The Yankees starred in one of the most drab All-Star Games in recent memory, Cody Bellinger picking up MVP honors for his two-run single in the first while Ben Rice also drove in a run. It means we are just a day away from the second half kicking off, the Yankees starting a pivotal stretch of 66 games with a marquee series against the two-time defending champion Dodgers. Before we get to that, let’s take one last look back with our final Sequence of the Week of the first half, and Paul Blackburn’s first appearance in this series.
We join Blackburn with one out in the bottom of the eighth on Sunday, the Yankees five outs away from what looked at many points during the series like an improbable sweep of the Nationals. The late heroics by the offense was the story of that series, achieving three straight comebacks in the eighth inning or later to sweep a series for the first time since they were the Highlanders sweeping the Cleveland Naps in 1910. The bullpen is light a few arms, particularly as closer David Bendar had pitched three innings to secure saves in the previous two wins, so it’s more than likely that Blackburn will be asked to record the final six outs of this one-run game. He has already retired Curtis Mead on a popup to open the frame, the lefty already having tied the game with a pinch-hit solo home run off Tim Hill in the sixth. That brings the ever-dangerous two-time All-Star CJ Abrams to the plate, the lefty shortstop in the midst of a breakout campaign with 20 home runs before the break.
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Abrams has done the lion’s share of his damage against the fastball, so it is no surprise to see Blackburn start this AB off with a curveball.
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Ali Sánchez sets a target in the zone, encouraging Blackburn to make this pitch look like a strike out of the hand to fool the hitter into swinging at a pitch that will break below the zone. Blackburn achieves both objectives, making Abrams think it’s an elevated fastball, resulting in a swing that is almost a foot over the top of a pitch that pretty much ends up in the dirt.
After tricking the hitter so effectively, it’s only logical that Blackburn attempt to replicate his execution of the pitch until Abrams shows he can adjust.
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Blackburn executes this pitch to a similar spot as the first one. However, it is apparent that Abrams is already beginning to make the necessary adjustment to the curve. You can see the way he delays his swing, getting his front foot down later to match the timing of the slower curve, and he drops the bat head more in anticipation of the downward break, allowing him to ground it foul.
Blackburn has two choices here following that swing. It’s clear Abrams is now hunting the curveball, so you either throw the pitch he is looking for but in an unhittable location, or you throw a different pitch type down the same tunnel to deceive the hitter into thinking it’s another curveball — think an elevated heater with the same high aiming point as those last two curveballs.
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Blackburn opts for the former option, bouncing a curveball on top of home plate to see if he can get Abrams to chase for a third straight time. Abrams displays excellent pitch recognition to take this curveball given it looked like it was traveling right down the middle out of Blackburn’s hand.
Despite not getting the chase he was looking for, Blackburn opts to throw a fourth straight curveball.
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The dangerous part of throwing so many breaking balls in a row is that each subsequent one needs to be a little better than the one before it to nullify the adjustment the hitter is making with repeated exposure to the pitch. Alternatively, you could try to sneak one to a location where the hitter isn’t expecting it, Blackburn attempting to back-door one for a called strike three. After seeing three straight curveballs over the plate but below the zone, Abrams is indeed fooled by this curve commanded to the corner up and away, and he’s just able to get off an emergency hack to foul off the pitch and stay alive.
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After four straight curveballs, Blackburn finally picks his spot to switch things up with a changeup.
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Even though he didn’t get the chase he was after, I love this pitch selection by Blackburn. It shows Abrams a secondary offering with less downward break than the curveball and a pitch that breaks away from the batter rather than toward him, meaning Abrams now can no longer automatically eliminate any pitch that starts out aimed in the region from up-and-in to middle-middle
Indeed, that changeup functioned as purely a setup pitch to boost the chase potential of the curveball.
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Blackburn throws his fifth curveball of the encounter, and it is by far the best one he has thrown. It looks like a strike right down Broadway before dropping almost five feet during its path toward home, Abrams unable to check his swing in time on a pitch that lands in the dirt.
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Here’s the full sequence:
I love the savvy Blackburn displayed against such a dangerous hitter. He clearly read the scouting report on Abrams’ propensity to crush the fastball, so he stuck with his two most platoon-neutral offerings in the curveball and changeup. It also helps that those two pitches have been his most effective weapons this season, the changeup holding hitters to a .105 average and .184 SLG against while the curveball has been even stingier, opponents batting just .087 and slugging .087 against the Uncle Charlie. The curveballs he threw in this encounter in particular make me excited to see him use the pitch more — in addition to his excellent command of the pitch to chase areas below the zone, it’s objectively one of the best curveballs in baseball. It sports the third-most downward drop vs. average of any curveball in MLB, allowing it to rack up a 45-percent whiff rate, 39.1-percent chase rate, and 37.1-percent put-away rate — all top-15 marks among all MLB curveballs.
It is no exaggeration to say that Blackburn has been one of the most effective pitchers in baseball over the last two months. He has pitched to the lowest ERA (1.16) in MLB since his May 16th appearance against the Mets among all pitchers with at least 30 innings pitched over that span. He has become Aaron Boone’s Swiss Army knife relief ace not dissimilar to the role Luke Weaver played in his first season with the team, though they profile very differently in terms of arsenal and pitching philosophy. My college John was one of the first people on staff to pick up on Blackburn’s surging form back in the beginning of June, and his words have proven prescient, Blackburn developing into one of the team’s most reliable relievers capable of pitching in a variety of roles.
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