It’s good to have a Gardy in a fall pinch
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — At the crack of the bat, David Robertson knew he was in trouble. Big trouble. There were runners at the corners, two outs, a full count to Rays second baseman Brandon Lowe. And Lowe hit a screaming missile to center field. The ball had trouble tattooed on it from contact. “He crushed it,” Robertson said later. But at that same moment of contact, Brett Garner was already running to a spot. In the Yankees’ master blueprint Monday night, the only thing Gardner should have been running toward at that moment was the water cooler, or the bucket filled with Dubble Bubble, or maybe a sleeve of sunflower seeds. Such has been Gardner’s lot for much of September, since the combination of Andrew McCutchen’s arrival and Aaron Judge’s return and Aaron Hicks’ continued emergence has conspired to limit his playing time. This came as something of a relief to a segment of Yankees fans that believed Gardner had been the team’s weak offensive link all year. The relief Robertson felt as he turned to trace the ball’s flight was something else. “Thank goodness,” he said, “that Gardy was out there.” Gardner sped under the ball just as it was about to fall on the warning track, leapt with both arms and the one with his glove on it, the right hand, smothered the ball. It saved two runs, saved a 3-1 lead, helped propel the Yankees to a 4-1 win that eliminated the Rays from postseason consideration and edged the Yankees closer to hosting the wild-card play-in game next Wednesday.
“Awesome,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said with a smile, reflecting on the catch, and all it meant, and the guy who made it. “He’s just such a pro. Ready. Obviously since we got healthy, it’s cut into some of his playing time, but there’s no doubt in my mind he’ll play a huge role for us down the stretch.”
Teams that go the distance in October always have a couple of guys loitering on their roster like Gardner, who at 34 years old and with 11 years in the big leagues is unfazed by big moments or the days that pass without seeing his name on a lineup card.
He’s scuffled this year, much of which was spent leading off, much of which was spent hopscotching from one slump to another. He was hitting .236 heading into the game, but his first impact was an immediate one after being summoned to replace Hicks in the lineup after Hicks tweaked his hamstring: dunking the ball over Lowe’s head with two outs in the fifth, scoring Aaron Judge with the run that broke a 1-1 tie. Then he sped around from first on Giancarlo Stanton’s double, giving the Yankees the 3-1 lead that he would save with his mitt, bumping his head into the fence in the bargain.
“It’s OK,” he said, “it’ll look good on my bald head.”
He was in a fine mood because that has always been what Gardner has been, a team-first, rank-and-file member of the chorus whose true value probably won’t be appreciated until he’s gone, something that could well happen at season’s end.
Gardner and Robertson, along with CC Sabathia, are the only members of this year’s Yankees who know what it is to win a championship here, each of them part of the 2009 team that won the Yankees their 27th championship. He was 25 that season, a walking burst of energy every time he walked onto a field, even if he was limited to 14 postseason plate appearances.
He knows the satisfaction of being a minor contributor to a major success.
“It’s good to go out there and contribute on both sides of the ball,” he said, and he was asked if it’s been tough to watch so much recently after playing in at least 145 games in every year since 2010 with the exception of 2012, when he was limited to 17 games after hurting his elbow.
“It can be if you don’t have a routine,” he said. “We don’t have a lot of guys on this team that need to be pinch hit for late in games.”
So he and Neil Walker, a fellow summer stalwart who’s virtually disappeared in September, work with each other every day, encourage each other every day. Walker hit a home run to beat the Red Sox last week. Gardner’s glove killed a two-run triple Monday. Old pros know what they’re doing, and in September that’s as fun to watch as anything.