Redemption night for Chasen Shreve, could anything be crazier?

When we talk about Yankee redemption, we start with Billy. (Do I need to use his last name?) Nobody was ever banished to eternal Hell more times than Billy, yet he kept returning, like a killer doll in a Twilight Zone episode. Even at the end, when his car soared into that ravine near Binghamton, Billy was plotting one more resurrection, one more tour of duty. The only thing that could stop him was death. Those are the rules of The Twilight Zone: At the end of the episode, the killer doll always wins.

Last night, when Chasen Shreve entered in the 10th with the bases loaded and one out - well - we were befucked. I felt the killer doll under the couch. It was time for a Juju Snap-Off: Shreve in, game over, grab remote, click "POWER," go to bed, strangle pillow. "Shreve" is secret Yankee code for "Swarzak," which recently became the scariest word in the Yankiverse.

And yet... somehow, Shreve saved his Yankee soul. He recorded two incredibly tough outs, holding the runner at third. Someday, in the final ledger, when we've healed from the pains of 2016, we'll forget the poundings, the hanging sliders that crushed Shreve for most of a year, and we'll remember Redemption Night in Kansas City. It was the best of wins. It was the worst of wins. But just like Billy, we get to plot one more resurrection, one more miracle fantasy, as we head toward our ravine.

Thanks to Chasen Shreve, we picked up four games - one each on Boston, Toronto, Seattle and - of course - KC. Losing would have been a dagger in our heart. And that's exactly what it was for the Royals. If we beat them tonight, we take the series, we leapfrog them in the standings, and we can see Baltimore off in the distance, with the ghost of Billy - or is it the killer doll? - beckoning for us to hurry.

At midnight, the rosters expand, and the entire population of Scranton, Pennsylvania, will board an arc and float down the Susquehanna River to Baltimore. We'll have Severino in the pen. We'll have Refsynder on the bench and Ben Gamel to pinch run.We'll have three - maybe four - catchers, an outfield larger than the cast of Glee, and we might even see Diedrich Enns.

And we will have Chasen Shreve, reanimated from the dead. Until last night, I thought him banished forever. Weird things happen on Redemption Night, eh?