Well, this was an interesting last week of baseball, to say the least. Since, ya know, we DID NOT PLAY ONE GAME OF BASEBALL FROM MONDAY THROUGH THURSDAY!
Okay, okay, I’m sorry guys. I didn’t mean to yell at you.
It’s not you, it’s me. I was just a little on edge all week with no baseball. I know most of you guys felt the same way. Because that really sucked.
So before I go through this Royals series, let’s recap exactly what went down in this bizarre week of “no baseball.” Because it really was bizarre. Never before have I experienced 4 days of no baseball in the middle of a season, that wasn’t the All-Star break.
Look at this 2018 Yankees team. Breaking new ground, setting new records, even when games aren’t played! Special team right here…
Okay, so after our series winning game on Sunday vs the A’s, Monday was an off-day as we traveled to DC.
I’m sure Monday evening was a fun-filled night of Gleyber and Didi dancing in some DC nightclub, Kahlne trying to drunkenly wrestle any teammate he could find, CC knocking out some bouncer because he’s the man, Tanaka and Sevy being the best of friends and going shot for shot together, and Judge just standing somewhere looking cool.
Alright, that probably didn’t happen, but I’d like to imagine a world in which all of those things transpire on a given off-day for this team.
(Side note: this crazy long week of no baseball was not helped by two scheduled off-days in between that 2 game Nationals set. Two off-days like that, after only a 2 game series, is random and weird as hell, but oh well…)
Anyways, like I said, Monday was a travel day…and baseball started on Tuesday as planned, but then Mother Nature was like “nahhh, time to fuck some shit up!”
After we tied the game at 3, the floodgates opened, both literally and figuratively, and rain forced the game to pushed off until the next day.
Except, Mother Nature was like “nahhh, I’m gonna fuck shit up again!” and we weren’t able to play the suspended game. THEN, we weren’t able to play the schedule Wednesday game…A double rain out! Double jeopardy! SO much fun! But actually, this was the worst.
We were supposed to have, essentially, two games on Wednesday night, and now we had none.
Squat. Zip. Zero. Russell Westbrook (his number is 0). All of the above.
At this point I was thinking, “this is so much fun! How could it get any better?!” Great news! No game on Thursday too, remember!
Fuck.
And just like that, no baseball from Monday until Friday night. I truly was a lost soul this week. After work each night, I wandered the streets of NYC in a daze of sadness and hopelessness. No Yankees baseball can really do that to a guy. I was basically George Michael from Arrested Development…
Okay, okay, I’m exaggerating a little bit. I was honestly pretty productive: worked out, caught up with some friends. But still. No baseball fucking sucked. Hopefully we will never have to deal with 4 days like that again.
NOW, I can finally recap this Royals series. Sooooo, here we go!
Game 1:
This game didn’t have a lot of good points for us, so let’s go through it quickly. This was a rough start for CC, but I’m going to blame it fully on the rain-outs in DC.
In case you didn’t hear, the team spent the night in Dulles Airport. CC, himself, was reduced to stealing Gleyber’s blanket to keep warm! Oh, man…
Now, come on, CC is an old man! And I mean that as a compliment…we cannot treat our elders that way and then expect them to pitch a gem a couple nights later.
An old-timer like Big C needs a hot bath, maybe some time in the steam room, and probably a nice massage, in preparation for a start! Barely sleeping on a plane and stealing a rookie’s blanket? Can’t blame him for this! He actually called it the worst night of his 18 year career… that is saying something.
Don’t worry CC, I have your back. Let’s put this nightmare behind us, it’s all better now.
So the Royals jumped out to a 4-0 lead when Shreve took over in the 6th. We mounted a little comeback with a NEIL “He doesn’t always walk” Walker single and a Miggy sac fly. But that is all we could muster…
Hey, muster is a funny word. Sounds almost like mustard. Damnit. Now I’m thinking about a corned beef sandwich with spicy mustard on rye. Shit, I’m really hungry, I should not have went down this path.
Apologies for the random train of thoughts, I’m going to search how far of a walk it is from where I am right now to Katz’s Deli…
As I was saying, we were only able to score those 2 runs, and we ended up losing 5-2…oh well, onto Saturday
GAME 2
This was one was A LOT better than Friday night! FUN FUN FUN
Sevy on the bump, but he didn’t have his best stuff. WHO CARES?! WE WERE CRUSHING THE BALL. ABSOLUTELY MASHING
After a GARY RBI double in the first, Hicksy came up in the 3rd and hit his SECOND inside-the-park home run of the year! ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! It’s only May!
I guess Aaron is a close to home kind of guy. He doesn’t want to venture too far away, and launch a ball out of the park. He likes to keep everything secure, I respect that!
He also joined some ELITE company. Ever heard of a guy named Mickey Mantle? If you haven’t, I’m gonna flip a shit on you.
That first homer tonight was special.
Pretty damn cool for Hicksy. He’s a guy who gets a lot of hate sometimes, but he is a talented player and he can always come up big.
After the Royals tied it up, it was time for an out-of-the park homer!
GLEYBER! Holy shit, you are a goddamn wunderkind. I knew this kid was going to be good, but I didn’t think he would be THIS good THIS soon. He really is something special.
A 3-run jack for Glibber and just like that, we were up 5-2.
Sevy ended up letting in another run and his final stat line was 6 IP, 3 ER, 6 K’s, 2 walks.
Like I said, definitely not a classic Sevy performance. But if this is one of his worst starts all year, I’ll take that.
He still won his 7th game of the year and is now 7-1! He’s still coming for ya, Cy!
Okay, back to the game.
Rumor has it, Gary went out to Giancarlo in the dugout and challenged him to a friendly little Home Run Derby!
Gary came up in up in the 7th and hit a liner into the left field seats for his 11th of the year! Giancarlo, who was at 10 homers, was like “wait, I can do that too!”
GIANCARLO! He crushed a ball 432 feet in the 9th inning to tie Gary’s home run total.
Gary was on deck and was like “wait, if you can do that too, I can do that too too!” Okay, he probably didn’t say “too too”, especially since he speaks Spanish, but he answered Giancarlo’s call!
He hit ANOTHER dinger and jumped back out to a 12-11 HR lead! LOL, you know a baseball game has been fun when I can count the scores of the players’ home runs, as opposed to the actual game score.
As for the final score, all of those homers I described were solo shots and we finished the game 8-3.
(By the way, Gary now has 12 homers, and Judge and Giancarlo have 11. RACE IS ON)
And let’s finish off with GAME 3.
SONNY!!!! SONNY FUCKIN GRAY!! FINALLY!
We have been waiting all year for Sonny Gray to have a really impressive start and boy, did he have one yesterday.
8 IP, 4 Hits, 1 ER, 1 Walk, 5 Ks. That’s worthy of a round of applause! Take it away, Tanaka’s translator! (His name is Shingo Horie, if you were wondering)
Sonny was pitching a beautiful shut out until that bullshit RBI single in the 8th, when he was clearly gassed.
Anddd, he had a perfect game going into the 5th, just to get the crowd nice and pumped up.
Sonny Gray’s perfect game bid ends on a bloop single by Hunter Dozier. Had retired first 14 in a row. #Yankees
I’ll admit, I was starting to imagine a possible Sonny perfect game. Yankees Twitter would have fuckin’ exploded.
Despite that not coming to fruition, Sonny threw an absolute gem. In my opinion, that was the best start of his Yankees career – and it came at just at the right time. Another bad start and people would have really started clamoring for a change to be made.
But Sonny, you killed it! That was an amazing start, now let’s hope he builds on that.
Giving up only 1 run in the 8th, Sonny clearly did not need a lot of run support from us.
Oh well, we gave him A LOT of insurance runs! 10 to be exact!!
This game was an absolute beat down. A shellacking. A smackdown. A destruction. Okay, that’s enough, but it was sweet.
TYLER AUSTIN! THE THUG! Two 2-run home runs for Joe Kelly’s favorite Yankee! Tyler was on fire, mashing one 420 feet and the other 440. He clearly heard the metaphorical footsteps of Greg Bird creeping up and was like “fuck that, 1st base is MINE.” It will be an interesting debate when Bird is fully healthy.
Until then, we’re all good with Tyler right? Right!
Besides those two homers, Romine had a RBI single (best backup catcher in the league!), Hicks had a RBI triple, Gardy had an infield RBI single, and Lil Toe scored on a wild pitch.
This brought us to the 9th with 8 runs….and our bats wanted to add a little more flare to say good-bye to Kansas City. A little whip cream and a cherry, if you will. Or a cold beer after a long day at work. Yeah, I like that one better.
HE CAN DÚ IT! Miggy Andújar with a solo shot to hype up the away crowd. Large amount of Yankees fans in KC.
Then, how about a little Drake “Back to Back?”
AUSTIN “THE BEST BACKUP CATCHER IN BASEBALL ROMINE!! The first homer of the season for Romine! People were hating on the fact that he specifically catches Sonny, and that Gary was out of the lineup, but he went above and beyond yesterday. It’s like he went to infinity.
Call him Buzz Lightyear.
I like that. For future reference in these blogs, Austin Romine = Buzz Lightyear.
In the bottom of the 9th, AJ Cole shut down these lowly Royals. I think the “Royals” were too focused on Harry and Megan this weekend than baseball. Oh well, their loss is our gain.
That was our 8TH series win in a row. Let’s goooo!
I love this damn team.
Let’s keep the winning going! Tonight we’re in Arlington, Texas to face off against the last place Rangers – let’s kick ’em while they are down!
And we will be facing an old friend – our good pal, Bartolo!
LET’S GO YANKS!
Follow me on Twitter @JohnFerraro_