The Star Wars Effect

 

The Yankees began the season 16-6. Then, they were 21-21. Now, they are 29-21, riding an 8-game winning streak.

I wouldn't care so much if they hadn't had the drop to 21-21 in the middle.

It's like the Star Wars Original Trilogy and Sequel Trilogy: Great starting film, middle film where it looks like the bad guys will win, troubled final film in which the good guys triumph after all.

There is, of course, another connection to Star Wars. In 2002, Larry Lucchino, president of the Yankees' arch-rivals, the Boston Red Sox, labeled the Yankees "The Evil Empire." And everybody began association this term with the Galactic Empire of the Original Trilogy. Darth Vader masks became popular in the last years of the original Yankee Stadium (on signs, not so much as on people's actual heads, like at Oakland Raider games).

This was a stupid thing to say, because:

1. It just made the Yankee organization mad.

2. The Red Sox proved they were the ones who were evil, with their cheating and their thuggery.

3. Most Americans don't think of baseball when they hear the words "evil empire." They think of the Soviet Union, which President Ronald Reagan called "an evil empire" in a famous speech in 1983. And if there's one thing the free-spending Yankees are not, it is Communist.

The last 3 games of this 8-game winning streak were at home, to the Toronto Blue Jays, after dropping the 1st 2 games of a series at the Jays' Coronavirus-forced temporary home of Sahlen Field in Buffalo, before taking the finale. Then they came home, and swept 4 straight from the Baltimore Orioles, after losing 3 straight in Baltimore to end their long stranglehold over the O's at Camden Yards.

And then came a 3-game home sweep of the Jays: 20-6, 13-2 and 10-7. It wasn't quite on the level of the 1978 "Boston Massacre" series at Fenway Park, but it was huge. (It should have been even better: The Yanks led the Thursday night game 10-3, but the Jays scored 4, and Aroldis Chapman had to come in to nail down a save.)

It did not escape people's notice that, in their opening games of the NFL season, the New York Jets scored only 17 points on Sunday, while the New York Giants scored just 16 on Monday Night Football, and both lost, while the Yankees scored 20 runs on Tuesday.

This series included good starting pitching performances by rookie Deivi Cruz, the high-priced acquisition Gerrit Cole, and the veteran Masahiro Tanaka; and a lot of home runs: 4 by Luke Voit and DJ LeMahieu, 3 by Kyle Higashioka (all in the Wedneday night game), 2 each by Clint Frazier and the desperately-needing-them Gary Sanchez, and 1 each by Aaron Hicks, Brett Gardner, Giancarlo Stanton and Gleyber Torres.

Stanton, LeMahieu, Hicks and Aaron Judge (who, surprisingly, did not hit any in the series) had been hurt, but all are back, and all are hitting. The Yankees are finally getting healthy, and they are getting red-hot.

This is a case where the good guys are both "The Empire Strikes Back" and "Return of the Jedi." After all, one of those big sluggers is named Luke, and The Force seems to be with him.

The Yankees are now 3 1/2 games behind the Tampa Bay Rays in the American League Eastern Division, 3 in the all-important loss column, with 10 games left in this truncated regular season.

And now, the Yankees go to Fenway Park to play the Red Sox. The Auld Enemy.

I can't cite specific examples, but, a few times, the Yankees have had high-scoring games, and high-scoring entire series, right before going into that little green pinball machine in the Back Bay, and felt confident, only to have all the scoring immediately dry up, and the Sox end up beating us.

Which brings a Star Wars line to mind: "I've got a bad feeling about this!"

But maybe this will be 1978 all over again. I would love that.