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NEW YORK – The eyes passed from the balloon, flying into the black sky and beginning its re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere, glove, raised over the head of the left field player and approaching approach the left field wall . The ears went from the roar of the Yankee Stadium crowd to the impact of the ball with the bat of Gary Sanchez to the sad and brutal expiration of a season that went out under the glove of Andrew Benintendi. And mind, he went straight to the heart of the matter:
What had just separated the Boston Red Sox's upcoming victory in the American League Series from an overwhelming and devastating defeat against the New York Yankees' rival in the fourth game – an incredibly easy and neat 4-3 victory up to what C was a breath of wind, a couple of spherical rotations of a baseball, a gift of fate.
Because Sanchez had let the ball slip, Craig Kimbrel, with a goal late in the ninth inning on Tuesday night, landed under Benintendi's glove on the alert track, and not over the wall for what would have was a victory, a march. After the Grand Slam, the Red Sox managed to escape the Bronx with a discouraging win that earned them the series and send them into the AL Championship series against the Houston Astros, starting Saturday night at Fenway Park.
[In today’s MLB, especially in the playoffs, the fifth inning is the new seventh]
The final, on the 28th round of Kimbrel, returned to Gleyber Torres' third place and required an awkward and anticlimactic replay to confirm the outgoing call to first base, while the Red Sox were celebrating, then waiting, and then celebrated again in a cheerful heap and teeming near the mound.
Thus, four games between the Red Sox and the Yankees in October, the first gathering of teams of 100 victories in the history of the Division Division, revealed us about the same as 162 games from April to September: the difference between the teams had some swings and a few races here or there (well, except for match 3); that the Yankees had the upper register and the Red Sox the upper rotation; and that, overall, the Red Sox were just a little better.
Aaron Hicks reacts after being eliminated in the eighth inning. (Elsa / Getty Images)
[[[[The Indians have again lost in the ALDS. Then comes a critical offseason.]
After five strong starts from starter Rick Porcello and perfect 1-2-3 innings of three lifters – including the awesome southpaw Chris Sale in a surprise eighth cameo – the Red Sox put a three-point lead in the The safest and most reliable ranking possible: the right arm of Kimbrel, one of the closest closers of his generation.
But the Yankees, barely hooked on life, charged the bases with a goal and two walks, then scored points when Kimbrel hit Neil Walker on the top of the foot with a slider. But as the crowd of 49,641 people stood up to pray for a return, Sanchez's explosion to the left fell just off the wall, a sacrificial fly that fired the Yankees at one minute. And when Kimbrel managed to put Torres in third place, and when the recovery confirmed the result, the Yankees season came to an abrupt and heartbreaking end.
"He was not the usual Craig Kimbrel," said Alex Cora, manager of the Red Sox. "But he had three outs and he ended the match."
"We just missed winning the match," said Yankees manager Aaron Boone, who is familiar with the home racing of October, Sanchez's long flyball.
[MLB analyst Ron Darling offended that Red Sox kept trying in a playoff game]
While a pitcher of the Red Sox slaughtered the Yankees on Tuesday night, the achievement will slowly settle into a quieter and quieter stage: none of that mattered. The Red Sox were about to dance on the infield and spray champagne in the visitors' lodge for the second time in three weeks, and that would not make any difference when Boone raised his starting pitcher or how Yankees chose to do it. deploy their pens or the number of homeruns they have registered in the regular season.
None of this would matter, because the Yankees' historic composition in the second week of October had suddenly stopped, and that's why, not to mention the Red Sox throwers who closed them, that the Yankees lost.
After recording a record 267 home runs this season, the Yankees have had no goals in games 3 and 4, bringing their record to 10-23 this year, regular season and playoff combined, when they are aimless. In simple terms, they depend on their ability to hit the ball out of the park, and when they do not, they are not designed to make tracks otherwise. When Didi Gregorius shot a double against Porcello in the fourth, it was the first Yankees hit since the seventh inning of the second game.
"Absolutely frustrating," said Boone. "Credit to [the Red Sox] to be able to hold us back. But you do not move normally when you can not get enough big hits. They just passed us a little bit.
One night after Boone scrupulously scrupulously monitored his movements, the consensus was that it was too late to shoot his starter and too passive to deploy his best arms in what would become a terrible 16-1 defeat – the Yankees , this time threatened with elimination, has again fallen behind in the first innings with the pen at rest. This time it was the veteran southpaw CC Sabathia, in what could have been his last match in the stripes, remaining in the game to give up three points, all arriving in the third inning.
However, nothing that Boone did or did with his pitching staff would be irrelevant if the Yankees could not score. A large office can not win a victory if it is never left an advance to protect.
Unlike Boone, Cora could not seem to be wrong these last two nights, each of her movements producing not only the desired result, but something extra. He inserted technician Brock Holt at the second base on Monday night in the third match and Holt completed the cycle. He hands Ian Kinsler home Tuesday night, and Kinsler scores a double RBI. He uses Christian Vazquez as receiver, although he did not capture Porcello all year. Vazquez sneaked against the left wall against Zach Britton – his first tour since June 26 – to extend Boston's lead to 4-0.
The first post-season match between these rivals in 14 years did not produce the same over-sized drama and melodrama as those of the 2003-2003 ALCS, at least until the end of the season. at the last half-run of the series.
In the final on Tuesday, at least once the replay confirmed, the Red Sox converged near the mound and intertwined. They were not here to create dramas or to give history another unforgettable chapter in the best baseball rivalry. They were built to win a title. They were here to win three games and move on. The next step for them: the Astros.
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