers will be waiting for them in L.A.  The Dodgers, even more so than the Yankees, have a gigantic lead in their division.  The NL West is sewn up.  The Dodgers also have a huge 8-game lead over the Braves for best record in the National League.  The standings, though, will have nothing to do with why I think the Dodgers will want and need this series more than the Yankees.  The Dodgers are two-time National League champions, and that's a great accomplishment, but for a proud franchise that hasn't won it all since 1988, and is now enjoying the luxury of an enormous payroll, that's just not good enough. The Dodgers bungled the World Series two years ago and put forth an even less impressive showing last year against the Red Sox.  The Dodgers know that their chances of returning to the World Series for a third straight year are excellent, and they also understand that falling short again is unacceptable.  Losing again in the World Series will more than just tarnish the 2019 season. Comparisons to the Buffalo Bills will begin in earnest, and nobody wants that. 

What the Dodgers need out of this huge weekend series is the confidence that they can not only handle, but dominate the American League's best.  They have to have this. A successful series against the Yankees will go a long way towards preventing doubt from creeping in should they face them again in late October.  It may sound like I'm making the Dodgers sound mentally fragile, but you would be too if you were as loaded as they are but still facing the possibility in October of becoming the Bills.

On Friday night Hyun-Jin Ryu will face James Paxton.  Mismatch.

For Saturday afternoon's game the Dodgers have not yet announced their starter but it'll be C.C. Sabathia dragging his fat butt out there for another whuppin'.  I don't care if the Dodgers elect to start Justin Bieber or Bozo the Clown, they're not losing this game.  Wait, I think Dustin May will get that start, so I guess it'll be Bozo the Clown after all.

On Sunday night, it'll be Clayton Kershaw against the aforementioned road fraud Domingo German.  If there's one player on the Dodgers who needs a boost of confidence in anticipation of a World Series matchup, it's gotta be this guy, right?  That's up for debate, but Kershaw to me is not scary at all in October.  He needs to pitch great on Sunday.

The Yankees will move on to Seattle next Monday.  That'll be a big drop in class, facing the Mariners who are 20 games under .500 after a weekend spent fighting off the Dodgers who are around 40 games over. We all know the Yankees will be big favorites in all three games and we all have to wonder what level of intensity they'll be able to generate for the Mariners.  Probably not much.  The Mariners, by the way, have won three games in a row by a cumulative score of 20-6. What if they continue playing well? Seriously, by the time the Yankees reach Seattle, I expect them to be flat and simply worn out.  They're going to know that Luke Voit will be activated when they return home.  They're going to know that Aaron Hicks and Edwin Encarnacion will soon be back, too. Everyone knows about the season-long injury situation and yet the Yankees haven't suffered through a bad stretch because of it, which is all to their credit.  But it's time.  The excuses are already built-in.  They won't have to explain away the losing road trip.  The media and Yankee fans will do it for them.  After the manner in which the Yankees have exceeded expectations this year, do you really think anyone's going to be mad at them if they finish 3-6 or worse on this West coast trip? I mean besides lunkhead gamblers?  Hasn't the team earned a lot of leeway?  I think they have.  These next nine games.....it's not gonna be pretty.

Go review his eleven road starts.  Your fear will vanish.

Quote Originally Posted by midnightprowl:

Patiently waiting for your pick 

Really? Well, okay.  I like the A's tonight.

 appreciate the write up mrB. Good reading for the morning at work

Why couldn't he have been bad when I bet against him 2 weeks ago with Sale on the mound IN Boston? He utterly dominated the heartless Redsox, who were attempting to finish off a 4 game sweep on national television. 

He utterly dominated the Red Sox that night for the first three innings.  Then he gave up a 2-run homer in the 4th, ran into trouble in the 6th, and was pulled after throwing just 77 pitches.

True, but after 3 innings, the damage was already done. Boston's phony ace had already imploded and the lead was insurmountable. Who lays that type of chalk anyway? I deserved to lose that game.

Anyway, on to tonight. I'll try to stay awake for the first few innings, the west coast games end too late at night for me here in NYC.

The score was 2-0 after 3 innings.

Great stuff 

Yankees it is 

Except he's 8-1 on the road and the team is 9-2 as you said.

The reason the Yankees win is because they have a bunch of overperforming kids (and DJ) who are having fun playing baseball. If it was the group of bloated contracts in years past then I'd think they would lay down with that kind of record.

The line is the way it is because Bailey gets WAY too much respect, it should be -180 to -200. In the three quality starts he faced all non-playoff teams with hardly scary offenses. The most comparable start to tonight would be Houston and well he lasted two innings. From 2016-2018 he posted an ERA of 6.40. He outplayed this season with the Royals to a 4.80ERA and a ticket to Oakland, where he has an ERA of........6.40. Coincidence?

I do agree with you that the Yankees will lose the series, but not tonight.

It seemed insurmountable to me** lol. I

I shouldn't even have been involved in that game. I was on tilt after Aaron Sanchez and the BlueJays blew an 8 run lead at home against the Rays earlier in the day and lost in extras

I should've just accepted my loss and packed it in the day.

And his ERA on the road is 5.58.

I'm calling for some regression to the mean after a season (so far) of wild overachievement, especially since several players who've helped make this such a great summer won't be around to help on this road trip (Voit, Hicks, and Encarnacion).  You mentioned overperforming kids which kind of supports what I'm saying.  How much better can it get than 40 games over .500?  I'm speculating that in the near future (the next 9 games), it will get worse, not better, unless the starting pitching improves, and I'm not seeing that happening.

So the A's, who are 40-22 at RingCentral Coliseum, and 14-4 there since the All-Star break, and 71-53 overall, should be between +165 and +180 tonight because Homer Bailey is starting for them.  Homer Bailey, who has started 3 times at RingCentral - all A's victories - while posting an ERA under 3.00.

I'm thinking that either Homer Bailey has let you down in the past and you're still upset about it (which is completely understandable) or you're not putting enough emphasis as you perhaps should on the difference between home and road splits.  I know that Bailey gave up 9 runs in two plus innings a month ago in Houston, and I don't care.  That was in Houston.  I care about how he's performed on the mound he'll be pitching on tonight.

Homer Bailey, let me make this clear, isn't terribly relevant to the selection I've made here.  He's hardly the reason I'm going with the A's.  My foremost reason for loving the A's tonight is that they own a .645 winning percentage at home yet they're underdogs to a great team that I feel has maxed out, at least for the near future.  I included the stats about the starting pitchers to show that Domingo German is not nearly as good (on the road) as he's perceived to be and that Homer Bailey (at home) is not as bad as he's perceived to be.