Blogs – Page 70 – Keefe To The City

Sep 10, 2021

This Giants Season Needs to Be Different

This Giants season needs to be different. It has to be different. If it’s not, it will mean the end of Daniel Jones as a Giant.

I went into the 2020 Giants season wanting things to be different. Deep down, I didn’t actually think they would be, but I just really wanted a football season. Not a season that’s over when there are still leaves on the trees in the Northeast, and not a season that ends before the Major League Baseball postseason begins. I wanted what I have had twice in the last nine years, and that’s a football season that carries into December. I wanted something I have had once in the last nine years: a Giants postseason game.

The Giants kicked off their 2020 season as I was entering my 16th consecutive hour sitting in a hospital chair waiting for my wife to give birth. Just as the game and the season were starting, it was time for the baby to come out.

Five or six hours later, I’m not sure exactly what time it was, other than that it was the early hours of Tuesday, Sept. 15, I was sitting in the dark eating saltine and graham crackers and chugging water out of Dixie cups like I was Tom Hanks’ character in Castaway returning home, not having seen food in a very long time. The hospital cafeteria was closed and my only options were to either wait a few more hours for breakfast before crushing the hospital’s surprisingly exceptional French toast or to try to make a meal out of the airplane-like snacks the nurse was able to gather for me.

I wasn’t tired, and with the blinds drawn in the room, without a clock I would have had no way of knowing what time of day, or even what day it was, as if I had been in trapped in a casino. The last nearly 24 hours were a blur. I had been up for nearly all of them. It was now early Tuesday morning, and I had essentially been up since Sunday morning.

On Sunday afternoon, during the Week 1 “Witching Hour” of the 1 p.m. games and right as the 4 p.m. slate was about to begin, we were instructed to go the hospital as it appeared as though my wife was in labor. We raced to the hospital, I dropped my wife off at the entrance and then while flying around the parking lot looking for an empty space, of which there was one, I tried to force my car into a into a very tight window, like an inexcusable Daniel Jones throw, and hit the car to my right. The car ended up belonging to my wife’s delivery nurse who couldn’t have been nicer about the incident, and a few weeks later, it was resolved for only $250, which I likely would have lost anyway on the 4 p.m. games if I hadn’t been in transit to the hospital as they were being played.

My wife wasn’t going to be admitted until they ran some tests, and because she had yet to be admitted, under COVID precautions, I couldn’t enter the hospital until she was admitted. The woman in the hospital lobby told me I could wait outside. So I did that, pacing the sidewalk for 30 minutes before going to the car. I ended up spending the next four-and-a-half hours in the car (good thing I didn’t “wait just outside the door” like the hospital front desk woman suggested), before it was determined my wife was in very early labor, but wasn’t far enough along to admit her.

We got back home at 9 p.m. and by midnight the contractions started to pick up. I spent the next three hours meticulously timing them as if I were the one holding the stopwatch at the NFL Combine, and around 3 a.m., it was back to the hospital. By 4 a.m., we were in the delivery room. They had my wife doing squats on a exercise ball, while I sat in the corner trying not to suffer the same type of back injury Aaron Hicks would have if he had had to sit in that same chair for as long as I did.

Fast forward nearly 24 hours and there I was sitting in the dark in a slightly upgraded hospital chair. Despite being in the previous chair which made a Metro North seat seem like the recliners Joey and Chandler had in their apartment for upwards of 16 hours, I had avoided the type of back injury Hicks had suffered from a 27-minute spring training coach bus ride that kept him out for nearly three months of the 2019 Yankees season. I tried to quietly chew and crunch on my packets of crackers while my wife slept in an enormous and luxurious-looking hospital bed (which I would find my way into for a few quicks naps over the next two days), and next to her, our newborn son was out cold, swaddled tightly with a winter hat on, somehow full off less than a shot of Similac. I curled up in my folding chair bed to watch Giants-Steelers, which I had recorded.

The Giants lost. They could have won, and should have won, but they didn’t, in what has become the never-ending theme with the franchise for just about an entire decade. They couldn’t punch it in on first-and-goal from the 3 after a Steelers’ muffed punt in the first quarter, then with a seven-point lead and a chance to make it a two-score game, Jones threw an interception, and later in the game, while trailing, with a chance to take the lead back, Jones threw another essentially game-ending interception. It was the type of loss that led ownership to inexplicably move on from Tom Coughlin, got Ben McAdoo fired midseason and ran Pat Shurmur out of town after two atrocious seasons. On their fourth head coach in six seasons, the Joe Judge era was starting the same way the previous three had their eras end. A head coach I finally liked or wanted to like was overseeing yet another 0-1 start to the season, while Jones, who I was against the Giants drafting and have remained against, ruined yet another game.

Six days later, the Giants lost in Chicago by four points and lost their best player for the season. 0-2. A week after that they were blown out by the defending NFC champions by 27 points. 0-3. A week after only managing to score nine points at home against the 49ers, the Giants scored nine points for the second straight week in a loss in Los Angeles to the Rams.

The Giants were 0-4 and I couldn’t have cared less about them. I desperately wanted things to be different under Judge and I wanted things to be different knowing for the foreseeable future my family’s life would indefinitely be spent at home with only occasional and necessary trips out of the house. Once the Yankees season would end (and it ended early again), I knew the 2020-2021 NHL season might not start on the planned Jan. 1 date and might never start at all. I was relying on the Giants to provide a sports world escape and the only source of entertainment that didn’t require wiping spit-up or newborn poop, and instead, they were the laughingstock of the NFL, having become the worst team in the league over the last four seasons. I decided, like in recent seasons, I would watch the games with no actual emotional or monetary investment in them. My only reason for watching them had become wanting everyone to progress other than the quarterback to progress, so that maybe by spring 2021 they would have another general manager and another quarterback.

At 1-7, the Giants put together a four-game winning streak to “save” the season, highlighted by a road win in Seattle with Colt McCoy as the Giants’ starting quarterback. The winning streak and upset of the Seahawks reeled Giants fans back into believing they could win the NFC East. Some team had to win this embarrassing NFC East, why couldn’t it be the Giants?

After that four-game winning streak, I wrote:

I’m fully prepared to have my dream of Giants postseason football crushed. That’s what the Giants do. And if they are to go 1-3 or 0-4 between now and Week 17, it won’t surprise me. I won’t be upset with them. That’s who they are. I’ll be upset with myself for caring about them again this season when I should have known better.

I did know better. I wrote exactly what would happen, and despite predicting how the Giants’ season would finish, I still let them suck me back in only to crush me. After the four-game winning streak, the Giants lost three straight before winning what ended up being a meaningless win in Week 17 over the Cowboys only to have the Eagles throw their Week 17 game against Washington. Unlike many, I wasn’t upset with the Eagles for purposely losing a winnable game. The Giants had lost 10 regular-season games, blowing leads in many of them. Win one of those 10 games and they wouldn’t have had to rely on their rival to win a game for them.

So the 2020 season ended wasn’t different. It ended the way every season but one in the last nine years has ended: postseason-less.

This season needs to be different. It has to be different. If it’s not, it will mean the end of Jones as a Giant, the sixth overall pick in 2019 was wasted and these last three years were nothing other than a waste. It will be back to the beginning of yet another “rebuild” and it will undoubtedly happen with a new general manager. It won’t necessarily mean the end for Judge as he’s not tied to Gettleman or Jones, but it certainly won’t be good for his future with the team if the team is essentially no better results-wise than where they were when McAdoo and Shurmur were fired.

This Giants season needs to be different even if expectations are that it won’t be.

Subscribe to the Keefe To The City Podcast. New Giants episode every Friday and after every game during the season.

Blogs • Yankees

Sep 9, 2021

Do Yankees Have One Last Season-Saving Run in Them?

The Yankees have 23 games left to turn their season around one last time. If not, they will finish it the way they started it: as a huge disappointment.

I wish the 2021 Yankees had just gone away. There were many times this season when they could have. When they started the season 5-10. When they finished April 12-14. When they got swept by the Tigers at the end of May. When they lost the first seven games to the Red Sox. When they fell to .500 on July 4. Rather than let their season unravel in a year in which they were expected to reach the World Series for the first time in 12 years, they fought back each time, doing just enough to stay mathematically in the postseason picture even as their playoff odds fell off like the final season of The OC.

Then came the July run, and the post-All-Star break run and the post-trade deadline run and the 13-game winning streak. The Yankees came all the way back to pass Seattle and Toronto and Oakland and Boston in the wild-card race, and after their 8-2 win over the A’s on August 27, they were 24 games over .500 and just four games behind the Rays in the AL East.

Then the wheels came off. And the doors. And the transmission and engine dropped, and now the Yankees are sitting on the side of the road having watched the Red Sox pass them on Wednesday night with the Blue Jays about to pass them and no help in sight. No help from the offense. No help from the starting pitching and no help from the bullpen.

The offense has turned back the clock to April, May and June. With four runs in three games against the Blue Jays this week, the Yankees have scored 36 runs in their last 11 games, losing nine of them. Things have gotten so bad Aaron Boone has had to bench Joey Gallo for striking out in half of his plate appearances as a Yankee, sit down Gleyber Torres for being a liability on both sides of the ball and move DJ LeMahieu down in the order for only hitting weak ground balls to the left side. Boone’s all-time favorite Brett Gardner found himself batting leadoff for the Yankees on Wednesday against the Blue Jays … in a playoff race … in 2021 … four years removed from the last time he should have been batting leadoff for the Yankees. Sadly, Gardner provided the Yankees’ only offense in Wednesday’s loss and what was the Yankees’ first extra-base hit since Sunday.

Aaron Judge is 1-for-his-last-21, Stanton is 3-for-his-last-19, the baseball looks like the size of a golf ball to Gallo, Anthony Rizzo has one home run since August 4, it’s startling when LeMahieu doesn’t hit the ball on the ground, Gary Sanchez already provided his production for the month with his two-homer, six-RBI day on Sunday, Torres is doing everything he can to play himself out of the organization, Gio Urshela looks like the player the Indians and Blue Jays gave up on, Luke Voit’s first half was ruined by injuries and his second half has been ruined by his own manager and Rougned Odor is 2-for-his-last 37 with only one home run in nearly a month.

Gerrit Cole’s hamstring injury has left a gaping hole in the rotation and with Jameson Taillon’s regression and Corey Kluber’s lack of knowing where his pitches will end up, there’s a lot of trust being placed with Jordan Montgomery and Nestor Cortes.

Clay Holmes is suddenly the Yankees’ best reliever as Aroldis Chapman continues to pitch like Nick Nelson and Chad Green continues to poop his pants in big spots. Somehow Andrew Heaney keeps getting chances and even Brooks Kriske made an appearance this week, as Boone manages like it’s mid-March in Tampa.

The Yankees’ current five-game losing streak comes a week after a four-game losing streak. In their last 11 games, they have lost two to the A’s, who are chasing them, lost a pair to the Angels, who were responsible for ending the Orioles’ 19-game losing streak, lost a series to the Orioles, who are 48 games under .500, and have now lost three straight to the Blue Jays, who are only two back of the Yankees in the loss column.

The Yankees could have gone away and saved me many hours of my life, hours I wasted watching them get no-hit through the first four of five innings of about half their games. They cold have gone away and saved me the heartache and aggravation of watching the bullpen blow late lead after late lead. They could have gone away and let me peacefully go to bed many nights this summer instead of regretting my decision to voluntarily stay up knowing the baby would be up in only a few hours. But they didn’t. They did just enough to stay relevant and alive, and now after 139 games they might go away anyway.

Two weeks ago, the Yankees had a 97.8 percent chance of making the playoffs. Today, that number is down to 68.6 percent. They have dropped nearly 30 percent in two weeks! Seemingly impossible. While at the same time, the Blue Jays chances have gone from 4.6 percent to 42.5 percent.

I have been rightfully upset with the Yankees for being headed to the one-game playoff for the third time in the last four years the one-game playoff has taken place since it would mean using Cole in that game and not having him for the first two games of the ALDS. Well, I don’t have to worry about that scenario anymore, because if the Yankees are even able to qualify for the one-game playoff, at this point, they won’t be able to line Cole up for it. They will likely have to fight this thing out all the way to Game 162 now as just three losses separate the Yankees, Red Sox, Blue Jays, Mariners and A’s. So not only are the Yankees embarrassingly headed to the one-game playoff for the third time instances of the game, they’re likely to be without Cole it in what is one final parting gift from the 2021 Yankees to their fans.

This season has been miserable. Even when the Yankees have won, they have done so in the most excruciating fashion, always winning by one or two runs, frequently needing a wild pitch to get a runner in from third with less than two ours and often praying the highest-paid closer in history can throw a single strike.

Nothing has come easy for the 2021 Yankees. Not even during their 13-game winning streak in which they won eight of the games by one or two runs, and only won two of the games by more than four runs. Nothing is coming easy now as they try avoid getting swept in four games at home to the team chasing them.

The Yankees have 23 games left to turn their season around one last time. If not, they will finish it the way they started it: as a huge disappointment. Either way, I won’t be surprised. That’s who the 2021 Yankees are.

Subscribe to the Keefe To The City Podcast. New episode after every game during the season.

My book The Next Yankees Era: My Transition from the Core Four to the Baby Bombers is now available as an ebook!

Blogs • Yankees • Yankees Thoughts

Sep 7, 2021

Yankees Thoughts: Get to World Series or Goodbye to Aaron Boone

The Yankees have 25 games left to change the narrative on their season yet again, and if they don’t, there will be plenty of blame to go around this October.

The Yankees have lost seven of their last nine games and it seems as though the April 1-July 4 Yankees have returned. The Yankees have 25 games left to change the narrative on their season yet again, and if they don’t, there will be plenty of blame to go around this October.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. I was beginning to get nervous the Yankees’ play since the second game of the doubleheader on July 4, including their 13-game winning streak, had made Yankees fans forget how awful Aaron Boone is at his job and how bad this Yankees team is. The mirage that was the Yankees’ recent run has come to an end and sandwiched around their 35-11 record between July 4-August 27 is a 43-48 record. The Yankees have lost seven of their last nine games with each loss seemingly uglier than the one before it.

The Yankees were expected to represent the American League in the World Series this season and were the odds-on favorite to win the pennant. They can still do so, but it’s going to be extremely difficult, and anything short of a World Series appearance should be the end of Boone’s time as Yankees manager. A wild-card berth isn’t nearly enough. An ALDS loss apperance isn’t enough. A fifth ALCS loss for the franchise in 12 years can’t be enough. Get to the World Series or say goodbye to Boone and make a needed change at manager.

2. There is this weird faction of Yankees fans who think Brian Cashman and Boone are not to blame at all for this Yankees team and this season, always wanting to blame the players. It’s never the fault of the front office or the manager. The front office only puts together the roster and the manager only creates the lineup and manages the bullpen and in-game decisions.

If I were to start at shortstop for the Yankees tonight and make multiples errors and go hitless at the plate, or if I were to be used as a reliever and failed to protect a late lead, these Yankees fans would blame me for my performance. They wouldn’t blame Cashman for putting me on the roster or Boone for putting me in the game.

I know this because there are fans who blame Gleyber Torres and Andrew Heaney for Sunday’s loss to the Orioles in the second game of the series.

3. Torres took his sweet time on a routine ground ball, which would have ended the sixth inning and maintained a 7-2 Yankees lead. After he was unable to make the routine play, the inning was extended and Albert Abreu allowed a two-run home run to make it 7-4.

Torres is an awful shortstop. He has never been good defensively, and his bat is no longer capable of negating his defense. But Torres doesn’t pencil himself in as the starting shortstop (and he doesn’t write him name into the seventh spot in the batting order above Gary Sanchez either).

The Yankees knew Torres was a defensive liability coming into the season. They knew he would be unable to consistently make what’s considered a routine play by major-league standards. Yet they still went into 2021 with him as their starting shortstop. But the same way the Yankees stubbornly told fans their all-right-handed lineup could be successful before trading for two left-handed bats in Joey Gallo and Anthony Rizzo, the Yankees tried to right their wrong in believing in Torres when they unsuccessfully tried acquire Trevor Story in July. Torres will either be off the position in 2022 or possibly off the team. The Yankees’ failed trade of Story says so. There are still 25 regular-season games left in 2021 though and then possibly one or more postseason games.

4. While Torres was out, the Yankees were winning and Andrew Velazquez became the easiest Yankee of all time to root for. With the Bronx native, who’s living at his parents while playing for the team he grew up dreaming about playing for, starting at shortstop every day, I wrote and said if Torres didn’t play well upon his return that the calls would begin to play Velazquez every day. Those calls have started.

In four games since coming off the IL, Torres is 3-for-13 with four strikeouts and no extra-base hits and a litany of mistakes in the field. Whether he’s botching balls, taking too long to get off throws or mishandling throws on steal attempts, Torres’ defense should be enough for him to sit on the bench. With a .686 OPS and nine home runs in his last 145 games and 580 plate appearances, Torres should no longer be an automatic when it comes to being in the starting lineup.

5. In the seventh, an inning after Torres’ miscue led to two runs, the Yankees still had a 7-4 lead. Get nine outs before allowing three runs. With the heart of the Orioles’ order due up, Andrew Heaney was brought into the game. Heaney had recently been moved to the bullpen to accommodate the return of Corey Kluber, even though Heaney had two career relief appearances before this season and even though he proved incapable of being a reliever in relief of Kluber the last time through the rotation in Anaheim. But with the Orioles’ 3-4-5 hitters due up, Heaney was brought in.

Heaney hit Trey Mancini with a pitch, allowed a single to DJ Stewart, a single to Austin Hays, a double to Jahmai Jones and after finally getting an out, another single to Jorge Mateo. Heaney faced six batters, five of them being right-handed.

I’m not upset with Heaney for his performance. He sucks. He didn’t ask to be traded to the Yankees. He didn’t put himself in the bullpen with essentially no experience as a reliever. He didn’t put himself in Sunday’s game, He didn’t keep himself in the game to turn a three-run lead into a one-run deficit, while recording one out. His roster spot is on Cashman and his continued use is on Boone. The Yankees have been unable to properly evaluate Heaney’s ability and haven’t come close to putting him in the best possible position to succeed. In return, he has allowed 24 earned runs and 10 home runs in 28 1/3 innings.

6. “He’s going to have to step up,” Boone said about Heaney on Sunday. “He wants the ball and he’s going to have to take advantage of an opportunity when he gets it.”

“When he gets it?!?!” The next time Heaney should get the ball is when he’s wearing a different uniform. There are 25 games left in the season, the Yankees haven’t clinched a postseason berth and one of their paths to the postseason (as the division winner) has been taken off the board. The Yankees’ only opportunity to reach the postseason is as one of the two wild-card teams. Their only opportunity to reach an actual postseason series is to then win a one-game playoff. The only way for them to reach a seven-game series will be to survive a five-game series against the Rays without Gerrit Cole for the first two games of the series.

Despite all of this and the uphill battle the Yankees face to reaching the playoffs, advancing to the ALDS, getting to the ALCS and potentially returning to the World Series for the first time in 12 years, Boone is filling out his lineup card and making in-game decisions as if it’s March in Tampa and the results of the games are meaningless. The roster is being managed the same way. When the rosters expanded from 26 to 28 on September 1, the Yankees used one of the two spots on Brooks Kriske. Brooks Kriske! BROOKS KRISKE!

7. At this point Kriske is my favorite Yankee. What Kriske has been able to do in becoming a Yankee, having his 40-man roster spot protected over Garrett Whitlock in the offseason and then maintaining his 40-man spot this season to collect major-league pay and service despite having zero career success has been nothing short of amazing.

In 11 1/3 career innings, Kriske has put 29 runners on base, allowed 19 earned runs, including six home runs, walked 13 and thrown seven wild pitches. He has a 15.09 ERA (11.11 FIP) and 2.471 WHIP. It’s not unrealistic to think you could pick any pitcher from Single-A and put them in the majors and get better results.

8. It made no sense to give one of the two additional rosters to Kriske, the the same way it made no sense to pitch him in a three-run game against the Blue Jays on Monday, a team the Yankees are trying to hold off from taking their playoff spot.

Like Heaney and Torres, I’m not mad at Kriske. He sucks. He didn’t ask to be called up on September 1 despite doing absolutely nothing to merit a call-up. He didn’t ask to come into Monday’s game, just like he didn’t ask to come into any other game or to even be a Yankee in the first place. His use is on the Yankees failing to properly evaluate his ability and for to continuing to use him as a viable major league reliever. I hope he stays on the roster and keeps pitching. Good for him. Get that major league money and that service time. I’m rooting for him.

9. The Blue Jays’ humiliation of the Yankees on Monday was expected. The Blue Jays are really good. They have a plus-136 run differential on the season, the same run differential as the White Sox who play 76 games against the Indians, Tigers, Royals and Twins. If not for the Blue Jays’ bullpen failing them for a large portion of the season, the Yankees would be chasing them and not the other way around.

The Blue Jays now trail the Yankees by three games in the loss column and their schedule is set up for them to control their own destiny. Half of the Blue Jays’ 26 remaining games are against the Yankees (6) and Orioles (7). They are playing the team they are chasing and they are playing the worst team in the majors, a team that no one has trouble beating other than the Yankees.

10. I’m now worried about both the Blue Jays and the Red Sox (who trail the Yankees by two games in the loss column). The Red Sox aren’t as good as the Blue Jays (or the Yankees) with a lineup that has three hitters, a bad bullpen and one starting pitcher. But like the Blue Jays, the Red Sox have a favorable schedule to end the season with six games left against the Orioles and they finish the season with three games against the Nationals.

The Yankees may “hold” a wild-card spot at this moment, however, a bad week against the Blue Jays could change that, and a continued bad month will change it for good.

Subscribe to the Keefe To The City Podcast. New episode after every game during the season.

My book The Next Yankees Era: My Transition from the Core Four to the Baby Bombers is now available as an ebook!

Blogs • Yankees • Yankees Thoughts

Sep 2, 2021

Yankees Thoughts: Get Ready for One-Game Playoff

After starting their three-city, nine-game road trip 4-0, the Yankees end up going 5-4. The Yankees’ losing combined with the Rays’ winning has all but taken the division away as a possible postseaon path for

After starting their three-city, nine-game road trip 4-0, the Yankees end up going 5-4. The Yankees’ losing combined with the Rays’ winning has all but taken the division away as a possible postseaon path for the Yankees. Get ready for the Yankees playing in the one-game playoff once again.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. The division is over. The Yankees trail the Rays by seven games and have 29 games left. If the Rays were to play under .500 and go 14-15 the rest of the way, they would finish with 98 wins. The Yankees would have to go 21-8 just to tie them. The Rays are currently on a 102-win pace and the Yankees would have to go 25-4 to win 102 games. Most likely, the Rays will win 99-100 games and the Yankees would have to go 22-7 to get to 99 wins and 23-6 to get to 100. The Yankees aren’t mathematically eliminated in the AL East, but the odds really, really bad. Fangraphs gives the Yankees a 9 percent chance of winning the division.

The two losses to the Angels hurt and hurt the Yankees’ division chances. But it wasn’t like those losses were the only ones that hurt. All 56 losses to this point have hurt with several of them coming in the final innings of games in which the Yankees led. For as good as the Yankees have been since their 5-10 start (72-46), since the second game of the July 4 doubleheader (36-15), since the All-Star break (31-13) and since the trade deadline (24-8), the Rays have been even better. When you have 31-13 run team, which includes a 13-game winning streak, you’re supposed to do serious damage in the standings. The Yankees did so in terms of the wild-card standings, but in the division, they actually lost ground on the Rays, who have gone 31-12. That’s ridiculous.

2. So now the Yankees look destined for the one-game, wild-card playoff for the third time in the last four seasons in which it was held, and the fourth time in the last six seasons in which it was held. The five-team postseason format has hurt the Yankees more than any other team. In 2015, the Yankees would have advanced to the ALDS in the old, four-team format. Instead, they lost to Dallas Keuchel and the Astros 3-0 at Yankee Stadium. In 2016, the Yankees nearly didn’t trade away Andrew Miller, Aroldis Chapman, Carlos Beltran and Ivan Nova because ownership wanted to hold on for the possibility of winning the second wild-card berth. In 2017 and 2018, the Yankees would have advanced to the ALDS in the old format, and the same will be true in 2021.

The Yankees have the best possible starting pitcher for the one-game playoff in 2021 in Gerrit Cole. Outside of Jacob deGrom, he’s the best pitcher in baseball. But it’s still one game, in which anything can happen, and any player, pitcher or team could have the best or worst game or day imaginable. Look at the starting pitchers who have shut down the Yankees in a single game this season: Matt Harvey, Michael Wacha, Jordan Lyles and Paul Blackburn, among many others. All fringe major leaguers who the Yankees couldn’t muster (Aaron Boone buzz word) any offense against. Cole could have the kind of unbelievable start he had on Wednesday night in Anaheim (7 IP, 4 H, 1 R ,1 ER, 0 BB, 15 K), and the Yankees could still lose because it’s ONE GAME. “One-game playoff” is the scariest phrase in baseball, and having gone through three others already in the last five years, I’m speaking from experience. It’s a horrible, miserable, nail-biting event that excites for everyone other than the team and the fans of the team who earned the first wild-card berth.

3. If the Yankees earn the first wild card (which they are likely to do) and start Cole (which they will do), and they win the game, well, they’re set up for failure in the ALDS. The wild-card game is on Tuesday, Oct. 5. The ALDS begins on Thursday, Oct. 7. The Yankees would have one full day off between the wild-card game and Game 1 of the ALDS. They would have to travel to Tampa and play the first two games of the ALDS against the AL-best Rays (a team that has owned them during the Aaron Boone era) at the Trop (a place they have had an extremely difficult time winning) and they would be without Cole until Game 3 of the series. Rather than have Cole for two games in a best-of-5 against the Rays, the Yankees would have him for one game, meaning some combination of Jordan Montgomery, Jameson Taillon, Nestor Cortes and Corey Kluber would start as many as four games against the Rays. The Yankees couldn’t beat the Rays in a best-of-5 last October with Cole pitching twice in the series and none of the games being at the Trop. Given the opponent, where the first two games of the series will be played and the lack of Cole, the Yankees’ chances of eliminating the Rays and advancing to the ALDS this October aren’t great.

That doesn’t mean it can’t happen, just like it doesn’t mean the Yankees can’t end their championship drought. It’s just unlikely for either thing to happen. That’s what the wild-card game is meant to do: severely obstruct the path to postseason success for the teams who have to play in it. That’s why I value each game the same from Opening Day through Game 162 because each game can be the difference between having a bye to the ALDS and being able to have three days off and set up your rotation to maximize potential success or having to play one game for your season in which you have to use your best starter and diminish your odds of winning in the first round.

4. Once again, the Yankees simply didn’t do everything they could to avoid the one-game playoff, and I truly believe they’re fine with it. “Just get in” they would say, and if it doesn’t go well, and their postseason lasts one night, Brian Cashman will be there to tell you about how baseball’s postseason is a crapshoot and success in it is random.

Without a playoff berth clinched, and barely hanging on in the division, and barely holding on to the first wild card, and even after losing four straight games to the A’s and Angels recently, Boone still gave Giancarlo Stanton the day off on Wednesday in the series finale in Anaheim.

“Just a day off,” Boone said. “I probably should have given it to him yesterday.”

Boone might as well have waved a white flag with “AL East” written on it in his pregame press conference. Trailing the Rays by eight games before the start of Wednesday’s game, Boone sat Stanton even with a scheduled day off on Thursday. In Game 133 of 162, Boone is still putting his lineup together as if the Yankees are 15 games up in the division or as if the end date of season is indefinite and will continue until the Yankees achieve first place in the division.

5. “I think guys are ticked off that we haven’t continued to roll,” Boone said about the four-game losing streak immediately following the 13-game winning streak.

The “guys” should be “ticked off” at Boone. It’s Boone who continues to change the lineup daily, never once starting the nine best available players. It was Boone who watched Kluber (in his first start in more than three months) allow three consecutive first-pitch singles and then load the bases without getting anyone up in the bullpen. It was Boone who allowed Kluber, running on fumes, to give up a grand slam in that same inning, and it was Boone who allowed Kluber to keep pitching after the slam because no one was completely warmed up after Boone failed to warm anyone up in time. It was also Boone who watched Taillon struggle to put away hitters the following night and after giving up a 3-spot in the third inning, sat there and let Taillon give up another 3-spot the very next inning, never thinking to go to his bullpen in what was still a winnable game at the time. Boone’s lack of understanding when to remove a pitcher and his seemingly need to bring in each reliever in a no-margin-for-error situation is infuriating.

6. Stanton’s unnecessary night off meant got Luke Voit back in the lineup. Stanton shouldn’t need to sit for Voit to play. Anthony Rizzo shouldn’t need to sit for Voit to play. NO ONE should need to sit for Voit to play. Voit should play every single game because he’s a great hitter, and ironically, there’s a spot in the AL batting order for a great hitter, who doesn’t have to play the field. Even with a dedicated lineup spot for someone who is one of the best hitters in baseball, but doesn’t necessarily have a position, this is how Boone has used (or not used) Voit the last few weeks:

August 15: 3-for-5, HR, 2 RBIs
August 16: 1-for-3
August 17: 2-for-5, HR, 3 RBIs
August 18: Off day
August 19: 1-for-4, 2B, 2 RBIs
August 20: 4-for-5, 2B, HR, 2 RBIs
August 21: 2-for-4, 2B, 2 RBIs
August 22: Off day
August 23: Bench
August 24: Bench
August 25: Off day
August 26: Bench
August 27: 1-for-4, HR, RBI
August 28: 1-for-3
August 29: 0-for-4
August 30: Bench
August 31: Bench
September 1: 2-for-3, 2B, 2 RBIs

7. The constant benching of Voit, despite him bashing the ball and recently winning AL Player of the Week is due to Boone’s love for Brett Gardner and his needing to play Gardner in as many games as possible. Gardner was supposed to be the team’s fourth outfielder beginning in 2018, thought he was always going to play more than a normal fourth outfielder with the oft-injured Aaron Hicks on the team and the also oft-injured Stanton and Aaron Judge. Gardner played 140 games in 2018 (86 percent), 141 games in 2019 (87 percent), 49 games in 2020 (82 percent) and has played in 113 games in 2021 (85 percent).

The problem with Gardner going from fourth outfielder to everyday outfielder every year since since 2018 is Gardner isn’t any good. In fact, he’s bad. He isn’t one of the best nine players on the team deserving of an everyday lineup spot, but he continues to be an everyday player. He hasn’t been good enough to be an everyday player since 2017. In 2018, he lost his everyday role in the trade for Andrew McCutchen. The Yankees brought him back anyway for 2019, rather than sign Michael Brantley, and thanks to the super baseball, Gardner hit 28 home runs, which were nothing more than a mirage in a season in which Gleyber Torres hit 38 (he has nine in 141 games since) and Ketel Marte hit 32 (he he has hit 11 in 110 games since). Gardner’s 2019 stats look as fake as every cast member of Friends does now except for Lisa Kudrow. Gardner was horrible again in the shortened 2020 season, until a two-week hot streak to end the season somehow made up for his last three years and led to him starting five of the Yankees’ seven playoff games.

If given the opportunity to play Gardner, Boone will always play Gardner. I can’t help but think of the scene in Moneyball where Billy Beane is forced to trade Carlos Pena and Jeremy Giambi so Art Howe has to play Scott Hatteberg at first. The only way for Boone to not play Gardner and to play the best possible lineup is for Gardner to no longer be on the team. Unfortunately, with a month left in what should be his final major league season (if this isn’t Gardner’s last major league season I may have to boycott rooting for the Yankees), Gardner is here to stay.

8. That means you should prepare yourself to see Gardner starting in center field in the one-game playoff. Gardner started five of seven postseason games in 2020. In 2019, Boone batted him third in both the ALDS and ALCS. In 2018 with the Yankees facing elimination, Boone sat McCutchen for Gardner. There’s no way Gardner will be on the bench for the one-game playoff. If everyone is healthy for the wild-card game, this will be the lineup:

DJ LeMahieu, 2B
Anthony Rizzo, 1B
Aaron Judge, RF
Joey Gallo, LF/Giancarlo Stanton, DH
Joey Gallo, LF/Giancarlo Stanton, DH
Gleyber Torres, SS
Gio Urshela, 3B
Kyle Higashioka, C
Brett Gardner, CF

(If it’s Chris Sale, Stanton will bat fourth. If it’s a right-handed starter, Boone will bat Gallo fourth to alternate righty-lefty since he thinks it’s a mandatory lineup rule when facing a right-handed starter.)

Playing with two near-automatic outs in the lineup (Higashioka and Gardner) in one game for your entire season, and what could be Boone’s job, is absolutely crazy. But Boone is going to do it. He’s 100 percent going to do it.

9. Boone has been unbelievably bad this season as his in-game management “ability” has somehow declined (something I didn’t think was possible), and it’s obvious (Boone buzz word) his communication skills (for which he was praised and essentially hired for) have fallen apart as well.

Since last October when he benched Clint Frazier for Gardner and failed to discuss Gary Sanchez’s playing time with the catcher, things have unraveled for Boone off the field. In spring training, he didn’t feel it was necessary for Scumbag Domingo German to address the team regarding why he was suspended by the league in 2019 and for 2020, until Zack Britton openly told the media “you don’t get to pick who your teammates are.” Boone publicly lied about Frazier being the starting left fielder in 2021, even though the second Gardner re-signed everyone knew Boone would give Frazier less than a week to prove himself before turning to one of his favorites. He said Sanchez would catch Cole in 2021, and Sanchez caught Cole on Opening Day and then didn’t again until Higashioka was pinch hit for in a game Sanchez won with his pinch-hit home run and didn’t again until Higashioka went down with COVID. He said Stanton would be used in the outfield as early as the beginning of the season, and Stanton finally played the outfield on the second-to-last-day of July in the 102nd game of the season. He has once again lied about injuries, injury rehabs and return dates from injuries and spent the first three-plus months of the season essentially saying, “Everything is fine” while failing to hold himself or any player on the roster accountable for the Yankees’ embarrassing performance half of the season.

I don’t see how Boone is the Yankees’ manager in 2021 unless the team reaches the World Series. In a season in which the Yankees were expected to represent the AL in the World Series and were the odds-on favorite to do so, I don’t know how the Yankees can bring him back and tell the fan base settling for yet another wild-card game and early postseason exit is acceptable.

10. The remaining 29 games are about clinching the first wild-card berth since it would take a colossal Rays collapse for the division to become in play again. Winning games and hoping the Red Sox lose games is what these remaining four-plus weeks are about. Because while the one-game playoff is scary as is, the only pitcher I’m truly petrified of the Yankees having to see in it is Chris Sale. Give me any of the A’s or Mariners or Blue Jays starters. If the Yankees lose to them, so be it. If the Yankees play the Red Sox and win, it will be like it always is: the Yankees were supposed to win. If the Yankees were to be eliminated by the Red Sox for the second time in four years and third time since 2004, losing at home in a game started by Cole in a year in which the Red Sox weren’t supposed to be competitive, it will be a very bad scene.

As is the case every day of every baseball season, the Yankees need to win and the Red Sox need to lose. More now than ever.

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Blogs • Yankees • Yankees Thoughts

Aug 26, 2021

Yankees Thoughts: Winning Is Fun

The Yankees are fun again. They are fun because they’re winning and winning is fun. Since losing the first game of the doubleheader against the Mets on July 4, the Yankees are 33-11.

The Yankees are fun again. They are fun because they’re winning and winning is fun. Since losing the first game of the doubleheader against the Mets on July 4, the Yankees are 33-11.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. 50-23. That’s the improbable record the Yankees needed to post after the All-Star break to reach 96 wins (which would win me by preseason over 95.5 wins wager) and most likely win the AL East and avoid the one-game, wild-card game. The Yankees have gone 28-9 (.757) since the All-Star break, a ridiculous, silly run to not only pass both the A’s and Red Sox to take control of the first wild-card berth, but to make winning the division a reality.

The problem is it might take more than 96 wins now to win the division. While the Yankees have been stacking wins for the last six weeks, so have the Rays. The Rays have nearly matched the Yankees’ incredible pace by going 26-11 themselves, and for as dominant as the Yankees have been since July 16, they have only made up two games of ground on the Rays. Two games! With a 28-9 record!

2. The entire look, feel, culture and expectations for the team changed at the trade deadline when Brian Cashman admitted his egregious mistake of thinking a team without real, major-league-caliber left-handed bats could win by trading for Joey Gallo and Anthony Rizzo. The additions of Wandy Peralta, Joely Rodriguez and Clay Holmes throughout the season have been helpful and needed, but they haven’t had the impact Gallo and Rizzo have had.

Even if Rizzo hasn’t hit much since his first few days with the team (.248/.346/.446), without him, the team gets swept by the Marlins in Miami and their season potentially goes into a tailspin at the end of July rather than this remarkable run. The hits Rizzo has had have all been impactful, and even without racking up hits, he’s still getting on base and playing Gold Glove-level defense, something the Yankees tried to live without from 2002-2008 and again from 2017-July 29, 2021.

The same goes for Gallo. The hits he has gotten have been meaningful, every one of his plate appearance seems to last at least six pitches and his outfield defense has been essentially impeccable. It’s scary the Yankees have gone 21-4 since acquiring the two and neither of them has played to their offensive ability. Scary.

3. The trade for Rizzo made Luke Voit seemingly expendable. Thankfully, it didn’t lead to him being traded away. Voit has been one of the best hitters in baseball since his most recent return from the injured list, batting .320/.393/.620 with four home runs and 17 RBIs in 15 games (13 starts). Last week, Voit openly spoke about how he deserves to play as much as Rizzo does and then he went out and posted a 1.591 OPS for the week.

It doesn’t need to be and shouldn’t be Rizzo or Voit. It should be Rizzo and Voit. Rizzo at first base and Voit as the designated hitter and an outfield of Aaron Judge, Giancarlo Stanton and Gallo. No more Brett Gardner. Please, no more Gardner. He shouldn’t be on the team taking up a roster spot, let alone taking up an actual lineup spot and forcing any of those names to the bench. Play the best lineup and play it every day. There’s 36 games remaining. Enough games were given away this season due to unnecessary rest that once again didn’t prevent injury or underperformance. Do everything possible to win the division. Something this organization has done once since 2012.

4. I wrote and said a lot of critical things about Nestor Cortes in 2019, and they were all earned. Cortes was awful. He somehow managed to maintain a roster spot throughout the season with 5.67 ERA and 5.57 FIP, while serving as an opener and the first in relief of the opener. This was when the Yankees decided to use Chad Green as an opener for the majority of the season and then were shocked when he couldn’t get the Astros out every night in October.

The career turnaround Cortes has experienced this season is remarkable. He went from getting unprotected by the Yankees in the Rule 5 draft in 2017 to getting returned to the Yankees by the Orioles in 2018 to getting traded to the Mariners for 2020 to re-signing with the Yankees for 2021. Before this season, over 79 career innings, Cortes had a 6.72 ERA, 6.69 FIP and had allowed 139 baserunners. He was a fringe major leaguer at best and really just an organizational depth arm. Now he’s being compared to El Duque.

Two years ago, it was painful to watch Cortes, now it’s enjoyable. His starts are entertaining, full of creativity and surprise with his various arm angles, deliveries and pitches. Most importantly, he’s been successful. I never thought I would be OK with Cortes starting a postseason game for the Yankees, but here I am being OK if Cortes were to start a postseason game for the Yankees.

5. For Cortes to start a postseason game, the Yankees need to get to the postseason. Not just get there, but to get to an actual series. That means either winning the division and avoiding the wild-card game or winning the wild-card game. That means the back end of the bullpen needs to be optimized in a way that the bullpen isn’t managed solely on who’s owed the most money.

Disregarding recent performance and ability this season (as well as not being able to use simple logic in determining who should get high-leverage outs) is why the Yankees are still chasing the Rays and not the other way around. Zack Britton is now injured and potentially done for the season, but before he went on the injured list, it took Britton going to Aaron Boone and telling him he shouldn’t be used in high-leverage situations for the time being. It’s supposed to be the manager’s job to recognize who he should or shouldn’t use to get outs at the most crucial time. Yet, it’s another thing Boone simply hasn’t been able to grasp as manager. (I’m waiting to find something he has been able to grasp as manager other than his use of the word “obviously.”)

6. The same is now true of Aroldis Chapman. It’s been true of Chapman since mid-June when he started pitching like the left-handed Nick Nelson. Chapman has walked 31 and given up seven home runs in just 42 innings. His strikeout-to-walk ratio is a miserable 2.29, the lowest it’s been since it was 1.73 a decade ago when he was a 23-year-old breaking into the majors.

As I talked about on the podcast after his latest meltdown in Atlanta, he can’t be trusted. Not now, not in September and certainly not in October. Chapman has already ushered in the offseason for the Yankees the last two years with the home runs he allowed to Jose Altuve and Mike Brosseau, and if given the chance this October, he will likely send the Yankees home prematurely again. Chapman doesn’t deserve to be the “closer” until he proves he can be trusted (if he ever can).

7. The Yankees shouldn’t even have a closer. That role should have been retired once Number 42 retired. It’s an unnecessary job and term, and the save stat is rather ridiculous, and it’s a disaster that salaries, contracts and arbitration are based on a meaningless stat. How is protecting a three-run lead to start the ninth inning against a team’s 7-8-9 hitters more important than getting the heart of the order out when the lead was only one run the inning before?

The Yankees should finally move on from having a set closer and set innings. Let the matchup determine who gets the ball, not the inning.

8. Right now, I trust Jonathan Loaisiga the most in the bullpen. (See how much things have changed from a year ago.) Here is my current Bullpen Level of Trust (scale 1-10):

Jonathan Loaisiga: 8.2
Chad Green: 7.9
Clay Holmes: 6.9
Joely Rodriguez: 6.2
Wandy Peralta: 6.1
Lucas Luetge: 5.7
Albert Abreu: 5.4
Aroldis Chapman: 2.1

Loaisiga and Green are in their own tier. Then Holmes. Then Rodriguez and Peralta. Then Abreu and Luetge. I actually don’t have a problem with any of the relievers other than Chapman right now.

9. It’s not the bullpen the Yankees expected when they signed Darren O’Day and Justin Wilson, and thought those two would pair well with Britton and Chapman at the end of games. But it’s still a very good bullpen and one that’s good enough to win, as long as they aren’t walking in runs. Or as long as Boone doesn’t let a game get to the point in which any of them are walking in runs.

10. The Yankees don’t need to win every game in Oakland this weekend. They don’t even need to win the series. It would be great if they swept the A’s since the Rays are playing the Orioles and there’s a better chance of Boone logically filling out the lineup card for a single game than there is the Orioles taking a game from the Rays this weekend.

Winning two of the four games against the A’s is all the Yankees need to do. (They could actually only win one of the four and it wouldn’t be a big deal, they just can’t get swept.) It would keep them five games ahead of the A’s, most likely keep them ahead of the Red Sox and it would take four games off the schedule with them not losing much, if any, ground. It would likely set them back to a game or two to the Rays, but that’s OK. The ground was never going to be made up while the Rays were playing the Orioles. If the ground is going to be made up, it’s going to come when the Rays play the Red Sox (7), Tigers (7), Blue Jays (6), Astros (3) and Yankees (3) in the final three games of the season. The Yankees need to get the division deficit to one game before that final weekend, so that a series win ties them with the Rays for the AL East, forcing a one-game playoff the day after Game 162 for the division with the loser going to the wild-card game.

That’s the goal: get the division deficit to one game by Game 160. The Yankees have 33 games to get the division deficit to one game. It won’t be easy, but a big weekend in Oakland would make it a little easier.

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