Yanks Bounce Back, Make It 3 of 4 In Toronto

After a disastrous loss, you always want to bounce back with a win. The Yankees closed their series away to the Toronto Blue Jays by sending Nestor Cortés out to start. He pitched 6 innings, allowing 2 runs on 5 hits and 1 walk, striking out 6.

The game began with with Gleyber Torres hitting a single and Aaron Judge hiting a home run. Bo Bichette followed this with a solo home run in the bottom of the 1st. The game remained 2-1 through 6 innings. Oswaldo Cabrera led off the top of the 7th with a double. After 2 outs, Aaron Hicks singled him home, making it 3-1.

But you know what I say about leadoff walks. Sending Cortés out to start the bottom of the 7th was the right thing to do, but he walked the leadoff batter. Ryan Weber was sent in, and pitched to the minimum 3 batters, allowing a single and a walk to load the bases with nobody out, before getting a short flyout on which the runner on 3rd couldn't score. He did on the next fly, but a great catch by Harrison Bader in center field ended the inning with the Yankees still on top.

Albert Abreu pitched a perfect 8th. And Hicks got 3 hits. If it was Bizarro Night in Toronto, I'll take it. Anthony Volpe added a home run, which he really needed after his 10th-inning error the night before. Ron Marinaccio pitched a perfect 9th. Yankees 4, Blue Jays 2. WP: Cortés (4-2). SV: Marinaccio (1). LP: José Berríos (3-4). So the Yankees took 3 out of 4, on the road, from those pesky Blue Jays.

Bad news, though: Catcher Jose Trevino went on the Injured List with a hamstring strain. So Kyle Higashioka was last night's catcher. Coming off the Injured List, Ben Rortvedt has been called up. Due to injuries, the man has played all of 39 games in the major leagues, all with the Minnesota Twins in 2021. He came over in the deal for Gary Sánchez, now with the Mets. They took 2 out of 3 from the Tampa Bay Rays this week, so the Yankees are now 6 1/2 games out of 1st place in the American League Eastern Division.

Tonight, the Yankees begin an Interleague series, away to the Cincinnati Reds. Clarke Schmidt starts against Ben Lively. The Reds have a losing record, but are only 5 games out in the National League Central Division.

Good Injury News Can't Score in 9 Innings, Yanks Lose In 10

After making the Toronto Blue Jays look bad 2 nights in a row, the Yankees tried to make it 3 straight at the Rogers Centre last night. And they had the right starting pitcher for it, too: Gerrit Cole. He pitched 6 shutout innings, allowing 7 hits and 2 walks, striking out 6.

Clay Holmes pitched a perfect 7th. Jimmy Cordero pitched a scoreless, 8th. Michael King pitched a scoreless 9th. Put it all together, and it's a 9-hit shutout. All we needed was 1 run.

We didn't get it. The Yankees stranded a man on 2nd base in the 2nd inning, a man on 1st in the 3rd, a man on 2nd with 1 out in the 4th, and a man on 1st with 1 out in the 6th. With 2 out in the top of the 8th, they got 3 straight walks, from Aaron Judge, Anthony Rizzo and DJ LeMahieu. But Anthony Volpe struck out. After 9 innings, it was 0-0.

Isiah Kiner-Falefa was the ghost runner in the top of the 10. Oswaldo Cabrera grounded out, getting him to 3rd. It says a lot about Aaron Judge that they intentionally walked him. It says just as much about Gleyber Torres that he batted before Judge, and they were willing to pitch to him with the go-ahead run on 3rd and less than 2 outs. He justified their thoughts by striking out. After Judge walked, he stole 2nd, to try to draw a throw and let IKF score, but the Jays weren't fooled. And Rizzo struck out.

Wandy Peralta, coming off back-to-back strong performances, was sent out to pitch the bottom of the 10th. Cavan Biggio was the Toronto ghost runner. Whit Merrifield grounded to short, and Volpe mishandled it, allowing Biggio to reach 3rd. To be fair, it was a tough play: If he'd been able to pick the ball up but not throw Merrifield out in time, it would have been scored as a hit. "I gotta back up the pitcher there," he said after the game. "No excuses."

Cabrera was brought in to play the middle of the infield, as a second shortstop, leaving 2 outfielders. The idea was to guard against a ground ball, and hold Biggio at 3rd -- or, if he broke for home, throw him out, or catch him in a rundown. Either way, to make sure the winning run did not score on a grounder.

The umpires met to determine whether this was against MLB's new rule banning infield shifts. They determined that it wasn't: According to the new rule, there must be at least 2 infielders on each side of 2nd base, and there was.

Yogi Berra once said that one of the great things about baseball is that, "It ain't like football: You can't make up no trick plays." But that's far from true. This was, much more so than the so-called "no-doubles defense" (the outfielders playing more deeply than usual), is baseball's answer to football's "prevent defense" (the defensive backs, and sometimes even the linebackers, playing far back, to discourage a last-minute long-distance touchdown pass).

At first, it worked: Alejandro Kirk grounded, appropriately enough, to Volpe, who checked Biggio at 3rd, holding him, and threw Kirk out. This allowed Merrifield to get to 2nd, but his run didn't matter: Only Biggio's did.

That left runners on 2nd & 3rd with 1 out: Any ball out of the infield could still win the game. The sensible move would be to walk the next batter, to load the bases, and set up an out at any base, and maybe even an inning-ending double play; and pitch to the following batter, Santiago Espinal, who was batting just .172. That's Aaron Hicks territory. (Hicks was batting .159 when he went on the Injured List.)

That would have been the sensible move. But because the Yankees' manager is Aaron Boone, and he does whatever Brian Cashman and the analytics boys tell him to do, he decided not to walk the next batter. That was Danny Jansen, and he was batting .185. His lifetime batting average is .219. Kenley Jansen (no relation) has a higher lifetime batting average, and he's a relief pitcher! (He's 3-for-9, for .333.)

Or maybe, just maybe, Boone was ignoring the analytics, and decided, "If Peralta can't get this bum out, maybe he doesn't belong in the major leagues." Well, maybe I would have thought that. But I still would have walked Jansen.

Boone didn't order him walked. Peralta threw him one pitch. It was obvious: Jake Bauers, in left field, turned around, took a couple of steps, and turned back around, because it was hopeless. Home run. Blue Jays 3, Yankees 0. WP: Jordan Romano (3-2). No save. LP: Peralta (2-1).

I could blame Peralta. But those runs were unearned. I could blame Volpe. But he's a rookie. I could blame Boone, for bad strategy. But who's kidding who? In 10 innings, the Yankees got only 3 hits, and drew 5 walks, but scored no runs. This, after scoring 35 runs in their previous 5 games.

More bad news: As expected, Domingo Germán received a 10-game suspension for using "sticky stuff" on the mound on Monday night. He will miss 2 starts. That gives the Yankees 3 holes in the rotation: His slot, and the slots of the injured Luis Severino and Carlos Rodón. And Ian Hamilton also went on the 15-Day Injured List, so he should be back in early June.

But there is some good news: Severino has made progress, and is expected to be activated in time for Sunday's game in Cincinnati. And Boone said that Giancarlo Stanton may return in about a week. But good injury news won't get the Yankees any runs over last night's 1st 9 innings.

So, in the interim -- 1 more game against the Jays tonight, then 2 away to the Cincinnati Reds -- the rotation will be Nestor Cortés tonight, Clarke Schmidt tomorrow, and the starter for Saturday's game is undecided. Looks like another "opener game," so, maybe, on 3 days' rest, Jhony Brito will start, pitch 2 or 3 innings, and then let the bullpen fly. My confidence level for that game is... actually, it's higher than it is for the Schmidt start.

May 18, 1963: The Death of Ernie Davis

May 18, 1963, 60 years ago: Ernie Davis, the 1st black football player to win the Heisman Trophy, dies of leukemia in Cleveland. He was only 23 years old.

Ernest Davis (no middle name) was born on December 14, 1939 in New Salem, Pennsylvania, outside Pittsburgh. His father was killed in an accident shortly thereafter. When his mother remarried, they moved to his stepfather's hometown of Elmira, New York, in the Finger Lakes region. At Elmira Free Academy, he starred in football, basketball and baseball. He was a college prospect in all 3 sports, but Syracuse University, about 90 miles to the northeast, sent their star running back, Jim Brown to recruit him. It worked, and, like Brown before him, he became a Syracuse running back wearing Number 44.

In 1959, led by head coach Ben Schwartzwalder, with Davis, "the Elmira Express," the Orangemen went 11-0 and won the National Championship, including their 1st bowl win, the 1960 Cotton Bowl. In 1960, Davis' junior year, they went 7-2, and were not invited to a bowl game. (There were considerably fewer bowls back then.) In 1961, they went 8-3, and won the Liberty Bowl over Miami at Franklin Field in Philadelphia.

That season, Davis became the 1st black player to be awarded the Heisman Trophy. The 2nd-place finisher, running back Bob Ferguson of National Champions Ohio State, was also black. Prior to Davis, the closest a black player had come was in 1956, when Brown finished 5th.

In those days, the NFL Draft was held in the December of the preceding calendar year. On December 4, 1961, the Washington Redskins made Davis the 1st pick. They had to, as part of an agreement with the federal government, which owned the District of Columbia's new football stadium: They were the last NFL team that hadn't desegregated, and they had to in order to be allowed to play there. They promised to pick a black player in 1st round, and did. Two days later, the Buffalo Bills made Davis the 1st pick in the American Football League draft.

There was no question in Davis' mind that he wanted to play in the NFL, not the AFL. But he wouldn't play for the Redskins' owner, George Preston Marshall, the League's most notorious racist. A deal was quickly arranged: The rights to Davis would go to the Cleveland Browns, where his Syracuse roommate John Brown and Jim Brown -- no relation to each other, or to the team's white head coach and general manager, Paul Brown -- were already playing, in exchange for Bobby Mitchell and the Browns' 1st-round draft pick, Leroy Jackson, who became the Redskins' 1st black players in the coming season.

But Davis never played for the Browns, either, or for any other professional football team. He was diagnosed with leukemia. He was given uniform Number 45, as defensive back Jim Shofner was already wearing 44. Only once did he take the field wearing a Browns uniform, before a preseason game at Cleveland Municipal Stadium on August 18, 1962. A spotlight was put on him, and he received a standing ovation.

After a brief remission, his leukemia returned, and, on May 18, 1963, Davis died at Cleveland Lakeside Hospital. He was buried at Woodlawn Cemetery in his hometown of Elmira.

Just 17 days after his death, on June 4, the Browns lost another player, due to a work accident, at a time when most athletes were paid so little that they needed off-season jobs. Don Fleming, a safety, and a fellow construction worker, Walter Smith, were operating a crane on a construction site in Winter Park, Florida, outside Orlando, when it hit an electrical transmission line, and they were electrocuted. The Browns retired both Davis' Number 45 and Fleming's Number 46 before the next season.

Davis was elected to the College Football Hall of Fame in 1979. On November 12, 2005, Syracuse University retired Number 44 to honor the legacy of those who wore it as well as the number itself, which has become so associated with Syracuse that the University's ZIP Code, 13244, was requested by university officials to remember those who wore 44 for the Orange, including Brown, Davis, and Denver Broncos Hall-of-Famer Floyd Little.

In 2008, Rob Brown played Davis in the film The Express: The Ernie Davis Story. In 2009, on the 50th Anniversary of the National Championship he helped win, the field at Syracuse's new stadium, the Carrier Dome, was named Ernie Davis Legends Field. In 2014, Davis' high school, the Elmira Free Academy, was renamed the Ernie Davis Academy.

Yankees Win Again, Despite Jays' Whining of "Cheating"

What's he looking at now? A replay of the homer?

The Toronto Blue Jays need to shut the hell up. It seems like, every time the Yankees beat them, the Jays find something to whine about, going back at least as far as the Alex Rodriguez "Ha!" incident of 2007. And it also seems like, every time they whine, the Yankees make them pay for it.

Domingo Germán started, and pitched 3 perfect innings. The Yankees staked him to a 2-0 lead in the top of the 3rd. But as he went out for the bottom of the 4th, the Jays told the umpires that he was using a foreign substance on the ball. The so-called "sticky stuff," not the rosin that pitchers are allowed to use to get a better grip.

Germán was thrown out of the game. Since this is the 2nd time he's been caught doing it, it will likely result in a suspension and a fine -- as if the Yankees don't already have enough holes in their starting rotation. And, given Brian Cashman's record as a general manager, I'm not sure hoping for a trade to fill any of these holes is a good idea.

Clearly, this was revenge for what Aaron Judge did the night before. He was caught moving his eyes to the dugout, and then hit a 462-foot home run. The Jays claimed he was looking at something that let him know what the pitcher was going to throw. That's exactly what he was doing: His teammates were letting him know that Toronto pitcher Jay Jackson was "tipping his pitches," doing something that, unconsciously, let everyone know what kind of pitch he was going to throw.

Telling a teammate, verbally or with hand signals, that a pitcher is tipping his pitches is absolutely legal. It's not like an electric or electronic system was being used, like the 1951 New York Giants (the former) or the 2017 Houston Astros (the latter). Nothing artificial was used. It's like the police say: "If you see something, say something."

The Yankees had every right to let Judge know what was coming. But, between what's already being called "The Judge Side-Eye" and Germán's repeat offense, this has already given rise to a new round of how the Yankees are the biggest cheaters of them all, worse than the 2017 Astros (as if the Astros only cheated that season), and worse than the 2003-18 Red Sox (who, of course, get treated as if they never cheated at all).

Germán left the game with a WHIP of 0.896 for the season -- but with a 2-3 record and a 3.75 ERA. If he is "cheating," is it helping much?

At any rate, Ian Hamilton was brought in to replace Germán. Not used to being brought in that early, he immediately blew the perfect game and the no-hitter, giving up a single and a walk. He got 2 strikeouts, then walked another batter to load the bases. And it was still only 2-0 Yankees. Aaron Boone brought Ron Marinaccio in, and he got the last out, to keep it 2-0.

Isiah Kiner-Falefa, not an expected power source, hit a home run in the top of the 5th. But Marinaccio fell apart in the bottom of the 5th, and by the time Ryan Weber got the last out in that inning, the game was tied, 3-3. Remember: Marinaccio could have expected to pitch last night, but not so early.

It was still 3-3 as the 8th inning began. Same inning in which Judge had hit the controversial homer the night before. Different pitcher: Erik Swanson. Jose Trevino led off with a single. Gleyber Torres tried to bunt him over, but it didn't work. Next up was Judge. No pitch-tip. No recognition of any such action by anyone in the Yankee dugout. No signal to Judge. No reception of any such signal by Judge. He hit a 448-foot home run anyway.

So, what is a signal of a tipped pitch worth to Aaron Judge? Apparently, 14 feet -- which doesn't matter much when you can already hit the ball 448 feet. And it's legal. It's not cheating. Or even "cheating."

In the 9th, Torres made up for his bad bunt with a sacrifice fly that forged the final score: Yankees 6, Blue Jays 3. WP: Weber (1-0). SV: Wandy Peralta (3). LP: Swanson (2-2).

The series concludes tonight. Gerrit Cole starts against Chris Bassitt.

"Opener Game" Works, Barely, Yanks Beat Jays

When your favorite baseball team goes on the road, and starts a new series against a known good team, and jumps out to a 7-0 lead, that feels good. You certainly don't think they're going to blow it.

Last night, the Yankees almost did. Say this for them: They do love their drama.

Aaron Boone decided to go with an "opener game," starting reliever Jimmy Cordero, and then moving to Jhony Brito, who has usually filled this hole of the rotation caused by injuries to Yankee starters. Cordero pitched the 1st 2 innings, and didn't allow a hit. Clearly, Boone didn't think Cordero was going to pitch a no-hitter, so he brought Brito in, on schedule. From the 3rd through the 7th inning, Brito was just fine, also allowing no runs and no walks, although 3 hits.

Pitching like that deserves run support. It was provided early, with Aaron Judge and Willie Calhoun hitting 1st-inning home runs to give the Yankees a 3-0 lead. The Yankees tacked on 2 more runs in the 4th inning, another in the 6th, and Judge homered again in the 7th. The Blue Jays made a big deal about "renovations" to the Rogers Centre in the off-season. If, like the Baltimore Orioles pushing the left-field fence back at Camden Yards, it was designed to make it harder for the Yankees to hit home runs there, it didn't work last night.

Boone let Brito keep pitching into the 8th. Ordinarily, I would encourage this. And if you want to find out whether he can pitch longer than he has so far, this was the time to do it.

But there's a reason I tend to call the Toronto ballclub "those pesky Blue Jays." No matter how good or bad they are, and no matter how good or bad the Yankees are, the Jays always seem to give the Yankees trouble.

Brito ran out of gas, allowing a run on 3 hits, and loading the bases with only 1 out, before Boone removed him in favor of Ian Hamilton. He allowed 2 hits and 3 more runs, making Yankee Fans wonder if maybe, just maybe, we were going to blow a 7-0 lead with only 6 outs to go, but he got out of the inning.

Michael King was brought in to finish the game, and he did, without further damage. Yankees 7, Blue Jays 4. WP: Brito (3-3). SV: King (3). LP: Alek Manoah (1-4).

The series continues tonight. Domingo Germán starts against Kevin Gausman.

Got to See It Through, Got to Be Better

The Yankees fought hard in each of their 4 games against the Tampa Bay Rays, which is a good sign. But they only won 2 of them, and that's got to improve.

Clarke Schmidt was announced as the starting pitcher for yesterday's series finale, and, once I learned that, I was 99 percent sure the Yankees would fall behind early, and 90 percent sure they would lose.

He allowed 3 runs in the 1st 3 innings. But the Yankees struck back with 4 in the bottom of the 3rd, including home runs by Oswaldo Cabrera and Anthony Rizzo, both of whom seriously stepped up in this series.

But Schmidt got knocked out of the box in the 5th. By the time Albert Abreu put the fire out, it was 8-4 Rays.

Three straight singles by Cabrera, Gleyber Torres and Judge got the Yankees a run closer in the 7th. In the 8th, DJ LeMahieu singled and Anthony Volpe hit a home run to get them within 1 run. The sense of needing to fight was there. But with the Yankees down to their last out, a long drive by Judge fell just a little short.

Rays 8, Yankees 7. WP: Zach Eflin (5-1). SV: Jason Adam (5). LP: Schmidt (1-4).

The Yankees end the series where they began, 8 games behind the Rays in the American League Eastern Division. There's a long way to go, and it feels like the capability of fighting is there. It's a question of desire. Of seeing it through. Of guts.

When the Yankees fight, they usually win. If they score 4 or more runs, they are 19-5; if they don't, they are 4-15. Take out games against the Rays, and they are 17-2 and 3-14. So, despite having scored 24 runs in this series, it really isn't an outlier against their overall record.

The Rays are not the Yankees' problem. The Yankees, themselves, are. For all the big hits in this series, they've still got to be better. They're not hopeless, and they know this. But desire still has to be converted into action.

They now go on the road, and begin a series against the Toronto Blue Jays. Jimmy Cordero -- another "hole in the rotation" start -- pitches against Alek Manoah.

May 14, 1948: Israel Declares Its Independence

Ben-Gurion reads the Declaration

May 14, 1948: With the British Mandate of Palestine expiring, the State of Israel declares its independence. On the Hebrew calendar, it was 5 Iyar 5708, and so, every year, on 5 Iyar -- which is not necessarily on May 14, and is usually earlier on the Gregorian calendar -- the nation celebrates its independence.

As shown in the photograph above, the Declaration was proclaimed by David Ben-Gurion, the Executive Head of the World Zionist Organization. When the country had its 1st election the following year, he was elected its 1st Prime Minister.

The announcement took effect at midnight, Tel Aviv time, when the Mandate expired. At exactly that time, a Zionist delegate took the podium at the United Nations -- then in a temporary headquarters in the New York suburb of Lake Success, Long Island, before the East Side headquarters opened in 1951 -- and made the announcement.

The Declaration was signed while a civil war was being fought between the Jewish and Arab populations of the Mandate. Once it took effect, the neighboring nations of Egypt, Jordan and Syria attacked, and the 1948 Arab-Israeli War began.

The minutes passed. The tension mounted. What would happen if nobody recognized the new nation? What would happen if America did, and the Soviet Union didn't? Or, considerably less likely (since the Soviets were already supporting insurgents in the Arab nations in question), the other way around?

Eleven minutes in, having gotten the order from President Harry S Truman, the American representative, Warren Austin, took the podium, and announced that the United States recognized the State of Israel. In what now looks like a retroactive irony, the 2nd nation to do so was Iran. Actually, it was kind of ironic at the time, since Britain, which had just lost control of the land that became Israel, was then heavily influential in Iran. Five more nations recognized Israel that day.

On May 17, the Soviet Union followed suit. With both of the 2 major powers of the time recognizing Israel, it was clear that the Arabs couldn't count on either one to help.

Somehow, tiny Israel fought all 3 of these much larger countries off, and on July 24, 1949, an armistice was signed.

Despite the worst efforts of Egypt until 1973, "the Palestinians" since 1970, Jordan until 1994, Iran since 1979, Syria throughout, and anti-Semites all over the world throughout, Israel stands as a Jewish state, one that gives the Arab people living within its borders more rights than any nation ruled by Arabs.