THIS stuff works both ways, you know.
Everyone always celebrates the Little Guy doing something Big, we always herald the unheralded, and the baseball playoffs are the home office for that. Billy Beane famously called the baseball postseason a “crapshoot” and it is that: What do you have over five games, or seven?
You have good pitching? Ask the ’05 White Sox. That helps.
You have a good roll going? Ask the ’11 Cardinals. That helps.
You have a little magic on your side? Ask the ’69 Mets. That helps.
You have the best team?
Yeah. That helps, too. Baseball doesn¹t always reward the best team in the playoffs, not when momentum can swing so precipitously and preposterously from game to game and inning to inning, but it certainly rewards the strong a lot of the time. The Yankees have won 27 World Series, after all; only in a handful were they considered the underdogs. The best team isn¹t a bad place to be.
And suddenly, the Yankees are whole again — or as whole as they could have ever asked to be once it became apparent that Mariano Rivera would be gone for the season. And that means they are the best team, certainly in the American League. Their lineup is a circular monster again, and their bullpen appears to be steady again, and even the thorn in the paw, the starting pitching, looks as right as it¹s ever going to be.
So that is as big a story line entering these playoffs as the feel-good tales authored in Baltimore and Oakland and Washington, D.C. The Yankees are whole again, they are healthy again, and that means something for the rest of baseball to ponder, and not lightly. Because they will be a hell of a tough out.
It is a matter of baseball law that teams aren¹t allowed to whine about injuries because everyone endures them to one degree or another. But it has always been an especially egregious act to speak about injuries when it comes to the Yankees, thanks to two basic tenets of that covenant.
1. As Joe Torre said many times: “We’re the Yankees. Nobody is ever going to feel sorry for us, and nobody should ever feel compelled to.”
2. As a nation of Yankee detesters would gladly tell you: “Even in a lousy economy, $200 million ought to buy you some kind of insurance policy.”
So the Yankees have endured. There is the absence of Rivera. There was the essential shutdown of Brett Gardner, which essentially turned the Yankees into a speed-limit team most of the year. Alex Rodriguez missed a month. Mark Teixeira missed most of September. CC Sabathia spent two stints on the DL. Andy Pettitte disappeared much of the summer after absorbing a line drive. Derek Jeter¹s ankle probably looks as dark as his ballcap after getting battered all year.
Now to be fair: Torre was always right. Nobody cares. Nobody cries. Nobody will be sponsoring a telethon. Not when you¹re New York City. Not when you’re the Yankees.
But this is also a part of being fair: the other night, as the Rays’ Evan Longoria was hitting three home runs against the Orioles in Game 162, I threw this thought out on Twitter: “Longoria reminding both the #Orioles and #Yankees how different this AL East race may have looked if he hadn’t missed 88 games this year.”
And on the one hand that’s true. But as a pretty smart Yankees fan named @DGoodmantrublu pointed out: It isn’t as if the Yankees played the season injury-free, either. Nor the Orioles, for that matter, who probably would have loved to see how much better the past few weeks might¹ve gone with Nick Markakis in the lineup. And, while we’re at it: The Blue Jays may play the game like they’re only half-aware of the rulebook, but they were clobbered by injury, too.
So, no, you don’t have to give the Yankees extra credit for enduring injuries. But if you’re going to do that, the rules insist you don¹t give extra credit to anyone else, either.
And the truth, at the other end of the tunnel, is this: Injuries heal.
For the Yankees, that means a team that looks about as whole as it has all year. Doesn¹t guarantee anything. But isn’t a terrible place to be as this grand baseball tournament begins, either.
michael.vaccaro@nypost.com