Daily dose of Yordan (Game 107)

Today's statline: 1-4, HR, 2 RBIs, R, K

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Yordan played LF today and made some nice plays there, most notably a nice running catch he made almost into the foul stands on a Muncy flyout. Great to see him continue to play the field and contribute on both ends of the field.

At bat 1 (Top of second): 5 pitch flyout to left

Yordan started the at bat doing extremely well against Buehler, watching three high-octane fastballs, all outside by a lot, to work into a favorable 3-0 count. Buehler came back with a fastball inside the grazed the inside part of the zone for strike one, and then came back with another fastball right down the middle that Yordan swung oddly on and popped high into shallow left for the easy first out. A good job here to see Buehler's fastballs and get a grip on the game, but I feel like he could have done a bit more on the fastball right down the middle he got for pitch #5.

At bat 2 (Top of fourth): 5 pitch strikeout looking

Yordan once again started the at bat by watching the first pitch, but it was a fastball right down the middle for a strike. After only throwing fastballs to Yordan in the previous at bat, Buehler whipped out his knuckle curve, and it pretty much neutralized Yordan in the at bat. Yordan swung and missed badly at the first knuckle curve way out of the zone, and then tapped another one barely foul. A high inside fastball gave Yordan a 1-2 count, but then watched another knuckle curve buckle right into the zone for the strikeout watching. A pretty bad result, but Yordan didn't really get a chance to see Buehler's curve well in the previous at bat, so an adjustment period was probably needed to see the pitch well.

At bat 3 (Top of sixth): 10 pitch lineout to center

Once again, Yordan watched a knuckle curve in the zone for a strike, and then fouled off a hard fastball outside to put himself in an 0-2 hole. While in the previous at bats Yordan caved and swung at bad pitches in counts like these, Yordan buckled down this time and had one of his greatest at bats of the entire season, fouling off offspeed pitch after pitch and taking outside pitches to make it a 2-2 count. Then on the 2-2 count Yordan got a nice juicy high fastball and crushed it into center field, unfortunately right where Taylor was for the tough lineout. A flat out amazing at bat (6 foul balls in total, didn't swing and miss at a single knuckle curve) ruined by bad BABIP luck. That's baseball.

At bat 4 (Top of eighth): 2 pitch home run to right, 2 RBI's, R

Facing new reliever Victor Gonzalez, Yordan watched the first pitch, another fastball in the zone, for strike one. Then on the next pitch Gonzalez threw a slider that was supposed to be low and outside, but curved low and away inside, right into Yordan's barrel zone. He crushed it 415 feet to right for a huge, no-doubt 2 run home run, scoring Correa. Great job by him here to capitalize on the low inside cookie, I originally sent this in the Astros discord before the at bat, thinking he wouldn't be able to capitalize on the outside junk he usually gets from lefties like Gonzalez, great to see he proved me wrong. This felt like divine retribution from the Baseball Gods after being screwed his previous at bat, here's a better view of it, just a clean, no-doubt bomb that silenced the crowd and essentially put the game away for good.

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Total pitch data (Something new I'm doing with the pitches Yordan saw, lmk what you think about it):

Fastballs (includes 4SFB, Sinker, and Cutter) – 13

5 out of the zone, 3 strike looking, 3 foul ball, 2 put in play (flyout and lineout)

Knuckle Curve – 5

2 strike looking, 1 strike swinging, 2 foul ball

Changeup – 3

2 foul ball, 1 out of the zone

Slider – 1

1 put in play (home run)

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As we can see by the pitch data, Yordan clearly had a good grip on both Buehler's fastball and changeup, with not a single swing and miss on either of the pitches. He actually did quite well off Buehler's bread-and-butter fastball, with both of his well hit balls in play coming off it. However Yordan just could not hit Buehler's knuckle curve at all, as Buehler went a perfect 5 for 5 on strikes with the curve including a strikeout in the fourth. He did seem to see Buehler really well in the sixth when he started to tire, so maybe it was just him needing some reps to see the nasty curve clearly. Also his great zone control on the inner half, other than Buehler knuckle curves, cannot be overstated, as he did a masterful job navigating that quadrant to his advantage, including the decisive home run in the late innings.