The Yankees and Athletics have named their starters for Wednesday’s American League wild-card game. New York will turn to right-hander Luis Severino, the team confirmed, while Oakland will open the game with reliever Liam Hendriks, Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle reports. The fact that the A’s are counting on Hendriks in such an important role would’ve been a shock back in July, when they outrighted him, but the 29-year-old reemerged as an effective member of the team’s pitching staff in September. Severino, meanwhile, is in line to start his second straight AL wild-card contest. Last year’s showing was disastrous, as Severino allowed three earned runs and only recorded one out against the Twins before exiting what proved to be a comeback win for the Yankees. In an MLBTR poll over the weekend, the plurality of voters expressed that J.A. Happ should start the game over Severino. The Yankees disagree.
Here’s more on a few other AL clubs:
- Surprisingly, Twins manager Paul Molitor lost his job on Tuesday. More changes appear to be coming to the team’s staff, too, as Jon Heyman of Fancred tweets that bullpen coach Eddie Guardado and third base coach Gene Glynn are “likely” to exit their posts. The club also announced that it has parted with both strength and conditioning coordinator Perry Castellano and strength and conditioning assistant Erik Beiser. As for Molitor, who may stay in the organization, the Twins have offered him a job in player development, Phil Miller of the Star Tribune relays. Molitor’s bench coach, Derek Shelton, is seen as the top in-house candidate to become the Twins’ next manager, Heyman reports.
- Sticking with the Twins, chief baseball officer Derek Falvey said Tuesday that he expects to discuss both an on- and off-field job for franchise icon Joe Mauer for 2019, per Miller. The 35-year-old Mauer may have concluded his playing career this past Sunday, when he had what could go down as a memorable send-off. Mauer’s not under contract heading into 2019, so if the first baseman decides to play again, the Twins will need to re-sign him.
- As of now, it appears first baseman Chris Davis will be back with the Orioles in 2019, Roch Kubatko of MASNsports.com hears. The soon-to-be 33-year-old owns one of the majors’ worst contracts, so the Orioles’ only chance to get rid of Davis would be by releasing him. It appears the rebuilding club will continue with Davis on its roster, however, even after he posted an all-time worst season in 2018. Formerly an elite slugger, Davis hit a shockingly terrible .168/.243/.296 with 16 home runs in 522 plate appearances. He easily finished last in the majors in fWAR (minus-3.1) and wRC+ (46).
- As of last weekend, offseason thumb surgery looked like a possibility for Rangers outfielder Nomar Mazara. It turns out that he won’t need it, though, Jeff Wilson of the Star-Telegram tweets. Mazara’s thumb was a problem during the second half of the season, when he spent roughly a month on the disabled list and saw his production decline to a notable extent upon his return. All told, the 23-year-old hit .258/.317/.436 (96 wRC+) with 20 HRs in 536 trips to the plate.
Just cut Davis. Every single player in their minor league system would be a better option.
Just send him down to AAA for a couple weeks to work on hitting instead of making outs on the MLB team. It’s ridiculous!
Exactly. And Buck should have put more public pressure on him to do this a long time ago.
Can’t just send him to AAA. He would have to be DFA on Outright waivers.
Can’t just send him to AAA. He would need to be DFA and pass through outright waivers.
It’s pretty easy to say eat 100 million dollars when it is not your money. He’s not going anywhere for at least two years.
Armchair GM’s, what ya gonna do?
I’m good with Severino going in the wild-card game. His recent starts have been good and he has the best chance of the group to be really dominant. In any case, there will be a short leash and a big bullpen behind him. I think that’s the most you can ask for here.
Davis is off the
Agreed
Severino has been garbage in his career if he doesn’t get run support. Can’t handle the pressure. CAREER:If he gets less than 2 runs of support, he is 0-17 with a 5.96ERA in 19 games and 109ip.
Just go away Troll!
I don’t know who i would’ve chose but how is this guy trolling? Are the numbers not right?
Most of those “numbers” probably came from his initial year in the majors when he had a horrible year pitching.
And by the way, exactly where did those numbers come from and why should I believe them from KenM?
Do you really believe that the Yankees are going to get shut down in the Bronx by the A’s collection of relievers? Maybe, but we’ll have to see that before we believe it.
Any pitcher that throws 98 and has 2 solid pitches with control isn’t garbage. That said, I figure it was always a safe bet he wasn’t going to pitch the opener at fenway where he has some problems anyway, which isn’t uncommon for many good pitchers.
Let Happ, who seems to be doing a swell job since the trade open the series there perhaps and Severino try to het by the Manea-less A’s.
I would let him play, maybe he comes out blazing hot, they trade him to the Yankees and our problems are solved. LOL
Make Davis the highest paid Bat Boy & the game’s only Paid Bat Boy. Changing the game entirely for Bat Boys everywhere
The Bat Boy Union would love to see a market breaking contract like that
I just hope Melvin puts Rodney on a very short leash. He has been terrible lately. Krush Davis will hit one or two out. Only 1 if they start walking him every at bat after the first.
Krush as in strike out Krush?
Just keep talking and lets see if you show up on thurs. after your home team loses.
One or two out….what a joke!
If mine does I will, do you have the guts?
You must be talking about Strike out Stanton
Dude not smart, you brought a knife to a gun fight.
Who lead MLB in home runs?
*all-time HR season record. And First team in MLB history to hit 20+ HR from all 1-9 spots.
Yankees remind me of NBA 3 PT teams, who don’t play def. In this case, NBA’ defense is Yanks’ ability to hit for contact, and 3pt is HR. If not for Voit’s resurgence, not one .300 hitter
NBA they say: “Those who live by the three, die by the three.” Believe same applies HRs, especially when up against playoff pitching. Bullpen is their best weapon. Hope they win tmrro, want to see them get a chance to use it in an actual best-of- seven playoff series
How do team home runs come into this? You said “what a joke” when a guy said Khrush can hit a couple out. Ummm, so is it “what a joke” if I say Judge or Stanton hit 1 or 2 out? Because Davis was better at doing that this year.
He missed the A’s had double figure in home runs from 8 spots except Catcher. 5 players with more than 20 home runs. I would not doubt it will be a high scoring game.
Baseball is such a mental sport. We know what Davis is capable of so you may as well play him and hope he rebounds.
That worked this year … obviously sarcasm
Yeah because the Orioles are a first baseman away from contention….
But that hasn’t worked and his dreadful bat and presence in the lineup further demoralized the team.
But hope he rebounds. What do you honestly gain by sitting him? The Orioles aren’t competing next year so you’ve got to play him and see if he can produce
I’m surprised that the Orioles ran Davis out there, rather than doing what the White Sox did with Adam Dunn a few years ago during his horrible season–bench him so he didn’t quite make a qualifying season.
They should’ve at least pulled him once he hit .180
And do what, waste a roster spot for nothing? You can’t just release tge guy unless you want to eat l that money for nothing. (Yes, Dire Straits just popped in my head.)
I wonder if this “start with a reliever” become the norm for a while.
Oakland did something different in the 70s with the 4 man rotation and roger Craig had the split finger fastball. Both worked, but only for a short time.
Severino went 14-2 with a 2.31 ERA the first half, But he was 5-6, 5.57 ERA in the second half.
Putting a lot of faith in Sevy’s last 3 games… (2-1, 2.04 ERA) 4th-to-last game: 2.2 IP six runs (5ER) Let’s ignore most of 2nd half, and stick Sevy in Sudden death elimination game. Hope I have to eat my words.
If you are a real fan of the game, each season teaches once again that it is a very long season. Whether it’s physical or mental the wear and tear of the grind get to pitchers.
You want to have enough gas in the tank when the games really matter. So would Sevy be the first pitcher to “lose it” in a part of the season and tighten it up towards the end?
I’m reminded of the Yankee haters who bashed Tanaka last year only to eat their words with his September and October dominance.
Sevy will be fine and it’s a great move because of how it sets up the Red Sox series.