Daily dose of Yordan (game 72)

First of all I'd like to apologize for the lack of daily dose of Yordan posts over the past week, I was out of town for a family matter during most of that time and was unable to do a live reaction and analysis of Yordan's at bats. Did see the walk off against the White Sox, that was great to see. Daily analysis will resume starting today, hope you can understand.

Today's statline: 1-3, BB, K, DP, HR, 3 RBIs, R

Also important to note that Brantley played DH today with Yordan playing in Camden's LF. He did a good job making the routine plays, there was a Ryan Mountcastle lineout (can't remember the inning) in particular where he made a good (but not great) catch. Great to see him playing LF a lot more recently, that should help make the Astros a lot more versatile.

At bat 1 (Top of first): 7 pitch strikeout looking

I wasn't really sure what the pitcher's gameplan was here, as he seemed to throw Yordan anything in any area of the zone. While it wasn't a productive at bat, as it ended the inning, I still feel like it was a good at bat that Yordan made the most of, even if the results do say he struck out. Yordan fought to a 2-2 count, with both of the strikes being on high, inside fastballs near his hands but in the zone. He watched the first one for a strike, but then hit 2 hard fouls on similar offspeed in that zone later in the at bat. This will be important later on. Yordan also did a great job this at bat at avoiding the low, outside offspeed the pitcher was throwing at him, as he took both low offspeed outside and inside to work a full count with multiple fouls before watching a low fastball clip the bottom of the zone for strike to strand two runners. Not the best result, but Yordan looked like he was starting to recognize and time up Akin's pitches by the end of the at bat, something that is worth noting for later.

At bat 2 (Top of third): 4 pitch home run to left, 3 RBIs

Once again, Baltimore chose to dip back into what worked well for them the previous at bat, as all the pitches this time in the at bat were fastballs. Yordan took the first one which was low and away for a ball before hard fouling off two that were towards the inside and in the zone. Then Baltimore learned that you can't throw a hitter of Yordan's caliber 4 straight fastballs, as Yordan caught a high outside fastball with his bat and muscled it into the 5th row of the left field seats for a 3 run home run, scoring 2 runners. A great job to adjust to the stream of fastballs the Orioles were continually feeding him and to take advantage of what he was given.

At bat 3 (Top of fifth): 6 pitch double play to shortstop

Yordan started the at bat down 0-2 with 2 runners on, as he took a low fastball looking for a strike and then watched an offspeed kinda (but not really) graze the outside millimeter of the zone. Yordan seemed to disagree with the 2nd pitch being called a strike. Lakins then spiked a couple curves way in the dirt and Yordan fouled off a high fastball. Then on the 2-2 count, Lakins threw a low fastball that Yordan chopped right to the shortstop Galvis who threw out the runner at 2nd and a plodding Yordan for the easy double play.

At bat 4 (Top of seventh): 7 pitch walk

Another long, grueling but great at bat by Yordan here. The new pitcher's plan here looked to be clearly to locate his fastball inside and his changeups outside. However, Yordan did a masterful job of controlling the zone, spitting on all of Tate's outside offspeed and hard fouling off all the sinkers low in the zone. He worked it to a 3-2 count with that methodology before taking a low fastball that tailed outside the zone for ball 4. Just a great approach, similar to the first at bat, but this time it paid off. He later advanced to third on a Correa single but ended up not scoring as Toro grounded out to end the inning.

For some reason the Astros decided to pinch hit Garrett Stubbs of all people for Yordan, most likely a defense minded move but still one that puzzled me. Probably doesn't matter considering it was a 9 run lead, but giving more at bats to your best hitters is always good. Stubbs would end up doubling and scoring a run though, so maybe ole' Dusty knew something we didn't.

⚠IMPORTANT⚠ Yordan is currently 3rd in all star game voting this season at the American League DH position with 11% of the vote, behind J.D. Martinez (16%) and Shohei Ohtani (35%). There's no way he'll be able to catch Ohtani, but there's still 3 days before fan voting ends, which might be enough time for Yordan to edge out Martinez and earn his first (of many in the future) all star appearance! Voting is at https://www.mlb.com/all-star/ballot, remember to vote Yordan, I feel like he's definitely deserving of an all star appearance.