Schadenfreude 274 (A Continuing Series)

George A. King III, Post (early edition; 12:02 AM):

The decision to use Deivi Garcia for the first inning only would have worked a lot better had J.A. Happ not followed the neophyte with a miserable outing.

Aaron Boone . . . didn't hint the right-hander would be used as an opener.

Garcia gave up a homer to Randy Arozarena in the first but what Happ did after played a big part in the Rays evening the best-of-five affair with a 7-5 victory in San Diego.

Game 3 is Wednesday night with the series even at 1-1. Masahiro Tanaka starts for the Yankees on six days rest and the Rays will send right-hander Charlie Martin to the mound. It will be Morton's first action since Sept. 25. . . .

Happ, a free agent, gave up five runs and four hits (two homers) in 2.2 innings. Jonathan Loaisiga allowed the runner he inherited from Adam Ottavino to score in the fifth and gave up a homer to Austin Meadows in the sixth that stretched the Rays' lead to 7-4.

Peter Fairbanks walked Gio Urshela and Gleyber Torres to start the ninth. That brought Clint Frazier to the plate as the potential tying run. He whiffed on a 3-2 pitch clocked at 99-mph. Gary Sanchez, who was 0-for-3 with two strikeouts, swung through a 99-mph heater for the second out and DJ LeMahieu singled home Urshela to make it 7-5. That brought Aaron Judge to the plate and he finished 0-for-5 with a ground out to third.

Kristie Ackert, Daily News (early edition; 12:04 AM):

Maybe the Yankees should . . . not try to out-Rays the Rays. The Yankees' attempt to outfox Tampa by naming right-handed rookie Deivi Garcia the Game 2 starter and then having lefty J.A. Happ come in to start the second inning was something the Rays might try — but they would likely have succeeded at it.

The Rays' Tyler Glasnow dominated . . . and Tampa won 7-5 in Game 2 of the American League Division Series at Petco Park. . . .

The Rays pitching staff struck out the Yankees a franchise-high 18 times, surpassing the previous record of 16, done three times, the last in the 2017 ALDS Game 5 against Cleveland.

The decision to "start" Garcia over Tanaka got the headlines on Monday, since he was the youngest in franchise history to ever make a postseason start. . . . 

The Rays were not fooled.

They did not change their lineup based on the decision. . . .

And the Yankees didn't exactly execute it very well.

Garcia gave up a home run to Randy Arozarena before getting out of the first. Happ gave up a two-run homer to Mike Zunino in the second. Margot homered off Happ in the third for another two-run shot.

Boone gave Happ, who had not pitched since Sept. 26, just 2.2 innings before going to his bullpen. Happ was charged with four earned runs on five hits. He walked three and struck out two.

Ken Davidoff, Post:

Yankees' Deivi Garcia Decision Gets Worse The Deeper You Dig

The morning after one of the Yankees' most confounding on-field decisions in decades . . .

As an analytics enthusiast, I have embraced the use of openers — as the alternative to throwing a replacement-level starter to the wolves. . . .

In other words, I support using the opener as a defensive move against your own inadequacies . . . not as an offensive move against your opponent's strengths.

The Yankees contended that they did the latter Tuesday night, a move that backfired rather spectacularly . . .

[T]he Yankees decided to limit Garcia to an inning and have Happ, a starter for nearly all of his career, enter in relief as an attempt to force the hand of Rays manager Kevin Cash, who is blessed with a deep, versatile roster.

Most of the planet wondered the same thing: Why wouldn't the Yankees just let Garcia, who had impressed considerably in his six regular-season starts, get a real shot at taming the Rays? Were they not as impressed? . . .

Happ, post-game, didn't hide his disappointment with the Yankees' decision-making . . . Garcia verbally shrugged it off . . . 

In any case, what started out as a brilliant series for the Yankees now becomes a mess of their own making, with two of their most important pitchers disrupted and their options for the rest of the week compromised. If they don't clean it up, this one will sting for a very long time.

Joel Sherman, Post:

Yankees' Biggest Weakness Is Being Exposed

The problem wasn't how Aaron Boone — or the Yankees research department — lined up the pitching for Division Series Game 2. It was the pitching. Or the lack of it.

This is a problem that cannot be camouflaged by modern strategy. It is a problem that even this Yankees offense might not be able to overcome. A problem magnified in a postseason that will be particularly merciless in schedule to teams without enough depth in arms. . . .

[T]he Yankees have now surrendered 16 runs in the two non-Cole starts. . . .

Tampa Bay's 7-5 triumph . . . reasserted how many more dependable arms Rays manager Kevin Cash has at his disposal . . . The Rays had far more pitching injuries this season and still ended up with far more good pitchers — despite a shoestring budget … especially compared to the Yankees. . . .

Tampa Bay's quartet of Tyler Glasnow, Diego Castillo, Nick Anderson and Peter Fairbanks combined for a playoff record 18 strikeouts.

So what can the Yankees do? The persistent beautiful weather of San Diego is going to prevent a plan of Cole and pray for rain. Tanaka had his worst postseason start in nine as a Yankee versus [Cleveland]. . . . The Yankees need the October stalwart Tanaka on Wednesday. . . .

Looming over all teams this year is a playoff structure that will expose a lack of pitching depth — five games in five days for the Division Series, if it goes the distance, followed by seven games in seven days if the LCS goes full. . . .

Designing a strategy to blunt that by putting pitchers in situations with which they are not familiar said more about what Boone thought of his starting options than the Tampa lineup . . .

Boone figured he would get length from Cole in Game 1 and Tanaka in Game 3, and this was the place to use Garcia to start, induce Tampa Bay to start its lefties and then switch to the southpaw Happ. And Cash conceded he was surprised by the quick switch. . . .

Garcia and Happ combined to give up three homers, all with two strikes. The Yankees did not produce a 1-2-3 inning until the seventh. . . .

Bradford William Davis, Daily News:

We like numbers and data and analytics in this space, right? Well, I'd like you to continue believing in the analytics instead of reflexively swearing off every digit, regression and times table. But using them without context is malpractice . . .

Whether it was Aaron Boone, the front office, or a true team effort, the Yankees did not put Happ in a position to play to all those stats. . . .

All that good pitching from Happ [down the stretch] . . . coincided with him taking the ball every fifth day and getting to warm up as expected. . . . Everybody needs to perform when their number is called, but acknowledge the obstacles placed before. . . .

Well, the Yankees' execution of the opener strategy also failed Garcia.

First, Garcia indicated he was not informed of the full extent of the strategy. . . . Garcia, who was being developed as a starter prepared like one. Instead of attacking the game like a short reliever going for a one to two inning burst he conserved energy for a multiple inning marathon. . . .

Second, Garcia has a reverse-platoon split . . . Taking Garcia out of the game before he gets to face the Rays lineup in search of a platoon advantage that doesn't exist — the second time Boone and the Yankees have done this during their four 2020 playoff games — is hustling backwards.

Mike Vaccaro, Post:

They led 1-0. They held the hammer. They looked positively juggernaut-y. . . . No need to start overthinking stuff. No need to make a simple game harder than it has to be. . . .

But the Yankees couldn't help themselves. They opted to be too clever by half. . . .

So almost as soon as Garcia finished his warm-up pitches on the mound, J.A. Happ began his in the Petco Park bullpen. . . .

[The Yankees] struck out 18 times. They left the tying runs on base in the ninth. The O couldn't overcome the X-and-O.

And so the only question that really needed to be asked after Tampa squared this series just before midnight was this: Why?

"They're so good and they have a roster built to take advantage of a platoon," Boone said, which was indeed an explanation, if not a terribly satisfying one. "We felt like we'd go to [Happ] pretty early and aggressively as long as they went heavy lefty, which they did."

That turned out to be a hilarious rationale. For one thing, it didn't work. Mike Zunino, a righty, hit a two-run blast off Happ, a lefty. So did Manuel Margot. When lefty Austin Meadows led off the sixth with a home run that extended the Tampa lead to 7-4, it was off righty Jonathan Loaisiga. So much for out-platooning the Great Platooners. . . .

[I]f you're going to give [Garcia] the ball, give him the damn ball.

This wasn't Luis Severino getting his doors blown off two years ago in the ALDS against the Red Sox, overwhelmed by an overpowering team. . . . The Yankees were going with an opener against the team that essentially invented the opener.

The Yankees wanted to play chess instead of checkers? 

They wound up playing Parcheesi.

Or maybe Candyland. . . .

Now they have another best-of-three on their hands, and a jumbled pitching picture. What a waste. What a shame.

Kristie Ackert, Daily News:

It was a decision that raised eyebrows across baseball when the Yankees announced 21-year-old right-handed rookie Deivi Garcia as their starter for Game 2 of the American League Division Series against the Rays.

It also raised eyebrows within the clubhouse apparently.

Lefty J.A. Happ knew the plan going into Tuesday night's game was to use him after Garcia, but the 37-year-old veteran said he was surprised "initially" . . . "Yeah, they know how I felt about it. . . ." Happ said. . . .

The bottom line is the Yankees didn't get the job done and lost 7-5 . . .

Happ, who had not pitched since Sept. 26, lasted just 2.2 innings before Aaron Boone had to go to his bullpen. . . . Happ never looked comfortable . . . He said he expressed to the Yankees he would have rather started. . . .

The Rays . . . were aware that Garcia would likely be an opener, a team source said. They didn't change their lineup, which was heavily left-handed, based on it. The only thing that caught them off guard was seemingly how badly the Yankees managed it. . . .

Now, it's a best-of-three games series and the Yankees have just a struggling Jordan Montgomery to start Game 4. If it goes five games, they will have to try and use Gerrit Cole on short rest. . . .

[T]he already contentious relationship between Happ and the Yankees is strained further. Happ had already implied that that Yankees were manipulating his starts to avoid a pro rata vesting option earlier this year. The Yankees . . . told him he was not pitching well enough to demand starts. And then Happ went out and was the most productive pitcher the Yankees had over a month and a half with regular starts on four-days rest.

But on nine days rest and coming into a role he was unfamiliar in, Happ was not exactly set up to succeed Tuesday night. . . .

And with that, the Yankees don't look set up to succeed either.

Greg Joyce, Post:

CB Bucknor may owe Aaron Boone a thank you.

While Boone took most of the heat Tuesday during and after Game 2 of the ALDS for the Yankees' controversial pitching plan . . . Bucknor had a rough night himself.

The home-plate umpire's erratic strike zone was a source of ire for players and fans alike . . . with a few brutal calls standing out on a night when the push for robo-umps was renewed.

Perhaps the lasting image of the night came in the top of the ninth inning as the Yankees tried to mount a comeback, with Pete Fairbanks on the mound and Gleyber Torres at the plate. With a man on first, no outs and a 3-1 count, Fairbanks threw a 100 mph fastball clearly high and outside, which Bucknor called a strike. He heard it from the Yankees dugout . . . Ron Darling also immediately questioned the call on the TBS broadcast, saying, "Man oh man." . . .

In a 2010 ESPN poll, he was voted the worst umpire in MLB, getting named on 42 percent of the ballots. Bucknor also drew that title in a pair of Sports Illustrated polls in 2003 and 2006.

Dan Martin, Post:

He was behind the plate as a series of Yankees pitchers failed to shut down Tampa Bay's lineup, from rookie right-hander Deivi Garcia to veteran lefty J.A. Happ.

There was also a passed ball mixed in that put a runner in scoring position.

Still, all of that could have been forgotten when he came to the plate with the Yankees trailing by three runs in the top of the ninth.

With two on and one out against Peter Fairbanks, Sanchez struck out on three pitches . . .

It came after Sanchez had another chance in the seventh.

After Gleyber Torres and Clint Frazier reached to start the inning against Diego Castillo, Tampa Bay manager Kevin Cash went to Nick Anderson to face Sanchez and the right-hander struck out Sanchez to start a dominant inning in which he fanned Sanchez, DJ LeMahieu and Aaron Judge consecutively.

He ended 0-for-4 with three strikeouts, another disappointing game in a season full of them. . . .

[M]ore often than not this season — when he hit just .147 and had an OPS of .618 — Sanchez has had games like he did Tuesday, when he hit ninth and struck out looking and grounded out to start innings and then whiffed in a spot where he could have altered the outcome.

A Bonus, ahead of tonight's game: