Though his given name sounds as if he were destined to be a weather forecaster, Sonny Gray doesn’t mind it when his Yankees teammates call him “Pickles.” It’s a nickname his former battery mate, Josh Phegley, gave him in Oakland, partly because Gray had some success pitching whenever the A’s wore their green alternate jerseys and partly because Gray was fond of the briny vegetable.
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It’s about the only remnant from Gray’s East Bay days. Baseball moves at a whole other speed now that he’s pitching for a team that has a reason to relish September. (One and only bad pun, I promise.) Life with the Yankees is everything Gray imagined, multiplied by a bunch.
When he fails to get decent run support from a Yankees lineup that’s heavy with pop — and this happens most every time Gray takes the mound for some odd reason — NYC’s clever tabloid headline writers go to town. When Yankee Stadium’s short, right-field porch cruelly taunts — as it did in Gray’s first home start for his new team — the full-throated fans in the Bronx make the joint sound as if the No. 4 train is cruising through.
Gray takes a deceiving 3-5 record with the Yankees intoSunday’sstart against Baltimore, in a weekend series that feels overly ripe with urgency. That’s because the Yankees are stealthily stalking Boston in the AL East standings with only a handful of games left in the regular season. And, experiencing the mad-dog craziness of Yankees vs. Red Sox in October is on the bucket list of most anyone who’s ever clenched a baseball.
“I think as a kid growing up around the game of baseball, every kid wants to play for the Yankees,” Gray said recently. “Expectations are always high at a place like this. I wouldn’t want it any other way.”
If the Yankees are going to overtake Boston or make noise from the wild card spot, they desperately need Gray to load up some wins. Since coming over from Oakland at the trade deadline, he’s alternated from spectacular to just plain good — 49 strikeouts in eight games, an ERA of 2.66 — but one statistic really jumps out. Gray is 3-0 when Yankee batters put up more than one run of support and a dismal 0-5 when they spot him just one run or fewer.
He’s also been a victim at times of lousy fielding, not that the soft-spoken Gray would ever complain. George Steinbrenner, rest his complicated soul, would nod approvingly at the club’s latest steal: clean shaven and baby faced, Gray has the cunning chutzpah to throw pitches that dart all over the plate and a wildly fluctuating repertoire that seems built for Yankee Stadium. He’s even developed a pitch that still doesn’t have a name, a befuddling hybrid that explodes late, then sinks like a stone.
“I saw him throw one that moved more than any pitch I’ve seen,” pitching coach Larry Rothschild told Sports Illustrated.
It’s only slightly blasphemous to broach comparisons to David Cone, the legendary Yankees pitcher who authored a perfect game in the Bronx and owns five World Series rings, four from his time with the Bombers. Cone and Gray have similarly slight builds and similar cool-as-cucumber demeanors and a similar split-finger changeup that dazzles. Cone calls Gray “the total package.”
“He has pitched really well for us,” manager Joe Girardi said after Gray’s last start, a complete game that nonetheless was a 2-1 Yankee loss. ”It’s unfortunate, but over time that’s going to work out when you pitch that well. Sometimes you can get a little bit of a tough spot where you’re on the short end of the stick when it comes to runs. Over the long haul, if you pitch like that, it’s going to work out really well for everyone involved.”
That’s why Yankees GM Brian Cashman hesitated only slightly when the A’s asked for three top prospects in exchange for Gray. Two of the three prospects also happened to be out for the season, creating a unique risk for A’s vice president of baseball operations Billy Beane, who is confident the risk/reward will eventually shift in the A’s favor.
Pitcher James Kaprielian underwent Tommy John surgery in April. The A’s have their fingers crossed he’ll be ready by next May. Outfielder Dustin Fowler, in his MLB debut, ruptured his patellar tendon while attempting to catch a foul ball, a brutal injury that is more common with NFL players. The A’s are optimistic he’ll be ready for spring training. They’re also pleased infielder Jorge Mateo, the third piece in the Gray swap and a player once deemed the Yankees shortstop of the future, is still upright and healthy in Double-A Midland. Small miracles, considering the A’s gloomy season.
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Up until the final day in July, Gray only knew the MLB world through the prism of an Athletic. The A’s drafted him out of Vanderbilt in 2011, then he earned his postseason battle scars in those scintillating ALDS duels against Justin Verlander and the Tigers back in 2013. Gray pitched eight brilliant scoreless innings in Game 2, then fell back to earth with a Game 5 loss, and wouldn’t A’s fans give their Dennis Eckersley bobblehead dolls to experience that rush again.
Now scouts view Gray as a No. 2 starter on a team that’s chosen a fine time to peak. (The Yankees have won 11 of their last 14 games, includingSaturday’s9-3 victory over Baltimore.) Opponents view him as a thinking man’s pitcher, a gutsy tinkerer who’s not afraid to pitch around batters even with runners on base. (Smarts and guts go a long way in the Bronx.)
Yankees fans even tend to drop their perpetual grumpiness when the subject of Gray arises.
“Awesome trade, probably best thing we could’ve done at the deadline! Traded prospects (with a lot of injury – risk) for a 27-year-old with 2 years left on his contract. This kid has been nothing short of what I thought he would be at about 2 ER for each of his games started!” Matt Ernst, a longtime Yankee fan, wrote me in an email.
Two weeks to go in the regular season and Gray has a front row view of one of the most exhilarating shows in baseball. It’s certainly not how he expected his year to spin, his career to expand.
“Life works in funny ways,” he said.
He’s watched with bemusem*nt at how insanely and sometimes inanely things go awry when the Yankees and Red Sox meet (smoke signals and sneaky drones might be next in their one-up game of subterfuge). He’s ready and eager for October baseball in New York, an experience like no other. But to get there, the pitcher needs some run support, or the season that took a fresh twist when Gray left Oakland will turn — wait for it — as sour as his nickname.
(Top photo:Paul Bereswill/Getty Images)
