There's a French term that most English-speaking Americans know: "Joie de vivre." It means "joy of living."
With their new Italian-American acquisitions, Anthony Rizzo and Joey Gallo, the Yankees seemed to have found it again. In Italian, the phrase becomes "gioia di vivere."
On Thursday night, the Yankees began a 4-game home series with the Seattle Mariners, knowing that, due to injuries to Corey Kluber and Luis Severino, COVID protocols preventing the appearances of Gerrit Cole and Jordan Montgomery, and Jameson Taillon having pitched the finale of the previous series, none of the 4 games would be started by any of the 5 men they expected to make up their starting rotation this season.
Nestor Cortes started the opening game, allowing 2 runs over 5 innings. He left with the game tied. Chad Green pitched a scoreless 6th, but allowed a run on the 7th, and many fans thought the game was over.
It wasn't. Gallo hit a 3-run homer, and, despite the all-too-frequent unnecessary drama from Aroldis Chapman, the final score was Yankees 5, Mariners 3. WP: Green (5-5, not wholly deserved). SV: Chapman (23). LP: Paul Sewald (6-3).
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The Yankees entered the series not knowing who would be the starting pitcher on Friday night. They went with the "opener" or "bullpen game" strategy, and it actually worked. Of the 27 outs they needed to get in the 1st (and hopefully only) 9 innings, Wandy Peralta got the 1st 5, Stephen Ridings the next 4, Joely Rodriguez 3, Clay Holmes 4, Lucas Luetge 4, Jonathan Loáisiga 4 and Zack Britton 3. Between them, they allowed 1 run (Holmes in the 5th inning) on 7 hits and 1 walk, striking out 8.
But the Yankees didn't hit, either, getting only 1 run, in the 8th, and that without the benefit of a hit. The game went to extra innings and ghost runners. Both teams scored 1 run in the 10th, as Green continued to be ineffective.
Albert Abreu held the Mariners off with a 1-2-3 top of the 11th. The Yankees started the bottom of the inning with Joey Gallo on 2nd. Gleyber Torres popped up. Then the Mariners walked Rougned Odor to set up the double play. It didn't work: Kyle Higashioka struck out, but Brett Gardner had a heck of an at-bat, Paul O'Neill-style fouling several pitches before singling Gallo home.
Yankees 3, Mariners 2. WP: Abreu (1-0). No save. LP: Keynan Middleton (0-2).
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Newly-acquired Andrew Heaney started the Saturday afternoon game. He was shaky, allowing 4 runs in 6 innings. He did, however, give the bullpen, used so much the nhght before, a little rest, and, between them, Holmes, Rodriguez and Loáisiga allowed just 1 baserunner over the last 3 innings.
Aaron Judge hit a home run in the 1st, but the Yankees went into the bottom of the 6th trailing 4-1. Giancarlo Stanton led off with a single. Odor hit the shortest of "short porch" home runs to make it 4-3. Online Yankee Haters started with the "little league ballpark" talk -- as if Fenway Park doesn't have closer foul poles, and Kyle Seager hadn't already hit a cheap home run for the Mariners in the game.
Gardner flew out, but Torres reached on an error. The Mariners really did themselves in with bad defense. Higashioka hit a ground-rule double to tie the game. DJ LeMahieu singled, and Rizzo grounded to 1st, and nobody seemed to know what to do: A double play resulted, but not before Higashioka scored the go-ahead run.
Which held up. Yankees 5, Mariners 4. WP: Heaney (7-8, 1-0 as a Yankee). SV: Loáisiga (4). LP: Anthony Misiewicz (3-4).
The Yankees had now won 5 straight -- all since that cat ran into thebfield during their most recent loss -- 10 out of their last 12, and 15 of their last 20, getting themselves legitimately back into the thought-lost race for the American League Eastern Division title.
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And then came yesterday. There were two big pieces of bad news. Aroldis Chapman was placed on the 10-day injured list, with inflammation in his throwing shoulder. That throws the bullpen out of whack.
Possibly worse, Rizzo, who mentioned that he hadn't been vaccinated, was placed on the COVID list. Neither one of these guys will be available for a week and a half, at least. As a result, for yesterday's game, the Yankees 1st baseman would be Luke Voit, and he turned out to be a terrible option.
About the vaccine situation: General manager Brian Cashman got the Yankees the Johnson & Johnson "one-time only" vaccine. For too many players, it hasn't worked. And now, he can no longer say, "I still deserve to have my job because I got Anthony Rizzo."
Luis Gil started the game, and pitched 5 shutout innings. He jas now pitched 11 innings in the major leagues without allowing a run. Unfortunately, he is not 2-0, because the Yankees just didn't hit. Torres, who has now broken out of a terrible slump, got three hits, but the rest of the team combined only got three. Yankees left 11 men on base.
Luetge blew it in the 8th inning, but can I really fault him for losing the game, when the Yankees didn't offset the 2 runs he allowed with at least 3 of their own?
Mariners 2, Yankees 0. WP: Sewald (7-3). SV: Drew Steckenrider (4). LP: Luetge (4-2).
The Yankees took 3 out of 4 in the series, but that 1 loss felt like it canceled out the other 3. It reminded Yankee fans of what life is like without Rizzo, and we don't like it. We just don't hit. The gioia di vivere is gone.
With 51 games, over 8 weeks, to go, the Yankees are now 6 1/2 games, 6 in the loss column, behind the Tampa Bay Rays in the AL East, and 2 1/2 games, just 1 in the loss column, behind the Boston Red Sox for the second AL Wild Card slot.
They now start a road trip, first to Kansas City, and then to face the Chicago White Sox, including a game at the Field of Dreams site in Dyersville, the 1st Major League Baseball game ever played in the State of Iowa. (Early in its history, the NBA had a team in Iowa, the Waterloo Hawks, but they didn't last long.) The Field of Dreams Game was supposed to be played last year, but was called off because of the COVID shutdown.
UPDATE: Gio Urshela has had an injury setback, and didn't make the roadtrip.
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