Blogs – Page 80 – Keefe To The City

Oct 1, 2021

Yankees Thoughts: This Team and Season Have Been Health Risk

1. The Yankees are a health risk for their fans. There have been many times this season when I thought I might not make it, but somehow after 159 games, I’m still here. And somehow after 159 games, the Yankees are still here.

The Yankees are going to the postseason. Well, they’re most likely going to the postseason. If they don’t, it will be one last parting gift from a team that has found new ways to disappoint their fans all season. But I don’t see that happening. (OK, I’ll knock on wood.)

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. The Yankees are a health risk for their fans. There have been many times this season when I thought I might not make it, but somehow after 159 games, I’m still here. And somehow after 159 games, the Yankees are still here.

The highs and lows of this season have been emotionally, physically and mentally draining, and thankfully, there are only three games, one series and one weekend left in the regular season. And in those three games, one series and one weekend, the Yankees have a chance to do something they only had a 29 percent chance of doing as recently as 12 days ago: clinch a postseason berth.

This entire season has played out like the extremes of Giancarlo Stanton at-bats. When the Yankees opened the season 5-10 or lost 11 of 13 immediately after winning 13 straight, they looked like Stanton when he’s guessing wrong and flailing at pitches that bounce in the other batter’s box. With moments like the 13-game winning streak or their current 8-1 run with the season on the line, they have looked like Stanton did last weekend when he was trying to single-handedly destroy the Red Sox’ season with moonshots. Like Stanton when he’s off, you wonder if the Yankees will ever be good again. And like Stanton when he’s on, you wonder if they will ever lose again.

2. DJ LeMahieu recently called the Yankees the streakiest team in baseball and he wasn’t exaggerating. Here are the Yankees’ streaks this season:

5-10
23-9
5-13
7-2
1-7
35-11
3-12
12-4

3. This season has been mostly a disappointment (so far). The Yankees were favored to win the American League and get back to the World Series for the first time in 12 years. For a team expected to the best in the league, they will instead play in the wild-card game for the fourth time in six years and the third time in the last four seasons in which the game has been held.

For as hot as the Yankees have been over the last 10 days and for as good as they have looked against the Red Sox and Blue Jays over the last week, they will play one game for their season on Tuesday at Yankee Stadium or somewhere else. It’s not a great spot to be in.

Sure, playing in the wild-card game is better than not playing in the playoffs at all, but that doesn’t make me feel better as a Yankees fan. For the Red Sox, an overachieving roster which has no business even being in contention for a postseason spot, it would be an accomplishment. For the Blue Jays, a young team whose window hasn’t even really opened yet, it would be an accomplishment. For the Mariners, the team with the longest postseason drought in North American major sports, of course it would be an enormous accomplishment, considering they had a 2 percent chance just five days ago and boast a minus-48 run differential. For the Yankees, it’s a disappointment.

4. The Yankees will start Gerrit Cole in the wild-card game and in theory it’s about as well as any team could be set up from a starting pitcher standpoint. That’s in theory. In actuality, Cole hasn’t looked like himself in exactly a month, and my confidence in him has waned following his hamstring injury on Sept. 7 and his five starts after the injury.

Sept. 7 vs. Toronto: 3.2 IP, 5 H, 3 R, 2 ER, 2 BB, 2 K, 1 HR
Sept. 14 at Baltimore: 5 IP, 4 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 3 BB, 7 K
Sept. 19 vs. Cleveland: 5.2 IP, 10 H, 7 R, 7 ER, 1 BB, 7 K, 2 HR
Sept. 24 at Boston: 6 IP, 5 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 3 BB, 6 K, 1 HR
Sept. 29 at Toronto: 6 IP, 9 H, 5 R, 5 ER, 0 BB, 6 K, 2 HR

The Sept. 7 start was cut short due to the hamstring injury and while Cole says he’s healthy now, it’s hard to believe him. In the four starts he made before Sept. 7, he allowed two earned runs in 24 2/3 innings (24.2 IP, 17 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 4 BB, 39 K, 1 HR). Since Sept. 7, he has allowed 42 baserunners, 18 earned runs and six home runs in 26 1/3 innings.

5. The Yankees got Cole to win this exact game: a must-win game in the truest sense of the phrase. A game literally with the season on the line. In Game 5 of the 2020 ALDS, he started the elimination game on three days rest and couldn’t protect a minuscule 1-0 lead over his 5 1/3 innings in the team’s eventual season-ending loss. This season, outside of his complete-game shutout of the Astros in Houston in July, Cole has failed every other important assignment. After his clunker on Wednesday against the Blue Jays, he’s lucky he’s going to get to pitch again in 2021.

I really don’t know what to expect from Cole on Tuesday night. Will we see the Cole who threw that complete-game shutout in a 1-0 win in Houston? The Cole who was good, but not great in Boston this past weekend, allowing three runs over six innings? Or the Cole who was knocked around by the Rangers, Mets and Indians this season and who was lit up over his last five starts in September? I honestly have no idea. No one does. And if you think you do, John Sterling would have a good laugh in your face.

6. The problem with being the wild-card winner is that 48 hours after your season-saving win, you’re playing on the road against the well-rested best team in your league without your best starter until the third game of the series. If the Yankees survive Tuesday, they will go to Tampa for the first two games of the ALDS at Tropicana Field (a place they rarely play well at) against the Rays (a team they never seem to beat). It’s a bad spot to be in, but it’s the best spot you can be in when you’re 41-41 on July 4 or when you go 24-30 against the Rays, Red Sox and Blue Jays or 23-22 against the Orioles, Mets, Angels, Tigers and Indians or when you lose 13 of 16 from late August to mid-September.

After Cole, I don’t know what the Yankees do. I guess they go with Jordan Montgomery and Nestor Cortes in some order for Games 1 and 2 of the ALDS? Corey Kluber could be an option, though I would only want him to be an option if he were to have a two-times-through-the-order limit, though with Aaron Boone managing the team, there’s no such limit.

7. With the Yankees’ season and Boone’s own job in question on Thursday night in Toronto, and with all of the data in the world suggesting Kluber shouldn’t face any lineup a third time, Boone let him face George Springer, Marcus Semien and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. each a third time. Guerrero Jr. hit a go-ahead double to give the Blue Jays a 2-1 lead at the time and then Boone went to the bullpen to relieve Kluber. Thursday’s game was essentially a playoff game, just like this entire month has been has been for the Yankees, and Boone has once again shown he can’t be trusted to make even the simplest of logical decisions in playoff-type games. Do you really want him to have to make these decisions in actual playoff games? If Kluber is “cruising” or in line for a win (an archaic concept), Boone won’t pull him. He didn’t on Thursday.

The two-times-through-the-order limit should be for every Yankees starter (with the exception of Cole if he’s himself). The Yankees’ bullpen is once against deep with Michael King (who should never open or start again), Clay Holmes, Jonathan Loaisiga, Chad Green and Aroldis Chapman. Wandy Peralta and Joely Rodriguez no longer have to be trusted to get the biggest outs in games and that’s a good thing. And the addition of Luis Severino to the bullpen has made the Yankees that much better.

8. I would feel a lot better about the Yankees starting pitching in the postseason (again, if they’re able to survive Tuesday) if Severino were an option. But he’s not an option, even though he could be. Severino rejoined the Yankees as a reliever because he “wasn’t built up” to start games. He could be, but he’s not. He’s not because of his odd usage.

In Severino’s season debut on Sept. 21, he thew 30 pitches over two innings. Four days later he threw 37 pitches across two innings. Three days later he threw 15 pitches and two days after that (Thursday in Toronto) 16 pitches. The Yankees haven’t tried to stretch him out and increase his pitch count to make him a postseason starting option. They have done the opposite, limiting his pitch count over his last two appearances and holding him to one inning in each game. It’s odd, but it’s Boone and the Yankees, and so it’s not a surprise as they idiotically chase a set-inning, late-game formula, featuring Severino. My choice for ALDS Game 1 starter would be to have Severino start the game and figure it out from there. After Cole, he’s the Yankees’ best starter even if he’s not currently a starter. Holding him back to maybe pitch the sixth or seventh inning in a high-leverage situation that may never come is a waste.

9. Whether it’s Severino (unlikely) or Montgomery (very likely), Cortes (also very likely) or even Kluber (not as likely) starting Games 1 and 2 of the ALDS (if the Yankees get there), I have confidence in the Yankees’ pitching, both the rotation and bullpen. The Yankees’ season will hinge on their offense, the way it does every postseason and if the Yankees’ offense performs an October disappearing act for the ninth time in the last 12 Octobers, their season will finish the same way it has the last 11 Octobers: without a championship.

Right now, the Yankees’ offense looks the best it has all season. During this nine-game stretch in which they have gone 8-1, the Yankees have scored 55 runs, averaging 6.1 runs per point game. Seven of the eight wins were by two-plus runs, a far cry from how they were winning through the first 149 games of the year. Everyone (and I mean everyone) in the lineup has been contributing. Yes, some more than others, but over the last nine games and 10 days, every Yankee has had a moment. It’s been a collective effort with Aaron Judge and Stanton leading the way. The Yankees’ offense of Games 150-159 has been the Yankees we rarely saw from Games 1-149. Had we seen this offense more often in those first 149 games, I would be worried about who’s starting after Cole in Games 2 and 3 of the ALDS and not whether or not the Yankees will even reach the ALDS.

10. The Yankees now have three games left. Three games against the Rays, who have nothing to play for other than to prevent the Yankees from reaching the postseason. After Thursday’s win over the Blue Jays, the Yankees’ magic number is down to 2 to play a 163rd game. It’s not where I thought the team would be on Opening Day, but it’s where they are.

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Blogs • Yankees

Sep 21, 2021

David Cone Calling Out Aaron Boone Is Beautiful

Barring a miracle, in two weeks the Yankees will need a new manager for just the third time in 25 years. Unlike last time, they can’t screw it up again. Moving David Cone from the booth to the dugout would prevent that from happening.

I have come to the realization the Yankees won’t play more than 162 games this year. There won’t be postseason Yankees baseball this October. Sure, there’s a chance the Yankees could get into the one-game, wild-card playoff, but with 11 games remaining against the Rangers, Red Sox, Blue Jays and Rays, it’s hard to envision it after the 7-15 performance they just put together against the Angels, Orioles, Blue Jays, Mets, Twins and Indians. I’m prepared for the only October baseball the Yankees play in 2021 to be the final three games of the regular season against the Rays, scheduled for the first weekend in October.

Aaron Boone won’t survive this disastrous season. He can’t. When the team you manage is expected to reach the World Series and you don’t even reach the postseason in a five-team format in which one-third of the league gets into the playoffs, you don’t get to come back from that. Even in the unlikely chance the Yankees somehow get into the wild-card game, simply getting there isn’t an accomplishment, and winning it and advancing to the ALDS isn’t something to be proud of. A fifth ALCS loss in the last 12 years wouldn’t be something to celebrate either. The measuring stick for if Boone gets another contract when this one expires should be reaching the World Series, which is what the Yankees were one win away from doing when he was inexplicably hired to be manager without ever spending even a single day as a coach at any level. Since the day he was hired, the team has gone backward, despite the league around them getting worse.

When each Yankees season has ended under Boone, he has always been quick to mention how the postseason margin has been “razor thin” between his team and the teams that have gone on to actually win the World Series.

“It’s important we realize how close we are and how razor thin the margin is when you get into the postseason,” Boone said on the first day of spring training this year. “It’s the bounce of the ball, it’s one play, it’s one pitch, and we feel like we’re certainly very close to that.”

Boone mentioned the bounce of the ball or one play or one pitch, but he didn’t say “or one game when you come up with the most idiotic pitching plan in franchise history to force J.A. Happ into a playoff game,” like he did last October.

In 2018, the Yankees lost in four games to the Red Sox in the ALDS. They lost both Games 3 and 4 at home and were outscored 20-4. It’s hard to agree with him that the Yankees were close to getting past the Red Sox when they finished eight games behind them in the regular season and then were run out of their own stadium against them in the postseason. Not exactly a thin margin.

In 2019, the Yankees lost the ALCS in six games after hitting .214/.289/.673 as a team and getting 23 2/3 innings from their starters, leaving the bullpen fatigued and ineffective. The Yankees lost four of the last five games of the series. The margin was thinner than 2018, but not exactly the coin flip Boone would like you to believe.

Then there was 2020, a series which Boone single-handedly flipped on his own when he tried to pull a fast one on the best manager in the game in Kevin Cash in Game 2, using Happ as a reliever beginning in the second inning against the left-handed-heavy lineup Cash had constructed. Boone was bringing in Happ, whose career was running on fumes. Not a high-quality lefty like Clayton Kershaw or Chris Sale. The plan backfired, the Yankees lost Game 2 and Game 3, and eventually Game 5 when the bats disappeared like they have done in every October for the last 11 years.

“Yeah, I do feel like it’s that close, and I felt that way in ’18 and I felt that way in ’19, and last year, we’re late in the game against the team that goes on to the World Series again,” Boone said. “So we have to find a way to get over that last hump and beat that team that’s going on to the World Series.”

The thing Boone fails to understand is simply beating the Red Sox in 2018 or Astros in 2019 or Rays in 2020 wouldn’t have automatically resulted in a parade in the Canyon of Heroes. In 2018, the Yankees still would have had to beat the Astros and then the Dodgers, in 2019, the Nationals, and in 2020, the Astros and Dodgers. If you lose in the division series to the team that eventually represents the AL in the World Series, it doesn’t mean that you would have represented the AL in the World Series if you had won your division series.

Barring a miraculous run over the next month, Boone will have never gotten over the hump as manager of the Yankees. That won’t stop him from spewing his never-ending positivity over the remaining 11 regular-season games, no matter how fake or contrived it might be. I believe Boone goes over the top with his defense of his players and their effort because he has nothing else.

He’s clearly not that communicator he was advertised to be when hired. We know that from the instances like Luis Severino not knowing the start time of the Game 3 of the 2018 ALDS, Sanchez telling ESPN he was never talked to about his 2020 postseason benching and Boone simply trying to sweep Domingo German’s 2019 and 2020 absence under the rug before Zack Britton stepped up and all but forced Boone to have German address the clubhouse.

When it comes to lineup construction, bullpen management and in-game decision making, Boone is the worst in the league, given the team he manages, the roster and personnel at his disposal and the expectations for his club. His postgame press conferences have become better suited for Comedy Central than YES and the buzz words and phrases he has been recycling since early April are still being used in late September as the threat of missing the postseason isn’t just a possible outcome for the season, it’s the likely outcome for the season. The schedule says so. Simple math says so.

All that leaves Boone with is his glowing optimism that there’s always tomorrow and that there will be another game for the Yankees to play. Except after Oct. 3 there probably won’t be.

On Saturday, Gary Sanchez dropped a foul pop-up that should have been the second out of an inning, in which the Indians turned a 1-0 lead into a 8-0 lead. In reality, the inning and game getting out of hand wasn’t Sanchez’s fault. Sure, his error gave the Indians an extra out to work with, but it wasn’t the third out of the inning and Luis Gil would have had to get another out, even if Sanchez had made the routine play. Prior to Monday’s game against the Rangers, Boone defended Sanchez, leading to this exchange during Monday’s game on YES.

Michael Kay: “Did you ever have a manager who was so overwhelmingly positive the way Boone is?”

David Cone: “No, definitely not.”

After 150-plus games, the broadcasters with the same employer as the team’s manager were openly questioning the manager. It has been commonplace for John Sterling to voice his frustrations with the performance and effort of the team over the years during bad stretches, especially in 2021, but here was the voice of the Yankees and the best color commentator in the sport openly doing on TV. Later in the game, when provoked by Kay, Cone continued.

“At this stage of the game, Yankee fans are frustrated. They want the truth. I understand Aaron Boone’s point: He’s got to back his players up, he’s gotta be accountable to his team, to his players, and he’s gotta protect them. And he always has, and that’s a strength of Aaron Boone. But not at the cost of being honest. Because the New York fan base is too knowledgable. You can not fool them. There has to be a balance there between acknowledging the obvious and still backing your player.”

Boone has spent this season unconditionally standing by his players, like always. The Yankees have now played 151 games and in all 151 games, the Yankees’ starting pitcher has had “good” to “great” stuff by Boone’s evaluation, which is odd since the team has lost 44 percent of its games and doesn’t currently hold a playoff. The never-ending optimism from the happy-go-lucky, everything-is-fine Southern California fool is annoying, but more comedic at this point. It’s the lying that’s the problem.

Whether it’s been saying Clint Frazier would be the team’s starting left fielder, Sanchez would catch Gerrit Cole (he did three times: Opening Day, when he pinch hit for Kyle Higashioka and saved the game with a three-run home run and when Higashioka had COVID), Giancarlo Stanton would play the outfield (after five months of saying he would he did on the second-to-last-day of July), Aaron Hicks would be fine as the team’s 3-hitter (he was demoted after less than two weeks as the 3-hitter for poor performance), Luke Voit would be a regular in the lineup upon the trade for Anthony Rizzo (he has started 12 games since Aug. 21), that only “the better teams hit into a lot of double plays” (lie) or that the “Yankees will get rolling” or “turn the corner” (they did win 13 games in a row and then lost 15 of 22 to essentially erase their winning streak), very rarely does Boone speak the truth.

I love Cone. Always have, always will. Two years ago, when I read and reviewed his book Full Count: The Education of a Pitcher, I, like all readers, found out that Bobby Valentine asked Cone to be the Red Sox’ pitching coach for the 2012 season. Thankfully, Cone didn’t leave the broadcast booth to take Valentine up on his offer because his absence would have created an irreplaceable void during Yankees games (and also the whole helping the Red Sox thing). But I’m sure Cone doesn’t regret leaving broadcasting to be part of a 93-loss disaster.

That one story did make me think about Cone as a coach in the majors. Now having listened to him as an analyst all these seasons on YES and seeing how he has embraced the analytics and data revolution in baseball, while also maintaining the game is played by humans, I have often wondered how he would be as a pitching coach. On a larger scale, if the Yankees were going to hire a manager with zero experience coaching or managing at any level, I wish they had gone with Cone rather than giving Yankees fans Boone.

The difference in the TV analysis from Boone when he was on ESPN to how Cone has been on YES is the equivalent to having Mariano Rivera close out a game to having Brooks Kriske close it out, and I think Boone’s time on TV is evident in his in-game management, and I feel it would be the same for Cone. Cone wouldn’t have sent Severino back out to the mound for the fourth inning in Game 3 of the ALDS and wouldn’t have followed that up by bringing Lance Lynn in with the bases loaded and no outs. And he certainly wouldn’t have let CC Sabathia go through the Red Sox’ lineup for a second time with the season on the line and then defended his decision by saying he wanted Sabathia to face the 9-hitter which is why he let him face the rest of the team. He wouldn’t have tried that trickery with Happ in Game 2 of the 2020 ALDS, and he wouldn’t have spent the 2021 season telling anyone who would listen how good the Yankees are while the losses mounted.

Unfortunately, we’ll likely never know how Cone would be as Yankees manager because he’s probably too outspoken and too much of his own person for Brian Cashman and his group of Ivy League minions to work with. That just means we get to keep listening to Cone in the broadcast booth, and that’s certainly not a bad thing. But that also means a really, really good and maybe the best candidate to be Yankees manager when Boone’s contract expires in less than two weeks won’t even be in the running for the position.

Barring a miracle, in two weeks the Yankees will need a new manager for just the third time in 25 years. Unlike last time, they can’t screw it up again. Moving Cone from the booth to the dugout would prevent that from happening.

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 13, 2021

Yankees Thoughts: Gleyber Torres Will Never Again Be Team’s Everyday Shortstop

Thanks to a monumental collapse since their 13-game winning streak, The Yankees now need to win nearly all of their remaining 18 games to reach the postseason. If they don’t, changes are coming. Some of the changes have already come.

Thanks to a monumental collapse since their 13-game winning streak, The Yankees now need to win nearly all of their remaining 18 games to reach the postseason. If they don’t, changes are coming. Some of the changes have already come.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. After their’ 8-2 win over the A’s on August 27, the Yankees were 76-52. To get to 96 wins, which would put them in a great position to win the AL East (and also win my preseason over 95.5-win wager), the Yankees only needed to go 20-14 in their remaining 34 games. They have gone 4-12.

It’s been an explicable 16 games since the 13th win of the 13-game winning streak. The Yankees lost two of three to the Angels, lost two of three to the Orioles, got swept in a four-game series at Yankee Stadium and then lost two of three to the Mets. The collapse has been an embarrassment and it has seen the Yankees go from holding the first wild-card spot to being out of the playoff picture and now chasing both the Red Sox and Blue Jays.

2. In the collapse, Chad Green has pitched in six games, allowing runs in four of them and home runs in three of them. Green is the last person I want to see in a big spot, but the problem is there is no one else. Jonathan Loaisiga is injured, Zack Britton is out for this season and likely all of next season. Darren O’Day’s season ended after 12 appearances. Justin Wilson and Luis Cessa are in Cincinnati. To me, Clay Holmes is the best available Yankees reliever, and after him, there’s no one I trust.

Green’s knack for allowing home runs in high-leverage situations has been unbelievable. His season has been a collection of giving up home runs in high-leverage spots and blowing late leads. The Astros’ two wins against the Yankees this season came after Green gave up a three-run home run to Jose Altuve in both games and it was Green who had the post-All-Star break meltdown in Boston to blow a two-run, ninth-inning lead. The home run he allowed on August 29 in Oakland turned a 1-1 game into a 3-1 deficit. The home run he allowed on Saturday at Citi Field turned a 5-4 lead into a 6-5 deficit. The home run he allowed on Sunday at Citi Field turned a 6-6 game into a 7-6 deficit. Green has now allowed 15 home runs in 59 games and 74 innings. He allowed 13 home runs in 144 2/3 innings in 2017 and 2018 combined.

With limited options and no real trustworthy options, Green is going to continue to see high-leverage situations over the remaining 18 games. The Yankees’ season will likely hinge on whether or not he can revert back to his old self.

3. Green isn’t the only one who needs to revert back to his old self. Gleyber Torres’ error on Sunday in the series finale against the Mets was apparently the final straw for him as shortstop. After sitting by and watching Torres boot routine play after routine play both last season and this season, Boone finally announced Torres would be playing second base indefinitely. It’s good Boone and the front office are willing to improve the most important position in the infield, however, it’s likely too late for the change as the Yankees’ postseason chances are no longer great. By accommodating Torres (whose bat isn’t good enough to make accommodations for) it’s screwing up the rest of the infield.

Torres playing second means DJ LeMahieu isn’t. LeMahieu is a three-time Gold Glove-winning second baseman who will now play third base, a position he had never played prior to joining the Yankees. It also means Gio Urshela, who never played shortstop in the majors prior to this season will now play shortstop. So by improving the defense at short, the Yankees have downgraded their defense at both second and third. Again, this is to accommodate Torres, who isn’t nearly good enough to be getting this kind of accomodation. It would be in the Yankees’ best interest to not play Torres rather than shuffle 75 percent of the infield to keep him in the lineup.

4. Two years ago, Torres looked like he would be the team’s best player in the near future and the most important player on the team for years to come as a 22-year-old, superstar middle infielder. Instead, in his last 602 plate appearances, he has 10 home runs and a .688 OPS.

I would be ready for the Yankees to move on except for his value being so low. But maybe his value will never recover. Maybe the Yankees holding out hope he will return to the player he was in 2018 and 2019 or hoping his stock will rise, so they can move him will only hurt the team in 2022 and for however long they continue to play him.

5. The Yankees made it clear Torres is no longer the shortstop of the future for them when they reportedly tried to trade for Trevor Story in July. Now, needing to win every game down the stretch, the Yankees have decided to move Torres off of shortstop and to a position he hasn’t played since the 2019 ALCS. His time as the Yankees’ everyday shortstop is over. With the Yankees’ top prospect (Anthony Volpe) being a shortstop, as well as their No. 3 prospect (Oswald Peraza), I don’t see them going out and signing Story or Corey Seager or Carlos Correa to a long-term contract. But they are going to have to do something. They can’t go into 2022 planning on Torres being their everyday shortstop, and I don’t think they’re even considering it.

6. The Yankees won for just the fourth time in their last 16 games on Monday, overcoming a 5-0 deficit to beat the Twins 6-5 on a Gary Sanchez walk-off hit. The comeback was made possible thanks to a Judge game-tying, three-run home run in the eighth inning.

The Yankees have had a knack for hitting a late-inning, game-tying home run during the collapse. The problem is they usually don’t take the lead after tying the game with a big home run. In Anaheim, it was Stanton who tied the game at 7 with a two-run home run in the seventh before the Yankees lost 8-7. Against the Orioles, it was Joey Gallo tying the game at 3 in the eighth before the Yankees lost 4-3. Against the Blue Jays, it was Brett Gardner with a game-tying, three-run home run on Wednesday and Anthony Rizzo with a game-tying, two-run home run on Thursday, both coming in Yankees losses. On Sunday, it was Stanton again with a game-tying, two-run home run against the Mets in an eventual Yankees loss. (Only once during the collapse did the Yankees hit a late, game-tying home run and go on to win: Saturday against the Mets.)

7. The Stanton home run created a bench-clearing argument between the Yankees and Mets after Stanton stopped rounding the bases to have words with Francisco Lindor, who earlier in the game had words for the Yankees dugout while rounding the bases on a home run. Nothing came of the Stanton and Lindor exchange other than a bunch of yelling and hand gestures. It seemed like a moment that could lead the Yankees to a much-needed win and potentially serve as the starting point for a late-season run to the postseason. Instead, Lindor answered Stanton’s home run with his third home run of the game. When Stanton came up with two outs in the ninth and had the tying run at third and go-ahead run at second, he popped up to Lindor to end the game.

8. When these Yankees chirp their opponent, it never ends well.

After the Yankees won Game 2 of the 2018 ALDS in Boston, Aaron Judge walked through Fenway Park with a boom box blaring “New York, New York.” The Yankees followed that up with the worst home postseason loss in franchise history in Game 3 and were eliminated in Game 4, while the Red Sox went on to win the World Series, playing “New York, New York” in their clubhouse after each win.

Earlier this season in Houston, Judge mimicked Jose Altuve clutching his jersey on his way to home plate after his walk-off home run against the Yankees in the 2019 ALCS (the moment that cerated the Astros’ buzzer controversy). In the series finale, Altuve got the last laugh, like he always seems to go against the Yankees, hitting a three-run, walk-off home run to cap a six-run ninth in the final game of the first half.

Then there was Sunday with Lindor, who like Altuve, got the last laugh.

9. The only way for the Yankees to get the last laugh in 2021 is to win nearly all of their remaining 18 games. If they do so, they will have a chance to go on a revenge tour throughout the postseason. Either they will outlast Boston for a wild-card berth and end their season or have the opportunity to eliminate them in the wild-card game. If they win the wild-card game, they will have the chance to avenge their 2020 ALDS loss to the Rays in the 2021 ALDS. After that, they could see the Astros in the ALCS and repay the Astros for the 2017 and 2019 ALCS. The only way for this happen is for the Yankees to win each series from here on out and it might take even more than that.

10. The Blue Jays’ schedule is so easy the rest of the way. Ten of their remaining 19 games are against the Twins (7) and Orioles (3). The Red Sox’ schedule is also very easy. Nine of their remaining 17 games are against the Orioles (6) and Nationals (3).

The Yankees are in a bad spot. A very bad spot. That’s what happens when you lose the season series to the Angels and Mets, can’t beat the Orioles and get swept at home in a four-game series by the team chasing you. They now have 18 games left to avoid completing a collapse, which should result in vast organizational changes.

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 • Giants

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.

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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.

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