Patience Is A Virtue, Except When It isn't

Derek Jeter walked in 4 straight games from July 25^th- July 28^th. Jeter, the leadoff hitter for the Yankees, hasn’t walked since. That’s 34 games and more than 110 ABs. So should the Yankees panic? The team went 17-7 over the stretch and Jeter’s OBP is still .394.

The Yankees as a team rank third in pitches per plate appearance, second in walks and first in pitches seen. All season they would take pitches earlier in an at-bat to try to work the count in their favor.

Then last night they decided to ditch all that.

Why?

Because Josh Beckett knew they were going to do that.

Baseball is a constant chess match and the Yankees were trying to be one step ahead of the Red Sox. Josh Beckett knew that the Yankees liked to take the first pitch, so he started them out with a strike. Advantage Josh Beckett. He had thrown 13 shutout innings in his past two starts against the Yankees.

Last night, the Yankees swung early and often at that first strike.

From PeteAbe: “Five at-bats were over in one pitch. Four lasted two pitches and seven were over in three pitches. In all, 16 of their 33 plate appearances against Beckett were over in three pitches or less. They drew no walks for only the fifth time this season.”

From Buster Olney: “Why Beckett lost, from Trevor Ebaugh of ESPN Stats & Information: The Yankees' home run data from Sunday night showed a definite trend in how to approach Beckett -- look for a first-pitch fastball, then curveball with two strikes. Derek Jeter and Hideki Matsui's leadoff homers in the first and second innings were both off fastballs. Robinson Cano and A-Rod later followed with homers off two-strike curveballs. This proved to be a great approach: Beckett threw 25 of 33 first-pitch fastballs (76 percent versus 59 percent overall). Beckett threw curveballs in eight of 18 of at-bats that reached two-strike counts (44 percent versus 25 percent overall).”

According to B-R’s Play Index, only one other pitcher had ever (or at least since 1954) pitched 8+ innings, given up 5+ HR and 8+ ER: Pat Hentgen in 1997. The Yankees obviously had something going last night and now they have a 7.5 game lead in the division.

Patience is usually a virtue for this team, but a deviation from them helped them win last night.