Winning close games should serve team well during stretch run
OAKLAND, Calif. — The Yankees sweated out yet another close one Tuesday night, beating Atlanta 5-4 for their 11th straight victory, one secured only after Wandy Peralta escaped the basesloaded, two-out mess Aroldis Chapman left for him.
But those kind of nail-biters, while typically providing more than a few heart palpations among the fan base — seemingly on a nightly basis of late, even as the team victory total marches upward — have become old hat for the Yankees.
And it’s something they feel could benefit them in the postseason, a place it increasingly looks as if the Yankees will end up, whether by virtue of one of the American League wild-card spots or if they manage to catch the Rays for the East title.
“We’ve played so many of these, I think more than anyone in the league certainly,” manager Aaron Boone said of the one-run games. “And the one thing I’ve said is I feel like our guys are very comfortable in these close games. Whether we pull it out, whether we lose one, whatever it may be, I know we’re comfortable in them.”
After Tuesday’s victory, the Yankees, who start a four-game series against the A’s on Thursday very much in the wild-card hunt, upped their record in one-run games this season to 21-12.
“That’s a good feeling to have, when you know guys are confident in their ability to execute at the most important part of the game when the pressure is high,” Boone said. “When that’s the case, you live with the results.”
The results have been there, even before the 11-game winning streak, though that’s a good place to start as the stretch began after the Yankees lost a 9-8 decision to the White Sox on Tim Anderson’s two-run walk-off homer off Zack Britton in the Field of Dreams game in Dyersville, Iowa.
It was the latest “gut punch” taken by the Yankees — a phrase that Boone early in the season began labeling some of his club’s roughest losses of the season, of which there’s
been no shortage of — but the Yankees responded by winning the next two games in Chicago. Neither was a one-run game, but both were two-run margins, each coming down to a reliever escaping with runners on in the final inning.
“[In] October, you’re not going to have those games where it’s 11-3 or 10-2; it’s going to be a 5-4 ballgame, a 3-2 ballgame,” Aaron Judge said. “I feel like 90% of the games we play are one-run games.”
Success in such games, of course, guarantees nothing when it comes to the
randomness of October baseball.
The Yankees, for example, went 18-19 in one-run games in 2019 but advanced to Game6ofthealchampionship Series, where they lost (by a run) on Jose Altuve’s walk-off homer off Chapman. In 2018, the Yankees went 23-17 in one-run games, beat Oakland in the wildcard game, then lost in four games to the Red Sox in the AL Division Series.
In 2017, the mark was an unimpressive 18-26, but the Yankees clobbered Minnesota in the wild-card round, upset Cleveland in the ALDS, then took a 3-2 lead in the ALCS against the Astros before losing Games 6 and 7 in Houston.
Last year, during the 60-game, Covid-19-shortenedseason,theyankeeswere 6-7 in one-run games, hardly enough of a sample size from whichtodrawanyconclusions (theylostgame5ofthealds to the Rays 1-0 after sweeping Cleveland in the best-of-three wild-card series).
While there’s nothing predictive about what it could mean come the postseason, experiencing success in a slew of close games certainly beats the alternative.
“There’s no panic [with us], even when things aren’t going our way in the eighth or ninth inning,” Judge said. “Guys have no panic, and the next man steps up to make a play.”