The Yankees are on their first winning streak since the beginning of August
The Yankees beat the Detroit Tigers 4–2 on bark in the park night in Detroit on Tuesday and have now won two games in a row. They have won the first two games of their series at Comerica Park. There were 17,236 people (42% of capacity) at this game to see the Tigers, who are now 59–73, face the Yankees, who are now 64–68.
They are on their first winning streak since August 2 and 3. Since that two-game winning streak against Tampa Bay and Houston, the Yankees have gone just 7–16 including this current two-game winning streak. After their nine-game losing streak from August 12–22, the Yankees have gone 4–3 in their last seven games.
The Yankees have scored at least four runs in six of their last seven games. They scored at least three runs or less in 10 of their previous 13 games.
In this game, the second game of the series in Detroit, Gleyber Torres blasted a no doubt about it solo homer in the first inning that went 454 feet. That was his longest homer of his career. It was an eight-pitch at-bat and the homer had a 108.6 mph exit velocity.
This was his 22nd homer of his season, which is second on the team to Aaron Judge’s 29 homers. Torres now has a homer and a two-hit game in consecutive games to raise his average from .266 to .271 and his SLG percentage from .438 to .455. He is one of the best second baseman in the league and it would make sense if the Yankees give him a multi-year contract in the offseason to stay with the team.
The second homer that the Yankees had off of Tigers starter Tarik Skubal was when Kyle Higashioka hit a solo homer in the fifth inning. Higashioka now has three homers in the last six games that he has started. His SLG percentage has gone up from .378 to .409. The Yankees then scored one run in the sixth inning, which would end up being the winning run, when Judge scored on a passed ball error by catcher Carson Kelly.
In the ninth inning, rookie Anthony Volpe pulled a ball that was right down the middle into the stands in left field to give the Yankees an insurance run and a 4–0 lead. In his last four games, he is 4–15 with two runs scored, two homers and three RBI.
He has been one of the best rookies in the league this season, which is impressive since he only played 22 game at Triple-A last season before being the team’s Opening Day shortstop this season. He has played in 131 of the team’s 132 games this season and has 19 homers and 20 steals. His .216 average and 88 OPS+ are low, but his homer and steals totals are very good and he has played very solid defense this season.
Only 14 rookies in MLB history have had 20 homers and 20 steals in a season and Volpe only needs one more homer to be the 15th to do so. Volpe is the first Yankees rookie ever to have 19 homers and 19 steals in a season. Volpe is second among American League shortstops with his 19 homers, he is fourth among American League shortstops with his 20 steals, he is fifth among American League shortstops with his .400 SLG percentage and his 3.4 WAR is sixth best among AL shortstops.
Michael King looked great tonight in his third start as the Yankees are converting him to being a starting pitcher like he used to be in the minors. After pitching his first 38 games in the bullpen this season he has been the starting pitcher three games of his last five games. He is gradually building up his pitch count. In his previous two games including this game, both starts, he has allowed zero earned runs in 6.2 innings while allowing just four hits, two walks and striking out eight.
In this game on Tuesday, King just allowed three hits and no walks in four scoreless innings while striking out five. His 61 pitches is his longest outing since July 3rd, 2021. This could be a little risky given his injury history, but he is definitely proving that he can have success as a starting pitcher and this transition makes sense since the team does not have two pitchers in the rotation in Nestor Cortes and Domingo German. They don’t have Cortes for likely the rest of the season due to injury and they don’t have German for the rest of the season due to off the field alcohol abuse issues. King has always had the pitch repertoire of a starting pitcher.
Jhony Brito was dominant like King. Brito got his fifth win of the season after pitching the fifth, sixth, seventh innings and getting one out in the eighth inning.
In Brito’s 3.1 innings, he allowed just two hits while striking out three and walking two batters. This was his fifth relief appearance this season. As a relief pitcher this season, he has a 1.53 ERA in 17.2 innings, he has 15 strikeouts and has only walked four batters in those 17.2 innings.
Brito was a starting pitcher in his first eight games this season. He has been a relief pitcher in four of his last five games and was also a relief pitcher on May 15, his first relief pitcher appearance, when he allowed just one earned run in 5.1 innings pitched.
Brito has a 5.12 ERA in 18 games (70.1 innings), but that ERA is skewed since he allowed seven earned runs in his third game this season and he allowed six earned runs to the Red Sox earlier this month on August 18. Overall this season, Brito, who is from the Dominican Republic and was born in 1998, has allowed two earned runs or less in 12 of his 18 games.
Yankees pitchers not named Holmes have shutout the Tigers in 16 of the 18 innings so far in this series but Clay Holmes has struggled. Holmes has allowed at least one run in five of his last six appearances after previously dominating as he only allowed one earned run in his previous 13 innings in a span of 14 games. In that stretch he was pitching like he did in the first half of last season. Holmes struck out Javy Baez on a slider to end the game.
In this game, the struggling Holmes, whose ERA has gone up from 2.01 to 3.42 in his last six games, allowed two earned runs on two hits and a walk in the ninth inning. He has allowed 13 hits and nine earned runs in his last 5.1 innings after allowing just seven hits and one run in his previous 13 innings.
Harrison Bader, who went 0–4 in this game, was put on waivers by the Yankees before this game. They could have traded him for a decent prospect before the trade deadline but they did not and he has really struggled since the trade deadline.
He had a .256 average and a .417 SLG percentage before the trade deadline on July 31 but his average is now .239 and his SLG percentage is .365, which is not good. In his last 12 games, he is 3–40 with zero RBI.
Bader said that he was in the lunch room before the game when he saw on ESPN that he was put on waivers. He reflected positively on his time as a Yankee if his time in pinstripes is indeed coming to an end. New York’s hope is that another team will claim the remaining salary on Bader, who was headed to free agency in a couple months. In the unlikely event that Bader goes unclaimed the Yankees could decide to keep him on the Major League roster but another team will likely claim him to play center field on their team since they will not have to give up anything to get him except for paying his salary for September. They will hope that Bader, who is known for his defense, will be better on offense than he has been recently with the Yankees.
“Regardless of what may happen, getting the opportunity to play in this uniform, and I still hopefully will get the opportunity to play in this uniform, everything that has happened has been an absolute blessing and an absolute gift,” Bader said after the game. “I am a New York City kid and I never in a million years thought I would play in the big leagues or for the New York Yankees. The opportunity has been incredible and I have loved every second of it.”
The Yankees made the decision to release Josh Donaldson before the game, which was a wise decision. In 165 games with the Yankees (666 plate appearances), he had a .207 average, 25 homers, 77 RBI, a .678 OPS, a below league average 91 OPS+ an was 5–29 in the playoffs.
