How did we do it? Blissfully, kindly - without bile or mean-spirited acrimony - let us savor the ways that our heroes vanquished our frat-boy, dickwad enemies.
1. The Yankees won with power. (And not just solo shots.) A Ben Rice grand slam. A three-run Bellinger blast. Devastating knockout blows. Ahh, to see the looks on those pitchers' faces...
2. The Yankees won with bunts. I am not hallucinating. Trent Grisham laid down a bunt so perfect that Boston - fully knowing what was coming - still couldn't handle it. Greatest bunt of the season.
3. The Yankees won with hustle. I'm thinking about Spencer Jones, who flailed at strike three, saw the ball squib away and actually sprinted to first. (Most batters merely jog.) Jones' speed caught Adley Rutschman off guard. He moved slowly, double-clutched, and it was over. Shades of Mickey Owens. It broke open the game.
4. The Yankees won with class. Nobody preened. Nobody showboated. When Boston finally got on the board, Wilson Contreras took 15 goddam minutes to round the bases. His booth apologist, Lou Merloni, suggested that Contreras was trying to rally his team. Huh? What a joke. What he did was piss off the Yankees. After that home run, there was no way Max Fried was gonna give up another hit.
5. The Yankees won with young, rising stars. For five years, we've heard about the looming waves of talent in the farm systems of Baltimore and Boston. Both have had MLB's top-ranked prospect (Jackson Holliday, Roman Anthony.) Thus far, in the name of Marcelo Mayer, neither has panned out. Meanwhile, the Yankees have Cam Schlittler and Ben Rice, legit MVP candidates, and Jones and George Lombard Jr. and - gulp - Anthony Volpe and maybe even the Martian? (Don't snicker, he's still just 23.)
6. The Yankees won with pitching, pitching, pitching. After Schlittler and Max Fried, Boone never even had to use Gerrit Cole, Carlos Rodon and Brent Headrick. Seriously, if somebody said the Yankees would beat Boston without even using Headrick, would you have believed it?
7. The Yankees won without acrimony. In the NBC booth, Merloni - Boston's Baghdad Bob - blathered on and on about the great Sonny Gray. At one point, they suggested that Babe Ruth would not have wanted to face Sonny. Yeah, Babe Ruth. They never mentioned how Gray failed in NYC and to this day claims to hate the place. Okay, I admit to wearing Yank fan blinders, and it's much easier to be gracious when your team leads by seven, but I thought Joe Girardi and Anthony Rizzo seemed to go much easier on Boston than the Redsocks deserved. This was a full-scale team meltdown.
8. The Yankees won overcoming a nor'easter of unrelenting gale-force bile. I suggest you visit the Sons of Sam Horn to savor the today's cesspool of angry comments from the Fenway Nation. It will do you good. To me, reading a Boston day-after doomscroll is tantamount to running barefoot through a field of erect nipples.
9. The Yankees won without Stanton and/or Judge. And that may be how this whole thing has to be. I have a feeling that Stanton won't make the Tampa series, as Boone will add another pitcher and, if a pinch hitter is needed, it will be the Captain. I don't mean to badmouth Giancarlo. I'm sure he worked hard to be available for the postseason. But there is no role for him in Tampa, and the final roster spot should go to somebody, anybody, who had a greater role in getting the Yankees here.
10. The Yankees won without John. Forgive me here for breaking the vibe. But I wish John Sterling had lived to see this. He deserved a final championship, and the Yankees failed him. I guess you'd say, That's baseball, Suzyn. But that raises another thought: She's 80. Let's hope that they don't fail her.
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1 comment:
Belli took his time rounding the bases. And Jazz stole 2d and 3d up 6 runs. Both were very amusing.
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