Yesterday's game, the finale of a dreadful roadtrip, may have been the most important of the Yankees' season -- and might have been true either way. Because, either way, it was a statement game:
* If the Yankees would win, the statement would be, "That's it: You had your fun, and now, it's over. We still (Cliché Alert) control our own destiny, and we are going to continue to control it."
* If the Yankees would lose, the statement would be, "This is a monumental collapse, and it is ongoing, and the American League Eastern Division title will be a fight to the finish, and you Yankees are not sufficiently equipped for this fight."
The Yankees faced the Tampa Bay Rays at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Florida. Despite their success since 2008, and especially since 2019, the Rays are not the new Boston Red Sox. As far as I can tell, they haven't been cheating. Nevertheless, they are a rotten organization, and they are in the Yankees' heads. As the late, great college football announcer Keith Jackson would have said, "These two teams just don't like each other."
Manager Aaron Boone -- or, perhaps general manager Brian Cashman -- again responded to the logical demand that Aaron Judge not be placed in the 2nd slot in the batting order by placing him in the leadoff position, which is even dumber. The best slugger in the game should come up in the 4th position, when there is most likely to be men on base, in case he hits a home run.
Which he did, to the opposite field. It was his 53rd home run of the season. This is a career high for him, and puts him on a pace for 64 home runs, which would break the official Yankee and American League record, and the untainted American League record, of 61, set in 1961 by Yankee Roger Maris. It also puts him just 5 behind the record for AL righthanders, of 58, set by Jimmie Foxx of the 1932 Philadelphia Athletics, and tied by Hank Greenberg of the 1938 Detroit Tigers.
Most importantly, it gave the Yankees a 1-0 lead at the beginning of the game. So, this time, Boone -- or, perhaps, Cashman -- knew what he was doing.
Then came the top of the 2nd. Josh Donaldson led off, and he worked Rays starter Shawn Armstrong for a 3-0 count. Armstrong then threw up and in, face-high. It didn't hit Donaldson, but it did knock him down.
This is an old strategy. In the early 1950s, Yankee fireballer Allie Reynolds once hit a batter who was 3-0 up on him. He later told the press, "If I'm going to put you on base, I might as well hurt you."
This time, Donaldson got up, and yelled and pointed at Armstrong. Paul O'Neill, calling the game on the YES Network with Michael Kay, read the combatants' lips, and thought Rays catcher Christian Betancourt was saying, "It wasn't intentional," and Donaldson was saying, "I don't care!" The benches, and even the bullpens, emptied, and the situation was quickly defused. The Yankees ended up stranding Donaldson.
Frankie Montas put up easily the best start of his young Yankee tenure, tossing 5 shutout innings, striking out 7. The only baserunners came as the result of an error in the 1st inning, a single in the 3rd, and a dubious call of catcher's interference in the 5th. (Boone argued the call, and got thrown out of the game.) Lou Trivino allowed a single to start the 6th, but didn't let him score.
The 7th turned out to be a key inning. Judge led off with a double. DJ LeMahieu hit a tough grounder back to the mound, and Rays pitcher JT Chargois tried to get Judge to 3rd. One of the Unwritten Rules of Baseball is, "Never make the first or last out of the inning at third base." A corollary should be, "Never fail in an attempt to get the first or last out of the inning at third base." Chargois failed. The Yankees had men on 1st and 3rd with nobody out. It should have been a "Put this game away" inning.
It wasn't: Rookie Oswaldo Cabrera got Judge home with a sacrifice fly, but Giancarlo Stanton popped up, and Donaldson, having taken Joey Gallo's place as the strikeout-prone absorber of Yankee Fans' frustration, struck out. It was 2-0 Yankees, and it should have been more than that.
Then pitching coach Matt Blake, filling in as manager for the tossed Boone -- or also following Cashman's orders -- made a stupid move, bringing Ron Marinaccio in to pitch. And the recent rule is that a new pitcher must face at least 3 batters. Marinaccio allowed double, walk, and tough lineout to center. So Jonathan Loáisiga was brought in: Strikeout, bases-loading walk, strikeout. Still 2-0 Yankees.
The Yankees had another chance to break the game open in the 8th. Isiah Kiner-Falefa led off with a single. Aaron Hicks reached on an error. Again, 1st and 3rd, nobody out. But rookie Oswald Peraza struck out, Jose Trevino flew out, and Judge hit one deep to straightaway center, but it didn't quite have the distance to become Number 54, and that was it. Loáisiga pitched a perfect bottom of the 8th, and the Yankees went down 1-2-3 in the top of the 9th, to keep it 2-0 New York.
The bottom of the 9th could have been the season in a nutshell. (Should I have preceded the expression "the season in a nutshell" with "Cliché Alert"?) Clay Holmes, the closer now -- Aroldis Chapman is currently on the Injured List, and wouldn't have the job back, anyway -- came on to get the last 3 outs. But he allowed a double, a lineout that advanced the runner to 3rd, and an RBI single. 2-1.
Tying run on 1st. Winning run at the plate. Holmes got a lineout to keep the runner at 1st. Then a double. Tying run at 3rd. Winning run at 2nd. 1st is open. Run at the plate means nothing. It's Yandy Díaz. He's batting .290, and he's a righthander, like Holmes. Do you pitch to him, or walk him, and pitch to Ji-Man Choi, who's batting .228 but is lefthanded? Boone -- or Cashman -- decided to pitch to Díaz. Holmes got what is, for the moment, the biggest strikeout of his career.
Yankees 2, Rays 1. WP: Montas (5-11). SV: Holmes (18). LP: Armstrong (2-2).
This huge win puts the Yankees 5 games up on the Rays, 4 in the (Cliché Alert) all-important loss column. The Toronto Blue Jays are 6 games back, 5 in the loss column. The Yankees remain 6 games behind the Houston Astros for home-field advantage through the AL Playoffs.
The collapse is, at the very least, interrupted; at the most, stopped. The Yankees still (Cliché Alert) control their own destiny.
Speaking of collapses: For all their big spending, and for all their fans' big talk, has anybody noticed that the Mets' lead in the National League East is down to just one single solitary game?
At any rate, the Yankees have come home. This afternoon, Labor Day, they start a new homestand, not with a doubleheader, as used to be done on Labor Day, but with a matinee at Yankee Stadium II, against the Minnesota Twins. James Taillon starts against the struggling former Rays pitcher Chris Archer. Let's take yesterday's momentum and carry it, not just through the 28 games remaining in the regular season, but through October!
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