Contrary to popular belief, I actually think the Yankees have done decently well for themselves considering the brutal injury luck they’ve had this year, especially since their abbreviated “June swoon” ended in early July. Outside of a dreadful 4-14 stretch, they’ve routinely played .600 ball, something that would either easily win or be extremely competitive for three of the other five divisions in the sport.
Unfortunately, they play in by far the most competitive division in recent baseball history. There’s a good chance all five teams win 78+ games. I’m not looking up the last time that happened (editor’s guess: the 2005 NL East?), but it doesn’t happen often. In said division, the Rays never ever slowed down. Going 3-3 this week against the Twins and Diamondbacks was likely never going to be enough, but when Tampa Bay goes 5-1, it’s dead on arrival. Blame the teams playing them, blame the Yankees for playing some shoddy baseball the last few days, whatever. Their fate is 99-percent sealed.
Barring a 7-0 or 0-7 final week, they will be hosting the Boston Red Sox starting next Tuesday in the Bronx for a second consecutive year in the Wild Card Series. This next week will be effectively meaningless, but considering you’ll be (hopefully) playing the Rays in the playoffs, I’d like to see a good series against them starting Tuesday anyway. Show some pride, will ya?
As for today’s game, it kinda sucked. Early homers by Heliot Ramos, George Lombard Jr., and Spencer Jones seemed to set a good tone, but it unraveled in a disastrous five-run fifth, as Will Warren had his first bad outing since August and Brent Headrick couldn’t put out the fire he departed with in what turned into an 8-4 loss.
What you want against a pitcher on a pitch count is to jump on him early, and at least for a bit, it seemed like they’d do that off Corbin Burnes. Ben Rice worked a four-pitch walk and Cody Bellinger lined a single to right-center field, but Burnes induced three consecutive flyouts to center field to get out of it, albeit on 23 pitches.
Warren took the mound and got in the same trouble as Burnes, with Lars Nootbaar and Ketel Marte lining singles up the middle. He routinely worked ahead in the count but kept giving up singles up the middle, capped by one from Geraldo Perdomo to make it 1-0 early. He induced a double play to keep his pitch count down, but put the Yanks in a small early hole.
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The second was pretty quiet for both pitchers, but the Yankees kept driving up the pitch count on Burnes with an Austin Wells walk, but they did nothing with it. Warren walked last night’s hero, Pavin Smith, but got through his inning unscathed.
There would be no leaving Burnes unscathed in the third, who gave up a trio of increasingly impressive homers. Heliot Ramos pulled one just over the head of Nootbaar in left field for a homer, his second straight day going yard off a righty, to start things off. After a single by Luis García Jr., we saw probably the best major league swing by George Lombard Jr., who walloped a grooved cutter 424 feet to deep left field to give the Yankees a 3-1 lead.
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Just one batter later, Burnes was rudely introduced to Spencer Jones, who let him know what it looks like when you hang a curveball in the zone. He obliterated a 3-2 pitch 448 feet, way past the ridiculously deep center field wall at Chase Field, to chase a diminished Burnes from the game for Ryne Nelson, who wrapped up the third, but not before the Yankees took a 4-1 lead.
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Being given a decent lead, Warren kept filling up the zone, working around a two-out single to Marte in the third and a two-out walk to Jesús Sánchez in the fourth to keep the lead intact through four innings. That unraveled in a hurry in the fifth, as a double, single, and walk with one out loaded the bases against a laboring Warren, who was lifted for Brent Headrick.
The fireman lefty got Perdomo to strike out, but fell behind the next two hitters and got in big trouble. He walked Corbin Carroll to force in a run with two outs and, after giving up a foul home run on the previous pitch, he served up a 2-1 cookie down the pipe for a Nolan Arenado grand slam to give the D-Backs the lead for good, 6-4. The life of a reliever is defined by ebbs and flows, so I’m not calling him burnt out yet, but given how meaningless the final week of the season now is, you should probably give him some rest.
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There was a chance at an immediate response in the sixth after a bunt single from Lombard and a single from Anthony Volpe, but José Caballero popped a 3-2 slider to shallow right field to end the inning with the tying run on base. He also chased a handful of pitches prior, which could’ve gotten him on base for Rice. Bummer.
Tim Hill got the bottom of the sixth and pitched around a leadoff single by inducing a double play. Brandyn Garcia made easy work of the top of the order in the seventh for Arizona, while their offense tacked on against righty specialist John Schreiber, who predictably struggled when some lefties came up. A crummy infield single by Gabriel Moreno was followed by an RBI triple from Perdomo and an RBI single by Carroll to make it 8-4 after seven.
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Old friend Jonathan Loáisiga got to make an appearance in the eighth, retiring the middle of the order in order. I’m happy he’s had a healthy, good season. After Luis Gil did the same in the bottom half, Loáisiga worked around a one-out single by Austin Wells to close it out against his former team. Good for him. Arizona probably won’t be going to October in a hellacious NL (their record is better than half the current AL playoff teams), but they kept their season partially alive with good play the last two days.
A series that we all hoped would be more meaningful than it now is begins on Tuesday in the Bronx, as the Yankees and Rays will play a split-admission twin bill. It’ll be Carlos Rodón vs. Nick Martinez in the matinee at 1:05 pm and Max Fried vs. Drew Rasmussen in the nightcap at 7:05 pm. Both games will be on YES, but the second game will also be carried on TBS.
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