The team’s home-and-home series with the Phillies was postponed following the Marlins’ outbreak, and will now face their first divisional opponent instead.
It’s been a confusing couple of days for the Yankees, but at least they now have directions. Their four-game set against the Philadelphia Phillies was postponed following a coronavirus outbreak within the Miami Marlins, who just used the Phillies’ visiting clubhouse and was on the field in contact with Phillies players over the weekend.
Instead of clashing with their former manager Joe Girardi, the team will instead be on the road to Baltimore for a two-game set against the Orioles. The Orioles were supposed to be playing against the Marlins right now, but since they were also stuck in limbo with the Marlins unable to leave quarantine, the two teams can match up in the meantime.
It looks like the idea will be to get these two games in for the sake of freeing up space later to make up the games the Yankees missed against the Phillies. This last second adjustment leaves the Yankees in a bit of a difficult spot — they had been holed up in a Philadelphia hotel awaiting word of what was going to happen with the games here, and planned to head back to New York today to work out ahead of their home games. Now they have to plan a trip to Baltimore and figure out the logistics of that, whether they want to head there today and try to practice or stay together tonight and bus down to Baltimore tomorrow morning.
The last we heard of New York Yankees closer Aroldis Chapman was that he was unable to produce consecutive negative tests. With COVID-19 hitting the Miami Marlins hard, baseball has been forced to rearrange schedules and compensate appropriately.
The Yankees will now face off against the Baltimore Orioles at Camden Yards on Wednesday and Thursday. They were originally scheduled to play against the Philadelphia Phillies, who are coming off a three-game series against Miami.
The New York Yankees must tread lightly:
While the 2020 season remains a massive struggle and changes will have to be made as we go, the Yankees are set to gain back one stud player soon.
Chapman, who was still testing positive as of last Wednesday, is apparently “doing well,” according to Aaron Boone. He is reportedly asymptomatic and could return with the Yankees by next week given his tests come back in good fashion. In the meantime, the Yankee have been utilizing Zack Britton as a closer when necessary, as he finished the game on Sunday night against the Washington Nationals.
The Yankees are currently 2-1 on the season. Last week, general manager Brian Cashman compared Chapman’s situation to both DJ LeMahieu and Luis Cessa, who have both been cleared to return to baseball activity. LeMahieu has featured in the Yankees’ last two games, with Cessa working his way back.
Chapman simply cannot pass the administered test but has been working out plenty in this New York City apartment. With a team as strong as the Yankees, they can supplement his loss for the time being, but eventually, they will need his services to close out games as the season progresses. In 2019, Chapman logged 37 saves, with 85 strikeouts and allowed just three home runs. He was an All-Star for the second consecutive season.
Hopefully, he can return quickly and not skip a beat after giving up a season-ending homer to Jose Altuve in the ALCS last year.
Last night, the Yankees announced they optioned outfielder Clint Frazier and right-handed reliever Ben Heller to their alternate training site. The club plans to bring right-handers Nick Nelson and Brooks Kriske up to the active roster in their stead. They’ll add a pair of fresh arms to a pitching staff that saw James Paxton work just one-plus inning in Saturday’s loss to the Nationals.
So continues Frazier’s repeated journeys on and off the big league roster. The onetime top prospect has been decent offensively, albeit with some high-profile defensive issues, when he’s gotten MLB opportunities (career .254/.308/.463 line in 429 plate appearances). Still, he’s had a hard time cracking a loaded Yankees outfield.
Given his immense power potential, the 25-year-old has long been rumored as a potential trade candidate. Thus far, the organization has expressed little interest in giving him up. Given the club’s competitive outlook, though, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see his name floated in rumors again this season. Yesterday’s demotion doesn’t suggest the organization has soured on Frazier long-term, but it does underscore the difficulty for him in carving out an immediate, significant role in the Bronx.
Nelson and Kriske, meanwhile, will each make their MLB debut if/when they get into a game. Each posted strong strikeout and run prevention numbers in Double-A in 2019, albeit with slightly elevated walk rates.
They should trade him before the screw his head up...
Frazier is going to make them pay big time if they trade him. The guys bat is going to be sick when he gets the opportunity and his trade value is garbage right now
I don't think his value is garbage. He played well last year, and a change of scenery is what he needs. If a spot opened, I'd like to keep him though.
The New York Yankees face the Baltimore Orioles in an MLB regular season game at Oriole Park in Baltimore, Maryland, on Wednesday, July 29, 2020 (7/29/20). First pitch is scheduled for 7:35 p.m. Eastern time.
Live stream: Hulu (YES Network local market only).
Here is more information on how this series came to be, via the Associated Press:
The remainder of the Phillies' home-and-home series against the New York Yankees was postponed amid coronavirus concerns Tuesday in the wake of an outbreak involving another team.
The Phillies were supposed to host the Yankees on Monday and Tuesday and play them in New York on Wednesday and Thursday. Instead, the Yankees are planning to head to Baltimore to start a series against the Orioles on Wednesday.
“As of right now, we get to continue our season and we’re excited about the opportunity,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “2020 is unlike anything we’ve experienced.”
The Phillies were having a second round of COVID-19 tests Tuesday following an outbreak among the Miami Marlins, who played a weekend series in Philadelphia.
“The fact that we haven’t had anyone test positive yet is great, but there’s too much at stake when you talk about players and their health and their family’s health,” Phillies manager Joe Girardi said in an interview with MLB Network Radio. “There are guys that have little children at home or wives that are pregnant or a parent that is high risk. There’s too much at risk here not to say: ‘Hey, we’ve got to back off for two days and let’s make sure.’ I think it’s smart what baseball is doing here and then we’ll go from there. We had some players that probably had some trepidation (playing against the Marlins) on Sunday because there’s close contact.”
The Yankees spent Monday in a hotel in Philadelphia after the opener of the series was postponed. They were going to return to New York on Tuesday before rearranging the schedule to go to Baltimore.
“As of right now, we get to continue our season and we’re excited about the opportunity,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “2020 is unlike anything we’ve experienced.”
The Phillies were having a second round of COVID-19 tests Tuesday following an outbreak among the Miami Marlins, who played a weekend series in Philadelphia.
“The fact that we haven’t had anyone test positive yet is great, but there’s too much at stake when you talk about players and their health and their family’s health,” Phillies manager Joe Girardi said in an interview with MLB Network Radio. “There are guys that have little children at home or wives that are pregnant or a parent that is high risk. There’s too much at risk here not to say: ‘Hey, we’ve got to back off for two days and let’s make sure.’ I think it’s smart what baseball is doing here and then we’ll go from there. We had some players that probably had some trepidation (playing against the Marlins) on Sunday because there’s close contact.”
The Yankees spent Monday in a hotel in Philadelphia after the opener of the series was postponed. They were going to return to New York on Tuesday before rearranging the schedule to go to Baltimore.
More than a dozen Marlins players and staff members tested positive for COVID-19 in an outbreak that stranded the team in Philadelphia on Sunday, disrupting MLB's schedule in the early days of the shortened, pandemic-delayed season.
Major League Baseball suspended the Miami Marlins’ season through Sunday.
NJ.com | Mike Rosenstein: In case you missed it, the Yankees series with the Phillies has been postponed as Philadelphia receives testing after being exposed to the coronavirus due to the Marlins outbreak. The Yankees have instead been rerouted to Baltimore, where they’ll take on the Orioles for two days. They are then scheduled to face Boston this weekend.
CBS Sports | Mike Axisa: The Washington Nationals voted as a team not to travel to Miami to play the Marlins. It’s not within the rules for the players to simply decide they don’t want to play games; this has to be considered an act in direct defiance of the league to demonstrate that the players don’t feel safe, and won’t go along with MLB’s plans to just plunge forward.
ESPN: As of now, no Philadelphia Phillies have tested positive for the coronavirus after the team was exposed during their opening series with the Marlins. Based on our understanding of the virus, however, this piece of decent news doesn’t offer too much information. An infected person can take days before turning in a positive test, and sometimes, said person can shed virus and infect others before testing positive. It’s hard to imagine the league can send the Phillies anywhere to play baseball while confidently stating that no member of the team has the virus. The Phillies are scheduled to isolate at least through Friday.
Yahoo Sports | Mike Oz: The Marlins had four more players test positive yesterday, meaning at least 17 members of the team have tested positive. It’s believed at least 15 of those have been players, so it appears likely half of the team has contracted the coronavirus. Any member of the Marlins traveling party is liable to have gotten infected. The Marlins are set to quarantine until Monday, though it’s fair to ask if it will be safe for them to play even by then.
FanGraphs | Jay Jaffe: Jaffe takes a wider look at the fiasco in Miami, and tries to answer questions surrounding why the Marlins were allowed to play on Sunday, and whether MLB can truly believe its protocols are enough if Miami’s outbreak stemmed from one infected person.
Coming off a season filled with injuries, the Yankees have brought in the best in the business.
Yankees fans watched in disbelief as player after player headed to the injured list during the 2019 season. By the time it was over, the Yankees saw a record 30 players spend time on the injured list, losing over 600 more games than the next closest team. It was no surprise that changes to the Yankees athletic training staff began over the winter, including landing a deal with Eric Cressey, who is considered the best in the business when it comes to getting players prepared for the rigors of the major league season.
Cressey did not begin his work in athletic training with baseball in mind. His first gym happened to be attached to a baseball stadium, and he ended up with numerous players coming through and using his facility. Using his proximity to the field, he watched closely and began building relationships with the players to see where he could help them improve their physical tools.
Armed with a Master’s Degree in Kinesiology from the highly regarded program at the University of Connecticut, Cressey’s training methods are built off his academic background. He has shared his exercise philosophies in books, DVD sets, and over 500 published articles.
Cressey’s list of clientele has continued to grow as players shared their experience working with him. In a regular offseason, over 100 professional baseball players from North America and Japan travel to Cressey’s two training centers to prepare for their upcoming seasons.
Counted among that number are some of the most successful pitchers of the last decade. Cressey gained a level of status when two of his clients, Corey Kluber and Max Scherzer, won the Cy Young awards for their respective leagues in 2017.
Kluber has been a Cressey client for over nine years, a period that’s coincided with much of the success that he has found in his career. In a testimonial to Cressey Sports Performance, Kluber said “CSP has been a crucial part of the success I have had in my career to this point. The programs have helped me gain velocity as well as put my body in a position to remain healthy throughout a long season.”
Two members of the 2020 Yankees have close ties to Cressey’s facility in Hudson, MA. Pitching coach Matt Blake worked as the pitching coordinator for seven years at the facility. During his time there he helped the spot gain its reputation for being on the cutting edge of integrating technology into pitcher development. After being hired as the Yankees new pitching coach, Blake immediately gave Cressey a strong endorsement as someone who could help the Yankees.
Right-handed pitcher Mike King grew up in Rhode Island before attending Boston College. He has worked at CSP on and off since high school, and has a very good relationship with Cressey.
During a training session at Cressey’s facility before the 2018 season, King was able to pick the brain of Scherzer, who there at the same time. Building off that discussion as well as the experience of watching Scherzer go through his regular routines, King emerged as a serious prospect. That season, King was promoted through two levels of the minors, finishing with Triple-A Scranton and being named the Yankees minor league pitcher of the year.
When baseball was shut down this spring, Cressey’s Palm Beach Gardens gym became a gathering place for many of the top players in the game. In addition to Scherzer and Justin Verlander, hitters such as Giancarlo Stanton and Paul Goldschmidt used the facility.
Cressey’s facilities are certain to become mandatory stopping points for Yankees players. Just this past weekend, the Yankees fourth-round pick Beck Way was working with Cressey at his facility in Massachusetts. Through this work the Yankees are hoping that Way can improve his physical base and rise quickly through the system.
Eric Cressey’s reputation has been earned as his clients find success year after year. Having joined the Yankees organization in January, there is still time before the full results of his work will be on display. The early results look impressive, as Yankees players look ready to face the season after working directly with Cressey over the shutdown.
Only in these unpredictable and scary times that we’re now living in would the Yankees wake up in Philadelphia for a game that would be canceled due to the raging coronavirus pandemic, plan for a bus ride back to New York for a home opener at Yankee Stadium against the Phillies only to head to Baltimore instead for a makeshift series in a revamped schedule.
“I get on the phone with our manager 45 minutes before our buses are due to depart for New York and ask, ‘What do you think if we instead pivoted and went to Baltimore so we can play some games down there?” Yankees GM Brian Cashman said Tuesday in a Zoom call. “Everybody seemed to be all in.”
They’re all in with a 2-1 record and two postponed games that may or may not be made up in a 60-game season in which the Yanks are down to just six off days.
Here are six things Yankees fans need to know in the aftermath of two wasted days in Philadelphia:
THE SCHEDULE
The Yanks and Orioles’ two games at Oriole Park this week will start at 7:35 p.m and be televised by the YES Network. Beyond that, the Yanks don’t know how their schedule will be adjusted.
Will the Yanks play two extra games against Baltimore?
They don’t know.
Will the four postponed games against the Phillies be made up?
They don’t know.
Regardless, Yankees reliever/union rep Zack Britton seems fine with clubs playing as many games as possible and having playoff teams being determined by winning percentage.
“If there are some teams that missed a handful of games here and there due to outbreaks on their team or safety issues in general,” Britton said, “I think this is going to be a very unique season and I think we understand that it might not be perfect in competitive balance this year. That’s just the nature of the environment that we’re in.”
THE FLORIDA TRIP
The Yanks are scheduled to make their only trip to Florida, a COVID-19 hot spot, for a four-game series against the Tampa Bay Rays that’s scheduled for Aug. 6-9 at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg. Considering the Marlins’ ordeal and what’s been happening in the state of Florida, who could blame the Yankees if they try to get MLB to move the series to New York?
“I know what’s going on in Florida right now, but we are focused on trying to take care of Wednesday, Thursday and the coming weekend,” Cashman said. “So first things first.”
Cashman also knows that schedule changes are a lot easier to make this season with no fans attending games – the quick switch to Baltimore is proof - although revisions probably are nightmares for teams’ traveling secretaries, who are in charge of lining up planes, trains, buses, hotels, etc.
THE PITCHING
Two unscheduled days off this week forced manager Aaron Boone to redo his rotation. The updated probables for the Orioles series has Gerrit Cole pitching Wednesday on one extra day of rest and J.A. Happ making his season debut on Thursday.
Paxton will be looking to rebound from a poor first outing last Saturday against Washington, while Tanaka is coming off the injured list to make his first start and Montgomery will get a first turn after beginning the season on the Triple-A roster because the Yanks had planned to use four starters for one turn.
SHAKING THE RUST
The Yankees bussed from Philadelphia to Baltimore late Tuesday afternoon, then worked out at Oriole Park on Tuesday night to loosen up their arms and take some BP.
“We can knock the rust off and get our guys active like they’re used to, so we are in the best competitive position,” Cashman said.
The Yanks owned the O’s last season, winning 17 of 19 games.
“I feel like from a focus standpoint we’re in a good spot,” Boone said. “We’ll be ready. We’ll start putting our best foot forward again and I think we look forward to that opportunity to get back out on the field.”
MARCHING FORWARD
Cashman is hopeful but not confident that MLB will be able to pull out their quest to stage a 60-game season and then complete a full postseason.
“It’s all an unknown,” he said. “I can’t predict the future. I’m not saying we’re day to day, but we are week-to-week in terms of experiencing what we’re experiencing for the first time.
“I can’t tell you I have confidence. I can’t tell you I don’t have confidence. I can tell you we’re going to do everything in our power to do everything the right way and play baseball as long as we can. And if something changes, it changes.”
LATEST ON CHAPMAN
Britton has been filling in as the closer and saved Sunday’s game in D.C., because Aroldis Chapman still is on the injured list due to a positive coronavirus test during summer camp.
It’s still unknown when Chapman will return, but the Yankees provided positive news on Tuesday.
“The only thing I can tell you is we’re thankful he’s doing well,” Cashman said. “I think he’d want me to report that. When he’s passed all of the hurdles, you’ll see him back as part of our group.”
As MLB tries to deal with the Marlins COVID-19 outbreak, it was clear from the very beginning that the Yankees wouldn’t be staying in Philadelphia’s visitors’ clubhouse. After the weekend series between Miami and the Phillies, coronavirus cases on the former’s active roster reached 15, exactly half of the team. That’s why the Bombers are now traveling to Baltimore to start a two-game series with the Orioles, to be played on Wednesday and Thursday.
The last couple of days have been chaotic for the Yankees from a logistics standpoint. According to Lindsey Adler of The Athletic, an hour before they were scheduled to return to New York from Philadelphia, the Yankees learned that they would go to Baltimore instead. Manager Aaron Boone said the team equipment was already starting to head back to New York and had to be called back.
However, as the Marlins will not play for the remainder of the week, the show goes on for the Yankees. They will visit Camden Yards to take on the O’s. Both teams are 2-1 in the AL East standings.
The Yankees took two out of three in the nation’s capital against the Washington Nationals, and the birds won their series vs. the Boston Red Sox, in a somewhat surprising turn of events. They dropped the season opener 13-2, but earned two victories in a row on Saturday (7-2) and Sunday (7-4.)
It is obvious to say that Gleyber Torres should be delighted by the change of plans regarding the MLB schedule. As a reminder: he destroyed the Orioles last season, to the tune of a .395/.467/1.045 line, with four doubles, 13 homers, 20 RBI and 22 runs.
Although Orioles manager Brandon Hyde hasn’t made it official given the constant change in plans, it is likely that he will use right-hander Asher Wojciechowski in the first game of the series to rival Yankees’ star Gerrit Cole. Wojciechowski was supposed to start on Monday against the Marlins, so he would be the logical choice to take the ball today.
Wojciechowski can rack up the strikeouts if he is right (8.7 K/9 in 2019) but he struggles to keep the ball on the yard, as his 1.86 HR/9 mark suggests. He had a 4.92 ERA last season, but he did enjoy a nice stretch between July 12 and July 26, with a 3/25 BB/K ratio and a 2.21 ERA in 20.1 frames.
Other options to take the ball for the Orioles are Kohl Stewart and Tommy Milone, who was battered by the Boston Red Sox in the first game of Baltimore’s season.
No matter how you slice it, today’s game is the most lopsided of the series, at least on paper. Gerrit Cole showed last week on Opening Day against the Washington Nationals that he is in midseason form, racking up five strikeouts in a complete-game victory, shortened by the rain. He only allowed a solo home run in five innings of work.
Just as a reminder, Cole was arguably the best pitcher in the American League last year, going 20-5 with a 2.50 ERA (2.64 FIP) and 326 strikeouts.
Boone already announced J.A. Happ as Thursday’s probable starter, but Hyde’s plans remain a mystery. The rotation had Wojciechowski starting on Monday, Stewart on Tuesday and Milone today.
However, left-hander John Means, the Orioles’ best pitcher in the 2019 season, told reporters on Saturday that he expects to be activated from the injured list to start on Thursday. That was before the COVID-19 outbreak with the Marlins, and he was supposed to face the Marlins, so it remains to be seen if Hyde goes with his ace or if he deploys Stewart or Milone instead.
Means started the year on the injured list due to left arm fatigue, but he is over the issue now. Last season, his breakout year, the 27-year-old had a 3.60 ERA in 155.0 innings. He isn’t overpowering (7.0 K/9) but relies on one of the league’s best changeups (12.3 pitch value per FanGraphs) and an effective slider to keep hitters off balance.
For the Yankees, it will be Happ’s season debut. The veteran southpaw had a season to forget in 2019, with a 4.91 ERA and a 5.22 FIP. It was the first time since 2014 that his ERA jumped over the 4.00 threshold.
There are reasons for optimism with Happ, though. In 27.1 September innings, he had a 1.65 ERA and a 2/28 BB/K ratio. Will he be able to rebound this year?
WFAN.com: The radio voice of the New York Yankees, John Sterling, missed last night’s game because he was feeling under the weather. In his place, Rickie Ricardo, the Spanish play-by-play announcer, filled in. As everybody knows, the 82-year-old Sterling does not like missing games, as he in fact missed his first game since 1989 last July, so let’s hope that this isn’t serious, and that Sterling returns to the booth shortly.
New York Times | James Wagner: Even by the standards of this 2020 season, this week has been strange for the New York Yankees. Following the cancellation of the two games in Philadelphia, the league put forward the possibility of the Yankees heading to Baltimore to play the Orioles instead of to New York to play the Phillies, in order to give the Phillies a longer time to quarantine after playing the COVID-infected Marlins. A quick players’ meeting, a herculean effort by Ben Tuliebitz, and a bit of flexibility later, and we have a reworked schedule — the necessary price of playing baseball in 2020.
Philadelphia Inquirer | Matt Breen: Two bits of potential Yankees news in this Philadelphia article. For starters, the Yankees/Phillies home-and-home series looks to be rescheduled for next week, playing the four-game, two-location set simply a week later than expected; how that changes the Yankees’ schedule, since they are supposed to play the Tampa Bay Rays on Thursday, remains to be seen. Furthermore, the possibility of doubleheaders consisting of two seven-inning games has been raised, in order to shorten the amount of time players need to be at the ballpark and reduce the physical load on players during this abbreviated season.
