Pressly: ‘I got singled to death’ in seventh
Ryan Pressly is looking forward to Sunday.
The promise of a new day, after all, can be a reliever’s best friend, especially one in Pressly’s position after a vexing seventh inning Saturday night in which the Yankees delivered four singles with two outs, resulting in his second two-run inning of the playoffs.
“That’s the best thing about being a reliever, is that you get an opportunity to pitch tomorrow and flush this one down the drain,” Pressly said. “I’m not worried about it. Nobody in here is worried about it. It’s one of those tough losses.”
Pressly, the Astros’ first-half late-innings bellwether who underwent arthroscopic knee surgery in late August, was hardly the only Houston pitcher to be undone by Gleyber Torres on a fiveRBI night for the Yankees second baseman.
In fact, the righthander said he made the pitch he wanted to Torres with two out and the bases loaded in the seventh inning, only to see a good hitter convert a tough pitch into weak contact and a two-run base hit.
“I mixed up a lot of things today, but they went the other way with a lot of stuff,” he said. “I got singled to death, and now I’ve got to hang with them and come out (Sunday).”
Entering with the Astros trailing 3-0 through six innings, Pressly retired Yankees catcher Gary Sanchez on a groundout and struck out Gio Urshela before yielding three straight singles, all to right field, to load the bases.
Didi Gregorius and DJ LeMahieu reached before Aaron Judge smoked a 1-0 fastball at 107.1 mph, delivering with such force that Yankees third base coach Phil Nevin had to hold Gregorius at third.
“I executed a lot of pitches, and the only one I’m beating myself up on was the one to Judge. He handled that pretty well,” Pressly said. “They put the bat on the ball and made things happen.”
Torres worked the count to 3-2 before he reached out and tapped a fastball low and away into shallow center field, scoring Gregorius and LeMahieu to extinguish the Astros’ fading comeback hopes.
“He did not get good contact on that ball,” Pressly said. “It was where I wanted it. It’s how I wanted to execute my pitch. You have to tip your hat to him.”
Pressly reacted in similar fashion after Game 1 of the Division Series after surrendering four hits in six batters, including a two-run double to Austin Meadows that accounted for Tampa Bay’s only runs in a 6-2 Astros victory. The Meadows pitch, he said, was the only one that on which he failed to execute his plan.
Astros manager A.J Hinch said after the Division Series opener he had no loss of confidence in Pressly, and he gave no indication Saturday night that he feels otherwise.
“His first two hitters were exceptional. They just did a ton of damage with two outs. He couldn’t get out of the inning,” Hinch said. “They were conceding power a little bit for putting up pretty good at-bats, and they ambushed him a couple of hits in a row.
“If he gets Torres out, we walk away with a really good inning, despite the pitch count and having to fight through just a really good lineup. They’re hard to get three outs against sometimes.”
Pressly has said frequently that he developed bad habits while pitching on an ailing knee in August prior to surgery and that he has struggled with returning to form.
He pitched four times in September after returning to the active roster, allowing one hit in four innings while striking out seven with a walk in appearances against the Mariners and Angels.
“You’ve got to grind through it,” he said. “Everybody is playing through something. I’m not going to blame my knee for this. It’s my job to go out there and get outs, and I didn’t do it tonight.
“This is a frustrating game, a game of failure for the most part. You have to take the good from what you had and build on it. … You wake up the next day, the sun is going to come up, and you come to the field. It’s going to be a new day.”