New Blood Means Yanks Sweep Phils, Head to Fenway

In between series against the hated Boston Red Sox -- the one this past weekend at Yankee Stadium II, and the 1 starting tonight at Fenway Park -- the Yankees squeezed in a 2-game home Interleague series with the Philadelphia Phillies.

Domingo Germán started the Tuesday night game, and only went 4 innings, allowing 2 runs. But, between them, Luis Cessa, Lucas Luetge and Chad Green pitched 3 scoreless innings.

In the bottom of the 3rd, it was the new call-ups that led the way for the Yankees. In the bottom of the 3rd, Greg Allen led off with a triple, and came home on a ground.by Estevan Florial. That tied the game at 1-1.

In the bottom of the 5th, trailing 2-1, Allen led off with a walk, stole 2nd, and went to 3rd on a groundout by Florial. Tyler Wade hit a line shot that former Yankee Didi Gregorius couldn't handle, scoring Allen. Then, with no one left on base, Brett Gardner hit a home run. It was 3-2 Yankees.

Gary Sánchez led off the bottom of the 6th with a home run, to make it 4-2. The Phillies added a run in the top of the 8th, but on either side of that, Giancarlo Stanton hit the 328th home run of his career, and Florial hit the 1st of his. 

It was once again time to trust Aroldis Chapman with a save situation, and after striking out the dangerous Bryce Harper, he gave up a long home run to Andrew McCutchen, his 259th. But he was unhittable after that, blowing away first Rhys Hoskins, who had homered earlier, then Didi to end it.

Yankees 6, Phillies 4. WP: Cessa (3-1). SV: Chapman (17). LP: Aaron Nolan (6-6).

*

And then, last night, Asher Wojciechowski made his Yankee debut. The 32-year-old righthander from South Carolina had shown little in the major leagues to this point, and he didn't show the Yankees much, going just 4 innings and allowing 2 runs, including a home run to Jean Segura to lead off the game. Albert Abreu pitched a perfect 5th and a scoreless 6th, and Justin Wilson a perfect 7th, perhaps his best performance since joining the Yankees.

With 2 outs in the bottom of the 4th, Gleyber Torres, who could really have used a home run, hit one. Gardner singled, and Allen doubled him home to tie the game. With 1 out in the bottom of the 7th, Florial singled and stole 2nd. Following a strikeout by DJ LeMahieu, Stanton singled him home -- for him, a rare clutch hit, and an even rarer clutch hit other than a home run. But if it was a home run you wanted, Rougned Odor then hit one. 5-2 Yankees.

Zack Britton came in to pitch the 8th, and Torres went from hero to goat (not "GOAT," children), letting a ground ball through his legs to start the inning with an error. That may have unnerved Britton, as he allowed walk, groundout, walk. Aaron Boone panicked, and brought in Nick Nelson.

Rick Nelson would have been a better choice, and he's been dead since 1985. His 1st hit was a cover of Fats Domino's "I'm Walkin'," and Nick allowed RBI single, walk, and run-scoring, game-tying wild pitch, before settling down and getting out of the jam, the poor little fool.

Chapman teased us in the 9th again, walking the leadoff man, before getting a flyout, a caught stealing, and a strikeout. The Yankees set themselves up well in the bottom of the 9th, but the Phillies got out of it with some good fielding. Brooks Kriskie, not very effective in his Yankee call-ups thus far, pitched a 1-2-3 top of the 10th, stranding the ghost runner.

The Yankees started the bottom of the 10th with Sánchez on 2nd base -- not great speed, reduced further by the fact that he'd taken a beating with bad pitches and foul tips all game long. But Torres made up for his earlier error with a fantastic bunt, and rookie Ryan LaMarre hit a long drive that would have been at least a double, but since the winning run scored, he stopped at 1st.

And his teammates tore his jersey open. No T-shirt underneath, and, as Yankee broadcaster Michael Kay pointed out, to any Houston Astros fans who might have been paying attention, "No buzzer!"

Yankees 6, Phillies 5. WP: Kriske (1-0, his 1st major league win). No save. LP: Ranger Suarez (4-3 -- and far from the 1st time that I could have said, "Rangers suck!").

*

So, tonight, 7 games behind the Red Sox in the American League Eastern Division, and 3 1/2 games in back of the 2nd AL Wild Card slot, the Yankees go up to face the Auld Enemy. To Fenway Park. As Obi-Wan Kenobi would say, "You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy." Here are the projected pitching matchups:

* Tonight, 7:10 on YES: Jordan Montgomery vs. Tanner Houck.

* Tomorrow, 7:10 on WPIX-Channel 11: Gerrit Cole vs. Eduardo Rodriguez.

* Saturday, 4:05 on Fox Sports 1: Jameson Taillon vs. Nathan Eovaldi.

* Sunday, 1:10 on YES: Domingo German vs. Martin Perez.

Come on you Bombers!

Yogi and Belushi Were Right

It looked like the American League Eastern Division race, if not yet decided in favor of the Boston Red Sox -- the Tampa Bay Rays are still hot on their heels -- was certainly over for the Yankees. And as the official 2nd half of the regular season got underway, the impression only deepened, as the Sox won the 1st game of the series, and took the lead in the 2nd.

But then, as Yankee Hall-of-Famer Yogi Berra taught us, "It ain't over 'til it's over." And, as John Belushi taught us in the movie Animal House...

What? Over? Did you say, "over"? Nothing is over until we decide it is! Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell, no! And it ain't over now! 'Cause when the goin' gets tough, the tough get goin'. Who's with me? Let's go! Come on!

The movie was set in 1962, a year in which the Yankees won the World Series. It was released on July 27, 1978, just as the Yankees began a massive Divisional comeback against the Red Sox that resulted in another World Series win.

*

So, the series was supposed to start on Thursday night, at the new Yankee Stadium. It didn't, because it rained. The opener was postponed, and will be played as the 1st half of a separate-admissions doubleheader on Tuesday afternoon, August 17.

Which may be lucky for the Yankees: Aaron Judge, Gio Urshela, Jonathan Loaisiga, Kyle Higashioka, Nestor Cortes and Wandy Peralta were all placed on the COVID edition of the Injured List. And all would be missed, even Peralta, who hasn't exactly been great, but we need everybody available for the bullpen. Those guys will be back for the series beginning at Yankee Stadium on August 17, if not for the series starting at Fenway Park this coming Thursday.

So the 2nd game of this series, the Friday night game, became the 1st game, and Jordan Montgomery pitched decently. He allowed 3 runs in 6 innings. That should have been enough for the Yankees' hitters to score enough runs win the game. Instead, this stat came up on the YES Network's broadcast:

He's gotten so little support, he should sue in family court. The Yankee bats just didn't show up, only getting 4 hits all game. Red Sox 4, Yankees 0. WP: Eduardo Rodriguez (7-5). SV: Tanner Houck (1). LP: Montgomery (3-5).

*

The Saturday night game wasn't looking too good, either. It started late due to rain. The Yankees had Rougned Odor batting 3rd, a slumping Gary Sanchez 4th, an even-worse-slumping Gleyber Torres 5th, Brett Gardner 6th, rookie Chris Gittens (who hadn't impressed in his earlier callup) 7th, the ordinary Tim LoCastro 8th, and rookie Greg Allen 9th.

Someone wrote on Twitter that LoCastro, Gardner and Allen might have been the worst outfield ever fielded by a Yankee team not trying to "tank."

Gerrit Cole allowed a run in the top of the 2nd. Nathan Eovaldi once again showed how stupid Brian Cashman was to get rid of him, as he pitched shutout ball through 4 innings.

At this moment, effectively, the Yankees were 9 games out of the Division lead, and 5 games out of the 2nd AL Wild Card slot. Getting into the Playoffs was still very possible, but winning the Division was increasingly unlikely, and 12 years without a Pennant a virtual certainty.

And then, with 2 out in the bottom of the 5th, the series, if not (yet) the entire season, turned around. Allen hit a drive to deep right-center, and ended up on 2nd base with a double. DJ LeMahieu singled him home, and the game was tied. In the 6th, the 2 slumpers around whom Cashman once seemed to want to build the next dynasty around, Sanchez and Torres, hit back-to-back home runs.

And then the rains came back, and the umpires called it. Since more than 5 innings were completed, it was an official game: Yankees 3, Red Sox 1. WP: Cole (10-4). No save. LP: Hirokazu Sawamura (4-1).

*

What was supposed to be a Sunday afternoon game got moved back to Sunday night, because ESPN loves 2 things: Airing prime-time Red Sox wins, and airing prime-time Yankee losses.

But Jameson Taillon ripped up the script, pitching shutout ball into the 6th inning. Torres hit another home run leading off the bottom of the 2nd. The Yankees picked up another run in the 3rd, and another in the 5th.

In the 7th, Odor hit one out, and then the Boston bullpen issued 5 walks, including 2 with the bases loaded. In the 8th, Ryan Lamarre hit his 1st major league home run.

Aroldis Chapman was brought in to protect a 9-1 lead. Aaron Boone later said that, if it was a save situation, he would have been brought in anyway. With hardly any pressure on him, Chapman got flyout, strikeout, groundout. Yankees 9, Red Sox 1. WP: Taillon (5-4). No save. LP: Martin Perez (7-6).

There was some bad news: The recently-acquired LoCastro, whose big thing is speed (he stole 17 bases for the Arizona Diamondbacks in 2019), tore an anterior cruciate ligament. He had just barely gotten here, having played just 9 games for the Yankees. Now, he's out for the season.

But the Yankees now have hope. They are 48-44, 7 games behind the Red Sox for the Division lead, 6 games in the all-important loss column. They are 3 1/2 out of the 2nd AL Wild Card slot. And while the All-Star Break and the rain played havoc with our perceptions of what had been happening, they have just taken 2 out of 3 from both the Houston Astros and the Red Sox -- both known cheaters.

Maybe these new acquisitions are the new blood, the new energy the Yankees needed. The season is far from over.

Wherever they are now, Yogi Berra is smiling, and John Belushi, a Chicago Cubs fan in life, may be enjoying the show as well.