I took a look at Robbie’s pitch f/x data for this year and last year and there were some odd rends regarding the four seamer. Cano’s seeing fewer of them this year and putting more in play, yet he’s whiffing at more fastballs than he did last year. The numbers from 2011 and 2012 are pretty similar when comparing the two seamers, but the results are a little different. Let’s run over to FanGraphs quickly and take a look at the pitch f/x pitch values for Cano when it comes to four seamers and two seamers.

For his career, Cano has been above average against fastballs, 0.57 runs per 100 pitches with the four seamer and 1.24 runs above average per 100 two seamers. This year, fastballs have, apparently, eaten up Cano. He’s 1.28 runs BELOW average per 100 four seam fastballs and 1.24 runs BELOW average per 100 two seam fastballs. He’s made up for it by mauling sliders thus far, but considering fastballs are what he’s going to see a lot, I think we’d all like to see some improvement there. Cano’s quick swing is practically designed to murder fastballs, and I’ve every confidence in him to do that as the season goes on. He’s already started to heat up, and once he starts to catch up to the fastball again, the American League had better look out.

After a up a leadoff single by Edwin Encarnacion, Brett Lawrie grounded to short.  Jayson Nix made the throw to second to record an out, but Robinson Cano bobbled the ball as he was trying to get it out of his glove.  There was no error on the play (because you can’t assume the double play) and it likely would have been close at 1st, but Cano’s misplay didn’t do Kuroda any favors.  JP Arencibia made the Yankees pay by stroking a 3-2 slider to left-center for a home run, putting the Jays ahead 2-0.

Kyle Drabek held the Yankees hitless through the first 3 innings, and Kuroda faced off against #9 hitter Omar Vizquel and the top of the Blue Jay order in the bottom of the 3rd.  Kuroda started the inning off well, getting Vizquel to pop up and inducing a groundball out from Kelly Johnson.  However, Eric Thames doubled and Jose Bautista walked, sending up Encarnacion with a chance to do some real damage.  Encarnacion obliged by swatting a 93 mph fastball to center field, plating 3, and putting Toronto ahead 5-0.  With the Yankees’ recent offensive ineptitude, the 5-run deficit felt like a 10-run deficit.

Toronto added on 2 more runs against the beleaguered Kuroda via an RBI single by Kelly Johnson in the 4th, and a solo home run by Jose Bautista in the 5th.  The Yankees, meanwhile, were unable to get anythign done against Drabek until the 6th, when Nick Swisher singled in Robinson Cano to make it a 7-1 game.  That would be it for the Yankee offense, as Drabek, Luis Perez, and Francisco Cordero shut the door, giving Toronto an 8-1 victory after they added another run on a Kelly Johnson homer.

Overall, it was a rough outing for Kuroda, who gave up 7 runs on 8 hits and 2 walks in 5 innings of work, and allowing 3 home runs.  The longball has been a problem for Kuroda and several other Yankee starters this season, and tonight provides some evidence that the friendly confines of Yankee Stadium are not the only cause.  One bright spot is that Kuroda did have 6 strikeouts and only 2 walks, and his splitter did look better than it did in his past starts.  However, he simply left too many hittable pitches up in the zone, and a good hitting team like Toronto was able to take advantage.

On the other side, Drabek pitched an excellent game, holding the Yankees to just 3 hits in 7 innings of work.  Drabek got the Yankees to ground out 13 times against only 2 fly-ball outs, and recorded 5 strikeouts.  He is a pretty good pitcher, but this Yankee offense should be able to manage more than 3 hits and 1 run.

It was another frustrating game for the Yankees on both sides of the ball, but hopefully they can get things going tomorrow.  Phil Hughes will go for the Yankees tomorrow, looking to snap the Yankees’ 2-game losing streak, and continue his recent stretch of solid pitching.  It’s about time for the Yankee bats to get back on track as well.

Drabek features a fastball that averages 93 mph (approximately 65 percent of the time), and mixes in a curveball, changeup, and cutter with equal regularity.  He has been fairly home-prone throughout his career (averaging over 1 per 9 innings), though he has also been successful at keeping the ball on the ground this season (GB% of 56).  Courtesy of YES’s Jack Curry, 4 current Yankees (Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez, Andruw Jones, and Raul Ibanez) have faced Kyle’s father Doug Drabek.

Because of the long 16-game stretch without a day off that the Yankees are currently in, Derek Jeter will have the night off to give him some rest.  Curtis Granderson will take over the leadoff duties, and Jayson Nix will be at short.

For the Jays, rising star Brett Lawrie is in the lineup despite recently being suspended for 4 games for throwing a tantrum (and a helmet) at the home plate umpire after a questionable (read awful) strike 3 call.  Because Lawrie is appealing the suspension, it will not take effect until the appeal process in complete, so the Yankees will have to deal with Lawrie tonight (and probably for the remainder of the series, depending on how long the appeal takes).

Lineups are below.  Have fun, play nice, and go Yankees!

Yankees

Curtis Granderson CF
Nick Swisher RF
Robinson Cano 2B
Alex Rodriguez 3B
Mark Teixeira 1B
Raul Ibanez LF
Eric Chavez DH
Russell Martin C
Jayson Nix SS

Kelly Johnson 2B
Erik Thames LF
Jose Bautista RF
Edwin Encarnacion 1B
Brett Lawrie 3B
Colby Rasmus CF
JP Arencibia C
Adam Lind DH
Omar Vizquel SS

Interestingly enough, though, the man called up to replace Robertson was not DJ Mitchell or one of the Yankees more accomplished high minor league arms, but Cody Eppley. Eppley, 26, was largely an unknown heading into the 2012 season. First mentioned on this site back in April as just a name on a 40-man roster, half of Eppley’s Wikipedia page details his time with the Yankees. That time has been brief, as Eppley spent the first four years of his professional career in the Texas Rangers system.

A 43rd round pick back in 2008, Eppley was a reliever at Virginia Commonwealth University who had been undrafted out of high school. With a weird three-quarters delivery, a high-80s to low-90s sinker, and a decent slider, nothing much was expected of the 22-year-old A-baller. But in 27.2 innings after being drafted in ’08, Eppley finished 15 games, saved seven, struck out 37 and walked just 5. His ERA on the year was a shiny 2.60. That success continued at higher levels. After striking out 76 and walking just 6 in 2009 in the Sally league, Eppley shot through the Rangers system in 2010. Between A+, AA, and AAA, Eppley made 51 appearances, saved 16 games, and pitched to a 2.08 ERA with 82 strikeouts and just 23 walks.

The righty was invited to Rangers camp for the first time in 2011 after dropping his delivery even further. He made ten unsuccessful appearances with Texas that season, throwing nine innings, allowing three home runs and five walks, and striking out six. He gave up eight runs and his WHIP was 1.78. He was better (not great) with AAA Round Rock, striking out 55 and walking 34 in 55.1 innings with a 3.90 ERA and 10 saves. He entered camp with a chance to make the Rangers but did not, and the Yankees claimed him off waivers on April 5th.

Eppley has been up and down in five appearances with the Yanks this season. After allowing one earned run in his first 5.1 innings, striking out four and walking two, he struggled on May 5th against Kansas City and was sent down. At Scranton Wilkes-Barre, Eppley has made seven appearances, striking out 13 batters and walking just a single batter in 9.1 innings. He has yet to allow a run and has allowed less than a batter per two innings pitched.

The likely reason Eppley has been given opportunities to throw innings above and beyond those of DJ Mitchell, among others, is Eppley’s position on the 40-man roster. But his minor league track-record is intriguing. Whether his stuff can ultimately transition to the big league level is a major question mark. Whether he will have a place with the Yankees in the long run is even more doubtful. His success at multiple levels makes him a player to watch, though, as he could be the next Darren O’Day.

For one, we can find the whiff rate on four-seam fastballs from the beginning of the PITCHf/x era (2007) to 2010, and his 2011 season, where this myth began, until today. From 2007-2010, Rodriguez took 2176 four-seamers, swung at 44.0% of them, fouled off 18.5%, put 18.6% in play, and whiffed 6.9%. From 2011 to today, with 857 four-seamer pitches to work with, the third baseman has a very similar 42.7% swing rate, fouled off 16.9%, put 18.1% in play, and whiffed 7.7% of the time. Although the whiff numbers increased by 0.8%, the difference is hardly significant enough to attribute to decreased bat speed. So clearly he isn’t whiffing at fastballs at a ridiculous rate, but perhaps he isn’t making good contact with hard fastball.

In the chart above, all of Alex Rodriguez’ hits off fastballs have been listed. Of his 38 hits in 2012, 22 have been off fastballs, 57.9%. The hardest fastball he hit was no slug, a 97 mph fastball that the slugger crushed for a homerun off Justin Verlander. The average fastball velocity this year is currently at 91.6 mph, but Arod has seen fastballs at an average of 92.8 mph, which matches up perfectly to the 92.9 mph average fastball he’s hit. So for those that say Rodriguez can only hit slow fastballs, he’s shown no tendency to hit slower or faster pitches.

As for why it would appear that Rodriguez is whiffing on fastballs too often, I have my own theory. Although I’m weary of the automatic pitch identification Gameday’s algorithm assigns to pitch types, there is definitely something that sticks out. 2012 has been the year of the sinker for many pitchers, and the pitch type has increased overall from 10.4% use in 2011, to 13.5%. For Arod, the selection has nearly doubled from 9.2% in 2011 to 17.7% in 2012. A sinker from a right handed pitcher will move in on a right handed hitter, and if the location is in to jam a batter, the hitter will often whiff due to the movement. Doubling the sinker to Rodriguez has increased his groundball rate from 48.6%, to 52.0%, but has also made him look helpless on the dangerous jamming pitch in. Some might think he’s being beat by velocity, but I’d bet movement is playing a bigger factor.

The stats haven’t been MVP-worthy this year, but I have faith that the homeruns will come. Even without huge power numbers, Rodriguez still has significant value at third base hitting the way he is. Now that Rodriguez is on a hot .375/.455/.458 streak in May, the critics will have to wait a few weeks for a slump to call him old again. With whiff rates showing no significant increase, and his hit fastballs showing no velocity decrease, there is no reason to worry about Rodriguez’ bat slowing down yet.

This spate of injuries is apparently system-wide, as well, as Jose Campos has yet to make a start this month (having left his last start in April with elbow soreness/tenderness), Graham Stoneburner was recently placed on the DL with a groin injury, Rob Lyerly had labrum surgery (and will miss the remainder of the season), and Pat Venditte has missed the past two-plus weeks with some sort of malady.

Would anyone else be willing to trade a win for some relative health and durability?

Onto the line-ups:

The first pitch is scheduled for 7:05 p.m., on My9 and MLB Network. Let’s go Yankees!