YANKS FOR THE MEMORIES
After incredible run, Bombers’ season ends
The Yankees’ remarkable and improbable season came to a sad finish last night, when the Bombers fell 4-0 to the Houston Astros in the deciding game of the American League Championship Series.
Aaron Judge walks away after striking out in the eighth inning, and Gary Sanchez (inset) sits dejectedly in the dugout a short time later after a wonderful Yankees season came to a bitter end with a 4-0 Game 7 ALCS loss to the Astros on Saturday.
HOUSTON — This stunningly successful Yankees season concluded with a sting of reality Saturday night at Minute Maid Park. The proper order of things reasserted itself in time to send the Yankees east, toward New York and the offseason, instead of west, toward Los Angeles and the World Series.
Now batting for the proper order of things, Brian McCann.
Yes, the 2017 Yankees’ highestpaid catcher will be in the Fall Classic, thanks in large part to his own American League Championship Series performance. The ex-Yankee, pushed overboard to make room for Gary Sanchez, delivered the biggest hit in ALCS Game 7 to lead his Astros to a 4-0 victory, the AL pennant and a World Series date with the Dodgers, with Game 1 set for Tuesday night at Dodger Stadium.
In the Astros’ home rescue operation, winning the f inal two games at home to counter the Yankees’ sweep of Games 3 through 5 in The Bronx, McCann produced huge moments in both games.
“I’ve worked my whole life for this moment,” McCann said during the Astros’ on-field celebration. “I grew up in a baseball house. I’ve been going to the field since I’ve been 3 years old. I’ve been at this moment a million times with my older brother at our house.
“It’s not over. This is step one. We get to play in the World Series, and we’re going to win this thing.”
Not for a second do this weekend’s results make you question the Yankees’ decision last November to trade McCann to Houston for a pair of pitching prospects and $23 million of salary relief. Sanchez, earning six figures like his backup Austin Romine, put together an All-Star first full season in the big leagues, even if his defense requires some obvious improvement. However, the Yankees made this deal and others — like equipping last year’s pennant-winners the Cubs and Indians with relievers Aroldis Chapman and Andrew Miller, respectively — knowing that their trade part- ners very well might benefit first.
As those young pitchers from Houston, Albert Abreu and Jorge Guzman, enjoyed fruitful first seasons in the Yankees’ organization, McCann enjoyed his return full-time to catching and contributed a typically solid offensive season with leadership both behind the plate and in the clubhouse. To do so, he received, in effect, $11.5 million from the Astros and $5.5 million from the Yankees. It’ll be the same setup next year.
“We don’t win this series without McCann, even if he doesn’t get that hit,” Astros general manager Jeff Luhnow said. “He makes these guys [the Astros’ pitchers] better. He’s been instrumental to our success throughout the playoffs.”
He did get that hit, though. With the Astros owning a tight, 2-0 lead in the fifth, McCann connected on a two-out, 2-and-2 offspeed pitch from Tommy Kahnle and ripped it into the rightfield corner, scoring Carlos Correa from third and Yuli Gurriel from first to double Houston’s lead. The ballpark, crazy loud all night, erupted.
“I know his split’s one of his goto weapons, especially with guys in scoring position,” McCann said of Kahnle. “They had been throwing me a lot of off-speed the whole series. I sat on it the whole at-bat and I was able to get one up.”
In Game 6, also in the fifth i nning, McCann delivered a ground-rule double off Luis Severino to break a scoreless tie and pick up his first hit of the series after starting 0- for-11. If the
33-year-old’s overall series slash line of .188/. 350/. 313 didn’t put him in the mix for ALCS Most Valuable Player honors, he nevertheless ensured himself a nice spot on Astros highlight films for generations to come.
If the Yankees will remember him less fondly now, the feeling won’t be mutual.
“I love that organization,” McCann said of the Yankees. “I have lifelong friends over there that I’ll be talking to when I’m in my 70s and 80s. That’s how close I got with a lot of people over there. For them to be where they’re at after a year of rebuilding, getting rid of some pieces, I’m so happy for them.”
Now it’s on the Yankees to turn the proper order in their favor next year.