Bronx Before BoSox: Yankees Series Preview

Toronto Blue Jays @ New York Yankees

September 5th – September 7th

Written by Jenn Smith and Sean Addis

Despite swinging ice-cold bats in the first two games, the Blue Jays managed to escape a sweep at the hands of the Rays with a 5-3 win on Sunday. That brings them to 3-3 on their current road swing and still clinging to sole possession of first place in the AL East. The road trip will conclude with a three-game set against the Yankees.

Once the Jays’ greatest foe, with Yankee Stadium acting as their kryptonite, the Jays seemed to solve both last season and haven’t looked back. In 2016, the Jays have owned the Yankees, having won nine of their twelve matchups, including four of six in New York, outscoring the Yankees 58 to 32. However, these are not the same Bronx Bombers that the Jays faced earlier this season. Gone are veterans Andrew Miller, Aroldis Chapman, Carlos Beltran and Alex Rodriguez. In their stead, rookies Gary Sanchez, Aaron Judge and others have marked the transition from a team in contention to one that is rebuilding. Somehow the Yankees still sit just 3.5 games back of the second wild card and are not yet waving the white flag. The Jays, meanwhile, will look to build upon their one game division lead before returning home to face the Red Sox.

Pitching Matchups:

Monday, September 5th – First Pitch 1:05 PM ET

R.A. Dickey @ Masahiro Tanaka

RA Dickey (9-13, 4.43 ERA) has not pitched since August 28^th, as the Blue Jays continue to tinker with their rotation down the stretch. He provide the Blue Jays with another quality outing last time against the Minnesota Twins. Dickey surrendered three earned runs in six innings of work, and it was the fourth outing in the last five in which he has not allowed a home run. As a result, Dickey has pitched very well in August – posting a 3.41 ERA. In two starts this season against the Yankees, Dickey is winless, surrendering five runs in 11.2 innings.

Masahiro Tanaka (11-4, 3.12 ERA) will make his third start of the 2016 season against the Blue Jays. He has dominated the Blue Jays lineup for his career, limiting them 0.546 OPS. Tanaka has struggled with the home run ball at Yankee Stadium. He has surrendered 12 home runs versus four home runs on the road. However, over his last five starts, Tanaka has a 1.93 ERA and 2.35 FIP in 32.2 innings pitched. He mixes in a fastball with a splitter with late downward action, a slider and an occasional curveball. Tanaka has made two starts against the Blue Jays this season, only allowing three runs over 11 innings. This will be a very tough matchup for the Jays.

Tuesday, September 6th – First Pitch 7:05 PM ET

Aaron Sanchez @ Luis Cessa

Aaron Sanchez (13-2, 2.88 ERA) will make his second appearance since being recalled from his stint in the minors. In his last start against the high powered offence of the Baltimore Orioles, he pitched six innings allowing just five hits, three walks and one unearned run. He moved away from relying on his four seam fastball and increased the use of his curveball, sinker and changeup (see graph). The increased usage of the sinker resulted in generating high number of groundouts, but got fewer swing and misses. As a result, Sanchez threw a season high 112 pitches. This season Sanchez has dominated the Yankees in two starts allowing one earned run in 12.2 innings.

Luis Cessa (4-0, 4.17 ERA) has pitched most of the season out of the bullpen, but with the trade of Ivan Nova and season ending injury to Nathan Eovaldi, he has been inserted into the rotation. Cessa has pitched six innings in each of his three starts and given up a total of only 14 hits and six earned runs. He throws an above average fastball and a slider and change combination that generates a lot of groundballs. However, his curveball has little depth and will generate more fly balls. As a result, he has given up four home runs over his last two starts. Cessa has faced the Blue Jays once this season, pitching a scoreless inning out of the bullpen.

Wednesday, September 7th – First Pitch 7:05 PM ET

Marcus Stroman @ TBA

Marcus Stroman (9-6, 4.58 ERA) had a quality start in his last turn through the rotation against the Tampa Bay Rays. However, he fell victim to a sinker that didn’t sink and sine poor defence behind him led to a loss. The right-hander continued to limit his hard contact (14.3 %) and walks (2), which was a good sign. Stroman has faced the Yankees once this season back in April and dominated them over eight innings allowing three hits and two runs.

The Yankees have not yet announced a starter for this game. This space will be updated when they do.

Keep an Eye On

The Tools of Ignornace

The battle behind the plate should be an interesting one in this series.After getting off to a slow start this season, Russell Martin has been a man on fire, batting .307/.402/.680 with an OPS of 1.082 over the last 28 days. He hit nine home runs in the month of August, two more than he had hit all season, and launched his seventeenth home run of the season on Sunday to give the Jays the win. His production is strongly correlated with game outcome – his line reads .308/.401/.546 in Jays’ wins compared to .151/.251/.212 when they lose.

The Yankees have their own hot-hitting catcher in rookie phenom Gary Sanchez. After failing to earn the role of backup catcher out of spring training, Sanchez has put the baseball world on notice with his breakout August. He was named the American League Player of the Month and Rookie of the Month after batting .389/.458/.832 in 24 games. More notably, he became the quickest player in baseball history to reach 11 home runs to begin their career (he did it in 21 games). He had at least one hit in 21 of those 24 games, with ten multi-hit games including two multi-home run games.

Run Support for R.A. Dickey

As previously noted, the Jays have lost just two of six games at Yankee Stadium this season. Both have come with R.A. Dickey on the mound in his only two starts against NYY this season. In both losses, the Jays were shut out, losing 6-0 on May 24th and 1-0 on August 25th. While there likely isn’t any rhyme or reason to it, the combination of Dickey getting the start in game one of the series along with the Jays’ recent offensive woes makes this something to keep an eye on.

Beatable Back of the Bronx Bullpen

With the trades that shipped Aroldis Chapman and Andrew Miller out of town (to the Cubs and Indians, respectively), the back end of the Yankees bullpen is not nearly as formidable. Dellin Betances is still there at closer, but a setup corps of Adam Warren, Chasen Shreve, and Tyler Clippard is not nearly as scary as what came before.

Additions and Subtractions

Yankees’ first baseman Mark Teixeira (neck) and shortstop Didi Gregorius (arm soreness) both sat out Sundays’ game with minor injuries but have not been placed on the DL (there’s no point in with expanded Septmber rosters). After experiencing elbow pain on Friday, starting pitcher Chad Green has been diagnosed with a sprained UCL and is done for the season. Rob Refsnyder, Nick Goody, Kirby Yates and Eric Young, Jr. were all called up from Triple-A when rosters expanded.

The Jays have not made any roster moves ahead of this series.

Probable Lineup

via Roster Resource

Final Thoughts

Despite scuffling in Florida this past weekend, the Jays managed to hold on to their position atop the AL East. One must think that at some point, the Jays are going to be able to put it all together and finish the season strong- they’re too good of a team not to do so. Given how the two teams have matched up thus far this season, a series against the Yankees is a good place to start. With talent on their side and a little luck, the Jays will finish out this road trip with a series win and will be in a good position to take on the Red Sox later this week.

 
Lead Photo: Adam Hunger-USA TODAY Sports