I was all for Deivi Garcia starting Game 2 of the ALDS. Sure, it was risky, and sure, it was going against the easy logic of letting Masahiro Tanaka, one of the best postseason pitchers of all time start, but if the Yankees could pull it off and win Game 2 without using Tanaka, they would essentially have the series won. They would have Tanaka on extra rest to close out the Rays in Game 3. That plan I was OK with. What actually transpired with I wasn’t OK with. I don’t think there’s a Yankees fan out there who was OK with it.

As Garcia was battling against Austin Meadows in the top of the first, and also battling against home plate umpire CB Bucknor, who had one of the worst postseason games imaginable calling balls and strikes, J.A. Happ began to warm up in the bullpen. Garcia hadn’t even retired the first Rays batter of the game and Happ was throwing in the Yankees bullpen. I assumed it was protection for Garcia if he were to melt down like Luis Severino in the 2017 wild-card game and unable to give the Yankees anything. Then came the bottom of the second with the game tied at 1, and in came Happ.

Happ wasn’t warming up for protection, he was warming up as part of a set plan and “strategy” by the Yankees. The Yankees had gotten the Rays to build a lineup to face Garcia, inserting many left-handed hitters into it. Now with Happ in the game, the Rays would either have to start removing position players for pinch hitters to get right-left matchups or send left-handed hitters to the plate against the left-handed Happ. The Yankees had decided to try to trick the Rays rather than do what was best for their own team in the second game of a best-of-5 series. The same way the Yankees are always worried about their own lineup construction for late-game situations and scenarios that might never present themselves, the Yankees built their pitching plan for Game 2 based on how the Rays would then have to react.

***

Have you ever seen a commercial so bad you can’t understand how a group of executives sat around a conference room table and came up with the idea and how many people had to sign off on it to make the bad idea actually come to fruition? That’s what happened with the Yankees in Game 2. Someone employed by the most prestigious organization in major sports said, “What if we name Garcia as our Game 2 starter, so Kevin Cash puts a lot of left-handed bats into the lineup, and then after the first inning, we go to J.A. Happ to start with a clean inning?” Then everyone including Aaron Boone, Brian Cashman, a bunch of unnamed Ivy league graduates who have tried to prove “being hot” and “hot streaks” and “clutch” don’t exist and baseball lifers who have only ever known playing and working in the game agreed on that plan to the point that it came to fruition.

In theory, you could maybe make the case it’s a sound strategy and a good idea, but in that theory, the left-hander coming out of the bullpen is Clayton Kershaw or Blake Snell or someone with actual ability. Not Happ.

I wrote and talked all season about how bad Happ is, and how untrustworthy he is. I called for the Yankees to stop giving him starts completely after his two disgraceful starts to begin the season, and I begged the Yankees to give Garcia or Clarke Schmidt the opportunity to be part of the rotation. I wrote and said all of this as Happ was struggling to get through four innings in his starts, while he was feuding with the Yankees through the media about them working around his $17 million option for 2021. Happ was miraculously able to put together a string of good starts, but those came against horrible teams who weren’t close to sniffing the playoffs in a season in which 16 of the league’s 30 teams reach the playoffs. This fooled some into thinking Happ had turned back into the pitcher the Yankees traded for at the 2018 deadline. It didn’t fool me.

I have said for weeks Happ couldn’t be a part of the postseason plan. He hasn’t been good enough to start a postseason game since the moment before he threw a pitch to J.D. Martinez in the first inning of Game 1 of the 2018 ALDS, which resulted in a three-run home run and ruined that game. Since that inning, Happ has been bad to very bad to being on the brink of being in the majors as a Yankee spanning the entire 2019 regular season, 2019 postseason and 2020 regular season, outside of a few starts when he beat the Orioles, Red Sox and Mets. And now the 2020 postseason can be added to the list as well.

***

Happ relieved Garcia and my first thought was This better fucking work. The Yankees were removing a 21-year-old kid completely capable of shutting down the Rays’ lineup for four or five or even six innings to bring in a 37-year-old who was last good enough to pitch in the postseason two calendar years ago. The first batter, the left-handed Joey Wendle, singled. Three batters later the Rays had a 3-1 lead after Mike Zunino hit a home run. After Zunino, the left-handed Meadows walked. Happ was supposed to neutralize the left-handed heavy lineup the Rays had constructed to face Garcia, and he had allowed two of the four left-handed bats he had faced to reach base.

The second inning was bad, but the third inning was the nightmare I had expected with Happ pitching in the postseason. Ji-Man Choi (another left-handed bat) walked with one out, and then Manuel Margot hit a two-run home to straightaway center. The Rays now led 5-1, and Happ had allowed as many runs (four) as outs recorded. The left-handed Wendle came up next and singled off Happ for the second time in as many innings and then Willy Adames reached on an error by Happ himself.

In the top of the fourth, the Yankees closed the deficit to one run after Giancarlo Stanton hit his second home run of the game and his third in as many at-bats to make it a 5-4 game. The Yankees would have five innings and 15 outs to tie the game or take the lead, and Boone was now going to have to actually manage and not just go off the script given to him by that front office idiot who had come up with this plan. Boone’s first decision in what was now a one-run game was to stick with Happ, who put two more on base before Boone finally pulled him. Happ needed 69 pitches to get eight outs. In his 2 2/3 innings, he allowed nine baserunners, four earned runs and two home runs, walked three, hit a batter and made an error. He was even worse than I could have ever envisioned him being.

The untrustworthy duo of Adam Ottavino, who can’t throw strikes or hold runners, and Jonathan Loaisiga, who is essentially the Nicaraguan Nathan Eovaldi with his high-90s, but very straight and very hittable fastball, made sure the Yankees didn’t come back by allowing a pair of runs. And the Yankees’ offense didn’t look like they could come back anyway, setting a team record for strikeouts in a postseason game with 18. 18! Jonathan Holder (1 IP, 0 ER, 1 K) and Nick Nelson (1 IP, 0 ER, 2 K) proved to be the two best Yankees pitchers in the game.

***

If you had told me yesterday at 8:09 p.m. the Yankees would score four runs off Tyler Glasnow, Stanton would hit two home runs and Glasnow would only last five innings, I would have started worrying about the Astros and an ALCS rematch. Instead, the Yankees’ best-of-5 against the Rays is now a best-of-3.

It was always going to be extremely difficult to beat the Rays in a short series because they are essentially built to beat the Yankees. They hit Gerrit Cole well, they have two hard-throwing right-handed power pitchers in Glasnow and Charlie Morton, and a never-ending stable of trustworthy right-handed relievers who match up perfectly against the right-handed heavy Yankees. The one advantage the Yankees might have had in the series was the mystery and unknown of Garcia, who the Rays had never seen before. But instead of using that mystery, the Yankees chose to let Happ give them one more parting gift on his way out the door as a now impending free agent by taking a giant dump on the Petco Park mound.

Now it’s up to Tanaka to save the Yankees’ season, the same way it was up to him when the Yankees trailed the Indians 2-0 in the 2017 ALDS and when the Yankees trailed the Red Sox 1-0 in the 2018 ALDS after Happ’s memorable start. No, the Yankees aren’t trailing in this series like they were in those two, but they need to play, pitch and mange like they are because Game 3 is a must-win game, considering the Yankees don’t have a Game 4 starter. It’s not that they don’t have a Game 4 starter because they haven’t announced one like they did with Game 2. It’s that they actually don’t have a Game 4 starter.

It’s 100 percent not Happ. It can’t possibly be Jordan Montgomery. It has to be Garcia who only threw 27 pitches on Tuesday, the only 27 pitches he has thrown in 10 days. But maybe the Yankees will try another unconventional strategy. Maybe they will give the ball to Michael King, who they inexplicably let open so many games this season, and he will go three innings and give up his mandatory quota of at least three earned runs, and then they will turn it over to Holder or Nelson or Luis Cessa.

The Yankees now have to win a best-of-3 against a team they are now 3-8 against this season in order to erase the monumentally bad Game 2 pitching decision which was first-guessed when it was made and not second-guessed after the fact. The Yankees will have forever to think about their regrettable decision to not just go the easy route and go with Tanaka or to not commit to Garcia for a real start in Game 2 if they go on to lose this series and their season ends this week and another season of their current championship window is wasted. At least they have the right pitcher going in Game 3 to make sure that doesn’t happen.

***

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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!

Every Yankees postseason exit since their last World Series appearance can be attributed to a lack of hitting. When the Yankees couldn’t solve Cliff Lee or Colby Lewis a decade ago, their season ended two wins short of the World Series. When they stranded 11 baserunners in a do-or-die Game 5 at home to the Tigers nine years ago, they went home. When they scored six runs in 38 innings against the Tigers eight years ago, they were swept. When they were shut out by Dallas Keuchel, Tony Sipp, Will Harris and Luke Gregorson in the wild-card game five years ago, their postseason lasted nine innings. When they scored three runs in the four games in Houston three years ago, they fell one win shy of the World Series. When they scored four runs total in their two homes against the Red Sox two years ago, their season ended. And last year, when Aaron Judge, Didi Gregorius, Gary Sanchez, Brett Gardner, Edwin Encarnacion, Giancarlo Stanton, Gio Urshela and Aaron Hicks combined to go 27-for-153 (.176) with 56 strikeouts against the Astros, the Yankees lost their fourth ALCS in a decade.

This postseason, while only three games so far, has been a different story. The Yankees scored 22 runs against the Indians in two games and then scored another nine in their first game against the Rays on Monday night. Their 31 runs over the three games established a major league record as the Yankees have looked like they have been hitting against Red Sox’ and Orioles’ pitching rather than Shane Bieber, Carlos Carrasco and Blake Snell. There hasn’t been talk about timely hitting, the need to manufacture runs or play small ball this postseason because the Yankees have been scoring in bunches, homering as if it’s early July instead of early October and putting up crooked numbers against some of the best pitchers in baseball.

The offense has mostly kept Aaron Boone in the dugout and has prevented him from ruining their season. It’s covered up a bad Masahiro Tanaka start and a bad Gerrit Cole start. It has allowed Luis Cessa to eat three of the team’s 27 innings so far (11 percent) to rest a depleted and underachieving bullpen, which is down to three trustworthy arms. It has led the Yankees to three straight wins to open the postseason and has set them up to only need to play .500 baseball over four games against the Rays to reach the ALCS for the second straight season.

Last October, the Yankees’ offense was DJ LeMahieu and Gleyber Torres. Judge disappeared for the final four games of the ALCS and Gregorius did the same after his ALDS Game 2 grand slam. Stanton took himself out of the lineup in the ALCS, Luke Voit wasn’t on the postseason roster and Hicks missed the ALDS and returned to have one big hit. Encarnacion, Sanchez and Gardner might as well have not even taken a bat to the plate. This postseason though, everyone has contributed. Every single player. There hasn’t been a Yankee to get a plate appearance who hasn’t played a meaningful role, and that includes Tyler Wade of all Yankees, who drew a significant walk in the ninth to lead the Yankees to blowing open the game.

***

It’s a good thing the Yankees blew open the game because I had a bad feeling about Aroldis Chapman coming into a one-run game, the way I always do about him coming into a one-run game. You never know which Chapman you’re going to get and after Cole had already blown two leads earlier in the game, I couldn’t physically take a third blown lead in a playoff game in a best-of-5 series to the Rays.

Cole wasn’t good in Game 1. He might have gotten the win and struck out eight in six innings, but he wasn’t good. If you think otherwise, then you’re content with mediocrity from a pitcher who is supposed to the best, or at worst, second-best in the world. Three earned runs in six innings isn’t good, it’s a 4.50 ERA. A 4.50 ERA is medicore, but Cole’s start wasn’t mediocre, it was actually bad when you consider his status and reputation. After he exited the game, TBS’ Brian Anderson said, “Well, Gerrit Cole, impressive here today.” Impressive? His Game 1 start against the Indians was impressive. In Game 1 against the Rays, he was bad.

Three earned runs against him is like five to six against other pitchers. If J.A. Happ or Jordan Montgomery had pitched to Cole’s Game 1 line (6 IP, 3 R, 3 ER, 2 BB, 8 K, 2 HR), I would likely be praising them. But they’re not Cole and I don’t expect greatness from them. Cole expects more out of himself than he prodcued in Game 1, and there’s no way he’s happy or satisfied with his performance given the type of competitor he is. I was critical of him during the game and I still am after the game the same way a parent scolds their child because they only want the best for them, and that was far from Cole’s best.

Cole’s start proved him needing Kyle Higashioka to be his personal catcher is unnecessary. The stark difference in regular-season ERA between Sanchez catching him and Higashioka catching him was a result of Sanchez catching him against the Rays, and Monday confirmed it doesn’t matter who Cole throws to against the Rays, he has trouble with them. And the majority of that trouble comes from him inexplicably being unable to retire Ji-Man Choi. It’s not like he’s unable to retire Choi in a weird, quirky way like Enrique Wilson having a great average against Pedro Martinez from a bunch of singles. Choi is hitting a home run seemingly every time he faces Cole. It’s like Sanchez vs. David Price, or Sanchez vs. Snell (6-for-20, 1 2B, 5 HR, 7 BB, .300/.481/1.100), a matchup that didn’t happen because Higashioka has to catch Cole. Thankfully, Higashioka made up for his questionable game-calling with a game-tying home run and wasn’t the automatic out with ground balls to the left side he has been so many times. (Yes, I know Higashioka’s game-calling has little to do with Cole’s success, but if it’s going to be cited as the reason he catches Cole, then it needs to be criticized when Cole gives up three runs in six innings.) I expect Sanchez to be in the lineup for Game 2, but it wouldn’t surprise if he isn’t since nothing the Yankees do surprises me anymore. Anger me? Yes. Frustrate me? Yes. Annoy me? Yes. Surprise me? No.

***

Actually, I shouldn’t say nothing surprises me. I couldn’t believe the Yankees hadn’t announced a Game 2 starter prior to late afternoon on Monday. Was there really an option other than Tanaka? It turns out there was and the Yankees weren’t just stalling for no reason as Deivi Garcia will get the ball on Tuesday. I, along with everyone else, assumed the Yankees would go Tanaka in Game 2, Happ in Game 3 and Garcia in Game 4, so this surprised me. But this isn’t the typical surprise from the Yankees, which is the bad kind of surprise. I really, really, really like this plan.

After winning Game 1, if the Yankees win Game 2, they will have one of the best pitchers in postseason history starting in Game 3 to close out the series. If the Yankees lose Game 2, they will have one of the best pitchers in postseason history starting in Game 3 to win an all-important swing game and push the Rays to the brink of elimination.

There isn’t any mystery left between two teams who played each other in 10 of their 60 games this season and who play each other 19 times in normal seasons. That is, except for Garcia. The Rays have never seen him, and in Game 2, that’s advantage Yankees.

Three down, 10 to go.

***

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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 feel hungover this morning and I didn’t have a single drink during Wednesday’s Game 2 of the Wild Card Series. My head is foggy, I’m tired, I have a minor headache and just feel like lying in bed all day and watching Gio Urshela’s fourth-inning grand slam and amazing eighth-inning double play on an endless loop. After thinking for a while about why I feel like I drank a case of Pinstripe Pilsners this morning, I realized it’s because of Aaron Boone.

Today should be a happy day to be a Yankees fan. The Yankees swept the Indians in a best-of-3, beat the best pitcher in baseball in Game 1 and overcame an early four-run deficit and a one-run ninth-inning deficit in Game 2 to do so. It should be a day to be happy the Yankees’ season has been extended and they will play in San Diego against the Rays next week. It should be happy because the Yankees are one step closer to reaching the World Series.

I’m happy. I’m happy the Yankees are going to the ALDS (though not so happy they will have to see the Rays there). But I’m not happy about how they got there. I’m not happy with the way Game 2 was managed, and I’m not happy Boone’s ineptitude as manager was once again masked by the Yankees’ offense in what might have been his worst game as Yankees manager. It’s impossible to say if Game 3 of the 2018 ALDS or last night’s Game 2 were Boone’s worst night on the job. The difference is the Yankees came back on Wednesday night and weren’t able to two years ago after his starting pitcher didn’t know what time the game started and after he regrettably left his starter in for too long before going to the wrong bullpen arm.

I have said countless times that Boone is the Yankees’ biggest obstacle to winning a championship. It’s not the Rays or Astros or A’s or White Sox or Dodgers. It’s their own manager. He’s that bad at his job that he is the single biggest threat to the Yankees ending their championship drought. When I said this throughout the regular season, Boone’s supporters have told me he has to manage differently in the regular season than the postseason and that once it’s the postseason, he won’t make the same decisions he does throughout the year. They tell me he has to lose battles to win the war. Except when he gets to the war, he has no idea how to win it because he’s lost so many battles. For all the nonsensical decisions Boone made throughout this season and his first two regular seasons and postseasons as Yankees manager, Wednesday night was as bad as it has ever been watching him stumble his way through a game.

Masahiro Tanaka didn’t have it in Game 2. I truly believe he might have had it, but because he had to take the mound in what appeared to be hurricane-like conditions in the first inning, he couldn’t get a true grip on the ball, causing him to miss his spots and location. This led to back-to-back doubles and a 1-0 lead for the Indians. Tanaka then had to sit for more than a half hour before retaking the mound, and he allowed three more runs. The entire handling of the weather and pre-game rain delay and first-inning rain delay was a disgrace. It was every bit as bad as the way the weather was handled in Game 1 of the 2011 ALDS, which had a hand in the Yankees losing that series to the Tigers. If the Yankees were to lose Game 2 and then lose Game 3 and the series, the Game 2 rain would have become the new midges.

Boone rightfully took Tanaka out in the fifth inning. He should have taken him out much earlier. He had labored through four-plus innings, throwing 77 pitches and left the game with runners on first and second and no outs. Boone could have let Chad Green start the fifth inning, so he had a clean inning to work with, and if Boone had let Green start the inning, he would have needed to get 15 outs from a completely rested bullpen: two innings from Green, an inning from Adam Ottavino and an inning from Zack Britton and Aroldis Chapman, or something close to that. Though that was before we found out the Yankees aren’t going to use Ottavino in anything other than a lopsided game, meaning the bullpen circle of trust from last season has now lost Dellin Betances, Tommy Kahnle and Ottavino, leaving only Green, Britton and Chapman. Boone decided to not go to Green to start the fifth, and winded up needing to get 15 outs from his bullpen anyway after unsuccessfully trying to steal a few more outs from Tanaka.

Green wasn’t at his best. In Wednesday’s Game 1 Thoughts, I wrote, “Asking four relievers to all have it on the same night is a lot harder to expect” instead of one starting pitcher and it was coming to fruition. Green allowed a game-tying double as soon as he came into the game in the fifth, before settling down. He then gave up another two hits in the sixth (though one was a blooper and the other was a grounder) before being removed for Zack Britton, who immediately got Francisco Lindor to ground into an inning-ending double play. Boone’s decision to bring in Britton was the right move and the only right move he made in the game. He finally separated Britton from the eighth inning and brought in his best reliever with the game on the line.

In the seventh inning, the Yankees had an 8-6 lead when Luke Voit drew a leadoff walk. Voit remained at first base while Giancarlo Stanton struck out, and he remained there for the first two pitches of Gio Urshela’s at-bat. With a 1-1 count on Urshela, Boone called time and had Tyler Wade enter the game as a pinch runner for Voit. Was Voit hurt? Did the “foot stuff” he has been dealing finally grow bad enough he could no longer play? The only reason to pinch run Wade for Voit there would be if Voit was injured badly enough he couldn’t stay in the game. Otherwise, Boone was removing his cleanup hitter and possibly the AL MVP from a postseason game with only a two-run lead and three innings remaining. Wade’s time in the game was useless. He stayed at first for Urshela’s at-bat, never attempting to steal second and the inning ended with him accomplishing nothing. He then played second base for the bottom of the seventh with DJ LeMahieu moving over to first base.

Britton got two outs on eight pitches to begin the bottom half of the seventh. He then lost the strike zone and walked Carlos Santana on five pitches and Franmil Reyes on five pitches. Indians acting manager Sandy Alomar Jr. decided to pinch hit for his best hitter, the left-handed Josh Naylor, with the right-handed Jordan Luplow. Even though Britton can easily handle right-handed hitters, Boone had to one-up Alomar’s idiotic move with one of his own: going to Jonathan Loaisiga. Rather than use Ottavino, who the Yankees gave $27 million to to retire right-handed batters, Boone left Ottavino in the bullpen, showing he has no faith in him, and opting to use someone with much lesser ability in Loaisiga. Loaisiga got ahead 1-2 on Luplow before allowing a two-run, game-tying double to straightaway center. The score was tied and Voit would no longer be part of the game.

In the top of the eighth, with runners on the corners and two outs, Wade was due up. There was no way Wade could hit for himself, so Boone went to his bench and finally used Clint Frazier, who should have been starting. Unfortunately, Frazier struck out against a right-handed reliever. The Yankees had lost their reserve infielder and their fourth outfielder in one, three-pitch at-bat. Boone now had to remove Frazier from the game and insert Mike Ford to play first base, so LeMahieu could move back to second.

After retiring only one of three batters in the seventh, Loaisiga walked the Indians’ 9-hitter Delion DeShields to begin the eighth. Boone stayed in the dugout. He stayed in the dugout and let Loaisiga face Lindor, who he walked on four pitches. Finally, Boone had seen enough. After back-to-back walks to start the eighth inning of a tied playoff game and after allowing five of six batters to reach base, Boone decided to remove Loaisiga. Boone then gave the ball to Aroldis Chapman. If Boone was willing to use Chapman in the inning, why wasn’t he in to begin the inning? That’s right, Boone was trying to steal outs in the eighth inning of a tied postseason game. It was the most irresponsible and inexcusable act by the Yankees manager in a game full of them. It was a move he has done so many times in so many games as Yankees manager with it backfiring nearly every time. It was a move all of his defenders and supporters have always said he would never do in the playoffs. Well, he did it. There’s no difference between regular-season Boone and postseason Boone. He’s the same person and the same awful manager, and Yankees fans who don’t realize this should be embarrassed. Chapman promptly gave up a flyball single to give the Indians the lead before getting out of the inning. The Yankees now trailed 9-8 and were three outs away from having to start J.A. Happ with their season on the line all because of their manager.

The Yankees loaded the bases with no outs in the ninth thanks to a walk, a soft single up the middle and an infield single back to the pitcher. That brought up the left-handed Brett Gardner to face the left-handed Brad Hand. It was a perfect spot to use the right-handed Frazier. But he was unavailable after Boone had burned his availability earlier to bat for Wade because he inexplicably removed Voit from the game for Wade. Gardner struck out.

Thankfully, Gary Sanchez hit a sacrfiice fly to tie the game, and thankfully, LeMahieu did what he always does by getting a hit with runners in scoring position to give the Yankees the lead in their eventual 10-9 win. The longest nine-inning game in postseason history ended with a Yankees win and a trip to the ALDS to face the rival Rays. I should have been ecstatic with the result, but it felt like the Yankees lost. The team deserved to win, but Boone deserved to lose.

After the game, not a single media member questioned his idiotic decisions. His offense bailed him out and the media let him off the hook, like they always do. Rather than call him out for a litany of illogical choices, the media only cared to ask Boone about what his team’s sweep and comeback in Game 2 said about them, as if that’s in any way a good question to ask. Not a single person questioned Boone about any of the long list of bad decisions he made.

Boone never deserved to be manager of the New York Yankees, and has done nothing in three regular seasons and now three postseasons to prove he has improved or progressed in the role. His inexperience and decision making is exposed as much in October of 2020 as it was in April of 2018.

In Wednesday’s Game 1 Thoughts, I wrote:

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 time came in the very next game and Boone wasn’t prepared or up to the challenge to properly navigate his team to a win. The Yankees don’t have four Gerrit Coles in their rotation to easily get them the postseason. They have one Cole and on the days he doesn’t pitch, Boone will likely be heavily involved in the outcome of the games. If he manages the way he did on Wednesday in Game 2, there won’t be many postseason games for him to manage this October.

After the game, Boone couldn’t stop smiling and giving small laughs in his media session, saying “I’m 47 years old, I’ve watched a lot of baseball … and I don’t know how you top that one.” You would never know Boone has watched a lot of baseball or has spent his entire life around Major League Baseball by the way he makes decisions in baseball games. I would like to think Boone was smiling and laughing because he knew he got extremely lucky with the result of the game due to his managing, but I would be wrong to think so. There is a zero percent chance Boone thinks he did anything wrong in Game 2. Boone truly believes his decisions were all the right ones and because the Yankees won, they are justified. This is the same person who defended his decisions in Game 3 of the 2018 ALDS, so there’s no way he thinks anything other than that the Yankees won because of his managing.

Yes, the Yankees still have a season despite Boone’s decisions. Just because the Yankees won Game 2 and won the series, doesn’t erase Boone’s decisions or make them acceptable. It just means there will be more opportunties for him this season to instill the same foolish in-game decisions and strategies he has wrongly used his entire time as Yankees manager.

The Yankees have a chance to avenge their regular-season disappointment against the Rays by beating them in the postseason. It won’t be easy with the Rays’ rotation and bullpen and it won’t be easy with the biggest mismatch between the two teams: Boone vs. Kevin Cash.

Two down, 11 to go.

***

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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 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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