These Yankees can let you down - and still make you believe
Brett Gardner, who has been in the middle of everything lately, squinted hard. There was one out in the bottom of the ninth inning Sunday afternoon, the Yankees trailed 5-3, and there was still a substantial piece of the crowd left at Yankee Stadium.
The Deegan could wait. Sunday dinner could wait.
Gardner, he could wait. He reached out and served an Alex Colome fastball to left field, and it fell fast in front of Corey Dickerson in left field. This is all it takes in this Yankees summer 2017, a summer of Yankee comebacks both from the abyss of a losing streak and from whatever deficit the Yankees happen to be facing that day.
“I’m thinking we’ve got a shot,” Yankees manager Joe Girardi said.
Of course he was thinking that, because everyone was thinking that, the 30,000 or so still in the yard, the 10,000 or so who’d taken off and were listening to the radio on the bridge, certainly John and Suzyn themselves.
“Every day is a fun day, isn’t it?” John Sterling had said not long ago, the veteran play-by-play man looking young and sounding younger, because that’s what a baseball team like this one does for you, makes you forever young, makes it forever summer.
Up stepped Clint Frazier. A few innings earlier, he walked to the plate with the bases loaded and the Yankees down a run, and the buzz was something to behold. Frazier wasn’t even in the majors when July began, and now he has become just another must-see stop in the Yankees batting order. Frazier had taken one swing, and it made most of the Little Leaguers squeal until their coaches pointed at the left fielder, Dickerson, camped under the ball.
At the time, it was a second straight inning the Yankees hadn’t cashed in a runner on third, less than two outs.
“We had some golden opportunities,” Girardi would say, ruefully.
Now, bottom nine, Colome seemed spooked at the idea of throwing Frazier a strike so he threw four balls instead. And now there was really something to behold inside Yankee Stadium, just before 5 o’clock. Over on the TV side, Michael Kay was undoubtedly preparing to describe this game during the recap, win or lose, as “unmanageable,” and it was, nearing four hours.
But it was also damn good theater.
And here came Aaron Judge.
And look: Judge has been scuffling. He’s been struggling since the All-Star Game, since the night he unofficially became the face of the sport by launching one moon shot after another to the farthest reaches of Marlins Park. But from that moment to this one, he’d collected only nine hits in 56 at-bats, and that’s .161 in any league.
“We get two on, we feel even better,” Girardi said.
“No matter what,” Girardi said, “he’s a guy you want up there.”
And here’s the thing: If Colome was scared to throw Frazier a ball in the strike zone, you know he was petrified to throw one to Judge. And yet, after throwing Strike 1 at the knees, he followed that with a fastball that was straight as a string, belt high, middle of the plate. Right there on a tee.
For much of the season, Judge crushes that baseball in a way that few men alive can crush one, he finds an unreachable place 100 feet beyond the outfield fence.
But he is scuffling. He is struggling. He took a mighty hack and the ball soared high in the air, scraping the sky, but it was hit shallow, and it was an easy F-3. A hopeful gasp turned to a baleful sigh. Two outs.
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Matt Holliday now and, look, if the most of this Yankees season has been an endless progression of feel-good, Holliday’s has been something else. He was sick for a while. He strikes out more than ever. He was 9-for-64 since coming off the DL. That’s .141.
And yet: One of the biggest swings of the season was the one Holliday had put on a Craig Kimbrel fastball in Boston 15 days earlier, tying a game at Fenway Park at 1-1 the Yanks would eventually win in 16. Girardi keeps rolling him out there. Colome threw two quick strikes. Holliday fouled one off, took a ball.
Then hit a hard shot to third. And here’s the thing: The way the year has gone, would you have been surprised if it went through Evan Longoria’s legs, if it hit a pebble and bounced over his head, if he’d airmailed the throw to first?
He didn’t. It was a routine 5-3 putout.
“He hit it hard,” Girardi said.
The crowd filed out quietly. Monday’s a new day. Anything can happen. And with this team, in this summer? It probably will.