Yesterday’s Positives (seriously) and Looking Forward to Detroit

I might be in the minority, but I was in a better mood than usual after a Yankees loss yesterday. Sure, the bullpen blew a lead against a team that can hit, but that happens, nothing to get your pinstripes in a bunch about. I was more impressed by the positives (that have been negatives all season) than I was distraught by the ending.

One positive takeaway from yesterday’s game was that Carlos Rodón was very good. After a rocky start, that potentially could have been much worse, the Yanks’ number two pitched like it. Featuring his slider more than usual, Rodón generated weak contact (82.7 mph average exit velocity to be exact) which has been his biggest challenge in ’23 and generated 18 swings and misses – more than twice as many in his last start. Can’t complain about that even though his traditional stat line doesn’t look great. (Stop looking at ERA folks…)

The bats looked pretty good yesterday as well, registering 10 batted balls over 95 mph, with (somewhat ironically) Aaron Judge and Gleyber Torres being the only hitters who did not register a hard-hit ball. On a personal level, it was fun seeing not only Everson Pereira and Oswald Peraza each smoke a line drive, but seeing DJ LeMahieu have three more hard hit balls and Anthony Volpe continue to swing with bad intentions was really good to see.

Moving on, here are some things you might want to know about Detroit, who the Yankees will see for four games starting tonight.

Tonight’s starter, Reese Olson, throws three pitches predominantly – four seamer, sinker, and slider – and all three end up in the middle of the strike zone quite often. I’d look for the above-mentioned names to continue to hit the ball hard tonight.

As far as their position players go, the names you know – Miguel Cabrera and Javy Baez – are absolutely awful. But Riley Greene and Kerry Carpenter are both young outfielders who are having very good seasons in Detroit and are worth keeping an eye on.

Greene is a 22-year-old left-handed hitting center fielder and former first round pick with power (87^th percentile average exit velocity) and speed (74^th percentile sprint speed). On the 2023 season he’s put up a 124 wRC+ and 2.3 fWAR in only 94 games – the wRC+ and fWAR would be second best on the Yankees, FYI.

Carpenter is a 25-year-old left-handed hitting right fielder and DH with power who’s posted a very impressive 143 wRC+ and 2.2 fWAR on the season in 87 games. He’s been on fire recently, knocking eight hits – three for extra bases – in his last 19 AB.

Similar to the way Pereira and Peraza are the reasons for me to watch the Yankees these days, Greene and Carpenter are reasons to keep an eye on Detroit this week. All four games are on the Yes Network, but there’s a good slate of MLB matchups on MLB.tv for when the Yanks frustrate you. (“When”, not “if”…)

Did I miss anything? Let me know. Leave a comment below or yell at me @mybaseballpage1 on Twitter and/or the “My Baseball Page” on Facebook.