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BALTIMORE – For six games, the Golden State Warriors have been congratulated for remembering how to win without Kevin Durant. Durant is perhaps the best basketball player on the planet, but he injured his calf two minutes into the third quarter of the fifth game of the Warriors Western Conference semifinals with the Rockets.
The warriors won this match. They won the sixth match in Houston. They then swept the Blazers in four consecutive games, occasionally spotting a two-figure lead for Portland in the third quarter. No Durant, no worries for the Warriors. The other guys came forward, stepped forward, stepped on the Rockets 'necks, crushed the Blazers' souls. Good product. Good team.
It's six games. For the Yankees, it's been six weeks. Six weeks ago, on April 12, the Yankees lost a game of 9-6 in a quagmire shortened by rain against the White Sox. They were 5-8. They had already lost Giancarlo Stanton and Gary Sanchez. They were within a week of losing Aaron Judge. They were about to host a group of non-names at the party and they would all find a way to be part of the puzzle soon enough, but it looked dark.
They are 27-9 since. They won for the fifth time in a row on Thursday afternoon at Camden Yards, 6-5, the final touches as the skies above Baltimore began to look like those at Dorothy and Toto's farm in Kansas. They won despite a four-point lead in the eighth end, although Masahiro Tanaka was nearly eliminated by a magic bullet.
And they won because they managed to win despite themselves, despite their injuries, despite an epic series of bad luck that they still won despite voluntarily giving Gleyber most of the day Torres and Sanchez. Torres and Sanchez swing bats so hot that a smell of kerosene accompanies their rocket fire to the end of the field.
Before the match, Aaron Boone had told them not to get up and be ready in case they needed it.
"I'll be ready to hit hard," Torres told his manager. "I will be ready to help the team in any way possible."
So of course, there was a moment at the beginning of the ninth inning, after an easy walk in the park became more complicated, after 5-1 had become 5-5, after the Orioles had close, Mychal Givens crossed the first two Yankees of the sleeve. At that time, the angry clouds hinted that we could all be forced to stay here until early next week.
So Boone called Torres, who treated the Orioles in the same way that your dog treats a bunch of Milk-Bones. Torres' mastery of the Birds was so epic that after another two-game match on Wednesday night, Orioles manager Brandon Hyde raised his hand and chose not to let his frustration with his own pitchers show up, trembling at the sight of No. 25.
"Gleyber has two circuits in addition to facing the Orioles, and he hits like .220 [actually it’s .250]The throwers of the major leagues kick him. He was asked if there should be a plan to play around him. Sanchez Hyde replied, "Well, there really is a plan to launch. It is of course not to throw the ball in the center of the plate. "
Givens clearly agreed. He walked on Torres on a 3-2 pitch. Then Sanchez was summoned for a brushstroke for Romine; Sanchez took two powerful cuts, then a reduced cut, but when you like the kind of madness, Sanchez gets plunged into the ball for a single.
And look, if you've watched the Yankees (and the Orioles as well) in the last six weeks, what happened afterward seemed to be written in a scenario. Givens gave a non-competitive march to DJ LeMahieu to charge the bases. He threw three straight balls at Aaron Hicks, none of them being particularly close to area code 410. Hicks hit a shot, then stared at the four ball so wide that it seemed closer to third baseman than the receiver.
And the train is racing happily.
"We are a team that will score points and inflict damage," said Hicks. "What's great about our team is that guys can take days off. We never want to give up the games and we do not need them because the guys are still doing their job. "
It's funny how it always seems to happen to the right teams, that it's like a basketball team missing a star or a missing baseball team half of its composition.
Six parties or six weeks. Good product. Good team.
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