BUFFALO– This was a case study of baseball as water torture. A walk. Another walk.
Simply get in, infant.
” Its tough to predict an inning like that with the guys weve got,” Yankees supervisor Aaron Boone stated. “Frustrating inning.”
” I could not get them,” Adam Ottavino said, “to swing and miss. Ive never ever had an inning like this.”
Even all the method out here, in the western corner of New York, you could hear the muttering and the murmuring and the mumbling emanating from the southern district, and from the neighboring areas of Connecticut and Jersey. A single.
Grand slam.
Adam Ottavino walks off the mound.APSix-two up had actually ended up being 12-6 down, and would become an unsettling 12-7 loss. That was your average 10-run inning right there for the Blue Jays, and it came versus Chad Green and Ottavino, who are supposed to be two of the more trustworthy Yankees reducers and on this night appeared like the Islanders goalies in Edmonton, not able to stop the fusillade.
Just the Yankees awaken today 21-20, No. 8 out of eight in the AL playoff race. They are just a game ahead of the Orioles and the Tigers in the loss column. They are just two ahead of the surging Mariners.
And now, you can start to think the unthinkable. Because even as the Yankees season has cratered, there was always solace to be taken in the reality that as long as they made an area in the playoffs it was still possible– likely, even– to turn the narrative around. They would get healthy, eventually. No other group in the American League frightens you.
The Yankees could do nothing right– absolutely nothing. Another walk. Another walk …
It is still hard to imagine any of those groups determining a method to leapfrog the Yankees. The Tigers and Orioles integrated for 222 losses in 2015. The Mariners lost 94. Those teams arent as bad this year as they were last, however even a brief season cant camouflage that they arent anything resembling excellent, either.
Forget all the losses that have preceded this one: this was the Mona Lisa of misery, the Pieta of poor. This was bad baseball raised to an art kind, and it came with GM Brian Cashman in your home to get an up-close peek at the bad and the ugly, and it dropped the Yankees 2 full games behind the Jays for 2nd place in the East (with the Rays, even off a loss, galloping off into the horizon like Secretariat).
They began playing this horrendous white-noise sound effect, and the parade of base runners continued unabated. A single.
Naturally, there is this caution:
Without looking back. Since surprisingly, impossibly, there are teams acquiring on them.
The Yankees are not. They dare you to alter the channel on them, game after game, night after night. This one lasted 4 hours and 2 minutes. It felt longer than that.
” Its part of being a pro,” Boone stated. “Weve got to surpass this. Weve got to do much better however we also require the capability to move on.”
They handed two out of the six games to the Mets last week (and had one win absolutely gift-wrapped for them; the Mets and Yankees are a matched set right now). They simply lost 3 out of four to the Orioles, of all groups, at Camden Yards, of all locations.
Neither are the Yankees.
Due to the fact that even as the Yankees season has actually cratered, there was always solace to be taken in the fact that as long as they made a spot in the playoffs it was still possible– likely, even– to turn the narrative around. It is still difficult to think of any of those teams figuring out a method to leapfrog the Yankees. They handed two out of the six games to the Mets last week (and had one win absolutely gift-wrapped for them; the Mets and Yankees are a matched set right now). And now, in the most important baseball series played in the city of Buffalo since at least 1915, the Yankees dropped Game 1 in the most deplorable fashion possible. The Jays right now are everything the Yankees arent: exciting, carefree, rupturing with self-confidence, flush with swagger.
This shouldnt matter, naturally. There is no reasonable way to picture the Orioles, Tigers or Mariners striking the tape ahead of the Yankees– and as soon as theyre in, if their batting order fills up with healthy bodies, then all bets are off. They merely need to stop the bleeding, at a time when even Hawkeye and Trapper may have a tough time figuring out how to do that, their baseball season currently resembling meatball surgical treatment.
And now, in the most essential baseball series played in the city of Buffalo considering that a minimum of 1915, the Yankees dropped Game 1 in the most deplorable fashion possible. The Jays right now are whatever the Yankees arent: exciting, carefree, rupturing with confidence, flush with swagger. They are a delight to see.
