Yankees: Michael Kay eviscerates NYY for Game 2 tricks in postgame rant

Michael Kay and the Yankees postgame show really let the team have it after they got cute in ALDS Game 2.

The Yankees, with a tradition of thinking outside the box in recent years and building a bigger and badder analytics department than anyone else in baseball with their vast resources, may have overthought their Game 2 pitching strategy.

In what played to the public as a desperation move, the team opted to pitch rookie phenom Deivi Garcia in Game 2, leaving the more stable Masahiro Tanaka for the series’ third contest, when they would likely need a rested group of top bullpen arms only in his stead.

Of course, the best-laid plans often go awry, especially if they weren’t laid all that well to begin with.

As it turns out, Garcia was just a decoy meant to give way to JA Happ as quickly as inning No. 2, a move that Yankees broadcaster Michael Kay and the rest of the team’s typical booth weren’t afraid to lambaste as “too cute” in a pretty punishing series of postgame rants.

Yup. Spot on. The Yankees attempted to be the smartest in the room against the team that literally invented the concept of the opener. Opposing manager Kevin Cash didn’t even blink. Next.

In fact, seeing JA Happ in the ballgame was likely music to his ears. As Kay stated, it’s not like the Yankees were about to deploy Sandy Koufax, or the type of lefty who can spook the opponent into abandoning all hope and reason. Nope. Just Happ, a guy who was nearly demoted out of the rotation.

And it wasn’t just Kay who let ’em have it. John Flaherty and Paul O’Neill, two former players and commentators who are certainly on the team’s payroll, made their feelings known.

And, on his radio show Wednesday afternoon, freshly pepped after several cups of coffee, Kay was right back up to his old tricks, unleashing lines that had surely been simmering since the previous night.

The be all, end all here is that the Yankees made a bold decision so egregious that their own postgame team couldn’t help but roast them for many hours afterwards.

Now, the players have to pick up management the same way they did after the Joe Girardi non-challenge threatened to doom the Yanks in ALDS Game 2 in 2017. Let’s see if they can regroup yet again.

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