Tuesday, October 18, 2022

Whew! Yankees Beat Guardians to Advance to ALCS

Finally, the October Yankees looked like the June Yankees. They beat the Cleveland Guardians tonight, 5-1 at the new Yankee Stadium, winning the clinching Game 5 of the American League Division Series. This is the 58th time that the Yankees have been 1 of the last 4 teams standing in a Major League Baseball season.

Everything clicked. We got the hitting, including a 3-run home run from Giancarlo Stanton in the 1st inning, a solo homer from Aaron Judge in the 2nd, and an RBI single by Anthony Rizzo in the 5th. We got the pitching, including 5 strong innings from Nestor Cortés, then 2 scoreless innings from Jonathan Loáisiga, a scoreless 8th inning from Clay Holmes, and a scoreless 9th inning from Wandy Peralta. We got good defense, with the exception being a misjudgment of a popup that led to the kneecaps of Aaron Hicks and Oswaldo Cabrera, that led to Hicks being taken out of the game, and maybe out of the rest of the season.

We also got the fan reaction. After Sunday's "rocking the baby" celebration in mid-home run trot, Josh Naylor went 0-for-4, and received chants of "Who's your Daddy?" One fan even rocked a doll -- a Chucky doll.

Winning is a team effort, and so is losing. Tonight, the team put the winning effort together.

I suspected I would be using a few "four-letter words" tonight. Turned out, the four-letter word I ended up using was this one:
And I'm sure I'm not the only one. Bring on the Chicken Fried Cheats, the Red Sox South, the Houston Asterisks!

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