SONNY BRONX TALE IS A BUST
No returns on Yankee investment
Chazz Palminteri, another famous Sonny from the Bronx, was shown on the scoreboard at the Stadium soon after the Yankees’ starting pitcher was booed off the mound. The actor and celebrity pinstripe fan probably wanted to borrow a quote from another character from his 1993 classic movie and current Broadway smash “A Bronx Tale” about Sonny Gray and tell him: “The saddest thing in life is wasted talent.”
The muchdiscussed tweaks to Gray’s mechanics earlier this week couldn’t help him avoid a second straight pummeling, and the former All-Star continued to cast doubt that he’s about to establish himself as a dependable building block for the Yankees’ 2018 rotation in another ugly loss on Friday night, 8-5, to the Blue Jays.
“I’m frustrated, obviously. I expect a lot more from myself,” Gray said. “We hit a tworun homer, I give up a two-spot the next inning. We hit another two-run homer to take the lead, and I give the lead right back.
“That’s frustrating not only for myself but for the rest of the guys in the locker room, for sure.”
Following up his clunker of a performance in a 6-3 loss to Boston last week, Gray was tagged for five earned runs over 3.1 innings to bloat his four-start ERA to 8.27.
Such ragged performances certainly are not why the Yanks dealt away three top prospects to obtain him from Oakland last July, nor why GM Brian Cashman declined to do so again for a top-flight starter such as Pittsburgh’s Gerrit Cole – who is absolutely dominating so far for Houston – over the winter.
“The fastball velocity was down, even from last time where he struggled in Boston…And it turns into a tough night for him,” Aaron Boone said of Gray. “We’ve got to kind of circle the wagons with him and continue to work through it, because he’s really important to us. We’ve got to be a part of getting him right and back on track, but this was tough tonight.”
Boone noted the dip in velocity in Gray’s fastball, but both manager and pitcher insisted there presently are no injury concerns.
“I won’t go as far as saying it’s ‘alarming’ yet,” Boone said. “We were seeing a lot of 90-91 (mph) with the fastball. It looked like he just couldn’t reach back for much more.”
Countered Gray: “I felt fine again. It’s 40 degrees outside. I don’t think anyone is throwing as hard as they’re going to in the middle of the summer. I feel good.”
Gray had spoken positively about a few mechanical adjustments he’d made with pitching coach Larry Rothschild since his Fenway defeat, and he danced around a couple of early walks and survived the first two innings with a 2-0 lead.
Still, Gray forked over that cushion in the third, on a two-run shot to left by Teoscar Hernandez, before coughing up three more runs on four hits and another walk one inning later.
Boone may not dub any of this alarming yet, but Gray finished the game generating only one swing and miss among his 73 pitches. His walk rate of 6.0 per nine innings is nearly double the career-high of 3.2 he posted last season.
“I thought I made a good pitch to (Hernandez) and he hit a homer, and the next inning just kind of got away from me,” Gray said, clearly searching for answers. “I just, I don’t know. I wish I knew…It just kind of fell apart there in the middle innings.”
The 28-year-old righty even departed to the throaty boos usually reserved for newcomer Giancarlo Stanton. The slugger at least finally earned some goodwill after snapping his lengthy homer drought at 50 at-bats with a two-run clout the other way in the home third.
Still, a collective 4.93 ERA clearly was not what Cashman had envisioned for this starting staff when he stood pat during the offseason, bypassing Cole and free agents such as Yu Darvish to bring back the same rotation that finished 2017.
The Yanks sacrificed James Kaprielian (still recovering from Tommy John surgery),