Daily dose of Yordan (Game 75)

Today's statline: 2-6, HR, 2 R, 5 RBI, K

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At bat 1 (top of second): 2 pitch groundout to shortstop

Yordan watched the first pitch of the day, a low middle fastball, for a strike, before swinging at a nearly identical pitch. He hit a pretty good grounder but as usual, the shift was there and he was thrown out easily for the out.

At bat 2 (top of third): 2 pitch fielder's choice, RBI

Yordan again started the at bat with a strike, this time by fouling off a changeup low and a bit outside for strike one. He then once again swung at the second pitch which was identical to the first one and hit a hard grounder, this time pulling it down the line to 1st instead of second. The first baseman threw out the runner at first, Gurriel, but wasn't able to turn two, as Yordan remained a runner. He would end up driving in Brantley on the play though. He would also later end up scoring a run on a bases loaded Toro hit by pitch.

At bat 3 (top of fourth): 6 pitch groundout to second

Yordan did a great job on the first three pitches in the at bat, with all of them being offspeed pitches out of the zone. He took a slider low and away, and two changeups low and inside in that order for a 3-0 count. Then the pitcher seemed to adjust, and started to throw Yordan fastballs in the zone. Yordan took two fastballs right in his wheelhouse both low for the 3-2 count, before chasing a bit on a pitch similar to the 3-1 one and once again pulling a ground ball to second for the out.

At bat 4 (top of fifth) 7 pitch strikeout looking

Pretty interesting approach by the pitcher here, as he served only fastballs this at bat. Yordan took the first one for a ball inside and then swung and missed at one outside but in the middle part height wise. The pitcher's cutter seems to be way slower than his fastball (at least 3-5 MPH difference) so it worked effectively as a secondary pitch, at least in this at bat. He would take two additional fastballs way off the plate and outside for the 3-1 count, but then watched a borderline strike for the full count before fouling off another cutter right down the middle. He then would strike out looking on a pitch right down the middle and nearly identical to the one before, just something I wish he did more with considering it was a bases loaded < 2 outs situation. Frustrating since he couldn't do much and he definitely could have done more, but as we will see later, Yordan did seem to adjust and swing more at the mistakes in the zone in later at bats.

At bat 4 (top of seventh) 8 pitch single to right

Obviously while his later at bat was easily the most statistically impressive, in my opinion this was the best at bat by Yordan today. He took a low slider for ball one, before looking and swinging, respectively, at pitches 2 and 3 to get into a 1-2 hole. He then closed off the zone, simply refusing to chase anything under 90 MPH. He hard fouled off two high pitches in the zone to stay alive, and took two more low offspeed pitches to work from 1-2 to 3-2, a remarkable feat. He then got another high pitch in the zone, this time a 90 MPH changeup, and lined it into right and this time it found grass for a single. He did well controlling the zone and forcing the pitcher to throw a bad pitch, he wouldn't score in the inning but it was great to see.

At bat 5 (top of ninth): 5 pitch grand slam to left, 4 RBI's, R

The first pitch in this at bat was a low fastball but in the zone for strike one. Yordan's eyes seemed to light up when he saw the pitch, this will be important later on. The next three pitches were all low curveballs that were inside and balls, leading to the 3-1 count. Then on the 3-1 the pitcher went back to the well one too many times, throwing Yordan a cookie low and inside identical to the first pitch. Yordan capitalized and hammered it opposite field, 417 feet for the grand slam. Great approach by him to go look for a low fastball and time it up after watching it once from the pitcher.