Yankees minor league playoff final: Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders

The Yankees Triple-A club returned to the finals for the second consecutive year. And although the players had some fight in them, they were finally left bloodied and beaten.

The Yankees top affiliate, Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders, returned to the Governor’s Cup hoping for a repeat performance of last season. Last year’s team not only won the Cup, which is the International League’s championship series and trophy but the national Triple-A tournament, as well.

But their opponent from last year also returned: The Durham Bulls. And this time, the Bulls came back rough and ready for the fight. That’s the way this series went down, as the second iteration of a heavyweight bout.

Durham came out throwing, and shutout the RRs in game one (6-0). The RailRiders were able to take that punch and returned the blow, shutting out the Bulls in game two (4-0).

That only served to make the Bulls mad. With gravel in their guts and spit in their eyes, they scored six runs in each of the next two games while Scranton managed six runs in the two games combined (6-2; 6-4).

They say if you want to be the man, you have to beat the man; that’s what happened here. Scranton came ready to fight, while Durham came ready to win.

While they club focuses on winning the national tournament, we will scrutinize the efforts by some of these young Yankees.