J.A. Happ Auditioned To Be The Next Yankees Starter and I Think We're Still Looking For a Winner

With Sonny Gray’s continued struggles of late, the necessity for going out and grabbing a starting pitcher in the trade market has ramped up. Thankfully Masahiro Tanaka is returning on Tuesday to restore some sense of stability to the rotation, but there is still a glaring need for another big arm. Toronto’s J.A. Happ has had his name come up in several reports as one of Cashman’s main targets. I wasn’t on board with it from the start considering he’s a 35 year old 3rd starter who hasn’t had that good of a season. Cashman can and will do better. Regardless, this was a good test for Happ to show what he’s got and impress some of us. It didn’t go well…

Happ, who has the second hardest to hit fastball in all of baseball, served up a 92 mph meatball to leadoff man Brett Gardner to start the game. Gardy turned on it.

Brett has it a bunch of leadoff homers in his career, but that was the first that came on the very first pitch of a game. Aaron Judge followed with a similar result.

Two batters in, two home runs. That was Judge’s 25th of the year making him only the second Yankee in the team’s history to have back to back seasons with 25+ homers before the All Star Break, with the other man being Roger Maris. Judge is two off J.D. Martinez’s league leading pace of 27 bombs which should be a fun back and forth race all season long.

The Yankees were not done in the first, as Happ walked the next two batters and allowed a two-out double by Brandon Drury, who was getting his first start at second base in 2018. It’s almost as if Neil Walker shouldn’t actually be in the lineup everyday, or at all for that matter. Hmmm…

Happ’s total line for the day: 2.2 IP | 4 H | 6 ER | 2 BB | 97 pitches |

Yeah I’m all set. Thanks for the call Toronto, but no thanks.

Luis Severino got the ball yesterday in hopes of righting the sinking Sonny Gray ship. He wasn’t his sharpest and had trouble putting batters away all game long as the Jays hitters fouled off a ton of pitches to prolong at bats. He was only able to go five innings with his rising pitch count, but gave up just three runs while striking out five. He earned his major league leading 14th win on the season making him just the 4th Yankee ever to earn 14 W’s before the All Star Break in franchise history. More importantly, the team is 17-2 in starts he’s made which also leads all of baseball.

The bullpen took over in the 6th and overall did their job as they worked with a large lead thanks to J.A. Happ. Jonathan Holder did allow a rare run, but worked around trouble to keep the damage limited. David Robertson and Betances were terrific in the 7th and 8th. Dellin worked his 18th consecutive scoreless apperance and lowered his ERA to 2.56. It’s absolutely nuts that he’s going to probably make his 5th All Star team after the dreadful start he had to the season. Aroldis Chapman gave us a little bit of a scare in the 9th with his knee. After striking out Grichuk to start the inning Chappy grabbed his knee and had to come out of the game. Boone said it wasn’t worth it to keep him in the game with a four run lead. Chapman has been dealing with this knee tendinitis all season long which is a bit concerning. No one else seems to be at the slightest worried about it, but it’s definitely on my mind considering this has happened multiple times now.

Chasen Shreve came in to replace Chapman and get the final two outs. He was incapable of doing so without serving up a home run. This stat by Katie Sharp is just hilarious.

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Fuck Chasen Shreve. There are reports out there that the Yankees are interested in acquiring either Brad Hand or Zach Britton. Hand will obviously cost more and I expect teams like the Sox and Astros to be the main bidders there, but Britton is not a bad second option just to get an effective lefty in the pen not named Chapman.

Another injury scare flared up mid-game when Aaron Hicks had to come out of the game. Anytime it’s Hicks you panic because he’s the master of the hamstring/groin pull. Luckily it appears this was just some cramping and nothing more. An MRI isn’t on the table, but Hicks probably won’t be in the lineup for today’s series finale. Expect Clint Frazier to get the nod.

In other news as we look for our newest starting pitcher I thought this was a fun tweet to lose our minds over.

Getting Bumgarner or Snell would be WILD. I don’t see it happening with Bumgarner unless the Giants really fall off the NL West division chase in the coming weeks. Snell could certainly be dealt, but it would cost a ton given how good he’s been, his age, and his team control. He’s one of the rare pitchers out there that I’d trade Sheffield and another top prospect for. Snell is a monster and would shake up the AL Pennant race.

Twitter Jail

Yeah Twitter Jail wasn’t fun for those 12 hours. Luckily nothing crazy happened but the FOMO was there for sure. I drunkenly told Carrabis on Friday night that I was waiting for him to fulfill his promise of killing himself because he said he would if Stanton became a Yankee. Probably a bad idea to joke about suicide on social media these days so if any of you were offended that’s on me. If you ever feel down and shitty about yourself my DMs are always open to talk stuff out. We all get low here and there and it’s not fun.

I do, however, blame Sonny Gray for putting me in that bad mood Friday night.