00:00Ah, so no 162-0.
00:03The Yankees had their first loss of the season Monday night,
00:05but still a lot of baseball left on the season, folks.
00:08So let's get our MLB insider for the post.
00:10John Heyman's first impressions of the Yankees going into their second game
00:14of their second series of the season.
00:17John, appreciate you hopping on with us.
00:19Great game last night out in Seattle.
00:22We're, what, 2.47% of their 162-game schedule in the books.
00:30Game 5 tonight.
00:31Pitching has shown up all season, but the bats didn't Monday night.
00:35Short sample size at 3-1,
00:38but what's kind of stood out for you the most about this team so far?
00:42Anything surprising?
00:44First of all, 2.47%.
00:46I am very impressed.
00:47You are a math whiz.
00:48That is terrific.
00:49I mean, you've got to be impressed by these Yankees so far.
00:52They were terrific in spring training.
00:54They look great.
00:56Obviously, Cole's not there yet, but he's coming around.
00:58Rodon's coming around.
01:00Their pitching staff looks excellent.
01:02Even though they lost 2-1, I thought the biggest news out of that game was that
01:08Weathers looked really good.
01:10You know, he had not looked – he was the one guy in spring training
01:13who really did not look good, who was in his rotation in spring anyway,
01:18and he looked very good last night.
01:20He has terrific stuff.
01:21He was up to 99 miles an hour.
01:24The question on him is the pitch selection, and it was good last night.
01:29The pitching has looked good.
01:31Their hitting is good.
01:33Obviously, they've been in two tough parks, four hitters to this point,
01:36so not going to worry about one game.
01:39Certainly against Seattle, they have a great team.
01:42They have a great staff.
01:43They have a tough ballpark.
01:44But right now, at 3-1, I think the Yankees look very, very good.
01:48But you're talking about how, you know, they've kind of played in two tough parks
01:52when it comes to hitting.
01:54It doesn't look like it's affecting Giancarlo Stanton at all.
01:57So far on the season, 16 at-bats, 8 hits, 1 home run, 2 RBIs.
02:02He didn't make his season debut until June 16th of last year.
02:07So is this the type of production and impact that Aaron Boone and Aaron Judge mean
02:13when they say that this is one of the better teams in baseball when they're healthy?
02:19Well, I mean, they led the league in runs last year,
02:22even with Stanton debuting in mid-June, as you mentioned.
02:26He's obviously a terrific hitter when available,
02:29and we understand that he is injury-prone at this stage of his career.
02:34It is a real blessing that he is healthy at this moment.
02:38I know he had that quote early in spring training about how he can't even open a bag of chips.
02:42Well, you know what? He can hit.
02:43He's been hitting balls 117 miles an hour late in spring, early in this season.
02:48He looks terrific.
02:50We know that Judge is the best hitter in the league.
02:52If you've got Stanton going well, and we expect Rice to be really good last year,
02:58you know, this should be the best offense in the American League again.
03:04I expect Wells to actually improve.
03:07You know, they really have a terrific lineup, one through nine,
03:12and they should score a ton of runs.
03:14All right, lastly, there was a viral moment from Monday night
03:18that everyone's kind of talking about right now, and it deals with ABS.
03:21The Yankees went 5-for-5 on challenges against umpire Mike Estabrook.
03:26So, Estabrook looked like he got mad because Aaron Boone started chirping at him.
03:30That puts the Yankees at 10-for-11 in ABS challenges through four games.
03:35So, two-part question here.
03:36What do you think about ABS and Boone's usage of it so far,
03:41and do you think that umpires could start retaliating
03:45and maybe even ejecting guys for chirping at them
03:48or showing them up after successful challenges?
03:53Oh, well, certainly.
03:55They're allowed to eject for, you know, all sorts of behavior.
03:59And, you know, most importantly, they've been great on the challenges.
04:04I like the challenge system.
04:06Some people aren't going to love it, notably umpires who don't have good games.
04:10You know, I've heard of an instance where the catcher was called out
04:14by his analytics department, and he basically told them,
04:16you catch 98 miles an hour and play umpire 2 and see how you do.
04:22You know, it's not the easiest thing in the world.
04:24It may look easy on TV.
04:26It's not.
04:27Calling the game is difficult.
04:30Five overturns seems to be not a very good performance.
04:34We had six with CB Buckner earlier.
04:37But, you know, I think you've got to be a good winner.
04:40You win these challenges, just take it in stride.
04:43Don't comment about how he's not doing such a great job.
04:46I think we can all see if a guy's calls are overturned on three consecutive batters.
04:52We know he's not doing a great job.
04:54He knows he's not doing a great job at the moment, and no sense rubbing it in.
04:59So I'm not in favor of that.
05:00But more importantly, they are doing an excellent job.
05:04I expected Chisholm to be really good at this.
05:07He knows what a strike is.
05:10Certainly, Judge has been a guy who's been affected adversely by bad calls, probably more than anybody.
05:15So he certainly should do well with this.
05:19But, you know, that's the main thing, that they have a good strategy.
05:23They do make the right calls, and that's it.
05:28But, you know, no sense rubbing it in when you're right.
05:31I just don't see the value of that at all.
05:34Yeah, we've seen guys thrown out for less.
05:36John Heyman, appreciate you jumping on with us.
05:39All right, thanks a lot.
05:40Thanks a lot.
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