From Bryan Hoch:
The season’s first two months passed without Giancarlo Stanton logging so much as a single plate appearance, elbow pain leaving the slugger unable to swing a bat without issue. The Yankees kept the lights on for him, never losing hope that he would return as a mighty offensive presence.
A year removed from a postseason surge that helped power his club all the way to a World Series appearance, Stanton is once again providing what they need.
Stanton launched his 450th career home run early as the Yankees gained ground in the American League East race, posting a 6-1 victory over the Orioles on Saturday evening at Camden Yards.
“It’s a cool round number,” Stanton said. “It’s cool to see the names I’m catching and tying and going above. Most importantly, it helped us win. A great day all around.”
The Blue Jays’ loss to Kansas City earlier in the night means the Yankees (87-68) trail Toronto (89-66) by just two games in the American League East, with seven left. Toronto owns the tiebreaker.
Some crazy, crazy shit going on right now in the American League playoff race. The Yankees cut the Toronto lead to just two games, which is cool, but the Yankees are now only two games UP on the Red Sox, and are only THREE games up on the Cleveland Guardians, who, as of tonight, are the new third Wild Card, since Cleveland has the tiebreaker with the Houston Astros, who are tied with Cleveland at the moment.
The Guardians are now also just one game behind the Detroit Tigers for the AL Central lead, so the Tigers can also become a factor in the Wild Card race. It’s all some crazy, crazy shit.
Luckily, the Tigers and the Guardians play each other starting on Tuesday, and so, too, do the Red Sox and the Blue Jays (the entire American League takes Monday off for whatever reason). So you’d LIKE to believe that that would help the Yankees out in at least making the playoffs. But who the fuck knows? Obviously, ideally the Yankees somehow win the division, but the tricky thing THERE is that that means that the Red Sox will almost certainly make the playoffs.
Kyle Bradish is a tough customer in the final game of this series, and then the White Sox are once again sending their three best pitchers against the Yankees in New York.
The Orioles’ rotation is currently this following the Yankees series…
Wells
Povich
Rogers
Sugano
Bradish
So LOGICALLY, that would mean that the final series of the year would have Sugano/Bradish/Wells pitching for Baltimore, but I just can’t imagine the Orioles NOT trying to fuck the Yankees by using a spot starter in their next series so that Rogers would be pushed back to be able to face the Yankees.
So it’s so tough. They have a decent chance at still winning the division, but they also might MISS THE PLAYOFFS!
Oh, about this game, some nice home runs by Judge and Stanton, some seeming adjustments in his swing from Volpe, and a nice start from Rodon, who gets the featured image due to his excellent job. The image is one of his strikeouts. He had the Orioles hitters mostly fooled all night long.
As an aside, in the wake of Robert Redford’s passing, someone reminded me I did an interesting old legend about Redford a decade ago, regarding whether he actually played high school ball with Don Drysdale or not. I reposted it.
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Good article, Brian
Cab and Martian playing, Judge DH.
What would you choose?
A. Judge surpasses Raleigh in the home run race, setting a new all-time record, but the Yankees miss the playoffs, or
B. The Yankees win the division (and probably get brutally embarrassed by the first team with decent pitching they come across, but that’s not part of the choice scenario).
I was going to amplify the first option with “and it’s obviously Boone’s fault, possibly getting him fired” but 1. OBVIOUSLY it would be Boone’s fault, and 2. that would make A. the obvious choice and the whole exercise, therefore, uninteresting.
And to head the question off at the pass – the Bonds-era HR tallies are bullshit, there’s no reason to pay them any attention.
I don’t pay attention to all the steroids records which is why judge is #1. And at least he’s in the record books because of the AL – NL difference