The Yankees won Game 1 against Shane Bieber and the Indians and it was never even close.
The Yankees’ offense took Shane Bieber out of Game 1 and Gerrit Cole took the Indians’ offense out of Game 1. Most importantly, the Yankees’ offense and Cole took Aaron Boone out of Game 1 in what was an easy 12-3 win in the best-of-3.
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My book The Next Yankees Era: My Transition from the Core Four to the Baby Bombers is now available as an ebook!
I spent the 2020 regular season fearing a best-of-3 against the Indians. I wanted no part of Shane Bieber. I spent a lot of time worrying about Bieber and the Indians for no reason.
I spent the 2020 regular season fearing a best-of-3 against the Indians. I wanted no part of Shane Bieber and the rest of the Cleveland rotation. I envisioned the Triple Crown-winning pitcher shutting down the Yankees in Game 1 of a best-of-3 and pushing them to the brink of elimination after one game. I spent a lot of time worrying about Bieber and the Indians for no reason.
When DJ LeMahieu hit Bieber’s third pitch of the game the other way for a single, I felt good. For two months, I constantly kept an eye on the Indians’ place in the standings, worrying about Bieber in a game like Tuesday’s, thinking he might be the right-handed Cliff Lee with his control and shutting the Yankees down the same way Lee did. LeMahieu’s leadoff single gave me immediate confidence.
When Aaron Judge hit Bieber’s fourth pitch over the fence, I thought the game was over. Bieber hadn’t experienced adversity on the mound all season and has experienced limited adversity in his career. His expression after Judge set the tone was that of someone who had only known dominating and who never expected for a second he wouldn’t once again dominate on Tuesday. It was very reminiscent of the way the Yankees knocked around Corey Kluber on the same field three years ago in a season in which he led the league in wins, ERA and WHIP and won the Cy Young award.
The Yankees couldn’t have started the postseason and a best-of-3 series any better. Even in an ideal world where I could write the script for how a Yankees postseason game would play out, I wouldn’t have been able to write up the way Game 1 played out. It was too perfect. Four pitches into the game, the Yankees had a two-run lead, and they kept tacking on to their lead, something they failed to do all regular season. They added a run in the third, two in the fourth, another two in the fifth, four in the seventh and one in the ninth. They rocked baseball’s best regular-season pitcher, putting 11 runners on base in 4 2/3 innings against him and forcing the Indians’ bullpen to get 13 outs. They received production from the entire lineup as every starter other than Kyle Higashioka scored a run and every starter other than Aaron Hicks recorded a hit. Gerrit Cole gave the Yankees seven remarkable innings (7 IP, 6 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 0 BB, 13 K, 1 HR) and the Yankees were able to get the final six outs from Luis Cessa, winning a postseason game without having to use any of their top relievers. Too perfect.
It’s been a long time since the Yankees went into a postseason series having a No. 1 starter who could go toe-to-toe with their opponent’s No. 1 starter. Last season, they couldn’t match Cole or Justin Verlander. In 2018, they couldn’t match Chris Sale. In 2017, they couldn’t match Verlander. Now it’s different. Now they have Cole, and while Bieber had the better season, Cole proved he is more able to rise to the occasion, turning his ability up to another octave with the stakes as high as he commented on them being. Cole was outstanding, striking out 13 Indians over seven innings and never for a moment did it seem as though the Indians might actually get to him. He gave the Yankees length, protected their early two-run lead and prevented Aaron Boone from having to think and kept Adam Ottavino, Chad Green, Zack Britton and Aroldis Chapman in the bullpen. Cole did what an ace with his reputation is supposed to do in October.
Yes, I vehemently disagreed with the Yankees’ Game 1 lineup, and while it worked out, I still wouldn’t use it in Game 2, but the Yankees will. Over the last few weeks, I said if Clint Frazier wasn’t going to be in the postseason lineup then I would actively root against the Yankees as hard as I always root for them. I refrained from taking that drastic measure on Tuesday night and never really had to question the Yankees’ lineup decisions because Judge gave the team an early lead, Gleyber Torres extended that lead and Cole did exactly what he was supposed to do for seven innings.
The result of the game doesn’t change the fact that Hicks shouldn’t be batting third, Brett Gardner shouldn’t be in the lineup over Clint Frazier and Kyle Higashioka shouldn’t be playing over Gary Sanchez.
Hicks had two walks and two strikeouts in the game. He reached base in two of his five plate appearances by the only way he knows how to reach base. It’s nice that Hicks scored two runs off his walks, but it’s not like he had to work for those walks. In both of the plate appearances resulting in walks, Hicks didn’t make contact on any swing. He didn’t even need to go up to the plate with a bat because four balls were thrown before three strikes, not because he fouled off good pitches or grinded out and won a 10-pitch at-bat. He was fortunate that Bieber’s impeccable control was off and that Adam Cimber isn’t any good.
Gardner didn’t deserve to play. He didn’t earn it. For a player whose entire career has been a collection of only extremely hot and extremely cold streaks with no consistency, Gardner’s hot streak to end the season somehow trumped everything Frazier had done for the Yankees this season. Ironically, Boone and the Yankees have admittedly said they don’t believe in players getting “hot” and they don’t believe in hot streaks, but Gardner was only in the lineup on Tuesday because of his most recent hot streak. Gardner was able to hit an opposite-field double off Bieber for his biggest Yankees moment since his single off Cody Allen in Game 5 of the 2017 ALDS, and he did add a two-run home run off Cimber, who isn’t very good, and even added a single off Oliver Perez, who is somehow still in the league. If Boone and the Yankees were willing to start Gardner against Bieber, it would have made no sense for them to then not start him for this entire series since the Indians would only be using right-handed starting pitchers. It would have made no sense for the Yankees to replace Gardner with Frazier in Game 2 given their decision in Game 1, but I truly think they were going to play Frazier in Game 2 until Gardner’s Game 1 performance. Now Gardner will be the starting left fielder against all right-handed starting pitchers this postseason.
The Yankees’ lineup worked out in Game 1 because the team’s stars played like stars in the game, not because of the decisions the Yankees made. Game 1 was was relaxing and enjoyable, a rare combination for a postseason game. What made it even more relaxting and enjoyable was that Boone never had to insert himself into the game. The Yankees’ offense and Cole took Boone completely out of the game, and kept him the dugout, chewing his gum and adjusting his mask. That’s where Boone needs to be and what he needs to be doing. The less Boone has to think and make decisions in high-leverage situations, the better off the Yankees will be. Inevitably, there will come a time this postseason when Boone will have a say on the outcome, and hopefully when the time comes, he will make the right decision.
The Yankees now have to go just 1-1 in two games against an Indians team that has already used and wasted their best card in order to advance to the ALDS. The Yankees have a completely rested bullpen and an offense coming off the team’s most impressive postseason offensive performance since Game 1 of the 2019 ALCS. They are set up as perfectly as any Yankees fan could dream of for Game 2 and they will be giving the ball to postseason legend Masahiro Tanaka on Wednesday night to end the series.
No Yankees fan could ask for a better pitcher in this situation with a chance for the Yankees to advance to the ALDS and into the bubble than Tanaka. I have complete faith and trust in Tanaka. He has never let the Yankees down in a postseason start, and I don’t expect him to in Game 2.
In what will be a rematch of Game 3 of the 2017 ALDS between Tanaka and Carlos Carrasco, the one thing that worries me is that Tanaka hasn’t given the Yankees much length this season and they haven’t let him give them much length this season. There’s a good chance Tanaka pitches as well as he always does in October for five innings and then Boone starts to decide how to get the last 12 outs. Boone will be quick to turn to his bullpen in this game with them being rested and a chance to close out the series and then four days off before the ALDS. I expect Tanaka to have it on Wednesday. Asking four relievers to all have it on the same night is a lot harder to expect.
One down, 12 to go.
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The Yankees’ World Series drought is now at nine years after the team’s disappointing performance in the postseason.
There have been a lot of times in the Brian Cashman era where I thought the Yankees were the best team in the league and they still didn’t win the World Series. In some of those seasons, they didn’t even make it out of the ALDS. This season, though, the Yankees weren’t the best team. They had the most talent. They just weren’t the best team.
The best team doesn’t have a manager who single-handedly swings a series for the worst or starting pitching that gets outpitched or a lineup that gets shut down by mediocre pitching. The Yankees had all these things and it’s why their real postseason lasted four games and why they had to play a game before the real postseason.
Top to bottom, one through 25 on the roster, I still believe the Yankees had the most talent, and on paper, should have won the division and should have represented the American League in the World Series. Underachievement, injuries and poor decisions forced them into the wild-card game, and those three negative traits eliminated them in four games against the Red Sox.
Just like that, the season is over. The grind that began in Tampa back in February and became official in Toronto is March is over, and for the ninth straight season, the Yankees’ season will end without a championship. The last nine seasons haven’t even provided a World Series appearance. The eight-year championship drought from 2001-08 has now been surpassed.
The final week or so of the regular season coupled with their impressive win over the A’s in the wild-card game and their effort in Boston in Games 1 and 2 of the ALDS served as a facade for the team’s real problems. The lineup was too right-handed heavy and was then shut down by two right-handed pitchers in Nathan Eovaldi and Rick Porcello. Their starting pitching was untrustworthy as seen by the disastrous starts of J.A. Happ, Luis Severino and CC Sabathia. And their manager’s lack of any managerial or coaching experience at any level was exposed on the postseason stage. When the Yankees failed to hit home runs, they failed to score, which put pressure on their rotation and forced their clueless manager to make meaningful decisions. When the Yankees failed to hit home runs, they failed to win. That’s not to say relying on home runs is wrong. It’s just that having home runs as your only source of offense is. And outside of Aaron Judge and Gary Sanchez’s power display in Boston, the Yankees couldn’t score.
The Yankees supposedly arrived ahead of schedule in 2017. They were picked to finish close to or last in the AL East and they wound up winning the first wild card, winning the wild-card game, coming back down 2-0 against the Indians in the ALDS and coming within a win of the World Series. Their unexpected postseason run made them the AL favorite for 2019 and they fell short of those expectations. Well short. They blew their division chances in August, barely hung on to the first wild-card spot, and then after winning home-field advantage from the Red Sox in ALDS, they suffered the most embarrassing postseason loss in the team’s history as they would lose both home games in the series.
This season was a step back for a team whose natural progression should have been at least a second straight ALCS appearance, if not a World Series appearance. Yes, the MLB postseason is a crapshoot, and just reaching the ALDS should be enough, but not when you’re built like the Yankees. Not when you reach the ALCS, come within a game of the World Series and then add the NL MVP and swap out Starlin Castro and Chase Headley for Gleyber Torres and Miguel Andujar. That should have been enough to close the one-win gap the Yankees weren’t able to close when they went to Houston for Games 6 and 7 up 3-2 in the series. Instead, the gap is now even bigger than a year ago.
In the nine years since their last championship, the Yankees have three ALCS losses, two ALDS losses, a wild-card loss and three postseason-less seasons. Where do they go from here? I really don’t know. The team has many paths it can take this offseason, so that a year from now they are still playing games and not holding exit interviews and end-of-the-season press conferences. They have decisions to make on CC Sabathia and Brett Gardner. They have rotation spots to fill from within or outside the organization. They have to figure out who will be their first baseman and how they can add left-handed balance to the lineup. And on top of all that, they have to make the right choices when it comes to the best free-agent class in history. If you believe that the Yankees did arrive early in 2017 and that these last two seasons were just experience-building years then 2019 is truly the first year of this current team’s window of opportunity, and it can’t be wasted.
Success can be fleeting in baseball and nothing is guaranteed. On paper, the Yankees should be as good, if not better in 2019 than they were in 2018. But on paper, the 2018 Yankees should have been the best team in baseball, and their season ended short of their goal once again.
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My book The Next Yankees Era: My Transition from the Core Four to the Baby Bombers is now available as an ebook!
The book details my life as a Yankees fan, growing up watching Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera, Andy Pettitte, Jorge Posada and Bernie Williams through my childhood and early adulthood and the shift to now watching Gary Sanchez, Luis Severino, Aaron Judge, Greg Bird and others become the latest generation of Yankees baseball. It’s a journey through the 2017 postseason with flashbacks to games and moments from the Brian Cashman era.
Click here to purchase the book through Amazon as an ebook. You can read it on any Apple device by downloading the free Kindle app.
Every aspect of the Yankees from the starting pitching to the bullpen to the offense to the defense to the manager was an embarrassment, and now as a result, the Yankees are facing elimination.
Embarrassment. That’s all there really is to say about this game. Every aspect of the Yankees from the starting pitching to the bullpen to the offense to the defense to the manager was an embarrassment, and now as a result, the Yankees are facing elimination.
Not even a week ago, I gave Aaron Boone a clean slate for the previous six-plus months after his team reached the real playoffs: the ALDS. But that clean slate didn’t last long.
Luis Severino didn’t have it on Monday night and it was obvious from the first pitch of the game. Mookie Betts jumped on a first-pitch fastball and sent it to the warning track in center field, and off the bat, I thought it was gone. Severino was able to pitch around a two-out walk in the inning, but two of three outs ended up on the warning track.
In the second inning, Severino lost a seven-pitch battle to Rafael Devers that resulted in a line drive to right field, which somehow wasn’t a double, for the third hard-hit ball put in play out of the four batters who put the ball in play. After a steal, a groundout and a defensive miscue by Severino, the Red Sox had a 1-0 lead.
A 1-0 lead in Yankee Stadium against Nathan Eovaldi and the Red Sox bullpen with eight at-bats left isn’t a big deal, and when Giancarlo Stanton led off the bottom of the second with a single, I thought they might get the run right back. But Didi Gregorius decided to bunt for a hit rather than try to hit the ball in the gap or over the wall, and he was thrown out. The inning would end with nothing.
Severino had thrown 44 pitches in the first two innings, and Boone was going back to him in the third inning with the top of the order due up. At the time, it wasn’t necessarily the wrong move, but given how hard Severino had been hit in the first two, there was certainly reason to think it was time to go to the bullpen.
Betts and Andrew Benintendi led off the third with back-to-back line-drive singles and J.D. Martinez hit another ball to wall in left-center that looked like it had a chance. If you didn’t think Severino should be out of the game to start the inning, he should have certainly been relieved now with the Yankees down 2-0. Xander Bogaerts singled and a Devers groundout made it 3-0 before Steve Pearce hit a deep fly ball to center field for the third out of the inning.
The one-run deficit had turned to three and it was obvious Severino had nothing. Nearly every out had been a line drive right at a fielder and the fact the score was only 3-0 and not worse was a miracle. There was no way he could go back in the game for the fourth. Except the Yankees manager is Aaron Boone.
Boone sent Severino back out for the fourth, trailing 3-0, and No. 7 hitter Brock Holt and No. 8 Christian Vazquez hit back-to-back singles on the first two pitches of the inning, and no one was warming up in the Yankees bullpen. Then No. 9 hitter Jackie Bradley Jr. walked. Bases loaded and no one out. Boone’s decision had put the game from within reach to possibly getting out of hand in the fourth inning. Why did he bring Severino back out for the fourth?
“Just hoping he could get something started to get through the bottom of the lineup there, and then we were going to have Lynn ready for Betts no matter what. And then once the first two guys got on there, thinking Bradley’s in a bunting situation, so we’re going to take an out and then go to the pen there. But it just snowballed on him, and then Lance had a little bit of trouble obviously coming in there. So it just turned into a really bad inning for us.”
So Boone thought Severino would magically find his game in the fourth inning after struggling through the first three and being fortunate to have many of his line drives hit at fielders. Then he had already determined he wanted the last pitcher on the postseason roster to face the AL MVP. Then he assumed Bradley was going to bunt, despite not having sacrifice bunted since the 2015 season. And finally, he thought Lynn “had a little bit of trouble”. To me, walking in a run on the first batter you face and then allowing a bases-clearing double on the second batter you face is more than “a little bit of trouble”.
But even after Boone let Severino load the bases, the game still could have been saved with a couple of big strikeouts by either Dellin Betances, David Robertson or Chad Green. Instead, Boone went to the last pitcher on the postseason roster. Why didn’t he go to one of his elite relievers with the game on the line?
“Well, because with Dellin we only had for an inning we figured tonight. In hindsight, we certainly could have started the fourth inning with Robbie or something, but we really felt like Sevy could at least get us a couple outs in that fourth inning before turning it over to Lynn and then we could roll out our guys. But we just couldn’t stop the bleeding at all. That was the thinking behind it.”
Apparently, the Yankees determined before a postseason game that their best pitcher would only be available for one inning. If that’s not nonsensical enough, the Yankees had an off day the day before, and on top of that, Betances had pitched twice in the last nine days, throwing 53 pitches. But he was going to be limited to one inning in Game 3 of the ALDS? And how about Boone using “in hindsight” there as if these moves are only now being second-guessed and as if not everyone in the world thought they were awful decisions at the time. Boone would go on to use “in hindsight” again in his postgame press conference. But nothing might be worse than the idea that he was going to try to steal a few more outs with a laboring Severino and only start to “roll out” the elite relievers after Lynn pitched. Good thing Betances and Robertson are rested now with the Yankees facing elimination.
Lynn walked in a run and then allowed a bases-clearing double, and the game was over. Now trailing 7-0, Lynn would end up recording one out before Boone decided to go to Green, the same way he had decided to go with Jonathan Holder over Green in the first game between these two teams in August that led to the division race unraveling. By the end of the inning, the Red Sox led 10-0, and not even Eovaldi and the Red Sox bullpen would blow the game.
The Yankees would go on to lose 16-1 and pitch Austin Romine in the ninth inning because the first eight innings hadn’t been embarrassing enough. Severino didn’t show up, Boone continued to prove he has no business being a major league manager, Lynn turned back into the Lynn that was available at the trade deadline, Green couldn’t stop the bleeding and the offense didn’t show up before the game got out of hand.
The Yankees now have to win Game 4, and the only way I can see them doing that is to score enough runs that Boone’s decision-making won’t impact the game. Put the game out of reach and don’t allow him to potentially make costly pitching decisions.
After winning a game in Boston and returning home with Severino against Eovaldi, the Red Sox feeling the pressure and the Stadium crowd behind them, I said it would be a disaster if the Yankees now blew this series. And if they lose one more game, it will be a disaster.
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My book The Next Yankees Era: My Transition from the Core Four to the Baby Bombers is now available as an ebook!
The book details my life as a Yankees fan, growing up watching Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera, Andy Pettitte, Jorge Posada and Bernie Williams through my childhood and early adulthood and the shift to now watching Gary Sanchez, Luis Severino, Aaron Judge, Greg Bird and others become the latest generation of Yankees baseball. It’s a journey through the 2017 postseason with flashbacks to games and moments from the Brian Cashman era.
Click here to purchase the book through Amazon as an ebook. You can read it on any Apple device by downloading the free Kindle app.
Everything is set up for the Yankees now in the ALDS, and if they screw it up, it will be a complete letdown. They have favorable matchups on the field and they have the Stadium crowd behind them.
The Yankees took care of business in Boston by winning one of the first two games of the ALDS and now return to Yankee Stadium and have home-field advantage in what is now best-of-3.
Everything is in the Yankees’ favor and if they screw it up, it will be a complete letdown. They have favorable starting pitching matchups in Games 3 and 4, they have the deeper lineup and bullpen and they have the raucous Stadium crowd that can see the clear path to a second straight ALCS set up for them.
Now that the ALDS is tied up, I decided to email Michael Hurley of CBS Boston for one of our usual email exchanges.
Keefe: I remember reading a story about Derek Lowe’s car getting destroyed after he blew a save as Red Sox closer. I have to imagine there was extra security surrounding the Red Sox players’ parking lot following Game 2 of the ALDS. Or maybe, David Price was smart enough to get a ride to Fenway Park the other night.
I know there is a big movement around the idea that “being clutch” isn’t a real thing or doesn’t exist, but as a Yankees fan who lived through the David Ortiz Red Sox era, no stat, data or mathematical or scientific fact will ever be able to get me to believe that “being clutch” isn’t real. It’s not a coincidence that great players and pitchers can be great throughout the regular season and in the days right before the start of the postseason and then suddenly be unable to perform. October is different. It’s 100 percent different. Just ask Ortiz or Derek Jeter or Scott Brosius or Curt Schilling, and on the other end, ask Alex Rodriguez or Nick Swisher or Mark Teixeira or Clayton Kershaw or Bryce Harper, or in this case Price.
There’s no way Price can have any fans or supporters left in Boston. He wasn’t unable to win a postseason game with the Rays, Tigers or Blue Jays, and still hasn’t with the Red Sox, despite saying in his introductory press conference in Boston that he had saved all his postseason wins for this team. Game 2 was his latest postseason failure as he was pulled after five outs, forcing his bullpen to get 22 outs and handing over home-field advantage to the Yankees.
Unfortunately, I had to leave Boston early in the morning on Sunday, but I would have liked to stay around for the day-after breakdown of Price by Red Sox fans in the city. What’s the mood in Boston after Game 2?
Hurley: Well first of all, David Price drives a car that is the closest thing a civilian can get to an armored tank. Come to think of it, I suppose that’s not a coincidence. but we need not worry about his safety, so as long as he drives that thing. (Seriously, Google it.)
The mood in Boston is, I think, the way it feels in any city after a playoff loss. That is to say, it feels like it’s the end of the world, that there’s no hope, and that it’s all over. A hundred-and-eight wins for nothing. What a waste.
All of that will obviously change significantly if the Red Sox can roll into Yankee Stadium and take back the series lead in Game 3. But based on that atmosphere from the wild card game, doing that doesn’t feel like it’ll be easy.
As for Price, what a disaster. Just, what an unmitigated disaster. The Red Sox traded Jon Lester after knowing that he was nails. From April through October, nails. Helped you win two World Series. But had to get rid of him because you don’t pay pitchers premium money when they’re over 30. But, whoops, a second straight last-place finish, and maybe it’s time to give the richest pitcher contract ever to David Price, eight months shy of his 30th birthday. Let’s see how that works out. Brilliant.
I agree with you on clutch, but what I find fascinating is that Price was able to close out Game 7 of an ALCS as a reliever, and he’s been really good as a postseason reliever (he threw 6.2 scoreless innings last October). But he’s just crumbled as a starter. I’ve always thought of it as a “you have it or you don’t” type of thing when it comes to ability to perform in huge moments. But David Price is just a unique individual. He’s got a unique elbow, and he’s got some unique psychological factors going on.
Keefe: I have never thought this Red Sox team was as good as their record. Yes, they won 108 games and are the “best” regular-season team in Red Sox history, I just don’t see it.
The top of the order with Mookie Betts, Andrew Benintendi and J.D. Martinez is the best 1-2-3 in the majors, but the rest of the lineup? Sure, Steve Pearce is the right-handed Ortiz against the Yankees, but he doesn’t hit like that against the rest of the league. Xander Bogaerts? He’s OK. Mitch Moreland? Eduardo Nunez? Ian Kinsler? Sandy Leon? Jackie Bradley Jr.? They are all average to bad hitters.
The rotation has Chris Sale, who is one of the best pitchers in the league when healthy, and David Price, who is a great regular-season pitcher. But Rick Porcello is just OK, I saw enough of Nathan Eovaldi as a Yankee to know he’s awful and Eduardo Rodriguez wasn’t good enough to beat out Eovaldi for a postseason start. Where is Drew Pomeranz?
The bullpen has Craig Kimbrel and … um … that’s it. Craig Kimbrel.
I think the Red Sox are all the proof anyone needs to know that winning 100 games in 2018 was no great accomplishment. The majority of the league was just so, so bad this season and the Red Sox were able to get fat off the Orioles and interleague, which is why they won the division and the Yankees didn’t. But the best Red Sox team in history? No way.
Hurley: Yeah, that’s generally true. You’re off the mark about Xander Bogaerts, who led all AL shortstops in OPS, doubles, and RBIs. But the rest of that assessment is pretty accurate.
I’ve looked at this year as just having some inflation with regard to the win totals. I guess with masterminds like Buck Showalter running baseball teams, it’s been easy for good teams to rack up victories. I don’t know the exact equation, but I think you can safely lop off 10 wins from the good teams to compare them to teams from years past.
This would probably be a good opportunity to rant and rave about how the 91-win Indians were gifted a trip to the ALDS despite playing 76 games against the awful AL Central while posting sub-.500 records vs. both the AL East and AL West, all while the 100-win Yankees and 97-win A’s had to play a do-or-die exhibition game for TV ratings. BUT I WILL WITHHOLD FROM THAT COMPLAINT FOR THE TIME BEING.
Keefe: I think we are the only two people in the world who feel the current MLB postseason format is bad. Everyone seems to love it because it gives them two extra days of playoff baseball and it keeps more teams and cities involved during the regular season longer. You know what I love? The best teams playing for a championship. That’s what I love. But hey, JUST WIN YOUR DIVISION!
OK, maybe I’m wrong about Bogaerts. Let’s group him in with Betts, Benintendi, Martinez and Pearce. (Any non-Yankees fan has no idea why Pearce is being group in with All-Star players). Mitch Moreland, Eduardo Nunez, Ian Kinsler, Sandy Leon, Jackie Bradley Jr. and Rafael Devers are 4-for-29 with a walk so far in the series. That’s not great.
The Red Sox are asking Nathan Eovaldi and Rick Porcello to go into Yankee Stadium and send the series back to Boston for a Game 5 on Thursday. I understand Eovaldi had some success since being traded to the Red Sox, but I saw 48 starts and 51 games from Eovaldi when he was a Yankee and I know he sucks. Red Sox fans have reminded me of his eight shutout innings against them in the August four-game sweep, but that Yankees lineup was without Aaron Judge, Gary Sanchez, Andrew McCutch and Luke Voit, who is 1998 Shane Spencer. Never trust a pitcher who throws 100 and at times over 100 and can’t average a strikeout per inning. Eovaldi throws as hard as anyone in the league and 640 career strikeouts in 850 innings. He can’t be trusted.
The more I look at these teams, and not just from the two-game sample size, but from a full-season standpoint, the more my opinion that the Yankees are a better team from top to bottom. Their lineup is deeper, their rotation is deeper and their bullpen is deeper. If the Yankees lose the series, Yankees fans should be upset because they lost to a lesser team. Red Sox fans will be upset because of the regular season they had and because it’s the Yankees, but they would be losing to a better team. But if the Red Sox do lose, I don’t think fans in Boston will look at it like that.
Hurley: I mean, I follow you on Twitter, so I know how you feel about most Yankees. So I’m not surprised to see how much you still hate Eovaldi.
I’m not going to sit here and say that Eovaldi is great by any stretch, but if you’re going to bring up the August Yankee lineup, then you should at least mention the lineup on Sept. 18, when Eovaldi pitched six scoreless innings. That day featured everyone except 1998 Shane Spencer, and he pitched pretty well. It was the bullpen that blew that one.
I’m not sure I wholly buy that the Yankees are a better team. In spring training I went position by position. Some of the names in that story are ancient history — Hanley Ramirez, Dustin Pedroia, Greg Bird, Brandon Drury — but it was a pretty close comparison. I gave the edge to Stanton over Martinez, which was wrong. I gave the edge to Judge over Betts, which ended up being wrong. I gave the edge to Gregorius over Bogaerts, which was wrong. I think the only spots where you can definitively say the Yankees are better is at catcher, center field, third base, second base, and obviously the bullpen.
None of that really matters though, when Eduardo Rodriguez decides to just not cover first base in a playoff game. And none of it really matters when the bottom third of the Yankees’ lineup reaches base five times, while the top four batters in the Red Sox’ order goes a combined 2-for-15 with one walk. Going back to your first point about clutch, maybe the Yankees are just wired better for moments like this. Mookie Betts’ career regular-season OPS is .888. Mookie Betts’ career postseason OPS is .666. Not great! Meanwhile Aaron Judge is somehow muscling home runs to the opposite field on inside curveballs from Craig Kimbrel. (Seriously, how the hell did he do that?)
Keefe: It’s not most Yankees, it’s only Aaron Boone (during the regular season), Sonny Gray, Shane Robinson, A.J. Cole and Shane Robinson and none of them are on postseason roster. And Jonathan Holder too, but thankfully, he hasn’t pitched yet in this series.
Judge is amazing. No one with his body type (well, no one close to having his body type since he’s the only one to ever be built like that and reach the majors) has ever had his success and everything about the way he is built says he shouldn’t be this good. But he is, and he seems to only be getting better. Betts and Martinez had incredible seasons and one of them (likely Betts) will be the AL MVP, but Judge should also get votes and attention. Look at how bad the team was from when he got hurt at the end of July until he came back near the end of September. And look at what he has done in the postseason so far.
I think everyone was on board with your idea that Stanton was better than Martinez outside of the true Red Sox homers, who likely have bricks with their name on it inside Fenway Park. But Stanton was a disappointment while Martinez filled the void left by Ortiz after 2016. There are a lot of Yankees fans who somehow defend Stanton’s season (.266/.343/.509 with 30 home runs and 100 RBIs) while forgetting his salary and that he was basically Barry Bonds last year. I thought him playing 81 games in Yankee Stadium would enhance his 59-home run season, but I couldn’t have been more wrong. You can count on one hand the amount of big hits he had this season with most of them coming when games were out of hand. I bet on a lot of baseball and saw him play a lot with the Marlins, but apparently not enough to realize that he’s essentially just a bigger version of Starlin Castro with no plate discipline.
Stanton’s true colors have shown up in the three-game postseason. He hit a mammoth solo home run when the Yankees were already well on their way to a win in the wild-card game, and in Boston, he struck out four times in Game 1 (once with the bases loaded and no outs) and weakly grounded out in a big spot in Game 2 (it would have been a double play if he actually hit it hard). Thankfully, he was saved by Gary Sanchez’s home run, which landed in Back Bay.
I know the answer isn’t Stanton, but which Yankees hitter are Red Sox fans most scared of in a big spot? For me and Red Sox hitters, it’s Steve Pearce and then J.D. Martinez and then Eduardo Nunez. W
hy Nunez? Because he was an awful Yankee and at some point in this series will likely have a big hit.
Hurley: Judge is the obvious answer when it comes to frightening Yankees. That one speaks for itself.
But — maybe this is just me — but I also randomly put Brett Gardner on that list. He objectively stinks, and the fact that he’s been a starting outfielder for the New York Yankees for like 10 years is amazing to me. Generally, hustle only gets you so far.
Anyway. He’s a pain in the ass at the plate. I know Kimbrel got him swinging in Game 1, but I feel like he’s liable at any point to slap a perfect pitch the other way for a game-tying double, setting up the top of the order to win the game.
Friggin’ Brett Gardner. I’m already annoyed by this inevitability.
I wouldn’t worry about Nunez though. He was in the lineup over Devers for his defense. Didn’t really work out.
Keefe: Before the series, I predicted the Yankees would win in four games. I thought they would lose Game 1 against Sale, rock Price in Game 2 and then return home to continue their home postseason win streak with Red Sox fans not getting to see the 2018 Red Sox play another game at Fenway Park.
So far, the series has unfolded exactly I envisioned, and the Yankees have a chance to win the series at home. It’s unusual for me to be so confident about Yankees-Red Sox games, let alone Yankees-Red Sox postseason games, but I am. Maybe I will be let down and Eovaldi will shut them down in Game 3 and their season will end in Game 4, but I really don’t see that happening (so now it will happen). Yankees in 4.
What was your prediction before the series and has it changed?
Hurley: I don’t really make predictions. Not because I’m above them or anything. Just because I’m always wrong.
So I don’t know what will happen in Game 3. But I’d say, if the Yankees win, the series is over. If the Red Sox win, the series is still not over. If that makes sense.
I don’t give the Red Sox much of a chance of climbing out of a 2-1 hole. But I could easily see the Yankees winning Game 4 and the bumming everyone out at Fenway Park in Game 5.
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