Forecasting Sonny Weather When Yanks Visit Toronto
The Jays begin a three-game home series with New York tonight at 7:07 ET. Yankees starting pitcher Sonny Gray will do the most to ensure his team leads through five innings.
New York Yankees (56-28 ) Toronto Blue Jays (40-46)
MLB Pick: Yankees 1H
New York’s Sonny Gray (5-6, 5.44 ERA) looks to bounce back from his worst start in the season. He’s allowed a home run in consecutive games for the fourth time. In his three starts that ensued two such games, he allowed combined three runs in 22 innings. Gray has improved his ERA in every consecutive month. He’s bettered his command, walking fewer batters and starting the count with a strike more often, and his stuff, inducing batters to chase his pitches outside the zone with higher frequency. An improved Gray will buckle down tonight.
He relies on four pitches, the fastball, sinker, curveball, and slider, that he throws with between 15 and 30 percent frequency. In the beginning of the season, he went through an identity crisis. He emphasized his fastball early. But since his resurgence through most of June, he utilizes his sinker and slider more. In doing so, he’s had to underemphasize the pitch—the fastball—that he had leaned on most throughout his career. His divergence from the fastball has come as part of a team project. Yankee pitchers can’t throw the fastball as often because it is a poor pitch for Yankee Stadium. In four of Gray’s eight home starts, his fastball yielded an opposing slugging percentage over .700, which, conversely, didn’t happen in any of his road starts. Gray is a bad fit for Yankee stadium, which is why his FIP (like ERA, but factors out luck) is 6.60 at home, compared to 2.69 away. His fastball has also improved, increasing one mph in velocity and staying away from the middle region of the strike zone. Since he puts himself ahead of the count more often, he can also afford to be more unpredictable with his pitch selection so that batters don’t sit on his fastball. His breaking pitches complement his fastball, above all his slider and curveball, which opponents are batting .194 and .221 against, respectively. They are his favorite whiff pitches, which he can execute more often, when his fastball helps him get to two strikes.
Gray has a solid history against the Jays. In 135 at-bats, they are batting .193 and slugging .267 against him. He has done the utmost damage to them in Toronto, where his career ERA is 1.88. Since 2017, he’s allowed four runs in 30 innings there.
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Sam Gaviglio (2-2, 3.97 ERA) counters for Toronto. On June 6, Gaviglio shut out New York through seven innings at home. In that gem, Gaviglio executed his typical game plan: avoid elevating his pitches and focus on hitting the peripheries and corners of the zone. Gaviglio relies primarily on a sinker-slider combo. The two pitches comprise 75% of his arsenal. They are deceptive because they share similar horizontal and vertical release points, so that batters do not know which pitch is approaching them and react too late. The key is command. Gaviglio has failed to complete five innings in three of his last four starts because he is struggling to locate his sinker even though he is getting his preferred amount of rest (five days). Its vertical release points are varying wildly from start to start, indicating that he is struggling to deliver it with comfortable mechanics. One consequence, for example, is that he’s leaving this pitch with 6.5% additional frequency over the heart of the plate compared to his June 6 gem.
Gavlglio is in a tough spot. In three career starts after throwing over 90 pitches, he allowed four or five runs, even when he faced teams who match up much worse against the sinker and slider from righties than the Yankees do. Look out for Miguel Andujar, who is slugging .700 in Toronto and .569 in the past seven days. Aaron Hicks is slugging .857 in Toronto and 1.000 in his past seven days.
The Jays begin a three-game home series with New York tonight at 7:07 ET. Yankees starting pitcher Sonny Gray will do the most to ensure his team leads through five innings.
New York Yankees (56-28 ) Toronto Blue Jays (40-46)
MLB Pick: Yankees 1H
New York’s Sonny Gray (5-6, 5.44 ERA) looks to bounce back from his worst start in the season. He’s allowed a home run in consecutive games for the fourth time. In his three starts that ensued two such games, he allowed combined three runs in 22 innings. Gray has improved his ERA in every consecutive month. He’s bettered his command, walking fewer batters and starting the count with a strike more often, and his stuff, inducing batters to chase his pitches outside the zone with higher frequency. An improved Gray will buckle down tonight.
He relies on four pitches, the fastball, sinker, curveball, and slider, that he throws with between 15 and 30 percent frequency. In the beginning of the season, he went through an identity crisis. He emphasized his fastball early. But since his resurgence through most of June, he utilizes his sinker and slider more. In doing so, he’s had to underemphasize the pitch—the fastball—that he had leaned on most throughout his career. His divergence from the fastball has come as part of a team project. Yankee pitchers can’t throw the fastball as often because it is a poor pitch for Yankee Stadium. In four of Gray’s eight home starts, his fastball yielded an opposing slugging percentage over .700, which, conversely, didn’t happen in any of his road starts. Gray is a bad fit for Yankee stadium, which is why his FIP (like ERA, but factors out luck) is 6.60 at home, compared to 2.69 away. His fastball has also improved, increasing one mph in velocity and staying away from the middle region of the strike zone. Since he puts himself ahead of the count more often, he can also afford to be more unpredictable with his pitch selection so that batters don’t sit on his fastball. His breaking pitches complement his fastball, above all his slider and curveball, which opponents are batting .194 and .221 against, respectively. They are his favorite whiff pitches, which he can execute more often, when his fastball helps him get to two strikes.
Gray has a solid history against the Jays. In 135 at-bats, they are batting .193 and slugging .267 against him. He has done the utmost damage to them in Toronto, where his career ERA is 1.88. Since 2017, he’s allowed four runs in 30 innings there.
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Sam Gaviglio (2-2, 3.97 ERA) counters for Toronto. On June 6, Gaviglio shut out New York through seven innings at home. In that gem, Gaviglio executed his typical game plan: avoid elevating his pitches and focus on hitting the peripheries and corners of the zone. Gaviglio relies primarily on a sinker-slider combo. The two pitches comprise 75% of his arsenal. They are deceptive because they share similar horizontal and vertical release points, so that batters do not know which pitch is approaching them and react too late. The key is command. Gaviglio has failed to complete five innings in three of his last four starts because he is struggling to locate his sinker even though he is getting his preferred amount of rest (five days). Its vertical release points are varying wildly from start to start, indicating that he is struggling to deliver it with comfortable mechanics. One consequence, for example, is that he’s leaving this pitch with 6.5% additional frequency over the heart of the plate compared to his June 6 gem.
Gavlglio is in a tough spot. In three career starts after throwing over 90 pitches, he allowed four or five runs, even when he faced teams who match up much worse against the sinker and slider from righties than the Yankees do. Look out for Miguel Andujar, who is slugging .700 in Toronto and .569 in the past seven days. Aaron Hicks is slugging .857 in Toronto and 1.000 in his past seven days.
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