Evening doesn’t quite go according to plan
THE WORKERS did what seemed sensible, lugging the plastic from a golf cart into the Yankees clubhouse. Soon, in the privacy of their own clubhouse, the Yankees would be able to celebrate a first-place finish for the first time since 2012. All they needed was three outs from Kenley Jansen, pitching 3,000 miles away.
In truth, rooting for the Dodgers ran counter to the Yankees’ own best interests. After all, the final 10 days of this season will be about winning as many games so they can finish ahead of the Astros in the America League, ahead of the Dodgers overall.
Still, a pennant is a pennant. They needed three outs.
Jansen never got them those three outs. The Rays scored two to tie in the ninth. They scored two more in the 11th. The Dodgers scored one in their half but that was it: The celebration would have to wait for at least one more night. The plastic, as it happens, was unnecessary.
There had been a sense of anticipation all night, though the 38,106 people who had made the pilgrimage to the Stadium had every reason to believe they’d see an old-school, honest-to-goodness pennant celebration on the field.
Before them were the perfect patsies, an Angels team that had long ago given up the ghost and is merely counting down the days until the first tee times of winter. There was a curiosity factor: Giancarlo Stanton — who had played all of nine games prior to this one, had collected only 38 plate appearances, hit but one home run — was returning to the lineup, just in time to get warm for the playoffs.
And there was a nice sentimental story right in the middle of it all, CC Sabathia making what was almost sure to be his final regular-season start at Yankee Stadium. Every strike he threw was greeted with thunderous approval, and if you believe in these sorts of things it seemed the Yankees had no other choice but to end the night in a dog pile.
And then a funny thing happened.
Stanton did go 1for-3 with a booming double, so that part was successful. But Sabathia couldn’t get out of the third inning, and when Aaron Boone came to get him he said, “Way to go, I love you,” and the crowd tried sending the same message with their cheers, and his teammates the same sentiment with their hugs. But that one didn’t quite go as planned.
And when the Yankees kicked the ball around like NYCFC in the sixth, the Angels seized a 3-2 lead they never relinquished. So the fans filed out of the stadium, headed for the highways and the subway tracks, and the Yankees turned their clubhouse into one of the toniest sports bars you’ll ever see, tuned into the Dodgers-Rays game out in Los Angeles.
They suffered through the ninth inning, suffered through the 11th, finally saw the Rays finish it off, 8-7, at 12:51 a.m., and for maybe the first time in this ceaselessly joyous and prosperous year, the Yankees could feel what other teams feel, what so many baseball fans feel, the highs and low of a pennant race.
The game? Well, Aaron Judge homered, so that was a positive. Domingo German came in to relieve Sabathia in the third, got the final out by stranding a runner at third and allowed but a hit and two walks in 2 ¹/3 innings, so there was that.
And Stanton was welcomed back into the fold. There was that.
The Yankees were, of course, 7-2 in the nine games Stanton had played this year because it feels like you pick any nine games out of this season so far and find that they went 7-2.
And — speaking frankly here — Yankees fans didn’t exactly take to Stanton when he was mostly healthy last year, and so they haven’t exactly been keeping a light on for him this year. On the one hand that is perfectly understandable because the Yankees have won, stubbornly and relentlessly, in his absence.
Of course, it is sometimes useful to remember this:
Giacarlo Stanton hit 59 home runs two years ago. Fifty-nine.
That is what the Yankees are adding to the mix, and that has to make Aaron Boone’s burden a little less … well, burdensome. You don’t add a bat like that and apologize. You add a bat like that and hope he can get five or six trips to the plate.
Boone called Stanton’s comeback effort “encouraging.”
Stanton said: “You have to roll with what you’ve got, you have to work. I’m back here now and want to use these games as a tune-up to be ready for the playoffs.”
They aren’t quite whole, not yet. But they’re getting there. And they aren’t quite division champs for the first time in seven years. But they’ll get there. Soon enough.