The surprising hero swatting way into Yankees late-season lore
ARLINGTON, Texas — The “Mr. September” handle hasn’t been claimed by anyone in the Yankees’ universe, right?
Reggie Jackson has “Mr. October” and Derek Jeter “Mr. November,” and anyone 40 or older won’t forget Dave Winfield being tagged as “Mr. May” in a particularly brutal George Steinbrenner diss.
So how about Tyler Austin joins this crowd?
Too soon, naturally. Yet for a young player who doesn’t have much major league playing time at all, whose 2017 has been defined by injury and aggravation, he sure has made his mark in the regular season’s final month.
On Saturday afternoon, at Globe Life Park, the rookie delivered a ninth-inning, bases-loaded single off Rangers righty Ricky Rodriguez to break a tie and push the Yankees to a 3-1 victory over Texas. Austin had just entered the game on defense in the eighth, and this marked just his second at-bat in six days.
“It’s not easy,” manager Joe Girardi said. “But in his young amount of time here, he’s had some big hits for us. We’ve seen them from him. I think he had a walk-off homer. He had a big homer in the Boston series. Just a really good approach on his part. … To be able to stay ready, it’s a lot of credit to him.”
Austin did produce a walk-off homer, on Sept. 8, 2016, against the Rays. He did knock a big homer in the Boston series, in a 4-3 victory over the Sawx this past Aug. 19 at Fenway Park. He also slammed a two-run, go-ahead homer against the Blue Jays on Sept. 6 of last year.
However, those previous successes gave Austin no confidence, he insisted, when his turn arrived Saturday. Rather, his previous unrequested hiatus dominated his mind. Instead, he said, “I was a little nervous going up there,” a byproduct of not playing very much.
“Once I saw the first pitch, I kind of calmed myself down,” he said, “and tried to get something and tried not to do too much with it.”
By the time he saw that first pitch, the Yankees had tied the score at 1-1, ensuring Luis Severino wouldn’t be tagged with a loss after allowing just one hit and three walks in seven innings, on an eighth-inning rally during which Matt Holliday pinch-hit for starting first baseman Greg Bird against lefty reliever Alex Claudio and singled. Austin had received a heads-up from Girardi and bench coach Rob Thomson that if Bird got lifted for a pinch-hitter, he would enter the game at first base.
With the bases jammed and one out in the ninth, Austin came up and connected on the second pitch he saw, a hanging slider, and belted it to left field, scoring Judge with the lead run. Ellsbury scored an insurance run on Chase Headley’s bases-loaded walk, and Aroldis Chapman successfully returned to the closer’s role with a 1-2-3 ninth, the first out coming when Austin stretched to grab Starlin Castro’s wobbly relay on Elvis Andrus’ soft grounder. Replay officials upheld the out call after a Rangers challenge.
“It was a big play,” Austin said. “Changed the inning.”
His hit changed the game.
“It was one of the bigger hits that we’ve had this year,” Headley said.
Austin surely envisioned moments like this, though with a different buildup. A fractured left ankle in February and a right hamstring strain in June sidelined him for much of the season. He finds himself in a similarly tenuous place on the organizational depth chart as a year ago.
“Definitely not the way you draw it up, to be honest,” he said. “I think I have [217] at-bats in the entire season. Guys get that in the first month and a half, two months. Definitely not how you draw it up. But what can you do?”
You can salvage things now. During his brief big league career, Austin has a .306/.382/.612 slash line in 22 September/October (regular season) games.
He chuckled at the “Mr. September” suggestion.
“Hopefully we can get a few more hits like that,” he said. “We could use them.”
As the Yankees have seen during these topsy-turvy last few weeks, you can’t have too many big hits, or too many heroes, this time of the season.