Green ready for ‘anything’
The Yankees left Fenway Park on Sunday night without announcing who their wildcard starter would be against the A’s, but regardless of who they pick, Wednesday’s first inning almost certainly can’t go as badly as it did in last year’s one-game playoff. Chad Green had barely taken his seat in the bullpen when the Yankees found themselves down 3-0 to the Twins, with their ace on the ropes in The Bronx. “They didn’t tell us the order of who’d be coming into the game,’’ Green said. “They told us to be prepared for anything, and then ‘ anything’ kind of happened.” Brian Dozier belted a 3-1 pitch into the seats for a leadoff homer off Luis Severino, who finished third in the American League Cy Young Award voting last season.
Joe G ir ar di yanked the righthander after just 29 pitches. “It really happened pretty fast,’’ Green said. “[Severino] had been good all year. Even his off day is usually still pretty good. So you look back and it’s surprising. But those kinds of games can get out of hand in a hurry. I just happened to be the next one in.”
Green had just finished a breakout season with the Yankees. After spending the first month of the year as a starter with Triple-A Scranton/Wil- kes-Barre, Green came up and emerged as a dominant righthander out of the bullpen.
“In those situations, you try to get ready as quickly as you can and you just want to be able to get through that inning. You don’t worry about how you feel in the bullpen. You try to get loose enough to get ready to pitch.”
Green was ready. And his ability to strike batters out was never more important than in that inning.
“At the time, you don’t think too much,’’ Green said. “All you know is it’s 3-0 and if those two runs score, it’s 5-0 and that’s a lot tougher to come back from. I didn’t try to do too much. It also helped that I got up, threw 10 pitches [in the bullpen] and was in the game. I didn’t have time to sit around and think.”
He struck out Byron Buxton and Jason Castro to prevent the Yankees from falling further behind.
Didi Gregorius’ one-out, three-run homer in the bottom of the inning tied the game and the Yankees’ comeback was on its way.
“You try to stay locked in,’’ Green said. “The first couple of innings took forever. I looked up and we were an hour and a half into the game and it was only the second inning.’’
Green retired the side in order in the second before he faltered in the third, loading the bases with one out, before he was replaced by David Robertson, who limited the Twins to one run.
“No matter what happens [Wednesday], we’ll be ready,” Green said. “We said that last year, too, but it’s the kind of thing you have to experience to really be prepared for.”