ATLANTA — Coming into the season, one of many Yankees’ factors of emphasis was changing into a greater baserunning group.
Technically, they’ve accomplished that by advantage of not rating useless final — as they did final season — within the publicly obtainable baserunning metrics.
However too typically, particularly of late throughout an 12-19 skid, the Yankees have been damage by elementary errors on the bases, with Friday evening serving as the most recent instance.
Jorbit Vivas dedicated the newest crime, slowing down on his strategy to third base whereas attempting to tag up on a fly ball to proper discipline, just for Ronald Acuña Jr. to throw him out. It become an inning-ending double play as an alternative of Aaron Choose coming to the plate because the tying run in a sport the Yankees trailed 3-0.
Supervisor Aaron Boone stated after the sport that it was a play that “just can’t happen,” but it surely was one other pricey miscue for a group that hasn’t performed very crisp baseball over the previous six weeks.
“I think you got a handful of really good base runners and you have a couple guys that it’s a struggle for,” Boone stated. “So you bought to lean into it and work.
“Sometimes, playing here, the noise, you get a little tight. You got to strike that balance. That’s the last thing I want us to be is fearful running the bases or tight.”
Boone stated as a result of the Yankees have a high-scoring offense — they entered Sunday scoring 5.27 runs per sport, good for third highest within the majors — they “tend to be more safe” on the bases.
However he stated that was “the big problem” for them final yr, taking part in it “too safe all the time” and never attempting to take additional bases typically sufficient.
“A lot of that is our personnel last year,” Boone stated. “We’re a way more athletic group able to getting additional bases. However we go on a shedding streak and also you make a mistake on the bases, that’s going to get highlighted. I feel all year long, there’s been loads of actually good on the market as effectively. We acquired to proceed to play aggressive, but in addition play good and never be afraid.
“Once you’re out there, you got to be instinctive. Sometimes when you’ve lost some games and maybe you’ve made a mistake that’s lent itself to the game, you get a little reluctant. I felt like even there were a couple situations [Friday] where we were a little reluctant on the bases. You don’t want that either.”
Getting into Saturday, the Yankees ranked twenty fourth within the majors with a minus-4.3 BsR — FanGraphs’ baserunning metric that evaluates stolen bases, caught stealings, taking additional bases and being thrown out on the bases.
Final yr, the Yankees have been final within the majors with a minus-17.1 BsR.
By Baseball Savant’s Baserunning Runs metric — measuring the worth of steals and taking additional bases — the Yankees have been tied for seventeenth with minus-one. Final yr, they once more ranked final with minus-16.
The Yankees’ 21 outs on the bases have been tied for the fourth fewest within the majors, however that determine doesn’t embrace pickoffs or caught stealings. So it might not embrace, say, Ben Rice getting picked off of third base with Choose on the plate in Detroit in April; Jasson Domínguez forgetting what number of strikes there have been and getting picked off between second and third in Boston in June; Rice getting picked off of second base the following day; or Austin Wells taking off too early because the path runner on a 3-2 pitch, ensuing within the third out of an inning towards the Angels later that week.
Boone has not often benched gamers for baserunning miscues, and stated he didn’t take into account doing so with Vivas on Friday.
“That’s not a case of somebody dogging it down the line,” Boone stated. “That’s a case of him pulling up incorrectly, a mistake that clearly can’t occur. Now, if we’re making again and again psychological errors and issues like that — however to me, in that second, for a child that performs his butt off on a regular basis, that’s not a state of affairs [to pull him]. That’s a dialog and a bit little bit of an embarrassing second that you just hope you be taught and develop from.
“But you’d be pulling guys a lot of times for different things.”
