Don’t write off the Yankees yet.
True, the Bronx Bombers are nursing an 0-2 deficit in the best-of-seven American League Championship Series against the Tigers. And they just lost their captain — the team’s seemingly indestructible heart and soul, shortstop Derek Jeter — to a busted ankle.
But then, if they weren’t legendary for their improbable comebacks, well, they wouldn’t be the New York Yankees.
Fortunes in baseball can sure change fast: One minute, the Yanks are winning the divisional series over the scrappy Orioles; the next, they’re staring the off-season in the face — with cold bats and Jeter gone.
The captain’s stumble was heart-stopping: He went down in the 12th inning Saturday night while scooping up a grounder — and couldn’t get up without help.
Jeter’s loss is incalculable — beyond the symbolism and the loss of his leadership on the field; fact is, Jeter was also the only Yankee hitting with even a modicum of consistency this post-season.
Turning things around tonight will be especially tough, as the Yanks face Justin Verlander — the reigning AL Cy Young award winner — in Detroit. But, as Manager Joe Girardi said, Jeter would be the first to tell his teammates to dust themselves off and come out swinging. (Swinging and making contact, of course, would help.)
As quickly as Yankee fortunes went south, they can perk back up again.
Or in the words of a wise once-pinstriped philosopher, it ain’t over ’til its over.
Go, Yankees!