Yankees Fall To Orioles, Girardi Sorting Out Plans
The New York Yankees dropped Saturday´s night game to the Baltimore Orioles 4-3 despite a solid performance by Luis Severino. Baltimore used a bloop single and two wild pitches in the bottom of the eighth inning to push across the deciding run.
The Yankees battled back from a 3-1 deficit to tie the score in the fifth. The big hits came from Rob Refsnyder and Slade Heathcott, who both doubled. After yielding a pair of early home runs, Severino settled down. He allowed three runs and five hits while striking out six. [related category]
As Tuesday´s wild card game approaches, Joe Girardi must sort things out to determine how his pitching staff will shape up for that game and the playoffs beyond. He also looks to solve the Yankees struggles with runners in scoring position.
One question to be answered is the contribution of Ivan Nova. Nova struggled in Saturday´s first game, but Girardi hinted that he still may be in the Yankees playoff plans. “I thought Nova’s return was pretty successful,” he said, according to MLB.com. “A lot of times Tommy John guys have trouble with their command when they come back. I think he’ll be much better next year. I think he’ll be more consistent. He had some really good starts for us, and then he had some that he struggled with.¨
And after his recent bullpen session, Nathan Eovaldi could give the Yankees staff a shot in the arm. “Everything felt great,” Eovaldi said, also according to MLB.com. “I threw 25 pitches, 18 of them fastballs and seven of them splits. Moving forward. I’m definitely ready to get going. I’ve just been going through the process, taking it slow and trying to stay healthy. I have a day off from throwing, a day of catch and another bullpen , 35 pitches. We’ll see what happens after that.”
In any case, guiding the Yankees through the playoffs this year may prove to be one of the biggest challenges of Girardi´s managerial career. “We’ll try to formulate the roster to prepare ourselves as well as we can,” he said, also according to MLB.com. “It could very well be the way we played Wednesday night; very similar to that game where you may go to your bullpen a little bit earlier and you do the things you need to do because you have to move on.”
And the time to start moving is now.