By Yours Truly
http://throneberryfields.com/2017/10/06/the-replay-that-wasnt-abets-the-surreality-that-was/When the pros and cons of instant replay come under debate, as they still do even after it’s become
entrenched, bet on it. Yankee manager Joe Girardi will be questioned for seasons to come over why
he didn’t call for one in the bottom of the sixth Friday.
Replay has its critics but in this case its absence may—may—have built a coffin for the Yankees’
season. It also helped push the Indians closer to acquiring the hammer with which to drive the
nails through the lid.
Entering that frame in Game Two of their division series, the Yankees had the Indians on the
dead run. Exiting that frame, the Indians were suddenly two innings from tying and seven innings
from walking it off, 9-8, in a manner even some Indians couldn’t necessarily believe.
“No words, honestly,” said Jay Bruce. “I’m speechless.”
Oh, sure, Yan Gomes had just doubled to the back of left field with two outs, off reliever Chad
Green, setting up second and third, but Lonnie Chisenhall pinch hit for Giovany Urshela, who
got the start because the Indians wanted as much righthanded lumber against veteran
Yankee southpaw CC Sabathia.
After two fast swinging strikes and four straight foul offs, Chisenhall was hit by a pitch. Or was
he? Assorted replays showed the ball actually hit the knob of Chisenhall’s bat. Yankee catcher
Gary Sanchez caught the ricochet. Had Girardi challenged, it would have been strike three.
But no. “There was nothing that told us that he was not hit by the pitch,” the skipper said after
a Game Two whose wildness eclipsed both leagues’ wild card games. “By the time we got the
super slow-mo, we are beyond a minute. It was too late. They tell us we have 30 seconds. I
think about the rhythm and never want to take a pitcher out of rhythm and have them stand
over there to tell me he wasn’t hit.”
“I didn’t think it hit him,” Sanchez said after the game, “because he never reacted. He stood
there. But it’s just stuff that happens in the game.”
With the bases loaded, something else got taken out: Green’s 1-1 service to Francisco Lindor—
out on a parabola and off the right field foul pole, on a spot even with the second deck. Just
like that, an 8-3 Yankee blowout in the making turned into a one-run game.
And it would be tied in the eighth when Game One’s one-man Indians scoring machine, Bruce,
hit a leadoff blast the other way, over the left field fence, to tie it. Off David Robertson, who
thought he could get away with a fastball instead of his bread-and-butter curve.
That’s just stuff that happens in the game, too. No wonder Bruce was speechless.
“As soon as I hit it,” Lindor said after the game, “I knew it had a chance of going out. Then after
a couple of steps, I was like, `No, don’t go foul, please. Just stay fair.’ I started blowing on it a
little bit. As soon as it went out, it was just a lot of emotions.”
And while the Indians’ redoubtable bullpen kept the Yankees shut out despite a dicey moment
here and there for innings six through thirteen, Gomes turned into the biggest barb in the
Yankee craw.
He made up for a tough throwing error by replacement third baseman Erik Gonzalez that let
Todd Frazier take second to open the top of the eleventh, when Frazier came out for pinch
runner Ronald Torreyes. In half a blink, Gomes from his knees threw Torreyes out leaning a
little too far off second. Torreyes was called safe initially but a review asked by the Indians
showed him out.
Then, as if to say that wasn’t even close to enough, in the bottom of the thirteenth Gomes
shot a tight pitch right through Frazier diving to his right at third, the ball traveling more
than far enough down the left field line to send home Austin Jackson, who opened with a
walk and stole second.
“I’m pretty sure I swung at a ball that was going to hit me,” said Gomes, after the game
and a Gatorade shower or two. “That’s how bad I wanted to get it done. I’ve never choked
up that much on the bat. I was just trying to get the job done, just move the guy over
and just pass the bat around and just let somebody else do it.”
But of course.
How else was such a wild game supposed to end, on an evening neither starting pitcher—
Corey Kluber for the Indians and Sabathia for the Yankees—looked like his vintage or
his usual self, with command issues both ways that the Yankees took better advantage of.
At least until Sabathia retired twelve of his final thirteen batters and looked to be on
cruise control until Girardi lifted him for Green after only 77 pitches.
Sanchez touched Kluber for a two-run homer in the first, and—after the Indians tied in
their half with Carlos Santana’s RBI single, before taking a 3-2 lead on Jason Kipnis’s
RBI single—Starlin Castro’s top of the third RBI single was topped only when Aaron
Hicks, with Castro and Greg Bird (single) aboard, sent a 2-2 pitch into the right field
seats and Kluber to an early exit.
Bird’s two-run shot off Mike Clevenger in the fifth made it 8-3. It would have been easy
to assume the Yankees in complete control, unless you know the Indians. Even when they
look surrounded by doom, they don’t exactly consider themselves dead and buried.
Kluber could only be dazzled by his teammates’ resilience. “Even when we were down 8-3,”
he said after the game, “we didn’t believe the game was over. We never feel like we’re out
of a game.”
The Indians shook in the first when Edwin Encarnacion rolled his ankle into a sprain returning
to second on Bruce’s soft line out; even a team this deep can’t afford to lose their home run
and RBI leader, which they would until the World Series at minimum if Encarnacion has to
come off the roster.
With both teams practically emptying their pens trying to find some way out of the insanity,
it’s a bloody good thing Saturday’s their early travel day to New York for Sunday’s Game
Three.
Maybe not for Girardi, though. He’s going to be under New York’s notoriously relentless sports
microscope for failing to call for a review on the pitch to Chisenhall. Maybe even for lifting
Sabathia for Green, too.
The more historically inclined will marry Girardi to Darrell Johnson lifting Jim Willoughby,
Tommy Lasorda deciding it was safe to pitch to Jack Clark with first base open, John McNamara
not lifting Bill Buckner, Dusty Baker handing Russ Ortiz the game ball, Grady Little committing
to Pedro Martinez’s heart without reading his fuel tank, Mike Matheny leaving Trevor Rosenthal
in the bullpen, Buck Showalter unable to find Zach Britton.
Even with the Indians managing to keep Aaron Judge from looking like more than a law student
—he’s 0-for-7 for the set including four strikeouts in Game One—Sabathia and the other Baby
Bombers got
thatclose to saving the Yankees’ season. Faltering in the wrong moment, against
the one team in the American League that doesn’t know the meaning of the word surrender,
Girardi got even closer to putting paid to it.
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