Virtual Baseball: Aces High! Yanks, Cole Edge Mets, deGrom, 1-0! Judge Is Back! Cano Exasperates Everyone!

The Virtual Yankees opened their annual showdown with that Queens Team tonight, and the result was a throwback to baseball, deadball style.  Gerrit "King" Cole managed to edge Jacob "The Flying Dutchman" deGrom, 1-0, much to the delight of the full house in the Bronx.

Both pitchers threw complete games tonight, the first time that both starters accomplished that feat i the same game since Bob Gibson and Juan Marichal did it in 1969.

Both hurlers were at the top of their form.  Cole struck out 14 Mets, and gave up only 1 walk and 3 hits, while deGrom struck out 11 Yankees, walked no one, and surrendered only 2 hits.

But in the end, the win went to the Yanks, thanks mostly to their erstwhile second baseman.  Jogginson Cano might have driven in the go-ahead run today, in the top of the ninth, when with two outs and the Mets' Dominic Smith on third base, Cano hit a routine chopper toward Luke Voit at first base.

Cano, exasperated that he had failed to get a hit, started down the first base line at his usual, tectonic clip—only to see the ball go right through Voit's legs.  With Smith pounding down the baseline to home, disaster was averted for the Yankees only by the quick thinking of D.J. LeMahieu, who was backing up Voit.  LeMahieu alertly scooped up the ball and beat the lethargic Metropolitan to the bag.

The Stadium was still resounding with all the usual, joyful baseball noises of despair, fury, and mocking laughter, when with two outs in the bottom of the ninth, Aaron Hicks lashed a ball into the power alley in right-center.

The hit managed to split Mets outfielders Brandon Nimmo and Jeff MacNeil, rolling all the way to the wall, while Hicks dashed around the bases.  Ignoring the stop sign from his third-base coach, the Oft-Injured Hicks looked to be dead to rights at home, until Cano's relay throw sailed high over the catcher's head.

Hicks seemed miraculously unscathed by his 360-foot run, though deGrom did have to be sedated and carried off the field.

The game marked a return to the Bronx for some of the city's most beloved ballplayers over the past few years, including Yoenis Cespedes and Pete "Polar Bear" Alonso of the Mets, and Aaron Judge, who started in right field.  Judge was seen to be spitting up blood from time to time on the bench, but insisted that he could have played a doubleheader if necessary.

The big names produced little.  Judge was called out on strikes four straight times, in keeping with the Yankees' hitting approach that challenges players to "dare to strike out," while Cespedes also wore the "golden sombrero," in keeping with the Mets' approach that challenges players to "dare to be a jack ass."

Thanks to the fact that there were no pitching changes, only seven baserunners, and just one run scored, the game breezed by in a mere three hours and forty minutes.  Many fans could be heard complaining after the game, as to what they were to do with the rest of their evening.