Despite All Their Efforts to Blow it, Yankees Somehow Win Game 4

Oh my God, I can’t take much more of this. Game 4 was every bit as frenetic and maddening as Game 3, but this time the Yankees found a way to be on the right side of the chaos and pulled out a victory after they tried as hard as they possibly could to blow another one. Lets get to it.

Oct. 18 : Yankees 8, Guardians 6

I don’t know about you, but I’m physically and mentally exhausted after watching the last two games of the ALCS.

My body is tired, my brain is fried, my emotions are stretched to the furthest boundaries, and yes, I fully understand that I sound like a raving lunatic describing this. But hey, I wear it on my sleeve and if you follow me on Twitter/X, you know that’s exactly how I’ve been the last two nights, rage tweeting during each of these epic games.

My God, why must the Yankees make the game of baseball so hard? That miserable bastard Sisyphus, forced by the Greek gods to push a boulder up a hill only to have it roll down every time? That dude’s got nothing on the Yankees. If I tried to climb Mount Kilimanjaro in shorts, a t-shirt and sneakers, it would be less difficult and painful than the Yankees trying to close out a game.

In Game 4 Friday night, up 6-2 in the seventh thanks to three home runs by Juan Soto, Austin Wells, and Giancarlo Stanton, they literally turned into bumbling idiots in the seventh and eighth innings and as I sit here early Saturday morning, I still cannot believe the Yankees found a way to overcome all their awfulness to win that game.

“Last night was tough,” Wells said of the debacle that was Game 3. “This feels good. It was good to come through tonight.”

It was as stunning as if you plopped a plate of crispy bacon in front of me and I walked away without eating a single strip; as stunning as me being able to extricate cold tablets from their impossible-to-open, hermetically-sealed packets without ripping off a few F-bombs because that, my friends, is a near impossible task.

Even the ever-optimistic Aaron Boone admitted that, “We still had a long way to go to the finish line, and frankly I wasn’t quite sure how we were going to get there” when he was asked about dipping so deep into his bullpen thanks to the need to rest Luke Weaver, and the need to get withering Clay Holmes out of the game after yet another head exploding meltdown.

That was quite an admission from the manager who has a Masters’ degree in bullshit when it comes to some of the lies he spews regarding his team - yeah, sure, Jazz Chisholm is having good at bats, sure Aaron, we believe that.

“I’m not surprised with these guys,” Boone said. “Obviously (Thursday) night was a really tough loss. Whatever happened today - win, lose or draw - there’s no doubt in my mind we’d come out ready to roll and ready to turn the page. Not a perfect game, but a gritty, tough, winning game.”

On that point, I agree. Certainly not perfect, but the Yankees showed some real fortitude and resiliency to pull that game out and get themselves into a commanding three games to one position. Of course, just like the last three outs are the toughest to get in baseball, so, too is the fourth victory in a best-of-seven series. I’m not sure how much more insanity I can endure Saturday night because it ain’t over, folks.

And don’t we know this more than any other fan base? Twenty years ago, the Yankees became the first and only MLB team to blow a 3-0 lead when they allowed the Red Sox to win the ALCS. Still, 3-1 is historically a good spot to be in. In all best-of-seven postseason series, teams leading 3-1 have gone on to win on 79 of 93 occasions (84.9%), including 37 of 45 times in the LCS. But numbers are just numbers. I’ll believe the Yankees can finish the job, if and when they finish the job.

“It feels like nothing until we get it done,” Stanton said. “As far as I’m concerned, we haven’t done nothing. We’ll enjoy this for now, but we’ve got to get it done tomorrow and on to the next.”

Here are my observations:

➤ I expected nothing from Luis Gil, mainly because he hadn’t pitched since Sept. 28 but also because he really hadn’t pitched well down the stretch, so the fact that he was able to get through four innings and have his night end with the Yankees leading 3-2 was a bonus. He pitched exactly how I thought he would, inconsistent and struggling to maintain his command, but to give up only two runs on three hits and his bugaboo, three walks, was pretty good. He out-pitched and outlasted the Guardians starter, Gavin Williams, who gave his team only 2.1 innings and was touched up for three runs.

➤ Great start for the Yankees as Gleyber Torres - who as much as I hate to say it is making a strong case for the Yankees to re-sign him in the offseason - led off with a first-pitch single and five pitches later it was 2-0 as Soto crushed a two-run homer to right-center. After the gut punch from Thursday, that was impressive to come out of the gates like that. Gil did not put up a zero in the bottom half, though, because their first two men also reached, Steven Kwan via a walk, Kyle Manzardo with a double. But here, Gil did nice work to limit the damage to a run when he got Jose Ramirez to hit a sac fly and then mowed down Josh Naylor and Lane Thomas.

➤ On a night of many stunning things - you’re gonna see that word repeatedly down below - Wells finally did something with his toothpick of a bat as he smacked a solo homer in the second to make it 3-1. Going into that at bat, Wells was 2-for-26 in the postseason and 10-for-94 dating to the start of September. So yeah, his home run was stunning. Again, Gil gave that run back when he allowed one in the third as Kwan - who is about as annoying as the famous Cleveland midges - walked, stole second, and scored on Naylor’s two-out single.

➤ Things settled down in the middle and there was no scoring in the fourth and fifth as Gil finished his outing and Tim Hill pitched another good inning, and then in the sixth, there was another stunning development. With Soto and Judge due up, Guardians manager Stephen Vogt brought in Cade Smith, who is his most dominant reliever right now with all the struggles Emmanuel Clase is having. The flame-throwing rookie had a 1.91 ERA and 0.903 WHIP in the regular season, and in his first seven postseason appearances he’d allowed one run on two hits in nine innings. So what happened? Soto walked, Judge singled, the utterly useless Chisholm sacrificed them up a base, and then everyone started trotting around the bases when Stanton, after falling behind 0-2, launched a three-run homer to make it 6-2. “A thing of beauty,” Judge said of Stanton’s homer, his 15th in 35 career postseason games.

➤ Naturally, I sat there knowing this game was far from over, what with the Yankees still needing to record 12 outs. Sure enough, the madness was just beginning. Jake Cousins, pitching for the first time in this postseason, worked a relatively easy sixth and I agreed with Boone’s decision to send him back out for the seventh. The bullpen is gassed, and Cousins needed to deliver some length. Unfortunately, he wasn’t up to the task because he walked the other annoying Cleveland midge, No. 9 hitter Brayan Rocchio, and then Kwan singled him to third.

➤ And then, here came Holmes and I knew, you knew, we all knew, shit was gonna get really messy. He struck out Game 3 hero David Fry, but then Ramirez - who really hadn’t done any damage in the first three-plus games - ripped a double and it was 6-3. And then Naylor, who looks like a beer league softball player with that gut of his, ripped a two-run double to make it 6-5. And when Holmes walked Thomas, it was first and second with one out, and Boone took the ball from him and rather than send him to the showers, I wish he would have sent him to the moon.

➤ Now, because Ian Hamilton got hurt Thursday and had to be replaced on the roster by Mark Leiter Jr., that’s who Boone brought in, and I can’t even bitch about it because he really didn’t have any choice. As he admitted, he wasn’t sure how he was going to get to the finish line because he knew he needed to give Weaver a night off, and he was saving Tommy Kahnle for the end.

➤ Leiter was so terrible after coming over from the Cubs at the trade deadline that he wasn’t even on the playoff roster at the start of either of the first two series, provided the next stunning moment when he kept the score 6-5. Jhonkensy Noel pinch hit for Will Brennan and hit a towering fly to left that, when it left the bat, looked and sounded like a go-ahead three-run homer. Instead, the ball somehow stayed in the park and Alex Verdugo made a nice running catch. Phew! And then Leiter struck out Andres Gimenez with his splitter. Phew!

➤ But of course, you knew there was more misery to deal with. In the eighth, Bo Naylor - one of the worst hitters in MLB as he hit .201 during the season and was 1-for-17 in the postseason - led off with a double. Seriously, you can’t make this shit up. He went to third on Rocchio’s ground out, so now Kwan was up and I sat there thinking there’s no way that run doesn’t score because Kwan will put the ball in play. Well, he put it in play but it was a harmless pop up. Again, that was stunning. So now it was up Fry, who just seems to show up whenever there’s a humongous moment. Leiter threw a curve and Fry nubbed it between the mound and first. Leiter misplayed it with his glove, then he kicked it toward the baseline, but he chased it down and all he had to do was stand there and tag Fry who was running right at him. Instead, he tried to flip to Rizzo who is playing first base these days about as well as the Yankees run the bases, and he couldn’t handle it. The ball rolled into right field and Naylor scored the tying run. The walls in my house nearly buckled by the time my outburst was complete. Unbelievable. Again, you can’t make this shit up.

➤ On to the ninth, and somehow, the Yankees were able to put all that nonsense behind them and pulled out the game, once again beating on Clase who is going through a meltdown worse than any Yankee. This guy was untouchable all year, but after allowing five earned runs in the entire regular season, he has now allowed eight in the postseason. Crazy, which is why baseball is the greatest sport ever conceived.

➤ Rizzo made up for his ridiculous misplay with a leadoff bloop single and Jon Berti pinch ran. Anthony Volpe, who has been having better at bats lately, lined a single to right sending Berti to third, and then Volpe stole second, Naturally, Wells failed by striking out, but then the Yankees got their own lucky squibber to work out. Verdugo hit a fisted weak roller toward short and Nocchio bobbled it for an error as Berti scored the go-ahead run. Torres then lined an RBI single up the middle for an insurance run to make it 8-6. The rally died there because Soto grounded out and after Judge was intentionally walked to load the bases, Chisholm grounded out, dropping his postseason average to .129.

➤ Kahnle was indeed the closer and if you were thinking 1-2-3, let’s get out of here, silly you. He caught a big break when he got a very favorable third strike call on a 3-2 pitch to Thomas. That was a gift. He walked Noel, and then Gimenez singled and once again, hearts are pumping out of chests. But Kahnle buckled down and got Bo Naylor to fly to center, and Rocchio to ground out to second. Oh, and that was an adventure, too. Berti had taken over for Torres because Boone used Oswaldo Cabrera to pinch run for Torres after his single. That meant Berti was at second and Cabrera was at first. Berti booted the ball, but he stayed calm, tracked it down and was able to throw out Rocchio to end it. Exhale. After three hours, 27 minutes of torture, it was over.

➤ “This team is focused on what we’ve got to accomplish and what we’ve got to do,” Judge said. “We’ve seen it all year, when we have a couple of tough games or a tough series. This team always bounces back and answers back the right way. This was definitely a big win.”