DAMN, YANKS
Sloppy Bombers fall flat in Kansas City, lose to 14-30 Royals team:
KANSAS CITY — CC Sabathia called it the worst night of his 18-year, bigleague career. A perfect storm, indeed.
“That was bad,” Sabathia recalled following the Yankees’ 5-2 loss to the Royals on Friday at Kauffman Stadium.
The Bombers, looking rusty and sluggish, played like a team that had slept on an airplane two nights prior — likely because they had.
At around 10 p.m. ET Wednesday, the Yankees were on the runway aboard their team charter at rainy Dulles Airport in Virginia, about to take off for Kansas City.
Everything seemed fine. But left engine trouble prevented them from getting to their destination on that plane. So the team switched planes. But because of federal regulations put in place to mitigate fatigue, the pilots ultimately had to clock out before takeoff attempt No. 2 — leaving the Yankees and their traveling party of 60 or so stuck in the D.C. area.
“It was terrible. I don’t know how else to describe it,” said Clint Frazier, who slept sporadically on the floor of the team charter from 2 a.m. to 8:30 a.m.
Frazier, who forgot his blanket on the first plane, was stepped on and kicked inadvertently by his other teammates who got back on the plane.
Sabathia also slept on the plane, at one point stealing rookie Gleyber Torres’ blanket to keep warm. Torres never noticed. He was asleep.
Torres went on to make a pair of misplays Friday — rare mistakes for the 21-year-old wunderkind who has been a plus-defender at second base since his promotion from the minors.
“That’s part of the game,” Sabathia said. “He’s done everything we’ve asked of him. I look forward to him bouncing back tomorrow.”
Aaron Boone, on the other hand, got a good night’s rest on the plane. His team just couldn’t get the big hit when it counted Friday — held without an extrabase knock for the second time this season.
“It was a little odd waking up and like we’re still here,” said Boone, who got six-to-seven hours of shut-eye. “And I couldn’t claim jet lag.”
Boone felt his players handled
everything like pros.
“It was interesting,” Boone said. “But there wasn’t a lot of griping. I think the guys kind of laughed it off. I’m proud of the way they handled it.”
Last season, the Bombers barely got out of Chicago following their 6-hour, 5-minute, 18-inning marathon against the Cubs, taking off at 3:08 a.m. CT — 14 minutes before their pilots would’ve been out of time.
There were no hotels to accommodate such a massive party within a 90-mile radius given all the happenings in the area. So they had no choice but to rough it at the airport, so to speak.
The Yankees, of course, had checked out of their hotels Wednesday before heading to Nationals Park with their luggage in tow, as per usual on a getaway day.
The Bombers and Nationals played six innings on Tuesday night before that game was suspended and postponed until Wednesday at 5:05 p.m. — before the 7:05 p.m. two-game series finale — due to thunderstorms.
But those games were also postponed due to rain Wednesday, leaving the Bombers to wait around a bit before departing for the airport.
Both teams had a mutual offday Thursday, but those same hotel issues — as well as a Nationals charity event at the ballpark later that evening — meant the games would be made up on June 18.
In fact, when the Yankees were rained out over the weekend in Detroit April 14-15, their flight back to New York was delayed on the runway for a couple hours amid heavy showers. It has been quite a spring so far — featuring a rare snowout in their homeopener on April 2. That game, a win over Tampa, was postponed and made up the following day.
Most players opted to spend the night Wednesday in a private lounge for luxury travelers, with no one else around at 1 a.m. ET.
Others, like Frazier, Sabathia and Boone, slept aboard the charter — with the AC turned on — the same type of thing they’d do when flying to New York after a game on the West Coast.
By Thursday morning, rested as much as possible and well-fed, it was wheels up — with takeoff by different pilots at around 9:30 a.m. ET and hotel arrival in Kansas City around 12 p.m. CT.
Fortunately, it was an off-day, meaning sleep and more sleep was in order.
The weather for Saturday night’s game against the Royals is also iffy — with a chance of thunderstorms.
A tarp covered the field postgame. Of course it did.