Yankees: Bottom of the order completes the best lineup in baseball

Despite last night’s 5-4 loss to the Red Sox, the Yankees made another valiant late-inning comeback with four runs in the bottom of the seventh inning to tie the game. Leading the rally once again was the bottom of the order.

Throughout the team’s recent 17-2 stretch that’s been a common theme as the Yankees have shown that 1-9 their lineup doesn’t have any holes. It’s been amazing to watch this team continue to fight and put up quality at-bats until the very last out night after night. They are never out of a game especially once a team goes to their bullpen in the late innings.

Everybody thinks of the big boppers Judge, Stanton, and Sanchez in the top half of the order, but what makes the Yankees lineup the best in baseball is guys like Walker, Andujar, and Torres at the bottom. Those three, in particular, have been right in the middle of just about every comeback over the past couple weeks with numerous game-tying and walk-off hits.

The two rookies have been everything the Yanks could have asked for and more in the early going. What makes them so tough to deal with is their ability to put the bat on the ball in crucial situations of the game.

We saw on Wednesday night in the Yankees thrilling comeback win when after Walker led off with a double Andujar set up the tying run with a routine ground ball to second to move him over to third with one out. Gleyber Torres followed with an impressive walk laying off some tough pitches to bring up Brett Gardner and Aaron Judge who eventually gave the Yankees a three-run lead after a triple and a home run.

That’s the kind of team baseball we’ve seen from these Yankees during this incredible run after that was something this team really had trouble with in years past. Moving runners over or putting the ball in play was a struggle at times because of the team’s propensity for strikeouts. They still have some guys at the top of the order who strike out a lot but collectively this is a lineup that puts the ball in play especially in the later innings.

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Another area where the Yankee lineup has improved thanks to the guys at the bottom is hitting with runners in scoring position. So far this season the Yanks are hitting .289 with RISP which is good for third in baseball at the moment. It’s still early but a season ago that number was .261 which was good for 17th in the game.

Digging deeper, Torres (.333), Ronald Torreyes (.400) and even Austin Romine (.455) are all a huge reason why the Yanks have hit so well in those situations. Aaron Judge himself has been great at .357 which shows you how deep this lineup is and how hard it is to navigate through over the course of nine innings.

It seems like when this Yankee team find themselves in a hole after struggling all game against a really good starting pitcher that they turn their focus up once they get into the bullpen. Everybody locks in and the at-bats are much more competitive. Over these past couple weeks, we’ve seen guys like Cody Allen, Ken Giles, and Craig Kimbrel all fail to finish off Yankee hitters.

That’s a huge sign of what this Yankee team can do moving forward and into October because those are some of the relievers they’re going to have to go through to make it to the World Series.

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Overall this lineup is a nightmare for the opposition to deal and the main reason why right now the Yankees are the best team in baseball. It’s as dangerous of an offense as they’ve had in years and one that is only going to get better in the years to come. A true nightmare indeed.