Last night gave us cause to celebrate their reasoning.
Some folks say a great Yankee win is when the team comes back in the late innings to steal a game. Not this bird. I'll take a laugher, any time. The only problem with Yankee blowouts is that usually, somebody will ground into a DP with the bases loaded, pissing me off that we scored only 16, when it could have been a magical 20. But fukkit. I'll take the laugher.
Thus far in 2018, the Yankees are 7-2 in blowouts, having scored 33 more runs than their opponents. In one-run games, we are 1-1.
There is one other problem with rib-tickling laughers. They warp our perceptions of whom to trust. Last night brought rollicking joy, as Sir Didi and Fightin' Tyler Austin launched relatively meaningless HRs, padding their seasonal numbers. (Not that there's anything wrong with that.) The Yankee lineup - mathematically projected over the season - now shows four hitters (Gregorius, Judge, Stanton, Austin) with 30 homers. That's not counting Gary Sanchez, who should hit 30 in an off-year. If you look at our ability to run up the score, we have a Murderers Row. Yet we're in third.
If you chew on last night's victory for too long, you start thinking of 240 homers, with Drury and Red Thunder returning, and ever start believing Sonny Gray can figure it out... you grow intoxicated with how good the 2018 Yankees could be. And it's only one game, against a team we have regularly tormented (but I wouldn't want to face in the playoffs; remember the 1980 Royals.)
When we're good... well... as Joyce Carol Oates would say, we beat the motherfucking, living shit outa teams. Holy crap.
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23 comments:
Very pleased to see The Professor's form return to awesomeness. We need an awesome Tanaka.
Please, no "mercy rule" for baseball. I've witnessed teams come back from seemingly insurmountable deficits and this isn't Little League. Don't give me crap about saving pitching staffs. whenever it gets THAT bad, a smart manager tells a position player to take the mound. Now THAT'S entertainment, my friends!
In my misguided youth, I was an Orioles fan. That's where we lived and they had a great team at the time. I was listening on the radio and the Birds were down by 8 (maybe more) in the late innings. I switched off the radio and went about my teen age business. Then the guilt took me. What kind of a fan was I to give up on my team? I switched the radio back on and THE GAME WAS STILL IN PORGRESS! Somehow, the Birds had come back and tied the game and they were in extra innings! Of course, being the Maloik that I am, the Orioles lost within ten minutes of me tuning back into the game. But I learned a lesson that day.
anybody else have a good come-back story?
I remember, somewhere in the mist-enshrouded eons of yesteryear, when Rocky Colavito came in to pitch for the Yankees. It was a blowout, obviously, but I can't remember who was killing whom.
So I consulted the Way-Back Machine (known to many unromantic souls as "the internet") and found this:
https://www.pinstripealley.com/2015/12/18/10433522/yankees-history-position-player-pitching-rocky-colavito-mantle-houk--kaline
Ah, the memories came flooding back. Pat Dobson. Jake Gibbs. Bill Robinson. Andy Kosco. Bobby Cox. And Mantle, too, but not the heroic Mick that once was. Still, better than no Mantle at all.
And Rocky was the winning pitcher. He wasn't bad.
P.S. My 94-year-old mother, who I've mentioned before, sent me an email after seeing the word "laugher" in the paper regarding Sunday's game. She thought it was yet another editorial miscue by the hometown rag, so I had to explain that it was a real word and what it meant. She loves the Yankees, but she came late to the game, so I cut her some slack. We can use all the rooters we can get.
P.P.S. That game in 1968 wasn't a blowout, by the way. We were only down by 5 and not even halfway through the game when Rocky came in to pitch during the first game of a doubleheader against the soon-to-be champion Tigers. We did come back and win, with Dooley Womack and then Lindy McDaniel closing it out.
anybody else have a good come-back story?
Here's one from almost exactly one year ago...
I remember those games, John. Definitely fun. Colavito has a background as a pitcher, if I'm not mistaken. But my personal favorite, 1986 or 1987, was a 9 or 10 run comeback against Roger Clemens and the Red Sox. Clemens, who should be remembered as a Bostonian because of his odious personality, was the hot new thing, but not that night. Delicious!
Parson Tom:
This was the game:
https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/NYA/NYA198706260.shtml
I was visiting my brother in Manhattan and we left for dinner after the Yankees were down 9-0. Walking the block and a half to the restaurant and the Yankees were scoring 6 of the 10 runs they had in the bottom of the third.
We went to the game the next night and the first two batters got on for Donnie Baseball and he parked one in the seats for a 3-1 lead on the way to a blowout.
THE ABILITY TO RUN UP THE SCORE....BUT WE'RE IN THIRD.
THAT SUMS UP MY FRUSTRATION RIGHT THERE.
I HATE WHEN WE MURDER TEAMS 14-1.
ALL THE "ANALYTICS" WILL POINT TO HOW IMMENSE AND POWERFUL OUR OFFENSE IS.
UNTIL WE FACE A MEDIOCRE RIGHT HANDER WITH A DECENT SLIDER, AND WE GO BACK INTO THE SHITTER THE NEXT DAY.
Question: Which of the nonpitchers on the 25-man roster would you (in your ABoone impersonation) send to the mound in a laugher?
My answer: Toe.
My Answer:
Ellsbury, and hope for a Tommy John injury.
Toe, for sure. He'd even interview himself about the experience.
My fav was from 5 years ago against the Sux, down 0-9, I couldn't believe it was happening, LOL!!!!!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDz2e-IZ0Is
YES! I REMEMBER the Rocky Colavito game!!
Colavito had been a Yankees find—he was from the Bronx, for cryin' out loud—but apparently we treated him so arrogantly that he told us to stuff it, and went to play for the Cleveland Indians. Talk about cutting off your nose...
Anyway, Rocky finally made it back to the Bronx and yes, he had pitched a time or two before in the majors, as I recall. We were becoming respectable again for the first time in four years, but were way behind Detroit, which was romping to the pennant, and came into the Bronx in late August, to mop us up.
Friday night (according to baseballreference), our rookie-of-the-year, Stan Bahnsen, beats Earl Wilson, 2-1. But wait: IT WAS A TWI-NIGHT DOUBLEHEADER! Remember those?
Game Two, we started Joe Verbanic, usually a short reliever, against Joe Sparma. We got down 3-1, but Roy White hit a two-run homer to tie it in the bottom of the 8th.
Then...the game just went, and went, and went. We could pitch with anybody, but had no hitting. Bottom of the 11th, we loaded the bases off their closer, John Hiller—Bill Robinson flied out. Bottom of the 13th, we get a guy on second—Dick Howser flies out. Two men on, bottom of the 15th—Howser pops out.
Bottom of the 17th, Dooley Womack—another reliever, DOOLEY WOMACK—STEALS SECOND! We still don't score. Bobby Cox strikes out, Ruben Amaro grounds out. Some hitters we had.
Finally, after 19 innings, we're past the old AL curfew, and it's called. Tie game. Our bullpen has pitched 14 innings and allowed 1 run. Lindy McDaniel threw 7 innings of NO-HIT ball, with 6 strikeouts, against the world champs to be. WE STILL CAN'T WIN.
So, Saturday, we go up against Denny McLain, 25-4, en route to the last 30-win season we will ever see. Roy White hits another two-run homer in the first, and Mel Stottlemyre makes it stand up, complete-game win, 2-1, allows only a home run by Willie Horton (and strikes out none, weirdly enough in the light of today's game). Game went all of two hours and three minutes.
It was one of the very rare times, then, that we were on the game of the week. I was 10 years old, and my parents let me watch the whole thing, instead of insisting that I go outside and soak up some good, healthful, cancer-causing sun, their usual obsession. I was ecstatic.
Sunday—IT'S ANOTHER DOUBLEHEADER!
Steve Barber tanks in the first game, as he so often did for us. We're down 5-1, in the fourth. The pen's recovered somewhat from Friday night, thanks to Stottlemyre's beauty, but Ralph Houk has got to save guys for Game Two.
He brings in Rocky. Cue the "Rocky" music. Colavito comes in, works out of a two-on, one-out jam. He pitches 2 and 2/3.allows just one hit and two walks, even strikes out the mighty Dick Tracewski. He gets a walk and scores the winning run himself, on a single by Jake Gibbs.
Second game, we win 5-4. Rocky hits the game-tying home run off Mickey Lolich. Steve Hamilton pitches five innings of seven-strikeout, shutout relief.
We have swept the mighty Tigers. We are at .500 this late in the season for the first time since 1964. We finish with a winning record, in the first division.
Were we back? Not really. But we were respectable!
ANONY hits it on the head. Nothing has tamed the potent Yankee lineups of past and present quite like some guy with and ERA north of 5 or some career minor leaguer making a spot start. Part of the reason I felt Jaime would no-hit them the other night: terrible pitcher+former Yankee had all the making of a disaster.
Thank you, Rufus, for the link to the great comeback against Clemens.
As for last night, while all the hits and runs are intoxicating, we all have to pause and remember the Yankees were playing their favorite aphrodisiac, the Twins. With the exception of one game-winning HR against Mariano on a Sunday afternoon about six or seven years ago, Minnesota seems to have dedicated itself for most of the last 20 years to pumping up Yankee statistics and egos.
Betances would have blown a 14-1 lead. God, he sucks.
How advanced are the analytics that they would tell a manager to take out a pitcher at 82 pitches and has been close to unhittable for Dellin fucking Betances?
Now I know some of you guys are at least as old as I am. Great stories, great games, no analytics. How in the world did the sport survive...
I don't know John M, sometimes I wonder how popular the game would have been if they had pitch clocks during Ruth's time.
Also, Babe Benintendi has a the Stanton special tonight, a golden sombrero.
Typo, disregard either the "a" or "the", but not both.
The grandy man comes through in the tenth!
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