Yanks Survive Weird Marathon at Fenway

If ever there was a "must-win" game for the Yankees in mid-July, this was it. If they had lost yesterday's game against the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park, it would pretty much have meant that the season was over. But a win would have put them legitimately back in the American League Eastern Division race.

It may have been the fulcrum game of the 2017 season. And before it was over, a lot of people were asking, "What the fulcrum is going on?"

It's Yankees vs. Red Sox at Fenway. This is a matchup where anything can happen, and so much does.

Luis Severino started for the Yankees. He was terrific. And, knowing that today would feature a rain-forced doubleheader, Joe Girardi knew that his usual 95-pitch limit for starting pitchers would have to go out the window. He let Sevy throw 114 pitches in 7 innings, and he allowed just 1 run on 4 hits and 2 walks, striking out 6.

It is unfair to ask more of a starting pitcher than that, especially at the little green pinball machine in the Back Bay. The only run Sevy allowed was in the 3rd inning, on 2 walks, an infield single, and a sacrifice fly.

Unfortunately, that 1 run stood up, as Chris Sale, Boston's big acquisition of the offseason, was also brilliant, taking a 13-strikeout shutout into the top of the 8th inning. He allowed a leadoff walk to Brett Gardner in the 1st, a leadoff double by Starlin Castro in the 2nd, a double by Gary Sanchez in the 3rd, a grounder resulting in an error that allowed Chase Headley to reach 1st base in the 4th, and a leadoff walk by Castro in the 7th -- and he stranded them all. He allowed a single by Gardner in the 8th, but was relieved by Craig Kimbrel, and he stranded Gardner.

Girardi brought Tyler Clippard in to pitch the 8th inning. Tyler Clippard. At Fenway Park. I couldn't look. Sure enough, Clippard allowed a leadoff single to Tzu-Wei Lin. But it worked: He got the next 3 guys out.

In 93 appearances with the Red Sox over the last year and a half, Kimbrel had never blown a save at Fenway. (He has 279 for his career, having led the National League 4 times while with the Atlanta Braves.) But a 1-run lead is never safe at Fenway, and Matt Holliday showed why, taking him 443 feet over the Green Monster. Tie ballgame.

The Yankees threatened for more: Castro then reached on an error, and was replaced by pinch-runner Jacoby Ellsbury, who stole 2nd. But Kimbrel then struck out the side: Headley, Didi Gregorius and Ji-Man Choi.

Bottom of the 9th. Girardi thought for himself, instead of looking in his binder, and decided to save Aroldis Chapman for the bottom half of a later inning, in case the Yankees got a lead in the top half. He brought in Dellin Betances, and he got the Sox out 1-2-3.

The Yankees got a 2-out walk from Sanchez in the 10th, but couldn't get him home. Now, Girardi was managing in extra innings. There has got to be something in the Geneva Conventions against this.

He started by bringing Chasen Shreve on. He allowed 2 singles. The winning run was on 2nd with nobody out. Girardi got Shreve out of there, and brought in... Adam Warren? No, no, no... Yes, yes, yes: Warren got the next 3 guys out.

Then came the top of the 11th, and this is where it got weird. Holliday drew a leadoff walk. Ellsbury grounded to 1st base, and 1st baseman Mitch Moreland decided not to go for the easy out at 1st, but for the lead runner at 2nd, Holliday. Given that outs are at a premium at Fenway, this might not have been the best move.

Seeing this, Holliday went back toward 1st. Xander Bogaerts, the Sox shortstop, took Moreland's throw as if Holliday had kept going to 2nd, stepped on the bag for the forceout, and threw back to 1st. Moreland -- apparently, no relation to 1980s Philadelphia Phillies and Chicago Cubs player Keith Moreland -- stood for the throw, but it hit Ellsbury, who was still entitled to try and reach the base, and bounced into foul territory. Ellsbury was safe.

Red Sox manager John Farrell argued that Holliday interfered, much like Reggie Jackson was accused of doing in Game 4 of the 1978 World Series. Gary Cederstrom, the umpires' crew chief, gathered his men, talked it over, and decided that Holliday hadn't interfered, intentionally or otherwise, and let Ellsbury keep 1st base.

Farrell told Cederstrom that the Sox were playing the rest of the game under protest. However, the Yanks ended up not scoring in the inning, so the protest is pointless: Even if the play is overturned, the result will not be affected.

Austin Romine walked to lead off the top of the 12th, but was erased by a double play. Aaron Judge walked with 1 out in the top of the 13th, but was stranded. Ellsbury walked to lead off the top of the 14th, and Headley singled him to 2nd, but the Yankees couldn't get them home. Judge walked again with 2 out in the top of the 15th, but, again, was stranded.

Meanwhile, Girardi made a good move, letting Jonathan Holder pitch 3 innings, in which he allowed just 1 baserunner. Then he brought Chapman in for the bottom of the 14th, and while he walked a batter, he didn't let him score. He brought Ben Heller in to pitch the bottom of the 15th, and that worked, too.

This would be the best game Girardi has managed all season -- if only the Yankees could push a run across. But it went to a 16th inning, making it the longest Yanks-Sox game at Fenway in 51 years, a 6-3 Boston win on June 4, 1966, on a walkoff home run by Jim Gosger (yeah, surrre) off THE Dooley Womack (2 Ball Four references there). The Yanks and Sox played a 19-inning game in The Bronx on April 19, 2015, a Sox win.

The question now was, Would either manager have any pitchers available for the rest of the series? Farrell brought in Doug Fister, who was supposed to start on Tuesday night. Ellsbury led off the inning, and, using his experience as a former Red Sock, crashed a drive off the Green Monster, pulling into 2nd for a double. Headley singled to center -- but while the Monster giveth, it also taketh away: Despite his speed, Ellsbury was unable to score on the play.

That would not be the case on the next one: Gregorius singled him home, and brought Headley to 3rd. Romine singled home Headley. Ronald Torreyes bunted the runners over. Gardner was intentionally walked to set up the double play. But Sanchez flew to left, and the sac fly was enough to get Sir Didi home.

Girardi left Heller in to finish the job: He got Dustin Pedroia to ground to 2nd, Bogaerts to fly to right, and Moreland to fly to center.

After 16 innings, and 520 pitches between the 2 teams over 5 hours and 50 minutes, the game was finally, fully in the books. Yankees 4, Red Sox 1. WP: Heller (1-0). No save. LP: Fister (0-3).

*

So now, the Yankees are 3 1/2 games behind the Sox, 2 in the loss column, as we have 3 games in hand on them.

Today, because of a rainout earlier in the season, we have a full day of baseball. At 1:05, on TBS, CC Sabathia will start for the Bronx Bombers, Rick Porcello for The Scum. CC was supposed to start in Minnesota tomorrow night, with Bryan Mitchell going in this game. But with the bullpen so exhausted, Mitchell is needed there.

Masahiro Tanaka starts the 2nd game, against David Price, with the first pitch on ESPN scheduled for around 8:00. Tanaka could have been moved up to start the 1st game, thus giving CC a few additional hours of rest, but Tanaka has a much better record at night, and CC is more likely to go long anyway, which our relievers will need. (It is, of course, legal for a player, including a pitcher, to appear in both games of a doubleheader.)

I said before the series that the Yankees needed to take 3 out of 4. A split of today's games means a split of the series, and, at this point, I'd take it.

Come on you Bombers! Beat The Scum!

How Long It's Been: The Yankees Won a Game Going At Least 16 Innings

This past Sunday night, the Yankees beat the Chicago Cubs, 5-4 in 18 innings at Wrigley Field.

As the innings went by, I remembered that the Yankees had lost a lot of games in extra innings the last few years, due to poor hitting and Joe Girardi's bullpen mismanagement. To be fair, last night's game was a masterclass by Girardi.

But I looked it up: When was the last time the Yankees won a game that went at least 13 innings? At least 14? 15? And so on.

The last time the Yankees won a game going at least 16 innings was on June 1, 2003, at Comerica Park in Detroit, 10-9 over the Detroit Tigers, in 17 innings. Roger Clemens started, going for his 300th career win, and he didn't pitch well, but he did leave after 6 innings with an 8-6 lead.

But Sterling Hitchcock, trade bait for Tino Martinez and Jeff Nelson, was in his 2nd go-round with the Yankees, and Antonio Osuna imploded in the 7th inning. Chris Hammond pitched a scoreless 8th. Mariano Rivera pitched a scoreless 9th and 10th, And then Joe Torre brought in... David Wells, also in his 2nd go-round with us. He started the 11th, and was still on the mound when the bottom of the 17th began.

Alfonso Soriano and Jorge Posada both took Steve Sparks deep in the top of the 17th, making it 10-8 Yankees. But Wells finally tired, allowing a single to Bobby Higginson and a double to Eric Munson (no relation to Thurman), and it was 10-9. Torre had to bring Juan Acevedo on to nail down the final out.

June 1, 2003. That's nearly 14 full years ago. How long has that been? Has the world really changed that much?

*

Bartolo Colon. Carlos Beltran. CC Sabathia. Albert Pujols. Ichiro Suzuki. R.A. Dickey. Jason Grilli. Joaquin Benoit. Fernando Rodney. As far as I can tell, those 9 men (no, you can't count CC or Colon twice due to their being fat) are the only players active in 2003 who are still active today. (Joe Nathan is at Triple-A for the Washington Nationals, and could be added to this list.)

The Yankees, the Mets, the Atlanta Braves, the Miami Marlins (then known as the Florida Marlins), the Minnesota Twins, the Montreal Expos, the Philadelphia Phillies, the St. Louis Cardinals and the San Diego Padres have all since moved into new ballparks -- in the case of the Expos, who became the Washington Nationals and moved into a stopgap facility while a new ballpark was built, twice. The only New York Tri-State Area teams that are still playing in the same building that they used 14 years ago are the teams playing in Madison Square Garden: The Knicks, the Rangers and the Liberty.

Joe Girardi, now the Yankee manager, was playing for the St. Louis Cardinals. Terry Collins of the Mets was managing in the Los Angeles Dodgers' minor-league system. The Jets' Todd Bowles was coaching the defensive backs for the Cleveland Browns. Alain Vigneault of the Rangers was coaching the PEI Rocket on Canada's Prince Edward Island. The Giants' Ben McAdoo was an assistant coach at the University of Pittsburgh. The Devils' John Hynes was an assistant coach at the University of Wisconsin. The Knicks' Jeff Hornacek was retired from playing basketball and out of the sport, choosing to live on his player's pension while he spent time with his family. The Islanders' Doug Weight was playing for the St. Louis Blues. And the Nets' Kenny Atkinson was playing in Germany's basketball league.

Of the 9 "major league" teams in the Tri-State Area, only 2 of the managers/head coaches of 2003 are currently actively coaching. Peter Laviolette of the Islanders is the head coach of the Nashville Predators; he's now got them to within 8 wins of the achievement he got with the 2006 Carolina Hurricanes: The Stanley Cup. And it was jarring to see the Islander legend Bryan Trottier as head coach of the Rangers then, and he's an assistant coach with the Buffalo Sabres now.

Out of coaching are Joe Torre of the Yankees, Art Howe of the Mets, Jim Fassel of the Giants, Herman Edwards of the Jets, Don Chaney of the Knicks, Byron Scott of the Nets, and Pat Burns of the Devils. (Burns has died, while the others, theoretically, could return.)

The defending World Champions were the Anaheim Angels (as the team was then known) in baseball, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in football (yes, it happened once), the Los Angeles Lakers in basketball and the Detroit Red Wings in hockey -- although the San Antonio Spurs were about to take the NBA title by beating the New Jersey Nets in the Finals, and the New Jersey Devils were about to win the Stanley Cup by beating the team then officially named the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim. So there was a chance, although it didn't happen, that either East Rutherford, New Jersey or Anaheim, California could be the center of the sports world.

Manchester United was champion of England's Premier League, and Arsenal had just won the FA Cup. The World Cup has since been held in Germany and South Africa. The Olympics have since been held in Greece, Italy, China, Canada, Britain and Russia. Both have since been held in Brazil.

The Giants had not won the World Series since moving to San Francisco. The Boston Red Sox had not won the Pennant since 1986 or the World Series since 1918. The Chicago White Sox had not won the Pennant since 1959 or the World Series since 1917. The Chicago Cubs had not won the Pennant since 1945 or the World Series since 1908. The Expos were still in Montreal. Those things were all true on June 1, 2003. None of them is true any longer.

Baseball legends Larry Doby, Warren Spahn, Al Lopez and Buck O'Neil were still alive. Miguel Cabrera was 19 days away from making his major league debut. David Wright, Zack Greinke and Felix Hernandez were in Class A. Justin Verlander and Alex Gordon were in college. Max Scherzer, Daniel Murphy, Andrew McCutchen Buster Posey and Clayton Kershaw were in high school. Matt Harvey was 14 -- and, apparently, has not matured since. Madison Bumgarner was 13. Mike Trout, Kris Bryant and Aaron Judge were 11. Bryce Harper and Gary Sanchez were 10. Carlos Correa was 8. Julio Urias was 6.

George W. Bush was President. Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter were still alive, and so were George and Barbara Bush, and Bill and Hillary Clinton, and they still are. Ronald and Nancy Reagan, Gerald and Betty Ford, and Lady Bird Johnson were also still alive.

Barack Obama was a U.S. Senator. Mike Pence had just begun his 2nd term in Congress; Paul Ryan, his 3rd. The idea that Donald Trump could not only get elected to the office, but could actually do the job, was insane. (Well, his doing the job remains insane.) The idea a candidate for President could insult women, nonwhites, non-Christians and the handicapped, insult his primary opponents to their faces, tell his opponent to her face that he's going to put her in jail, and outright call for the assassination of his opponent -- three times -- and not only not be shamed out of the race, but come close enough to winning for hackers to fix the election for him, was impossible to accept.

It happened. It is still impossible to accept.

The Governor of the State of New York was George Pataki, and of New Jersey, Jim McGreevey. The Mayor of the City of New York was Mike Bloomberg. Andrew Cuomo was in private law practice, Chris Christie was a U.S. Attorney, and Bill de Blasio was on the City Council. Four Justices then on the U.S. Supreme Court are still on it: Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer. Gay marriage was not legal anywhere in America, although some States had laws that offered the protections of marriage to registered "civil unions" or "domestic partnerships."

The aforementioned former President Carter was the current holder of the Nobel Peace Prize. The Pope was John Paul II. The Prime Minister of Canada was Jean Chretien, and of Britain, Tony Blair. Queen Elizabeth II was the monarch -- despite recent rumors, that still hasn't changed. There were still living veterans of World War I and the Russian Civil War.

Major novels of 2003 included Mitch Albom's The Five People You Meet In Heaven, Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code, Zoe Heller's Notes on a Scandal, Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner, Dennis Lehane's Shutter Island, Audrey Niffenegger's The Time Traveler's Wife, Christopher Paolini's Eragon, Nick Sagan's Idlewild, and the 5th book in J.K. Rowling's series, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. George R.R. Martin had published the 1st 3 books in his A Song of Ice and Fire series.

Major films released in the Spring of 2003 included What a Girl Wants, Anger Management, A Mighty Wind, X2, Daddy Day Care, The Matrix Reloaded, Down With Love, Bruce Almighty, Finding Nemo, The Whale Rider, the disastrous Ang Lee version of Hulk, the Mark Wahlberg remake of The Italian Job, and It Runs In the Family, starring 3 generations of the Douglas acting family, but not Michael's wife Catherine Zeta-Jones).

That's So Raven, Chappelle's Show, Mythbusters, Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Da Ali G Show and America's Next Top Model had recently premiered. Reno 911!, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy and Nip/Tuck soon would. Oz, Farscape, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Touched by an Angel, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Dawson's Creek had all recently aired their last first-run episodes.

Tom Welling was playing Clark Kent, but the last man to wear a Superman costume onscreen, big or small, was still Dean Cain. Batman had last been played by George Clooney, Wonder Woman by Lynda Carter. Tobey Maguire was playing Spider-Man.

The James Bond franchise was in transition from Pierce Brosnan playing an impossibly young-looking version of the same old Cold War veteran to Daniel Craig playing an impossibly veteran-looking young spy. And the Doctor Who franchise was still in limbo, with only the 1996 Paul McGann one-shot film having been made since Sylvester McCoy handed over the keys to the TARDIS in 1989.

No one had yet heard of Michael Bluth, Michael Scott, Lisbeth Salander, Bella Swan, Don Draper, Katniss Everdeen, Walter White, Jax Teller, Richard Castle, Leslie Knope, Sarah Manning, or Jane "Eleven" Hopper.

The Number 1 song in America was "21 Questions" by 50 Cent, featuring Nate Dogg. If that was bad, it was a damn sight better than the song it replaced at the top: "Get Busy," by Sean Paul, the most monotonous singer in human history. And the one that replaced wasn't much better: 50 Cent's "In da Club." Beyonce was about to release Dangerously In Love. Paul McCartney played Red Square in Moscow.

Inflation was such that what $1.00 bought then, $1.33 would buy now. A U.S. postage stamp was 37 cents. A subway ride in New York was $2.00. The average prices of a gallon of gas was $1.39, a cup of coffee $2.10, a McDonald's meal $5.48, a movie ticket $6.08, a new car $22, 967, and a new house $246,300. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed the preceding Friday at 8,850.26.

Skype and MySpace debuted, but, as yet, there was no Facebook, no YouTube, no Twitter, no Tumblr, no iPhone, no Pinterest, no Instagram, no iPad, no Vine. Most mobile phones were still of the flip-open variety.

Robert Kardashian Sr. was still alive, and none of his children were yet famous. Nor was Kanye West. Caitlin Jenner was still Bruce Jenner, and was still a Kardashian. The Duggar family was still regarded as good Christians. Bill Cosby was still considered a good person.

Lady Gaga, Richard Madden, Drake, Emilia Clarke, Kit Harington, Rose Leslie, Rihanna and Emma Stone were still in high school. Sarah Hyland was 12 years old. Louis Tomlinson and Jack Gleeson were 11. Nicki Minaj and Zayn Malik were 10. Ariana Grande, Liam Payne, Niall Horan, Harry Styles and Justin Bieber were 9. Sophie Turner and Abigail Breslin were 7. Maisie Williams was 6. Dean-Charles Chapman and Ariel Winter were 5. Rico Rodriguez and Nolan Gould were 4.

In the Spring of 2003, George W. Bush invaded Iraq, causing a disaster for which the world is still paying. The Second Congo War was brought to an end with a peace treaty. Hungary, Slovenia, Lithuania, Slovakia, Poland and the Czech Republic -- in that order -- held referenda in which their people voted to allow them to join the European Union. The Human Genome Project was completed. A horse and a deer were each successfully cloned for the 1st time. And soccer player Marc-Vivien Foe suffered a heart attack and died while playing for Cameroon against Colombia in the Confederations Cup Semifinal in Lyon, France. He was only 28 years old.

Strom Thurmond, and Gregory Peck, and Katharine Hepburn died. Hardly anybody yet famous was born yet in 2003, but Willow Smith was 2 1/2 years old, and Mo'ne Davis was about to turn 2.

June 1, 2003. The Yankees beat the Detroit Tigers 10-9 in 17 innings. They did not win another game of at least 16 innings in length until this past Sunday night.

Let's hope they don't have to do it again for a while, huh?

Fire Joe Girardi. Tonight. He Can't Manage a Pitching Staff.

Joe Girardi must be fired. Tonight.

He doesn't know how to manage a pitching staff. He lets his damned binder tell him how to manage.

Tonight, the Yankees didn't have the decency to lose in 9 innings. The game went 16 innings, and they lost 5-4 to the Cleveland Indians at Progressive Field. (Formerly Jacobs Field.)

WP: Austin Adams (2-0). No save. LP: Branden Pinder (0-2).

Pinder can't pitch in the major leagues. That's one reason he shouldn't even have been in there. But the more important reason that he shouldn't have been in there is that the Yankees should have won it long before that.

And it's not just that, in the last 3 games, the Yankees' 1 through 5 hitters in the order have gone a combined 2-for-53. That's an .038 batting average. That's worse than Stan Ross in Mr. 3000 -- and he was 47 years old!

It's also that Girardi doesn't know how to manage a pitching staff. To wit:

Luis Severino made his 2nd major league start, and went 6 innings, allowing 2 runs on 7 hits and 1 walk.

A manager with a fucking clue would have let him pitch the 7th. Joe Girardi does not have a fucking clue, and he brought in Chasen Shreve to pitch the 7th.

Then he brought in Dellin Betances to pitch the 8th. After Shreve had pitched a scoreless 7th, suggesting to a manager with a fucking clue that he should also have pitched the 8th.

Then he brought in Justin Wilson to pitch the 9th. After Betances had pitched a scoreless 8th, suggesting to a manager with a fucking clue that he should also have pitched the 9th.

Then the game went to extra innings.

Then the Yankees scored 2 runs in the top of the 10th. This, on top of a home run by Stephen Drew in the 6th (his 14th homer of the season), breaking a 31-inning scoreless streak, and one by Carlos Beltran in the 8th (his 10th).

Then Girardi brought in Andrew Miller to pitch the 10th. That actually made sense, since he is our closer.

But Miller blew a save for the 1st time all season. Getting as far as August 11 before blowing a save is pretty good, but a fat lot of good that did the Yankees tonight.

The Indians tied the game. This was the 1st time this season the Yankees led by 2 or more runs in the 9th inning or later, and lost. They had been 48-0.

The game went to the 11th. Girardi brought Adam Warren in to pitch the 11th.

Then he brought in Bryan Mitchell to pitch the 12th. After Betances had pitched a scoreless 11th, suggesting to a manager with a fucking clue that he should also have pitched the 12th.

Apparently, Mitchell is the long man. This made sense, since we had no idea how long the game was going to go.

Girardi let Mitchell pitch the 12th, the 13th, and the 14th.

Then he brought in Pinder to pitch the 15th. After Mitchell had pitched 3 scoreless innings, suggesting to a manager with a fucking clue that he should have pitched a 4th inning.

Pinder pitched a scoreless 15th. He did not pitch a scoreless 16th. He let Jose Ramirez get to 2nd base, and then allowed a game-winning hit by Michael Brantley.

Somewhere, before the game ever got to a 16th inning, Girardi should have gotten a pitching decision right that would have prevented Pinder from taking the mound.

Somewhere, before the game ever got to a 16th inning, the Yankees should have found a 5th run. Or even a 3rd, within the 1st 9 innings.

Jacoby Ellsbury: 0-for-7. Brett Gardner: 0-for-6. Mark Teixeira: 0-for-6.

This is what it was like the last 2 seasons, when Alex Rodriguez was either injured or suspended, and thus unable to provide Teix with protection, or to drive in Teix or anyone else. He was 1-for-6 tonight.

Girardi is fucking up the pitching, and he's not motivating the hitters -- who, in case you've forgotten, had 3 games with at least 12 runs not that long ago.

Let's be honest here: The George Steinbrenner of the 1980s would have fired Joe Girardi after the failure to make the Playoffs in 2013. Maybe sooner, but no later than that.

Here it is, August 12, 2015, and the Yankees have lost 4 straight, and have gone from being 7 games up in the American League Eastern Division, to now leading the Toronto Blue Jays, who won again tonight, by half a game -- 2 in the loss column.

And Hank and Hal Steinbrenner, and general manager Brian Cashman, still let Girardi manage out of his binder, and fuck up the Yankee pitching staff.

Girardi out. Willie Randolph, a true Yankee Legend and a man with good managing experience, in.