IT'S TIME TO GET WILD!
Though they aren’t going to the postseason as the AL East champs, the Yankees feel pretty good about their chances in Tuesday night’s wild-card game against the Twins at Yankee Stadium.
“We fought for the AL East title and I am very proud of the guys in that room and what they have accomplished,’’ Joe Girardi said of his club that beat the Blue Jays, 2-1, Saturday in front of 39,457 at the Stadium but didn’t get the required help from the Astros in Boston to take the AL East race to the final nine innings Sunday.
Though it’s as a wild card, the Yankees are in the postseason for the first time since 2015. The winner of Tuesday night’s game faces the Indians in the ALDS with the first two tilts in Cleveland.
When the Yankees dropped five games back on Sept. 24, it put them in survival mode. Since then the Yankees are 5-1, and the importance of those six games works in their favor according to Girardi.
“In a sense, they were elimination games for us,’’ Girardi said. “We were five down coming home and our guys continued to play well and continued to play loose. They continued to make pitches and grind out atbats. That was encouraging to me because it’s not like we had a chance to turn it off and I like that.’’
Sunday will be a day of rest for some of Girardi’s regulars in order to get ready for the Twins, who they went 4-2 against in the regular season. Though Aaron Judge, CC Sabathia, David Robertson and Aroldis Chapman did their part to keep the Yankees alive, the updates out of Fenway Park weren’t encouraging. “As close as I ever watched,’’ Girardi said when asked how focused he was on the scoreboard. “It is frustrating because of how well we played in the last five or six weeks. I like the way our club is playing and let’s give it everything we got.’’
In what could have been Sabathia’s final game as a Yankee, he provided 5 2/3 scoreless innings and improved to 14-5 and lowered his ERA to 3.69.
“We took care of our business, that’s all we can do,’’ said Sabathia, who hadn’t won 14 games since 2013. The ERA is his lowest since posting a 3.38 mark in 2012.
Judge hit a 484-foot homer off Long Island’s Marcus Stroman in the fourth inning for his 52nd homer. Robertson cleaned up a two-on, no-out jam he inherited from Tommy Kahnle in the eighth and Chapman posted his 22nd save with a clean ninth inning.
Judge, who passed Babe Ruth for the most home runs in a season at Yankee Stadium with 33, says the recipe for advancing is familiar.
“Just keep playing our game. Keep doing what we’ve been doing the past couple weeks and keep having fun,’’ Judge said. “Never played for a team like this, where everyone gets along. We’re always competing, we’re always having fun. That’s what championship teams are made of, so I’m excited for what’s gonna happen in the postseason.’’
So, when your club comes off the canvas late in the season and narrowly misses winning a title do you play the “What If ” card?
“You can beat yourself up but that’s not going to help but that’s part of baseball,’’ Girardi said. “In 162 games you are going to have some games that get away and some that you win that you probably shouldn’t. It usually balances out for the most part.’’