Bombers provide reason to believe
WE keep waiting for the moment when the Yankees stand up. When they stop talking about the team they can be, and actually become that team.
If it does not happen off of the magic Wednesday night, then when?
At about 10:15 p.m., the New York baseball season felt going, going …
The Mets had just lost again in Washington, their offense nonexistent and their rotation an emergency ward of concerns. Meanwhile, in The Bronx, the Yankees seemed out of their weight class. They had lost that insufferable game Monday night to the Rangers with a 3 ¹/2 -hour rain delay and then were clobbered 7-1 24 hours later. Texas had the AL’s best record and looked the part. The Yankees? They appeared a team set up for a knockout punch, something that would definitively send them toward the trade deadline as a seller, something that actually might feel merciful and definitive.
Wednesday sure played as if they were heading toward that punch. Masahiro Tanaka again accentuated how much more ineffective he is on four days’ rest rather than five. The team’s ace put the Yankees into a 6-1 hole. Texas got it to 7-2 in the eighth and Brian McCann’s homer in the bottom of the inning felt like garbage time.
It actually felt worse. He grabbed his knee running around the bases. Manager Joe Girardi said afterward he has some tendinitis.
McCann was not removed from the game. Instead, he was part of a ninth-inning rally that had these potential positives for the Yankees: It might serve as a springboard — finally — toward true contention. Or, at worse, it may be part of the evidence to the deep-farm Rangers that they need to give up real prospects for Aroldis Chapman or Andrew Miller.
The Yankees rallied from four down in the ninth to win for the first time in 11 years, going from 7-3 down to a 9-7 triumph.
The inning began with a Rob Refsnyder single. He is hitting .295, by the way, showing excellent bat-to-ball skills, demanding more playing time the best way possible — with his actions. He would eventually score on a Brett Gardner single and an error by center fielder Ian Desmond.
That brought up Alex Rodriguez as the tying run. Of course. Slump and all he is still A-Rod and drama follows him. He crushed a liner, but right at second baseman Rougned Odor.
It could have been deflating, just like Monday’s marathon and Tuesday’s blowout. But McCann brought life to a too-quiet home park, reached the right-field porch to tie the score off Texas closer Sam Dyson. Which felt impossible 15 minutes earlier, when the idea that the Rangers would even have to use Dyson seemed farfetched.
Starlin Castro walked. Didi Gregorius has been the Yankees’ best player not named Carlos Beltran for about six weeks now. His offense and defense so much better than in April. In some ways, he is a reminder that the Yanks need to find more young, talented players whose best days are ahead of them.
Except he homered to win the game, which felt even more impossible 15 minutes earlier. It was the kind of win that hardens ownership against selling, looking for more Gregoriuses in July.
Now we see if this win with Beltran and his balky knee on the bench against a power opponent is a takeoff moment or just another false start. There have been previous segments of the year in which it looked as if, yes, the Yankees are ready to fly. Followed quickly by sub-.500 realities.
And the peripherals remain against them. The Yankees have been badly outscored this year. They have been miserable against good teams. Their playoff odds as calculated by Fangraphs remained just above 7 percent even with this win. Their rotation ERA is 4.71. Their lineup has just one player (Beltran) with an OPS above average when factoring in park and league. Their defensive efficiency is in the bottom third of the sport.
Yet, the wild card at least hangs tantalizingly close. Maybe that is only a mirage that will delude a defective team not to try to fix its future at the trade deadline. But the upper reaches of the organization want to go for it. Ownership is adamant against selling.
Games such as Wednesday’s at least provide the Yankees a modicum of hope or momentum or something to believe they can go for it, make something out of all the disjointed parts of the roster.
We will not know for a while yet if Wednesday was the most thrilling triumph in a lost season. Or the moment when these 2016 Yankees finally stood up.
But at least they had Wednesday night and — in a New York baseball season going wrong — there was a moment to believe.