ANAHEIM, Calif. — Teams always talk this way, always talk about wanting to step on necks, wanting to kick teams when they’re down, wanting to close series out at the first opportunity.Mostly these turn out to be emptier oaths than Steve Phillips’ wedding vows.
The Yankees of championship vintage, however, were different. They not only wanted to close you out, they closed you out. Immediately. In the first three championships collected by the modern Dynasty Boys, 1996, ’98 and ’99, the Yankees played nine games in which they had the chance to end a series before it crept even one game further away from them.
They were 9-0 in those games.
“I think it’s important to close series out when you can because if you’re able to do that it allows you to set up your pitching,” manager Joe Girardi said yesterday. “With not going to four or five games with Minnesota this year, we were able to start CC [Sabathia] in Game 1 in this series, then Game 4. And it gives your guys a little extra rest.”
Girardi is the Yankees manager now but in ’96, ’98 and ’99, he was the team’s catcher and a prominent part of its character and conscience. In 1996, it meant winning Game 4 of the ALDS in Texas, Game 5 of the ALCS in Baltimore and Game 6 of the World Series against the Braves in Yankee Stadium. In ’98, it was Game 3 in Texas, Game 6 against the Indians and Game 4 against the Padres; in ’99 Game 3 against Texas, Game 5 against the Red Sox, Game 4 against the Braves.
Nine close-out games, almost all of them with plenty of room to spare in the event of a misstep or a misfire. Nine victories. Never put off to tomorrow what you can do today. You can talk about all the things that went in to winning multiple championships; seizing the end when the end was in sight was among the most important.
This is where the Yankees find themselves now, and they already have discovered the benefit of taking care of their business. Carl Pavano had them padlocked in Game 3 of the ALDS, and the Yankees could have taken their chances with Sabathia rested and ready for Game 4 and Yankee Stadium ready to back them up in Game 5. They didn’t do that. They snuffed the Twins the first chance they could. And tonight they have the same opportunity against the Angels.
“The one thing you don’t want to do is give a very good team like the Angels momentum,” Girardi said. “So you want to do whatever you can to win the game [today].”
The Yankees not only set the gold standard for proving the benefits of closing early, they have also been kind enough to provide the textbook study of what can happen if you never get around to shutting the windows and locking the doors. They are, after all, the only team in baseball history to get four match points in a playoff series and surrender all four.
The memory of that 2004 ALCS collapse to the Red Sox survives, and likely will for as long as the teams maintain their current standards of excellence — and maybe for as long as New York and Boston continue to sit only 215 miles away from each other, Times Square to Faneuil Hall (in other words: forever).
But they certainly can take a commanding step away from that legacy by winning this one, and they can take what might be an even more encouraging step back in time to walk apace of their own recent glorious history by doing so tonight, in a game the Dynasty Boys would have stuck in their back pockets by the fourth inning.
“The biggest thing to remember is not to change anything you’re doing well,” Derek Jeter said. “You never want to let a team off the hook but you never want them to see you pressing, either. You do what you do well, it’ll take care of itself.”
That always worked close to perfection for the Dynasty Boys.