With the Red Sox set to start a slew of left-handers against the Yankees’ left-handed dominant lineup in this weekend’s huge four-game series at Yankee Stadium, Aaron Boone will “face some tough decisions,” Michael Kay says.
The Yankees (75-58) open the series just two games ahead of the Red Sox (73-60) in the American League Wild Card standings. The higher-seeded team will get home-field advantage and host all the games in the Wild Card series (Sept. 29-Oct 1).
The Red Sox are projected to start left-hander Patrick Sandoval in the opener Friday night against Cam Schlittler. In the first game of the doubleheader on Saturday, Boston will start lefty Jake Bennett, while they will likely use another lefty in the bullpen game in the second game of the doubleheader. On Sunday, lefty Ranger Suarez goes against Will Warren.
“Aaron Boone’s going to have some tough decisions to make over the weekend,” Kay said on the YES Network during the Yankees’ 5-1 loss to the Houston Astros on Thursday. “The Red Sox are starting three lefties, and then their bullpen game will also be started by a lefty.
“Is anybody gonna sit [among the left-handed hitting starters]? Will they take some of the righties off the bench and put them in the starting lineup? Will [Heliot] Ramos see time? Those are not easy decisions made.”
With Aaron Judge still working his way back to the lineup and looking to avoid a rehab assignment, the Yankees are left-handed hitting heavy and opposing teams know it.
The Yankees have a few right-handed hitters available off the bench in Ramos, Amed Rosario and Paul Goldschmidt.
Boone had said that Ramos and Spencer Jones would platoon in right field but Jones has been relatively hot of late and Kay pointed out that he’s 10-for-29 in 33 plate appearances against lefties.
“Yeah, I would imagine [some righties would play],” added Yankees legend Paul O’Neill on YES. “And it kind of makes it easy with the doubleheader because you make your guys’ days off and get guys in there. But yeah, when you get a single game against the lefty, you brought Ramos over [via trade]. You’ve got guys that need to get in the lineup because they need to be your bats against lefties.”
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David Cone, Mr. Analytics, then chimed in with some more context.
“They have more that just goes into it than just the numbers,” Cone said. “They’re going to take a look at pitch path and wing path. They have a lot of variables now in their tookit to evaluate the individual matchups against particular lefties and the pitch path of that particular lefty, and obviously the swing path of the hitter.”
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