The finishing touches
A CALMING MOMENT FOR NERIS AND A CLOSING STATEMENT FROM PRESSLY
NEW YORK — Five outs separated the Astros from a no-hitter, yet Héctor Neris neared an implosion. His outward objections toward home-plate umpire Alex Tosi and his terrible strike zone would warrant an ejection in almost every other regular-season game. Two borderline pitches went against Neris, the first man tasked with finishing Cristian Javier’s masterpiece.
Tosi’s incompetence threatened the objective. He is a minor league fill-in umpire with a strike zone that received ridicule from both dugouts. Yankees manager Aaron Boone started the eighth inning arguing with him. Neris picked up where his opponent left off. Tosi missed an obvious third strike to pinch-hitter D.J. LeMahieu and instead determined Neris’ 2-2 sinker sailed too low in the strike zone.
Neris bent at the knees and put his hands atop his head. LeMahieu fouled off a full-count sinker and watched another sail a smidge outside. Neris again raised his hands to object. The MLB Gameday app showed it clipped the strike zone. LeMahieu jogged to first, and Aaron Hicks sauntered to second.
Neris continued to argue. Catcher Martín Maldonado leapt from his crouch to control the situation. All of his value to the Astros is tied to these situations, when games — or even history — hangs in the balance.
Neris had walked Hicks to start the inning. He induced a flyout from pinch-hitter Matt Carpenter to regain stability, but Maldonado noticed Neris trying too hard to quicken his delivery during the at-bat. Neris is notoriously slow to home plate and susceptible to stolen bases. Before LeMahieu arrived to hit, Maldonado jogged out to remind him of the scenario.
“We’re winning 2-0,” Maldonado said he told him. “Just make pitches. If they steal the base, so what?”
Neris thought he did. Tosi did not agree. Neris never seemed in danger of an ejection, but Maldonado sensed a loss of composure coming. He made his way to the mound. En route, he did something he rarely ever does.
Maldonado motioned toward the dugout and asked pitching coach Josh Miller to join them. Miller said he is “usually going to defer to Maldy” in any onfield scenario, illustrating the amount of trust this coaching staff puts in this catcher’s ability. Miller discussed attack plans for both LeMahieu and Carpenter with Maldonado prior to the inning. Not even he knew why Maldonado summoned him.
“As a catcher, I think you can talk to the pitcher all you want, but I think when you have two guys on the same page, they kind of understand more that it’s not about the pitch, it’s about continuing making pitches,” Maldonado said.
Added Miller: “He basically wanted me to be a second calming voice for Héctor. He threw some really good pitches that were close that were called balls. Sometimes that can take a pitcher out of his game.”
The meeting dissipated, and Neris gathered himself. Joey Gallo stepped into the batter’s box. Neris elevated a four-seam fastball but perhaps didn’t get it as high as many intended. Gallo struck it at 112.4 mph and sent a fly ball that Statcast said carried a .670 expected batting average.
Kyle Tucker caught it two steps shy of the wall, bringing Aaron Judge to bat. Few men in the sport are more dangerous. Judge struck Neris’ 1-0 sinker almost just as hard — 112.9 mph — but straight to shortstop Aledmys Díaz. He finished the force play to put out LeMahieu, a runner Neris felt should never have reached.
That he got over it — with Maldonado’s help — made the escape possible.
“I think that was the key in the moment,” Neris said. “They gave me the chance to breathe and get my mind positive to get the guy out.”
Neris left the mound in unrestrained jubilation. He balled his fists and shouted toward the dugout, where manager Dusty Baker had what fans presumed a difficult decision. His closer combusted on this same field two days earlier. It did little to diminish any faith Baker held in him. Miller called down to the bullpen and asked Ryan Pressly to get loose.
“He’s my closer,” Baker said. “Just because he had one bad day, that doesn’t make you not my closer.”
Pressly had more than a bad day Thursday. He had a calamitous one. Entrusted with a three-run lead in the bottom of the ninth, he allowed all five men he saw to reach base. Four scored and Houston took one of its most devastating losses this season. Pressly’s WHIP rose to 1.36 and his ERA to 4.26. He tersely answered three questions after the game, went back to the hotel and pondered the collapse.
“I lost a lot of sleep that night. I was pretty upset with myself,” Pressly said. “I felt like I let the team down. Coming back out there today, being able to watch Javi throw and Héctor throw, you can’t say enough about them and how they went out there and took care of business.”
Baker entrusted his closer to finish it against a lethal part of New York’s lineup. Anthony Rizzo, Josh Donaldson and Giancarlo Stanton invite fear in any situation. Pressly felt none. He averaged 96 mph on the three four-seam fastballs he threw, adrenaline while history appeared within reach.
Pressly induced four swings against his slider. All four were whiffs. Rizzo waved over one for a strikeout. Donaldson did the same, leaving all of New York’s hopes to Stanton, a fearsome slugger with so much power.
Pressly fell behind him 2-1 before leaving a curveball over the heart of home plate. Stanton normally nukes that sort of mistake. This time, he could not. He bounced the baseball harmlessly to third base. Alex Bregman took it on two hops and fired to first.
Pressly let out a guttural yell while “New York, New York” blared in the background. Maldonado wrapped him in a hug. The field turned into a Houston mob scene.
“It’s exciting,” Pressly said. “I just wanted to go out there and make quality pitches and see what happens. They hit it right to somebody and we got to celebrate on the field.”