Wild time for Sox-Yanks
Sale, Judge have some fun before teams reheat rivalry
WASHINGTON — He had jumped all over an 0-1 pitch from hometown hero Max Scherzer and socked it deep to left field for a second-inning home run, and now Aaron Judge was being mobbed by his American League teammates in the third-base dugout at Nationals Park.
But one teammate was not on the steps to greet the New York Yankees’ slugging outfielder: Chris Sale.
“I was inside
(the clubhouse),” said the Red Sox left-hander, who pitched a scoreless first inning, including one pitch that hit 100.7 mph on the radar gun, as the starting AL pitcher in the 89th All-Star Game last night. “I’m trying to get all my stuff done so I can bet back out there and watch.”
To pitch a shutout inning, stage an in-game hallway press conference and then return to the dugout is an example of what the Midsummer Classic is all about: Everyone wants to make a dent in history, as Sale did when he joined Hall of Famers Lefty Gomez and Robin Roberts as the only pitchers to start three straight All-Star Games, but they also want to have some fun.
This isn’t like the old days, when it was said that St. Louis Cardinals ace Bob Gibson would have next to nothing to say to his National League teammates. AllStar Game or no All-Star Game, Gibson viewed Willie Mays, Pete Rose, Roberto Clemente and those other guys as his opponents.
So, yes, of course, Sale would want to return to the dugout and hang out with his boys, even if some of those boys included three members of the Yankees — Judge and pitchers Luis Severino and Aroldis Chapman.
They were all friends, if only for a night. The Red Sox’ J.D. Martinez was in the dugout to greet Judge, saying later, “Justin Verlander called (the home run), so we were all teasing him. We were all pumped up for him.”
This is the part where we need to point out that these good feelings between the Yankees and Red Sox will come to a close on Friday when the two teams resume the Steel Cage Match that is the AL East. But you knew that. What you may not have known is that this year’s All-Star Game festivities have actually revealed just how serious this year’s Red Sox-Yankees rivalry has become. Enter commissioner Rob Manfred, who did say yesterday that any city not named Boston or New York is a two-mule, Podunk town with sidewalks that get rolled up at midnight.
It just sounded that way. The subject was baseball’s playoff system, which includes two wild card entrants from each league that square off in a oneand-done showdown.
Manfred loves the wild card format, which makes him a very smart man. Fear of being relegated to the wild card game forces good teams to take winning the division seriously, and it allows so-so teams to at least contemplate making a run for October.
Yes, it’s also going to force either the Red Sox or Yankees to face a harsh reality: Whereas both teams are trending toward winning 100-plus games, one of ’em will have its entire season determined by a winner-takeall game against, say, the Seattle Mariners or Oakland A’s.
There’s some pearl-clutching going on by people who see it as unfair that a team could win 100-plus games and yet suffer the indignity of having its fate determined by a one-game playoff.
These are called “dumb” people. They don’t get it, don’t see the big picture, don’t see any picture.
Kudos to the commissioner for sticking up for the wild card.
Kudos to the commissioner for saying what everyone is thinking: It’s a much bigger deal this year because two iconic, big-market teams who’ve been beating each other’s brains in for a century are now competing to avoid being that 100-win wild card.
“If it was, oh, pick two teams, the Brewers and the Reds that might be winning 100 games, the uproar would probably be a little less than the Yankees-Red Sox one,” he said. “So I don’t think you should get into redesigning your system based on the outcome in a particular year, particularly when you’re getting the fundamental dynamics that you wanted in the first place.”
To repeat, Manfred was not dismissing Milwaukee and Cincinnati as a couple of sleepy midwestern towns where, if the Brewers and Reds were hurtling toward 100-plus wins in the NL Central, nobody else would care.
What he was saying is that because it’s New York, because it’s Boston, because it’s the Yankees, because it’s the Red Sox, that’s the game-changer. Even if, for one of those teams, it might be just one game come October.
To nobody’s surprise, there was nothing in the way of contentiousness in the American League clubhouse as the All-Star delegations from the Red Sox (Sale, Martinez, Mookie Betts, Mitch Moreland, Craig Kimbrel) shared living space.
Was there any lighthearted banter between the two delegations?
“No, not really,” said Moreland. “Just been saying hi, things like that. We’ve mainly been signing, if ya’ll can see all that. That’s kind of what we’ve been up to. We haven’t really gotten into the race or anything. Just having some fun.”
Moreland gestured toward the two rows of tables running through the middle of the clubhouse, both of them overflowing with shirts, baseballs, caps and the players’ identification placards from Monday’s media day. Each player is expected to sign all this stuff.
Just across Kimbrel’s dressing stall one of his own shirts was laid out on the table . . . just below a Judge shirt.
“Yeah, we just put ’em out and sign ’em,” said Kimbrel. “I signed his jersey, I’m sure he signed mine. I like Judge. He’s a really nice guy. Easy guy to talk to.”
Just wondering if Bob Gibson spoke those words about Pete Rose when they were All-Star teammates.
But the 2018 All-Star Game is history, and so is the cordiality. The Sox and Yankees still have 10 games remaining against each other, and the outcome of those games may well determine which team captures the AL East and which team gets the consolation-prize wild card game.
Whatever happens, we’re looking at two 100-win teams.
One from New York, one from Boston.
That’s what makes it crazy.