The Yankees offense is flying in the first three games against Orioles. They scored 27 runs across that trio of contests, tallying 37 hits include eight home runs. The standout performer in the third game was Jasson Domínguez — getting a chance to carve out a spot on the big league roster with Giancarlo Stanton out injured — and he delivered with a home run, a pair of doubles, and three RBI. It is the first of his hits — the double to lead off the sixth — that I want to look at for At-bat of the Week.
We join Jasson leading off the bottom of the sixth. The score is tied at three apiece, home runs by Ben Rice and Aaron Judge cancelled out by some small ball by the Birds in the third and fourth. To this point in the game, Jasson had grounded out twice from the left hand side against righty starter Trey Gibson. However, with the lefty reliever Grant Wolfram entering the game in the fifth, Jasson gets turned around to bat from the right hand side in this situation.
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Five out of the six pitches Jasson saw from Gibson were fastballs. This, combined with the scouting report noting his propensity to chase breaking balls below the zone explains why Wolfram starts this AB with a first pitch curveball.
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This pitch catches a lot of the zone. However, Jasson is way out in front swinging as if it’s a fastball. He’s just able to catch a piece of the top of the ball to tap it foul for strike one.
After seeing how early Jasson was with that swing, the obvious choice is to throw another curveball just a little lower than the last one.
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Wolfram does exactly that, executing this curveball to a spot about six or seven inches below the one he just threw. Jasson is overmatched, baited into chasing this breaker that looks a lot like the one that immediately preceded it. The swing is early again and the result is a whiff and a very quick 0-2 count.
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There is really no reason for Wolfram to deviate his course. Jasson has yet to show that he can recognize curveball out of the hand nor the ability to adjust his swing timing to something that isn’t a fastball. If Wolfram can command a third curve to the same spot as the previous one if not a little lower, he should get the chase and swinging strikeout.
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Jasson finally catches on to what Wolfram is trying to do, plus this pitch is probably a little too low to induce a chase in the dirt. All the same, you can see that Jasson is initially tempted to offer before deciding otherwise. The process is sound from Wolfram — keep throwing the breaker a little lower than the previous one — Jasson is just able to adjust his sights in time not to chase.
Now that the hitter has finally shown that he isn’t going to chase a breaking ball below the zone, Wolfram has the situation teed up to climb the ladder with the four-seamer. Jasson’s eye level is firmly fixated on catching out the low breaking ball, so there is no way he should be anticipating the elevated heater.
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Of course, you have to execute your pitches to get them to work, this four-seamer sailing at almost eye level for an easy take from Jasson. Once again, the process by the pitcher is sound — throw a four-seamer down a similar tunnel as the initial aiming point as the curveball and maybe you can get the hitter to swing through it late.
After failing to execute that four-seamer by quite a margin, Wolfram instantly returns to the pitch that worked for him in this AB — the curveball. He just needs to land one a little closer to the zone than the one he wasted for ball one and he should get the outcome he desires.
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This is such smart hitting by Domínguez. He realizes the purpose of the waste four-seamer — to reset his eye level so he can throw another curveball — and therefore ends up hunting the curve in this count. He is right on time with his swing, roping a liner down the left field line for a double that proves quite timely as Ryan McMahon drives him home with a single as the go-ahead run two batters later.
Here’s the full AB:
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With Stanton on the IL with a left calf strain — and the latest report revealing that he is hitting in the cage but hasn’t started running yet — this is an important moment for Domínguez. The Yankees reaffirmed their faith in him by designating Randal Grichuk for assignment and Jasson needs to make the most of this opportunity. Not including his suspect glovework, the question for Domínguez has always been whether he can hit from the right hand side, the switch-hitter a 120 wRC+ hitter vs. righties while only at a 64 wRC+ vs. lefties — an added issue considering southpaws are the pitchers who Stanton typically obliterates.
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It sounds like he has been putting in the work to address this platoon gap to allow himself to stick in the majors even after Stanton returns. According to Gary Phillips of the New York Daily News, Domínguez made a minor adjustment to reduce the size of his leg kick when batting from the right hand side. Hopefully this can help with his timing and pitch recognition with fewer moving parts. Not mentioned in the article was the finish to Domínguez’s right-handed swing — a helicopter finish very familiar to Yankees fans from Miguel Andújar’s 2018 season. Domínguez has varied between this finish and a high one-handed finish to his right-handed swing. I’m not certain what advantage either can confer but it’s worth keeping an eye on while tracking his production from the right side.
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