TORONTO – Joe Girardi issued what amounted to a public service announcement before Friday’s game at the Rogers Centre. The New York Yankees manager understands your thirst, Toronto. He understands the desire to end the playoff drought and all that comes with it.
But here’s the thing: something similar is going on in his clubhouse, too. “The last couple of years … we’ve both been fighting to get to this point,” Girardi said, before his team would shock the Toronto Blue Jays with a 4-3 win over David Price in the first game of a three-game series.
I know, I know: cry the Yankees a river. But Girardi has a point: the Yankees haven’t been to the playoffs since 2012 – when they were swept in four games by the Detroit Tigers in the American League Championship Series – and with the 2009 World Series taken away, they are 2-6 in post-season series.
There is nobody left from the core four; it’s Andrew Miller closing instead of Mariano Rivera and it’s been a renaissance from Alex Rodriguez and mostly Mark Teixeira that helped put the Yankees in first place alone for 40 days until the Blue Jays snuck by them on Wednesday. Nobody picked the Yankees to win the American League East – no one – and few had them going to the wild card.
If you ever wondered what the Yankees would look like as an underdog, well, this is it.
I mean, really: here it was, August 14, and the Yankees – the Yankees! – had players in the clubhouse talking about the playoff atmosphere they’d just been through, in a game marked by one powerful swing from Carlos Beltran and an IV-drip final battle between Andrew Miller and Troy Tulowitzki.
“That was a playoff atmosphere,” Miller said after picking up his 26th save. “These fans are insane right now – and rightfully so. The stadium rocking like that … obviously, the implications aren’t the same but, yeah, that’s a playoff game.
“Two pretty good teams with high aspirations.”
It was fitting that in the end the game would be won and lost in relief – lost by the Blue Jays Aaron Sanchez and won by the Yankees bullpen. Sure, Ivan Nova was the pitcher of record, but it was Dellin Betances’ seven-pitch eighth inning with a one-run lead and facing Jose Bautista, Edwin Encarnacion and Justin Smoak and Miller’s 12-pitch battle with Tulowitzki that came with runners on second and third and two out in the ninth that was the story of this win.
Miller, who missed 25 games with a strained left flexor forearm muscle, threw nine sliders to Tulowitzki, who fouled off seven pitches before swinging and missing at strike three.
Miller had given up seven hits in his previous four appearances, three of them leading to two runs on Wednesday in his first blown save of the year. Miller, the first pitcher in Yankees history to convert his first 24 save opportunities, gave up a one-out walk to Chris Colabello, a single to Kevin Pillar and unleashed a wild pitch before striking out Ben Revere and focusing on Tulowitzki.
One of the most over-used words in sports is “grinding.” Everybody grinds these days. But Miller’s showdown with Tulowitzki – yeah, that was a grind. “Lots of stuff going on,” Miller said later, grinning. “Physical. Mental. Everything.”
Catcher Brian McCann and Miller had four meetings. The Yankees are paranoid, frankly, about sign stealing. Whether it’s a residual fear of the ‘Man in White’ nonsense of a few years ago, McCann spent all night flashing multiple signs even when there was nobody on base.
“Oh gosh (yes, yes – Miller used the word ‘gosh’) I don’t know what we talked about,” he said. “Signs, sequences, all sorts of stuff. There was a lot on the line for me, personally. I feel like I’ve given up a lot of hits lately.
“That at bat with Tulowitzki was all I got. I was out of gas. To me it’s a blur. But it worked.”
Third baseman Chase Headley had one thought as foul ball after foul ball whistled, hopped or skipped to his right: “Just put it in play, already,” he said. “Because I knew only place he [Tulowitzki] was going to hit it was to me – either it was going to go foul or to me. So, the anticipation was building.”
Indeed it was. And the best thing is these teams have two more games against each other this weekend and nine in total. So let the anticipation build, Toronto, but remember: the guys from the Bronx are trying to make some of their own history, too. Beware the underdog wearing the NY.