It was at Citi Field: The Mets' home hosted a concert by BTS, the reigning kings of "K-pop," and the New York Tri-State Area's Korean community flooded in to see their version of the Beatles, just like Baby Boomers went out to the previous Flushing Meadow ballpark to see the real thing in 1965.
(The initials stand for Bangtan Sonyeondan, or "Bulletproof Boy Scouts." Which would be much better as a title for an album than as a name for a group. Their ages range from nearly 23 to nearly 26, or about where the Beatles were in early 1966, while they were recording Revolver.)
At Yankee Stadium, however, the only people in a good mood were Red Sox fans.
In Game 2 of this American League Division Series, a game they absolutely had to win, the Yankees announced their presence with authority. In Game 3, they had no presence at all.
There's an old saying: Momentum is your next game's starting pitcher. Luis Severino threw away all the momentum the Yankees had after their Game 2 win at Fenway.
Perhaps not in statistical terms, but definitely in effective terms, Severino gave the Yankees their worst postseason start since Kevin Brown in Game 7 of the 2004 AL Championship Series, which just so happens to have been the last time the Yankees played a home game against the Red Sox in the postseason.
On the 62nd anniversary of Don Larsen pitching a perfect game in the World Series, the 1st no-hitter ever thrown in postseason play, at the old Yankee Stadium, Game 5 of the 1956 World Series, the new Yankee Stadium hosted a postseason first, but it wasn't in the Yankees favor. No one had hit for the cycle in a postseason game before.
Brock Holt did -- and he's the Red Sox' Number 7 hitter. He led off the top of the 4th inning with a single, the Sox batted around, and he tripled home 2 runs. He hit a ground-rule double in the 8th, and finished the cycle with a home run in the 9th.
Manager Aaron Boone left Severino in until the 4th inning, in which the Sox scored 7 runs. A lot of people are blaming Boone for leaving Sevy in too long. That's insane. That's not why the Yankees lost. They lost because they didn't hit.
We certainly can't blame Giancarlo Stanton this time, because he went 2-for-4. Other than that, the only baserunners the Yankees got were singles by Aaron Judge, Luke Voit, and Gleyber Torres, and a walk drawn by Adeiny Hechavarria.
That's it: 6 baserunners in a postseason game, at home. I don't care who you're playing, that is unacceptable.
Here's a stat: 1st-pitch strikes. Sox starter Nathan Eovaldi got them on 21 of 26 batters, Severino on 9 of 18; overall the Red Sox got them on 26 of 33, the Yankees on 32 of 53.
In other words, had The Scum only won this game 2-1, it would have been considerably less embarrassing, but more frustrating, and, for practical purposes, exactly as bad. A loss by 1 run counts exactly as much as a loss by 15 runs.
And if Eovaldi's name sounds familiar, let the record show that he was once a Yankee. In 2015, he went 14-3, including winning his last 8 decisions, before he developed an elbow injury. In 2016, he was 9-8 before his injury flared up again. He had Tommy John surgery, and was going to miss the entire 2017 season.
Not willing to wait for a proven good starter to recover, Brian Cashman released him. He was signed by the Tampa Bay Rays, going 3-4 for them until July 25 of this year, when the Red Sox picked him up.
They would have won the Division without him, but the fact that he dominated the Yankee lineup with his RECORD NUMBER OF HOME RUNS, IN CASE YOU DIDN'T HEAR! shows that, once again, Cashman doesn't give a damn about winning, only about selling tickets and staying under the luxury tax threshold.
It was 10-0 Scum going to the bottom of the 4th. That's when the only Yankee run of the game came, and even that came thanks to just 1 ball out of the infield: Voit grounded to 2nd and beat out an infield single, Stanton singled to center to get Voit to 3rd, and Didi Gregorius grounded to 2nd, resulting in a fielder's choice that eliminated Stanton but got Voit home.
It was 14-1 going into the 9th inning, and then something happened that had never happened before: The Yankees used a nonpitcher to pitch in a postseason game. It was Austin Romine. A backup catcher. Now, suppose Romine had gotten hurt, and we'd be down to just Gary Sanchez with no viable backup. That would have been a stupid move by Boone.
Instead, only Romine's feelings were hurt, as the Sox added 2 more runs on Holt's home run. The final score: Red Sox 16, Yankees 1. WP: Eovaldi. No save, obviously. LP: Severino. Home-field advantage, taken from The Scum in Game 2? Thrown away in Game 3.
So now, tonight, CC Sabathia will start Game 4 against Rick Porcello. The Big Fella is ready and willing to save our necks again. The only question is if he's able. You may have to worry about his command or his control, but you will never have to worry about his head or his passion. If we lose this series, whether the fault lies in part with him or not, it could be his last time in a Yankee uniform. So he's going to make it count. He won't let himself be the reason the Yankees go down, but if we do go down, he is going to make sure we go down with all flags flying.
The question is, will we have all guns blazing? Or will the team that Brian Cashman assembled once again turn out to be gutless wonders, letting the Auld Enemy clinch in our house for the 2nd time in 3 weeks?
In the words of the immortal Han Solo, I've got a bad feeling about this.
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