Yankees on a roll: Musings from the back deck on Labor Day
The Yankees have only 25 games remaining in the 2017 regular season. Remembering the adage that reminds it’s not where you start but where you finish that matters, the team is poised and ready to make the charge to the finish line. And they are doing it.
The Yankees have any number of reasons to feel confident they not only can make it to the playoffs but also that once they get there, the team is more than capable of making some noise.
Sitting on the back deck following today’s game on XM Radio under the clearest of skies and eighty-degree temperatures in the Northeast, it occurred to me I’m hearing a microcosm of the Yankees season in just the last fifteen minutes of the game still underway at Camden Yards.
On the strength of home runs by Tim Beckham and Chris Davis, the Orioles had taken a 3-0 lead into the fourth inning against Jordan Montgomery. For the Orioles, a team that lives and dies with the home run, those were the 210th and 211th dingers of the season, good enough for second place in the majors. The Yankees, as they did last night against Chris Sale, stormed back to score five runs against Dylan Bundy, the best the Orioles have, driving Bundy from the game.
In the midst of that eruption, though, some telling things about the Yankees team this year were revealed. Yes, they did have two home runs, the first by Didi Gregorius, his twentieth of the season, to jump-start the scoring.
Come one, come all. The Yankees are rolling.
But in between, they also played a little small ball to tie the score. Jacoby Ellsbury, given a chance to play regularly, singled in Aaron Judge, who had received his second base on balls of the game. Ellsbury is, of course, the same guy who was very publicly relegated to a seat on the bench earlier this summer. But now, with Aaron Hicks suffering yet another oblique injury, Joe Girardi is calling his number, and he’s responding.
And that’s the way it is with winning teams; there’s always someone who answers the call when needed.
And then in the bottom half of the inning, the Orioles mounted a threat against Montgomery putting runners on first and second with no one out, giving the Yankees a chance to show off their defensive reliability. Didi Gregorius fielded a ground ball, outraced the runner to the bag, throwing off balance to first completing a pitcher’s best friend, a double play.
The only thing missing in this game is the shut down starting pitching the Yankees have been firing at all comers. But the Orioles will get a taste of that too when they face CC Sabathia tomorrow and Sonny Gray in the series finale.
I’ve said it before, and it’s extra sweet because of the irony attached to a team that supposedly didn’t have any pitching when the season began, the Yankees have the best playoffs-ready starting four with Masahiro Tanaka, and Luis Severino added to Sabathia and Gray, in the American League.
Montgomery, who thankfully took Jaime Garcia‘s regular turn in the rotation, pitched into the fifth inning, settling down and did not give up any more runs in his outing. 46 of his economic 67 pitches were strikes, and he continues to send the Yankees a message that includes him as a member the starting five next season.
Only days ago
Only days ago, the Yankees had returned to a solemn clubhouse following the double-dose loss to the Indians. Adding to their fears, the Boston Red Sox were flying in for four games, with the potential of burying the Bombers in the Division race, and possibly even dropping the team out of the Wild Card lead.
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None of those two things happened. Instead, the Yankees dusted themselves off by taking three of four from the Sox, the last one being a delicious knockout of Chris Sale in the series finale.
And today, with barely seven hours from the time they arrived at their hotel in Baltimore to sleep, eat and go through their pre-game routines, the Yankees might have been expected to sleepwalk through this one. Maybe last year that would have been the case, but not this year.
The Yankees have added two more runs to take a 7-3 lead, and it looks like they’ll have a happy ending to a very long day. Note: Final score NY 7 BAL 3.
It’s been a long time since this team was firing on all cylinders. They are now, and the timing is perfect. Along the way, there were occasional naysayers, myself included, who thought the team would never get it going.
Apparently, though, the guys in the clubhouse never had any doubts.
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