We don’t know yet whether the baseball gods want the Yankees to qualify for the playoffs so they can deliver record-high television ratings thanks to the presence of super-villain Alex “The Obstructor” Rodriguez.
Yet after seeing what went down this weekend? After watching the Yankees suffer three straight soul-crushing, health-harming losses to their historic rivals at their own ballpark and still leave town wearing smiles?
Seems like they’re meant to stick around this pennant race a while longer.
How else can you explain the Yankees maintaining their distance on the Rays despite losing multiple games, pitchers and confidence index points to the Red Sox? When Ichiro Suzuki came home on Brandon Workman’s ninth-inning wild pitch for a walkoff, 4-3 Yankees victory over Boston Sunday at Yankee Stadium, the Yankees overcame another Mariano Rivera blown save, prevented a Sawx sweep and halted a brutal, three-game losing streak during which the Red Sox outscored them by a 34-25 margin.
When the Rays defeated the Mariners, 4-1 at Safeco Field, the Yankees (76-67) stayed within 2 ½ games of the American League’s second wild card Tampa Bay (78-64), which stopped its own three-game losing streak. The Yankees have lost time. They haven’t lost ground.
“That was great. That’s the thing you want,” Robinson Cano said. “We’ve got [19] games left in the season. We’ve got to stay positive.”
The Yankees also gained a game Sunday on Baltimore and Cleveland, who both fell to 76-66 with losses to the White Sox and Mets, respectively, and the Royals (75-68) trail the Yankees by just a game. The race for the AL’s final invitation to the postseason has become the most entertaining in all of baseball.
And just as it seemed — again — that the high-payroll, high-profile Yankees were ready to bow out of this multi-team competition, they pushed themselves back in Sunday even as Rivera blew his second straight save opportunity. Starting Monday night, they’ll take on the Orioles for four games at Camden Yards.
“Obviously, if we lose this one today, it would’ve been a big hit mentally,” Ichiro said through his interpreter, Allen Turner. “It would’ve been tough, to be honest. But we did win, and hopefully we can take this win and get on a run here and really use it to our advantage.”
Contrary to its three immediate slugfest predecessors, this Red Sox-Yankees game contest down to pitching and small ball. Hiroki Kuroda, riding his second straight September funk, built up huge pitch counts, as the Red Sox wore him down for 44 pitches through two innings and 105 through five. Cano’s two-out, two-run double off Boston starter Jon Lester broke a 1-1 tie in the bottom of the fifth, and Girardi leaned on Kuroda to get through the sixth while facing the dangerous middle of the Red Sox lineup. Kuroda threw 12 more pitches while allowing a run (David Ortiz clubbed a leadoff double and came around on groundouts by Mike Carp and Jarrod Saltalamacchia) to preserve the lead.
“Kuroda did an incredible job to give us six innings, and to get through that sixth inning, who he had to go through, was really important,” Girardi said.
“I wish I would’ve put in one more inning to alleviate the burden on Mariano,” Kuroda said through his interpreter Jiwon Bang. “I really wanted to go one more inning.”
Shawn Kelley, freshly available after resting his ailing right triceps for six days, threw a shutout seventh, setting up Girardi’s decision to ask Rivera to record his first six-out save since July 16, 2006. Instead, after a blank eighth, Will Middlebrooks started the ninth by sending a flyball the other way for a game-tying homer to right field, giving Rivera his fifth blown save of the second half.
And it was Ichiro, a part-time player nowadays, who ensured the Yankees would depart for Baltimore in good spirits. The 39-year-old poked a one-out single to left-center, stole second base, moved to third on Vernon Wells’ flyout to right field and cruised home when Workman’s first pitch to Alfonso Soriano sailed over Saltalamacchia.
“Anybody could make the read [on the wild pitch] once that got by him,” Ichiro said, who then nodded to Yankees radio broadcaster Suzyn Waldman. “Suzyn could’ve made it.”
This pennant race is far more difficult to read. “This is tough baseball down the stretch here for every team involved,” Girardi said. “Some teams are trying to preserve where they are. Other teams are trying to get there. It becomes exciting baseball.”
For sure. The Yankees still are underdogs. More amazing, after getting knocked down repeatedly, they’re somehow still standing.