DIRTY LAUNDRY
Throw Sawx in hamper because Yanks are done with them
THE miseries of their ancient rivals should really be of no consequence to the Yankees at this point. Alex Cora all but conceded first place to the Yankees before his Red Sox even took the field Saturday, admitting the prudence for his team to focus instead on a wild-card chase that, in itself, will be 10 kinds of arduous. The Yankees? They have larger celestial bodies to pursue. A sweep in Saturday’s doubleheader nudged them twohundredths of a point ahead of the Astros in what will surely be a splendid race for the American League’s No. 1 seed.
The ’Stros were already the most significant impediment to the Yankees’ championship mission; since adding Zack Greinke, they have become the white whale to New York’s Ahab, and the combined no-hitter they tossed at the Mariners on Saturday was just one more shot across the bow.
And then, later on, there may well
be those other primordial foes to ponder, the Dodgers.
So the Red Sox should be yesterday’s road kill. The 9-2 win in the afternoon, coupled with the 6-4 victory in the nightcap, left pinstriped tread marks all over Boston’s back. The lead is now 13 ½ games, the losscolumn deficit 15, and most delicious of all, the Sox were muttering to themselves (and yelling at umpires). They went ahead and held the team meeting they decided against having Friday in between games. It didn’t help.
It shouldn’t be this fun watching the Sox suffer.
But, of course, for Yankees fans, it’s so seductive they should sell popcorn to watch it all unfold.
“That’s a good team over there,” Aaron Boone said of the Red Sox, showing the proper amount of official deference to the team that will hold the title of world champions for another three months, his own professional decorum preventing him from sharing in the glee of his team’s most ferocious partisans.
This, though, was a terrific example of what 2019 has been about to date for both of these teams. DJ LeMahieu led off the home first with a blast over the right-field wall. The Yankees finished off erstwhile ace Chris Sale by dropping the crookedest number available — 7 — on his head like an anvil in the fourth inning. Domingo German cruised and
crushed with the lead. Then they toyed with the Sox for six innings before seizing Game 2. They crawled 32 games above .500 for the first time all season. All of that would have been enough fun for one day.
But then Cora came out to chat with Sale in Game 1 for the sole purpose of engaging home-plate ump Mike Estabrook, and Estabrook let him riff for a while without responding, save for the thumb that ejected Cora from the game. Later in the inning, as Sale trudged off the mind after absorbing his latest Yankees beating (he has a 9.90 ERA and an 0-4 record against them this year) he, too, gave Estabrook an earful.
And Estabrook didn’t even give him a thumb, just waved him to the showers.
Now, Estabrook wasn’t good; he called strike three to Gio Urshela ball two in that fateful fourth and
Sale insisted that changed the whole course of the inning. Estabrook also gave German two gift strikeouts on fairly apparent balls to both J.D. Martinez and Xander Bogaerts. That didn’t help the Sox’s cause, either.
(NEWS FLASH: Players and managers in 2019 were upset with an ump’s strike zone. Baby, get me rewrite!)
It’s weird how it’s always struggling teams who allow those things to consume them, and then condemn them, isn’t it? Oh, wait. That isn’t weird at all. Winning teams bitch at umpires and then do things like win the game, as the Yankees did on the day when Boone delivered his “f---ing savages” rant, which may well be remembered as the Gettysburg Address of his administration. That’s no surprise, either. What is surprising, at this point, is how soft the Sox have been in defending their title, especially everywhere else in the world where they play the Yankees other than Fenway Park. The Yankees are better this year, yes, and they were good last year but they still finished eight full games behind Boston. They really couldn’t have gained on them by 21 ½ games that quickly could they?
Well ... yes. They have. They have beaten the Sox with regularity, and they have now buried them, and now they also happen to exist deep in the crevasses of their brains. It shouldn’t be the top priority. There are the Astros to worry about, and the Dodgers. It’s starting to feel like the Indians might have a say in how things shake out. The Sox? Forget them. They’re long gone.
But it’s still fun watching them scuffle, isn’t it? Admit it. That part never gets old.