Yankees/ Red Sox I: Pitching, Power, And The Coming Pun-Pocalypse

Yankees versus Red Sox is an ancient rivalry. Names of those who played in this competition read like a highlight tour of the Hall of Fame: Babe Ruth, Cy Young, Lou Gehrig, Carl Yastrzemski, Joe DiMaggio, Ted Williams, Derek Jeter, and Pedro Martinez. Now a new generation of Yankees has entered their names in the Red Sox Rivalry Record Book. And one of them did something to the Fenway Faithful that even few HoFers rarely ever do.

Yankees fans: did you feel it? How different the two games versus the Red Sox felt? That is the feeling of the 2017 Yankees season starting for real. Jeter used to say the regular season was the warm-up for the actual season. That’s the kind of attitude that gets you to that real season on a real regular basis. And the same is true in the regular season.

All the other games are warm-ups; the Yankees season begins with the first game against the Red Sox.

Results speak for themselves. The Yankees went into the den of a struggling opponent, one with hopes of a World Series victory, and took two straight. That can only help a young team just learning what it can be.

It’s Still just April

But it is not just that they won those games. It is how they did it and how their performances will resonate throughout this season and, in one case, to the end of a career. The one negative is that the Yankees, and Yankees fans, now must live in fear of the pending Pun-Pocalypse.

But before we take a look at some of the fascinating aspects of this truncated, mid-week series, we first need, what Anton Ego once called, a little perspective. A few years ago, it was the Yankees who felt they had a World Series-worthy team. They stumbled out of the gate but were three games over by the time they played the Red Sox for the first time, on April 24^th. The Sox were also a team with October dreams.

Well, the Sox took all three. CC continued his early season struggle, and AJ Burnett continued his career-long struggles. The second game, in particular, was especially demoralizing. Anyone watching those three games walked away knowing the Red Sox was the better team.

The year was 2009, and it ended in the Canyon of Heroes. That’s what victories in April amount to. With that in mind, here is the short series that was and the indicators of both success and disaster.

Did Tanaka Just go from An Ace to The Ace?

And then there was Masahiro Tanaka. We only need one number to understand his performance: zero. As in zero home runs, zero walks, zero runs allowed and zero relievers needed. He didn’t just give the bullpen a day off; he gave the whole team a day off. Well, Aaron Judge helped but we are still getting to him. He did give up three hits, but that was over his complete nine-inning start.

Try to savor what he and Severino did. On Wednesday, Severino out dueled Rick Porcello, last year’s Cy Young award winner. And, on Thursday, Tanaka out-dueled this year’s Cy Young award winner, Chris Sale. He now anchors a Yankees staff that is better, right now, than any other in the division. It’s even better than the Mets (right now). No one thought that was possible just three weeks ago.

And Tanaka is not just along for the ride. He has led by example, even with the highest ERA of all the starters (4.20). His first start was a disaster. He could not get out of the third inning because he already gave up two homers and seven earned runs. At the end of his first start of the season, his WHIP was 4.55, and his ERA was 23.63. How do you say OMG in Japanese?

But then he did what a real professional does, what CC would have done, or Pettitte. He didn’t sulk or let that career-worst start of his bleed into his next start. Not in confidence and not in concentration. No, he forgot about that one and got ready for a better day. That is the most valuable lesson for young pitchers such as Severino and Pineda. They all had rough first starts and have all rebounded into excellence.

That might be because they have followed Tanaka’s lead. This time out, he showed his fellow young pitchers that any pitcher can be beaten, even the consensus best pitcher in baseball (Chris Sale). Or at least he was considered that before Thursday’s game.

Now it might be time to take a new poll. That’s how good Tanaka was.

Aaron Judge has a Career Accomplishment in one Night

The Yankees want to win every game; who doesn’t? Or they at least want to win all the important games en route to a World Series victory. We call that Jetering. And the players want to play great every day. They want to see big numbers on the stat sheet and a lot of W’s in the season tally. Do that enough times, and a player can win many awards, perhaps even enshrinement into the Hall of Fame.

Again, we call that Jetering.

There is, however, an accomplishment even higher than those. And it is one that few players, ever HoF players, ever attain: Forcing your enemy to respect you. It’s one thing to beat a team; it’s another to make them cheer you on for doing so. And you only do that by earning their respect. When you do that, win the respect of your opponent and their fans, you create in them a troubling dichotomy.

Every time you hit a big home run or make a spectacular play in the field, it hurts their team. It drives a stake through the heart of their championship dreams. But somewhere in that same heart is always a small part that roots for you, the enemy, to do well against their team because of their reverence towards you.

That is an accomplishment that is best summed up with one adjective: Delicious.

But most players never attain that status because you cannot get it by just playing great. Take the Red Sox fans. They have seen better players than you’ll ever be. Babe Ruth used to be their best pitcher and hitter. Yaz won a Triple Crown before their eyes.  And they watched the surly Splendid Splinter hit .406 in heroic fashion.

So unless you are willing to dive into the stands to catch a pop-up, you know who I mean, then you are not going to get their real respect (Sox fans saw that one on TV, but they definitely saw it).

Feel Free to Use “Jetering”

That does not mean they won’t appreciate your play and any great plays you make. The Sox faithful know who Bucky Dent and Aaron Boone are and they begrudgingly admit of the greatness in the all-time moment each man provided. But they hit those highlight shots without any blood on their socks, so they are just going to have to wait if they want real respect from Fenway fans.

Aaron Judge, in his first game at Fenway, already earned the respect of Red Sox players and fans. When he sent his massive frame ass over teacups, his dedication and willingness to sacrifice his body forced the grudging esteem of all the fans in both New York and New England. Years after his opposite field shot, and the importance of this game have been forgotten, Judge’s play will be remembered, re-shown, and respected.

That’s something that even some of the best Yankees never did. And Judge did it in game one. That means that every time he plays the Sawx, and every time he hits a big home run to crush their dreams, a part of each beating New Englander’s heart will applaud his actions. There ought to be a Hall of Fame just for that.

However, Judge’s great start to the season and highlight home runs are creating a real problem for the Yankees and all of baseball. And that is the very real fear of the coming Pun-Pocalypse.

Yeah, You are Smiling Now!

I love Aaron Judge. From his smile and deferential, disarming charm to the new sounds he is introducing into baseball, I am already thanking Allah for making Judge a Yankee. And I hope he continues to hit legend-making home runs.

But there is a danger out there in his success, a coming storm. You see, the better Judge does, the more people are going to comment on him. And that means a deluge of bad puns playing off of his name and stature.

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You probably cannot see it yet, like Superstorm Sandy when it was still in the Caribbean. That’s because we are mostly hearing the same refrains, ad infinitum. John Sterling was not the first to call his arrival and subsequent home run heroics Judgment day, and “Here comes the Judge” is already playing on a loop in some baseball writers office right now. Your faithful scribe, writer of these and other frivolous words, may have even participated in the fun.

But I must warn you that this is just the innocuous beginning. Take one of Sterling’s other calls for Aaron: He’s judge and jury. Next someone will refer to him as Judge, jury and executioner. From there it is only one small Simon Pegg movie away from turning into Judge Judy and executioner. That’s the one that will stick. Just typing it made me cringe.

Hot Fuzz

And that is just the first of the Four Horsemen of the Pun-pocalypse. I am truly scared at what might follow. There will be horrible jokes about his size. He will go from, “Mountain of a man Judge” to “Mountain man Judge” to “Mount Judge”; I refuse to predict the jokes about large, coital-minded women that will inevitably follow.

Or what are now short asides concerning his contact with various outfield walls will become just long and boring. Yes, we get it. He is big. If he runs in to a wall, he could actually damage the wall and the wall will then need replacing. That was mildly amusing the first time I heard it about 2,037 mentions ago. Now commentators can just (please) stop. But they won’t. No, they will go the other way.

“I wonder if he has to pay for the replacement wall”; that’s neither funny nor clever but you are going to start hearing it. Or, “The outfield wall just tweeted: Ouch!”; at least that uses a very modern way to be just horrible. Granting personification to the wall will soon become popular. “The wall just filed a grievance with the players association for Judge abuse”; “The outfield walls just went on strike but they are scared to let a Judge hear the case”; or, “The outfield wall just requested a trade to a different sport”.

If you’re not scared yet, you should be.

Because before too long we will get to the worst of them all: the “Aaron Judge is so big…” jokes. Oh God. “Aaron Judge is so big (how big is he?) that his jersey has five E’s in Yankeeeees”; did you like reading that? Think how you will feel when you hear it. “Aaron Judge is so big he bumps his head playing in the Skydome.” Maybe that one will just be told in Canada. “Aaron Judge is so big that, when he goes to work, he does not walk into Yankees Stadium, he climbs in over the top.”

Stop them before they joke again!

You can see the storm that is coming. And it is out there and getting closer, and more people will be affected by Pun-pocalypse than by Sandy. At least that horrible event was over in a few days.

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So, yes, I do want Aaron Judge to be successful. I want to see tape measure home runs and victories deep into October. But the excitement is tempered by the coming deluge of bad jokes. Of course anything is worth putting up for a World Series title. Even the new jokes, which that wonderful event will inspire, are worth it: Will Aaron Judge ride a float or be one?

On second thought, even winning a World Series is not worth having to hear that one.