On the guests’ aspect of Yankee Stadium, the ballpark he christened with a championship in 2009, Joe Girardi folded these Popeye forearms of his over the dugout rail and batted round just a few topics with a well-known face.
The coronavirus: “This Delta variant doesn’t appear to care should you’re vaccinated or not,” the Phillies’ supervisor mentioned.
The Tokyo Olympics: “I don’t understand how they’re going to drag it off.”
Aaron Boone’s Yankees: “I see a postseason group.”
A postseason group? Earlier than Boone gained Wednesday evening’s wild matchup along with his predecessor in 10 innings, 6-5, on Ryan LaMarre’s single to the right-field wall, Girardi was nearer to first place within the NL East (three video games again) than Boone was within the AL East (seven) or within the wild-card standings (4). However the man who was fired after main the Yanks to Recreation 7 of the 2017 ALCS didn’t care.
“It is a group that’s been within the postseason the final 4 years, and earlier than that it had a protracted, future,” he mentioned. “Till they don’t make it, I wont imagine it.”
I gained’t both.
Possibly it’s a product of watching the Yankees make near-annual playoff runs for the reason that mid-Nineties, even earlier than Girardi confirmed up in 1996 as an unpopular alternative for catcher Mike Stanley. Or possibly it’s merely a product of surveying the uninspiring race for the second wild card that will likely be claimed after the Boston/Tampa Bay divisional loser grabs the primary.
The Yankees possible gained’t catch the Pink Sox or the Rays, although they can provide them one thing to consider over their subsequent seven video games in Fenway Park and Tropicana Discipline. However there isn’t a juggernaut separating the Yankees from a fourth straight playoff look underneath Boone. Oakland, Seattle and Toronto are all catchable and beatable. Disgrace on the Yanks if they’ll’t navigate that not-so-perilous path to the match.
“Aaron’s achieved an excellent job; take a look at his restoration over time that he’s had right here,” Girardi mentioned. “So he’s needed to take care of loads this 12 months, identical to everyone else. You take a look at how many individuals they’ve had injured and the COVID circumstances they’ve had, and but they’re proper within the combine.
“I nonetheless don’t assume they’ve hit their offensive stride. You get a few guys scorching in that lineup, they’ll rating runs galore. And so they’ve acquired some pitchers that hopefully are coming again for them that can make a distinction down the final month or two. However there’s nonetheless a ton of expertise over there.”
If not a ton, sufficient to recuperate from Jean Segura’s opening-pitch homer off Asher Wojciechowski, and a blown 5-2 lead within the eighth (due to a depleted bullpen) and full a two-game sweep of Girardi’s group to match the Phillies’ sweep of the Yanks final month.
No, ending third within the AL East and second within the wild-card chase shouldn’t be an excessive amount of to ask. The Yankees will add some returning firepower from the injured listing, and Brian Cashman will possible make a trade-deadline transfer or two. In the meantime, Greg Allen and Estevan Florial have infused some desperately wanted life right into a Strolling Lifeless group that apparently forgot baseball isn’t golf — operating just isn’t solely allowed, it’s inspired.
And but when a group is way behind its hated rival in mid-to-late July, October isn’t a well-liked topic. Brett Gardner really introduced it up on his personal Wednesday when he mentioned the group wanted extra from, properly, Brett Gardner and Gleyber Torres and others “to ensure that us to get into the postseason and make some noise …”
However when requested if and the way he talks to his group about October, Boone sounded a bit like ol’ Jim Mora assessing his playoff possibilities (Google it). “I don’t speak about that in any respect,” he mentioned.
“We’ve acquired to deal with the right here and now in a big-time method. And we as a group very a lot perceive that, and if we do this, that can deal with itself on the market. … So I just about by no means speak about it.”
By no means speaking about it, in fact, doesn’t make it go away. The organizational mission assertion famously is what it’s, and the Yankees haven’t met that goal since Girardi was main them a dozen years in the past. The Phillies’ supervisor was reminded {that a} Yankee group a small handful video games over .500 represents a legit New York disaster.
“At all times,” he mentioned. “It was Day 2 for Joe Torre in 1998, and we ended up successful 114 video games. A Corridor of Fame supervisor who would win 4 titles and it was like, properly, that’s simply the way in which it’s.”
It doesn’t must be that method for Girardi’s successor. Boone is 3-for-3 in making the postseason, and he has no good excuse to not go 4-for-4.
