“The resilience of the team will lead to good things in the future,” Donaldson said after the game. “… To show some resilience and to counterattack and stay there – the overall victory of the team, bullpen did a great job – we hope it will lead to great things in the future.”
More than the game itself, the top story that came out of Yankee Stadium on Start Day is that the Yankees and Aaron Judge fail to agree on a contract extension. The judge set a deadline for the talks to begin and is scheduled to become a free agent after the season. The Yankees offered a seven-year, $ 30.5 million-a-year contract for 2023-29.
“We are all frustrated at the moment that we can not talk about a contract extension today. Not now, but hopefully later,” said Yankees GM Brian Cashman ahead of Friday’s game. “… Both sides would like to be here. I think Aaron Judge does not want to be anywhere but here, and we would like to do that as well.”
Here are four suggestions from Opening Day at Yankee Stadium.
1. The Red Sox have to pay the Devers
I mean, that was already obvious, but Rafael Devers really got the point with a towering two-run home on the second deck on the right field in his first at-bat of the new season. Gerrit Cole tried to throw a 99 mph heater next to him at the top of the belt, but Devers beat him on the spot and went deep. Not many players can handle this speed in this location: Similar to Judge, Devers set a deadline for the start of the day for contract extension talks and the two sides did not reach an agreement. The Red Sox and Devers were said to be “too far away” earlier this week. Matt Olson signed an eight-year $ 168 million extension to the same level of service as Devers a few weeks ago, just to give you an idea of its potential price range. Devers will play the full season at the age of 25 and is scheduled to become a free agent after 2023. As the deal was not completed before the start date, the two sides will go to the same place next season where Judge will be with me. the Yankees now. Devers will be approaching the free dealership and looking for a huge payday next spring.
2. Cole settled in and put on a field
The 2022 season started as the 2021 season ended for Cole: the Red Sox hit him hard. Cole failed to get out of the third inning in last year’s Wild Card Game, and the first four players on the opening day walked four pitches, two runs at home (the Devers homer), strong singles from the wall, double. the right corner of the field. That’s how the Yankees fell 3-0 and the Yankee Stadium crowd shouted at Cole. “Difficult to set up. Obviously the first four pitches were not really competitive,” Cole said after the game. “I honestly got burned at some very good fastball sites in the first. They made some big changes. Luckily we were able to settle in after that and give us a chance to win.” After these first four batters arrived, Cole withdrew 11 of the last 13 batters he faced, going through four innings and giving the attack a chance to get back in the game. Like everyone else after the short spring, Cole was on the pitch counting on the opening day. He threw 68 pitches (27 only in the first inning) and was scheduled to throw about 75. “I think we just got some better break down balls in the belt,” Cole said when asked what allowed him to settle. “I can not really say that we caught a lot of kids. We just made a little better pitches.” Cole erupted as an ace caliber pizzeria with the Astros when he started using a raised four-seam fastball and badly breaking balls. The suppression of foreign substances forced him to change his approach (Cole can no longer rely on sticky things to have extra spins) and now he plays mainly in the belt. See the locations of the Opening Day stadiums: Gerrit Cole lived in the zone on the opening day. Baseball Savant What do I count, seven pitches in the upper third of the strike zone? This is not the Cole we saw from 2018 to June 2021. He has made the adjustment to throw down the belt – Cole also picked up a cutter in the spring workout and threw three on Start Day – and it is an ongoing process . Pitcher adjusts, strikers adjust, pitcher adjusts back, etc. Cole finished second in the Cy Young poll in 2021, but had 2.31 ERA before the crackdown and 4.12 ERA after. However, this is a bit misleading, because Cole had a 3.28 ERA in his first 13 starts after the crackdown. He then injured his back on September 7 and passed it because the Yankees were fighting for a place after the season. In his last four starts, he had 6.35 SEASON.
3. The Yankees won a bullpens battle
After the Red Sox took a 3-0 lead with four strokes in the first inning, the Yankees counterattacked and equalized thanks to an Anthony Rizzo with two homer runs and a Giancarlo Stanton solo homer. Stanton’s home run was the kind of home run that only Stanton could hit. It was a low lane driveway across the small right porch of Yankee Stadium. It was a rocket. Stanton’s home streak tied the game at 3-3 at the bottom of the quarter. At the top of the sixth, the Red Sox regained the lead with a good playful take, take them, take them to the rally. Xander Bogaerts pulled a ground ball double into the third basic bag, JD Martinez put it in third place with a grounder for the second and Alex Verdugo put it with a ground ball through the draw in the infield. Verdugo made two nice sliding plates in the game as well. On paper, the Yankees have the bullpen advantage over the Red Sox, but the Red Sox have Garrett Whitlock, whom they secretly took from the Yankees in the Rule 5 Draft last offseason. Boston eliminated Whitlock, most likely to start later in the season, and withdrew seven of the first eight fighters it faced after the Red Sox regained the lead. The problem is that he faced nine strikers. This ninth player, DJ LeMahieu, hit a Homer to the right. LeMahieu started the Opening Day over Gleyber Torres and manager Aaron Boone showed it was essentially a “sensational” move. The Yankees have nine starting lineups for eight positions (excluding the catcher), so one will be out of action every day. It was Torres on Friday. That meant he was available for bites for catcher Kyle Higashioka in the tenth inning, and gave a sacrificial fly that equalized the game. “It’s probably the game’s most important at-bat today,” Boone said of Torres earlier in the day. The Yankees and Red Sox exchanged series in the tenth. In the 11th, Michael King rightly pinned the automatic runner with two blows and a broken bat. King was an electrician at the time. In the third rope at the bottom of the 11th, Donaldson put a single back in the middle. As noted in the introduction, this is the first Yankees Opening Day victory since 1957. “It was great. Our team put us in a great position there,” Donaldson said after the game. “It was nice for my first game here to help the team win. I could not ask for much more than that.”
4. The new face of New York defense shone
The Yankees prioritized the defense during the winter, especially in the infield, and were in full view on Start Day. Donaldson, the new third base player, and the new arm Isiah Kiner-Falefa each made each one shine …
