Yankees At-Bat of the Week: Alex Verdugo (9/13)

Yesterday at 03:00 PM

Verdugo's walk after falling behind 0-2 set up the Captain's drought-snapping grand slam.

The Yankees are in an important series against the Mariners coming off a successful homestand that saw them go 5-2 against the Royals and Red Sox. Three of those wins came in thrilling come-from-behind fashion, and even with walk-offs on back-to-back nights, perhaps none was more stunning than the game won by Aaron Judge's grand slam to snap a career-long 16-game homerless drought.

However, that grand slam doesn't happen if not for Alex Verdugo's walk three batters earlier after falling behind in the count, 0-2. Both the Captain and the manager made sure to single out that battle by Verdugo as the catalyst for Judge's slam.

Judge: "Dugie getting it started for us there with going down 0-2 quick and battling back to get on base. It kind of felt like a playoff atmosphere there in the 7th innings as we were kind of rallying."

Boone: "Yeah it was big. He's been having good at-bats here for a few weeks now. That in the moment, especially ahead of what Aaron did, was one of the big ones in that inning."

We join Verdugo with Anthony Volpe on first after the shortstop drew a leadoff walk. The Yankees always knew that as long as they kept it relatively close, they'd have a shot against one of the worst bullpens in the league in terms of run prevention. Zack Kelly was the second reliever out of the 'pen and already looked uncomfortable with his delivery during the walk to Volpe.

I imagine that's why Verdugo was surprised to see Kelly nail his target with a first-pitch cutter for strike one.

I'm on board with taking first pitch against a pitcher who just showed command problems and with only three innings left to get back into the game. Kelly throws his cutter and four-seamer in roughly equal proportions, and given the arm-side movement of his four-seamer, there's a 50/50 chance this pitch tails out of the zone for ball one.

Kelly follows up the cutter with a dastardly back-door sweeper that just swerves across the outside corner low at the last moment for called strike two.

This is just an evil pitch to follow the previous cutter. If Verdugo is keying on a fastball here, this becomes an automatic take, the pitch starting too far off the plate for the cutter's movement to bring it back into the zone.

In the blink of an eye, Verdugo finds himself in a deep hole, 0-2. Kelly can attack outside of the zone with breaking balls and offspeed for the next three pitches while Verdugo has to protect. Kelly decides to double up on the sweeper, looking to back-foot one for the strikeout.

Oh man, what a mistake by Kelly! He leaves a sweeper middle-down, right in the pull zone wheelhouse for a lefty batter, but Verdugo can't punish him and swings underneath the cookie, fouling it back.

The last pitch was likely Verdugo's best chance to extricate himself from his predicament and turn this PA into a productive one. Rather than panic or press in his approach, Verdugo digs back in with the same disciplined plan.

This is a fabulous take by Verdugo, the lefty barely flinching on a changeup that hovers at the bottom of the zone before breaking downward late.

Kelly goes back to the hard stuff after three slower pitches, looking to bury a cutter in on Verdugo's hands.

Another good take by Verdugo, and one that's even better than it looked at first glance. After watching the movement of the previous changeup — Kelly's go-to whiff weapon against lefties — this next pitch looks like it could fade over the heart of the plate if it's another changeup, but Verdugo recognizes cutter early out of the hand and isn't tempted to swing.

Kelly displayed his best command with the changeup in this encounter and so he returns to the pitch, 2-2.

Yet another excellent take by Verdugo. The pitch starts out on pretty much the same trajectory as the first-pitch cutter called for a strike, fading away and out of the zone at about the same time that the cutter would cut towards the plate. Verdugo spits all over it.

With the count full and the Yankees on the verge of bringing up the top of their order with two on and no outs, Kelly changes gear and looks to come right after Verdugo with his best four-seamer, hoping to end this PA right here and now.

He overthrows the pitch and yanks it below the zone, the pitch a ball all the way for a pretty easy take for Verdugo in the end

Here's the full PA:

We know how the rest of the inning shook out, Gleyber Torres singling to get the Yankees on the board, Juan Soto walking to re-load the bases, and Aaron Judge snapping his home run drought in grand style.

Verdugo came out of the gate hot this season, making his winter acquisition appear like a shrewd move. He has since regressed to his worst performance as a big leaguer for much of the year, unfortunately resembling many of the bodies the Yankees unsuccessfully rolled out in left last season. However, with a .313 average and 125 wRC+ in his last 18 games entering play on Tuesday, he could be heating back up at just the right time to provide the lineup additional support around Soto and Judge as they make their push for the postseason.