Yankees At-Bat of the Week: Jose Trevino (8/1)

Jose Trevino has quickly become one of my favorite players on the Yankees. As a former catcher and lover of catcher’s defense, I am certainly biased towards loving the Trevino player build. But what makes the affinity grow stronger are these games. Two home runs and so many smiles! When Trevino goes yard, Yankee Stadium erupts. It’s very easy to root for him.

If you remember, when Gary Sánchez was flourishing, this fanbase loved him as much as any other homegrown player. Trevino seems to be getting similar love, but for different reasons. Whatever Trevino brings with the bat is a plus. It’s his defense and connection to the pitching staff that makes him special. We all know about the defense. He frames well, throws well, and will block or pick anything he needs to. On top of that, pitchers love to throw to him. I can go on for days, but the reason we are here right now is to celebrate and reflect on his insurance home run in the eighth inning of Monday night’s game:

You’ll see that in the first four pitches of this at-bat, Trevino looked pretty uncomfortable. This type of a reaction on a fastball right down the middle is usually a tell-tale sign of that, but a big step in the progression of being an above-average major league hitter is making adjustments based on the pitches you see in an at-bat. It can happen over the course of the at-bat, like we often see, or it can be a click that happens on any pitch. All I know is, Trevino took this pitch and did not see it well. He will have to adjust. 0-1 count.

Early on a well-located changeup diving below the zone. After watching a middle-middle fastball go by, Trevino adjusted his approach to make sure wouldn’t miss another one. Sadly for him, Borucki was one step ahead and spotted this changeup exactly where he wanted to. Ahead 0-2, Borucki has a few different options against Trevino. On the other side, Jose needs to battle. A bad take followed up with a poorly-timed swing to start the at-bat. This at-bat won’t be a game breaker, but good hitters don’t give anything away.

Easy take here. A nice pitch to get Trevino back on track in this at-bat. Borucki wasted a fastball just too far outside of the zone and as a result gave Trevino an extra pitch to get on time and see Borucki’s delivery. After this miss, an offspeed or breaking ball makes the most sense. The Mariners reliever still has a chance to put Trevino away. Ahead in the count at 1-2, he can’t waste another pitch. Time for a competitive offspeed pitch here.

Okay, okay. This is a good enough pitch. It isn’t in a great location, but it still has Trevino’s barrel flying out a little further that it needed to be. It’s not a great swing, but it doesn’t seem that Trevino was all that fooled. He maintained his posture and balance throughout the swing despite just barely making contact. It is certainly the best pitch of this at-bat for him. Heading into the 1-2 count again, I would have expected another offspeed or breaker. Borucki needs to keep the game where it is to give his squad a chance for a comeback.

Goodbye baseball. As a hitter, you hope when you battle out an at-bat that you get a mistake from a pitcher. This 1-2 slider floated right over the middle of the plate. For a hitter with a flat swing like Trevino, this is as meatbally as a pitch can get. I typically assume that Trevino has only dead pull power, but he proved me wrong here. I was sitting in section 214 on the first base side at this game, and thought this would be a lineout to Jarred Kelenic, but it just kept flying. A pure, back-spinned laser into monument park. Great swing by the Yankees catcher to give his team some cushion.