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| Yankee Stadium on Saturday morning. Photo by Jason Schott. |
The Yankees' offense has struggled of late, and it continued on Friday night when they were shutout by the Toronto Blue Jays, 4-0. It was the Yankees' fifth shutout in their last 13 games, and to put it in perspective, they had only been shutout six times in the first 107 games of the season.
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| The Yankees mob Josh Donaldson after his game-winning grand slam. @Yankees. |
The Yankees had one of their more improbable wins of the season on Wednesday night at Yankee Stadium, as they battled back from 4-0 and 7-4 deficits to beat the Tampa Bay Rays, 8-7, on a walk-off grand slam by Josh Donaldson at just about the stroke of midnight capping a long night that included a rain delay in the seventh inning.
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| Brett Baty. @Mets Twitter. |
The Mets made a somewhat anticipated move on Wednesday afternoon, as they called up their No. 2 prospect Brett Baty.
The third baseman will be playing third base and hitting eighth in tonight's game against the Atlanta Braves.
Baty was drafted by the Mets out of Travis High School in Austin, Texas, in the first round, 12th overall, of the 2019 MLB June Amateur Draft.
The 22-year-old had two stints with the Brooklyn Cyclones. In 2019, he played four games in Brooklyn after he spent most of that season with Kingsport and the Gulf Coast League Mets, and then, after the 2020 minor-league season was lost to the pandemic, he began the 2021 season with the Cyclones, and he played in 51 games, hitting .309, with seven home runs, 34 RBI, a .397 on-base percentage (OBP), a .514 slugging percentage (SLG), and a .911 OPS (on-base plus slugging). He then moved on to Double-A Binghmaton, where he played in 40 games, had a slash line of .272/.364/.424/.787, to go along with five home runs and 22 RBI.
This season, Baty began it at Binghmaton, and he played in 89 games, and his numbers were off the charts, with a .312 BA, 19 home runs, and 59 RBI, a .406 OBP, a .544 SLG, and a .943 OPS. He played just six games with Triple-A Syracuse (.364 (8-22), 0 HR, 1 RBI) before this call up to the Mets.
The call-up of Baty was precipitated by Luis Guillorme and Eduardo Escobar succumbing to injuries in the last week and being placed on the injured list.
Guillorme went down with a left groin strain in Sunday's win over Philadelphia, and he will be out four to six weeks. Escobar was placed on the 10-day injured list with a left oblique strain, retroactive to August 16, after he tried to play through the injury that he suffered in Friday's loss to the Phillies.
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| Yankee Stadium. Photo by Jason Schott. |
The Yankees, who have been mired in nearly a month-long slump, called up a pair of their top prospects, Estevan Florial and Oswaldo Cabrera.
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| Provided by New York Yankees. |
The Pinstripe Bowl has a new sponsor, Bad Boy Mowers, as they announced a multi-year title partnership of the bowl game between members of the Big Ten Conference and the ACC.
Bad Boy Mowers is celebrating 20 years in business, and it is deeply involved in college sports, as they have served as the title sponsor of the men's and women's basketball "Bad Boy Motors Battle 4 Atlantis" tournament in the Bahamas at the beginning of the college basketball season. Their credo is "mow with an attitude," and the company is committed to being an industry leader in delivering innovation and powerful mowing performance across their entire mowing lineup.
Mark Holtzman, the Executive Director of the Pinstripe Bowl said in a statement, "We are excited to welcome Bad Boy Mowers as a title partner as we continue to build on the incredible success achieved since establishing the Pinstripe Bowl a little more than a decade ago. Bad Boy Mowers had many opportunities to invest in the college landscape as they sought to grow their profile, and we are honored that they targeted our game as the optimal route to increase awareness of their brand. With New York City and Yankee Stadium as its backdrop, our full week of bowl activities truly provides one of the most unique atmospheres and settings in college football, and we are proud to share the spotlight with a company like Bad Boy Mowers, which has trod a similar path as our game, becoming highly regarded in a crowded marketplace in a short amount of time."
Bad Boy Mowers CEO Peter Ballantyne said in a statement, "Bad Boy Mowers is thrilled to be the title partner of the Pinstripe Bowl at Yankee Stadium, and support once again the great American tradition of college football. We continue to grow in popularity and sales across the country and are expanding and surging right now in he Big Ten and ACC territories. We see this partnership as a fantastic way to further instill the Bad Boy Mowers dedication to great products and excellent value in these regions."
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| Chris Bassitt rears back to throw one to Rhys Hoskins in the fourth inning. Photo by Jason Schott. |
The Mets shutout the Philadelphia Phillies for the second straight game, and this one was a 6-0 win led by Chris Bassitt on Sunday afternoon.
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| Jacob deGrom firing the pitch that would strike out Rhys Hoskins in the sixth inning. Photo by Jason Schott. |
