Yankees maintain playoff mastery over Twins
When it comes to New York Yankees-Minnesota Twins in October, that’s the way it always is.
The Yankees completed a three-game sweep of their personal postseason punching bag — and regular season, too, truth be told — with an efficient 5-1 victory late Monday in front of a sellout crowd of 41,121 fans at Target Field who probably have grown accustomed to the disappointment.
The Yankees will start the ALCS on Saturday either at the top-seeded Houston Astros or home against the wild-card Tampa Bay Rays, who went into Tuesday’s game with Houston leading 2 games to 1.
Behind four scoreless innings from Luis Severino, a standout game on both sides of the ball from Gleyber Torres and an excellent defensive game overall, the Yankees won their 13th consecutive postseason game against the Twins, who have lost 16 postseason games in a row overall.
Torres homered in the second and saved a run later in the game with an outstanding stop to end the fifth inning. Didi Gregorius had a pair of RBI singles, Brett Gardner singled home a run and defensive replacement Cameron Maybin hit a towering home run to leftfield in the ninth.
The Yankees, now 10237 vs. Minnesota since 2002, including the postseason, also swept the Twins in the ALDS in 2009 and 2010 and beat them in the last three games of the 2004 ALDS.
BRAVES BUCK HISTORY
The Braves are back in the A-T-L for a decisive postseason game. That’s not necessarily a good omen for the home team.
Over the years, Atlanta has been the place where other teams come to celebrate in October.
The St. Louis Cardinals hope to continue that trend when they face the Braves in Game 5 of the NL Division Series on Wednesday.
“I was just a little kid when that happened,” Braves shortstop Dansby Swanson said with a shrug. “History is history. We’re in the moment now. This is a completely different and new team.”
Indeed, Swanson was just 7 years old when Atlanta began a streak of St. Louis @Atlanta Washington @Los Angeles Flaherty (R) Foltynewicz (R) Strasburg (R) Buehler (R) nine straight postseasonround losses with a fivegame setback to Arizona in the 2001 NL Championship Series.
Still, it’s impossible to ignore that the Braves are just one series loss away from equaling an ignominious 11-8
8-6 18-6 14-4 2.75 17-17 4.54 14-8 3.32 22-12 3.26 21-10 1-1 21.0 1.29 2-1 19.0 1.42 2-0 19.0 0.95 2-1 17.0 3.18 record set by the Chicago Cubs, who lost 10 series in a row between 1908 and 2003.
The move to SunTrust Park in 2017 didn’t change Atlanta’s fortunes. Last season, the Braves were closed out at home by the Los Angeles Dodgers in Game 4 of the NLDS.
SHOWDOWN IN L.A.
Stephen Strasburg’s 2012 shutdown is a distant memory by now.
This sort of setting and stakes — Game 5 against the Los Angeles Dodgers, with the outcome of the NL Division Series on the line — is exactly why the Washington Nationals protected the pitcher they drafted No. 1 overall all those years ago.
Strasburg will get the ball for visiting wild card Washington, and Walker Buehler will be on the mound for league-best LA on Wednesday night in the series.
The Dodgers are trying to reach the NL Championship Series for the fourth consecutive year, while the Nationals have never won a playoff series since the franchise moved from Montreal to Washington in 2005.
Each starter already had a fantastic outing to earn a win in the series: Buehler gave up just one hit while tossing six scoreless innings in Game 1; Strasburg struck out 10 and allowed one run in six innings in Game 2. That lowered Strasburg’s postseason
ERA to 0.64.