Author: /u/StevenJeon

At bat 1: 5 pitch single up the middle

At bat 2: 6 pitch walk

At bat 3: 6 pitch strikeout looking

At bat 4: 4 pitch flyout to LF

At bat 5: 5 pitch single to center

Yordan’s first game back from COVID protocols, and man, what a game it was. The first thing I noticed was that he was much more confident in his ability to wait for hittable pitches, as shown by his plate discipline in the at bats. It definitely looked like he wasn’t trying to do too much out there, as both of his hits he simply took what the pitchers gave him, low and away, and hit it into center for singles. He did show a bit of passiveness in his strikeout where he didn’t swing at all 6 pitches in the at bat, but overall it was really encouraging to see what we saw from Yordan today. Good to see he’s doing fine after returning, and expecting big things from him moving forwards.

Haha, turns out Yordan did have a plate appearance today, appearing as a pinch hitter in the top of the 9th for the final out. I guess I’ll make a little analysis of his 1 at bat.

At bat 1: 4 pitch groundout to SS

Obviously it’s 1 at bat, so it’s hard to make a clear analysis, but I liked what I saw from Yordan. Even though it was only 1 at bat, and it was an out, he did make solid contact on the pitch and pulled it well into center field. There just happened to be a defender there. Other than that, he swung at only strikes and took the obvious balls, so I can’t really feel bad for him.

Obviously I have been slacking off on the Daily dose of Yordan posts with him out with COVID, I’ll be resuming the daily analysis now that he’s back to playing. Hopefully him (and the Astros) can get things back on track!

At bat 1: 4 pitch infield single (opposite field?)

At bat 2: 2 pitch lineout

At bat 3: 6 pitch single (opposite field)

At bat 4: 6 pitch lineout

A pretty good game today for Yordan. He was controlling the zone really well, and he was working into good counts. He did also get 2 pretty good pitches and drove them pretty far, but they unfortunately weren’t hit well enough to get out. I was kinda skeptical at his 2 hits though, both his choppy single in his first at bat and his other single on his 3rd at bat looked like mis-hits that happened to find grass instead of gloves. I still liked his discipline and swing today, but it was kinda odd how his weak batted balls became hits and his fly balls became long outs. I have complete confidence that soon he’ll start hitting those balls out.

At bat 1: 2 pitch lineout

At bat 2: 2 pitch flyout

At bat 3: 4 pitch groundout

At bat 4: 5 pitch groundout

A pretty quiet day for Yordan. In his first at bat, he connected early on a pretty deep lineout, but other than that, Mize was pounding him low and away, and he was swinging early at pitches that were in the zone, but not good pitches. In his last at bat against Buck Farmer, he was battling pretty well, but after an iffy borderline strike call on pitch 4, he swung weakly on a low pitch and grounded out into the shift. The pitchers seem to be feeding him a steady diet of offspeed low and away, and while he is making contact, I think he could be a bit more picky on what pitches to attack and which to lay off. Obviously not really a good game, but no one was hitting Casey tonight so it’s not that bad.

At bat 1: 9 Pitch strikeout swinging

At bat 2: 8 Pitch strikeout swinging

At bat 3: 4 Pitch lineout (Opposite field)

At bat 4: 1 Pitch single (Bunt beating shift!)

While it may look like another bad game for Yordan, with a 1-4 with just a bunt single to show for it, I saw a vastly different hitter from yesterday. For one, he was controlling the zone and working into deep counts, as shown by his 9 pitch and 8 pitch strikeouts. He was laying off pitches low in the zone and doing damage on pitches in his sweet spot, they just weren’t falling today. His lineout was a DEEP lineout with barely any effort, and it was opposite field too. Speaking of opposite field, his first pitch bunt single was really nice to see, it showed how he kept the defense honest and his all smiles after getting on first was really good to see. Overall while the results don’t speak yet his mechanics and body language were a lot better than yesterday, those will definitely translate into tangible results soon.

At bat 1: 5 pitch strikeout swinging

At bat 2: 3 pitch strikeout looking

At bat 3: 6 pitch strikeout looking (Fucking ump called it a strike when it was obviously off the plate)

At bat 3: 3 pitch strikeout swinging

Not going to lie it was quite a disappointing night for Yordan. Obviously not all of it was his fault, quite a few of the calls didn’t go his way, including the pitch that ended the 3rd at bat, which made him visibly mad and argue with the ump. Also the pitch was a couple inches outside so his concerns were valid. However, that also doesn’t take away the fact that he was swinging and missing badly again on pitches down in the zone. He had one pitch in particular I was disappointed to see, on an 0-2 count in his 4th at bat, he swung and missed badly on a pitch way out of the zone that almost spiked the dirt. Probably just a bad game, he still was recognizing those pitches, he just wasn’t executing. Hopefully he can translate that good eye to more visible results the next couple of games.

At bat 1: 4 pitch strikeout swinging

At bat 2: 1 pitch double to CF RBI

At bat 3: 2 pitch home run, 1 RBI

At bat 4: 4 pitch strikeout swinging

Yordan had another great game today. He did look like he was swinging a bit more aggressively this game, which did result in some short count strikeouts swinging. It did, however, result in some great contact on pitches low in the zone, and some great baserunning on the double and subsequent run scored. Also the pitch low in the zone he clobbered for a home run was hit so well, like a work of art. Hopefully he can balance this control of the lower part of the zone with the discipline he showed earlier in the season. Overall though, I’m excited by what he showed today.

At bat 1: 4 pitch strikeout swinging

At bat 2: 9 pitch flyout

At bat 3: 3 pitch double

At bat 4: 6 pitch single

Yordan had a pretty good day today, not going to lie. Although he did get fooled in his first at bat, where he struck out swinging on a pitch in the zone, his other two hits were great to see. Both of his hits were to the opposite field, both times beating the shift, which was really good to see. However his double was a miss-hit that somehow went to LF, but it was still cool how he managed to outsmart the defense twice. He was also working into good hitters counts and was actually productive on pitches low in the zone, at least today. Might just be a one game thing but I’m impressed with how he seems to see and react to pitches low in the zone again.

At bat 1: 4 pitch fielder’s choice

At bat 2: 5 pitch groundout

At bat 3: 2 pitch flyout (With bases loaded 😒)

At bat 4: 2 pitch single, RBI

At bat 5: 4 pitch groundout

Once again, another meh night for Yordan. Like last game, 3 of his outs were ground balls on pitches low in the zone. This seems to be an alarming trend. However, his only hit today was also a pitch pulled that was low in the zone, so maybe it’s just that he’s not timing his swing up right. He still looks like he owns the top half of the zone though, he was taking every pitch outside and above and fouling them off when they were in the zone. I think he’s swinging early on pitches low in the zone, that would explain why almost all his groundouts are pulled to the right side of the infield. He’s a good hitter, and he’s clearly still recognizing the pitches and working into good counts, so I think he’ll adjust. Still have him as my 2021 MVP.

At bat 1: 2 pitch double play

At bat 2: 9 pitch walk

At bat 3: 2 pitch groundout

At bat 4: 3 pitch popout

At bat 5: 5 pitch groundout

Obviously once again, the 0-4 for Yordan looks pretty bad in the statline, and I’d say he did look a bit tired today. I feel like he wasn’t that aggressive today, or he was aggressive on the wrong pitches, as he was swinging early, but was swinging on pitches that became hard hit ground balls. However, those groundouts helped show him running on the bases, which looked clean and is something to be happy about. The 9 pitch walk was also very impressive, he went down 1-2 and worked the walk with 3 foul balls in between. All in all, a day where Yordan may have not produced, but showed what we all want from him (Hard hit, discipline, at least average baserunning). He’ll be fine.