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If you want to beat the New York Yankees, it goes without saying that you have to contain sluggers Giancarlo Stanton and Aaron Judge. Just ask the athletes from Oakland.
The A played on the wrong side of the Bronx bash Wednesday night, while Judge and Stanton were deeply involved in the Yankees' wild card victory in the AHL.
With this victory, the Boston Red Sox win a series of the best in the AL Division, and if Boston finally wants to get through the series of the American League, his goal # 1 is very simple: it is necessary to keep the ball in the stadium when the Yankees hit.
By counting the wild card game, the Yankees are a pure ridiculous 91-41 when they hit at least one home run in a match. When they hit two or more dingers, they are 63-15 years old. Keep the ball in the yard, however, and you will have a much better chance of beating it. Bronx bombers scored only 10-21 on rare occasions when they did not take off.
Obviously, controlling this starts with Stanton and Judge.
"You have to keep that in the stadium; That's the most important thing, "said Alex Cora, director of the Red Sox. "From top to bottom, they can hit the ball out of the stadium. It is a difficult range. "
D & # 39; AGREEMENT. That makes sense. But how?
Game planning is becoming more important at this time of year. Take last October, for example. The Houston Astros, with Cora as coach on the bench, noticed how much the Red Sox were passive. Houston hammered the catch area, put the Red Sox in deep holes and largely repelled Boston bats' attacks en route to a win in a four-game series.
There is no doubt that Cora and her coaching staff are working hard to develop a new plan for the Yankees, especially Judge and Stanton, before the ALDS. Chances are, the game plan will be quite complex, but the general idea is quite simple.
"As I said, there are heat maps: there is red and blue, we have to make a difference," said Cora, "If we do that, we'll be in good shape."
Fair enough, seems to be a pretty good place to start.
Let's start with Stanton. Here is its OPS thermal map compared to all launchers of 2018.
via BaseballSavant.MLB.com
So you do not need the baseball equivalent of a rocket scientist to understand this one. If you want to limit the damage against Stanton, it is best to work in the area, especially at the beginning of the count. That's what Chris Sale, the Red Sox ace, had a good record against Stanton over the course of his career and beat him in three of the six battles.
That included a showdown on April 10 when Sale took over the Yankees hitter.
Via MLB.com
The three throws were fast balls and two of them were dynamic strikes.
Stanton will continue too. He was in the top 30 of the qualifying AL batters when it came to swinging out of the box, and his contact rate on those fields was the sixth worst in the league.
You have to understand that a big part of the Red Sox's strategy will rest on working at the top of the zone, especially at Fenway Park, where it is less likely that Stanton will reach the straight line of the field as at Yankee Stadium. In the Bronx, it is more likely that they will have to work inside the right-handed man.
That's probably what the Red Sox will do when they have a right-hander on the mound, whether it's Rick Porcello or Nathan Eovaldi at Games 3 and 4 or the Boston market. As you can see on the Heat Map, not only is there weakness around your hands, but if you can get Stanton to chase, you'll probably be successful.
This is a good example of August 4th. Eovaldi gave Stanton only cutters and brittle balls, and finally forced him to chase a slider out of the box for the withdrawal.
Look at terrain # 5 – the striped terrain. Down and far.
Screenshot of MLB.com
The problem with this line of attack is that it's better not to make mistakes, as Blake Treinen can attest.
Absolute nothing-slider, and Stanton sends the cursor to Yonkers.
With Judge, it's a bit more complicated.
First of all, the thermal map.
via BaseballSavant.MLB.com
Initial Proposals: Your best bet is to keep it at bay, which is not a huge revelation. So you try to keep it out of the way, work up and down the area and hope to induce a weak contact.
But that can not be exaggerated: you can not miss with Judge. It hurts mistakes.
To return to the game of inconsistent cards, Oakland catcher Jonathan Lucroy settled outside in the first round against Judge, which, as we said, is what you want to be . Liam Hendriks, however, made a mistake.
MLB.TV screen capture
Stanton hit the moon, and just like that, the Yankees – who are now 22-6 when starting Stanton – led 2-0 in a game to do or die.
They tried to exploit some of Judge's wrongs against the Red Sox this season.
We are going back to May 8 for an example at the bat against Drew Pomeranz. Pomeranz set the tone by burying a fastball at the ideal position down and the first pitch of the attack. This set the tone for the rest of the Order, the Red Sox worked the inner half with a mix of curves and fastball.
Then, once the judge looked inside, Pomeranz hit a point with a fastball above 90 mph in the corner where the judge could only fight.
MLB.TV screen capture
This is not entirely surprising either. Judge has pretty bad numbers against Sale and David Price, scoring 5-29 with 16 strikeouts. Both pitchers have very good breaking balls and low speed ground. Dirty, on June 30, canceled the judge three times and eight of the 15 throws that he pitched were changes or sliders.
Of the 152 withdrawals taken from the judge, 58 were right to break balls, and he had a staggering 53.2% left over. This is how left-handers like Sale and Price can neutralize the right-handed striking judge.
So, when you break it down like that, it's pretty simple, right? It's quite simple to design the game plan, but the Red Sox have to go and run. It is possible that they lose the series even if they manage to neutralize Judge and Stanton, because the Yankees have a composition so charged, not to mention the quality of the pitchers and the composition.
Boston will probably be in full swing, but keeping Stanton and Judge in the stadium will help them get rid of their longtime rivals.
Miniature Photo via Brad Penner / USA TODAY Sports Images
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