ANAHEIM, Calif. — This is the remedy for just about anything they can throw at you in the postseason, whether it’s a charge of over-managing or tightened throats with runners in scoring position or an umpiring crew that should’ve just gone with the Costanza Method every time they needed to make a big call and gone opposite everything.
It’s two simple letters: CC. And one simply brilliant hitter. And now, the American League pennant has been reduced to the simplest of magic numbers: 1.
There was a time not long ago when it seemed the Yankee birthright to qualify for the World Series, but in reality it has been six years since they marched that far, six years of overspending and underachievement and an endless array of questions, quibbles and quandaries occupying the bulk of October, rather than meaningful baseball games.
They are on the brink of remedying that now, after a 10-1 thrashing of the Angels, after moving up 3-1 in this best-of-7 ALCS.
They are on the very cusp of winning the 40th pennant in their magnificent history, nudged there by a brilliant effort by CC Sabathia, who threw eight innings and 101 pitches of five-hit ball — on short rest, no less — and by Alex Rodriguez, whose daily home run helped quiet the Thunderstix and the rampant pleas for the home team to draw even with the Yankees.
And they are there despite the best efforts of the six-man umpiring crew to sabotage this series, and this sport. It has been a playoffs dominated by two teams and by two nagging questions. The two teams, the defending champion Phillies and the 26-time champion Yankees, are careening on a collision course headed for each other, both having elevated themselves to the very top of their respective leagues, and they are beautiful to watch.
The other two stories — awful relief pitching and even worse umpiring — are significantly less satisfying to the senses. It is no coincidence that the Yankees and the Phillies have the only two closers thus far untouched by late-game meltdowns: the unparalleled Mariano Rivera and the heretofore hapless Brad Lidge.
What should be more worrisome for Major League Baseball is the possibility that a postseason that has been wrecked by the umpires from the moment Randy Marsh failed to see a baseball brush Brandon Inge’s jersey in the AL Central play-in game will continue to be haunted by the mistakes and missteps of the men in blue.
Tonight, Tim McClelland’s crew was abysmal, a nine-inning advertisement — if not a nine-inning plea — for instant replay, if not for droids. Ultimately, they didn’t alter the game — not the way Sabathia was dealing, and not the way Rodriguez is swinging the bat — but suddenly they seem as apt as ever to wreak havoc on unsuspecting baseball games.
Joe Girardi, however, proved to be no such menace one game after nearly twisting himself into a pretzel overmanaging Game 3. Sabathia, of course, is the biggest reason for that. Think of it this way: The Yankees have now played seven games this postseason and in three of them Girardi has opted to use eight relief pitchers. Three of the four in which he didn’t? Sabathia started the game, eating innings and limiting the possibility of Girardi smudging the games with his fingerprints.
Whatever reputation as a small-time October performer Sabathia may have brought into these October proceedings he is now a confirmed autumn avenger, savaging the Twins and the Angels three times now, making throwing a baseball somehow look as easy as A-Rod hitting one. He mowed through the Angels on a night when every one of the 45,160 at Angels Stadium believed their team was carrying an unlimited supply of momentum.
And though the Yankees already had a 3-0 lead by the time Rodriguez launched his latest lunar missile, the visceral impact of that baseball leaving the yard was felt in every seat. As locked and loaded as he is, as laser-sharp as his focus us, it’s hard to imagine any pitcher left in the tournament who can get through a Yankees lineup four or five times and not be besieged by an A-Rod blast. As good as A-Rod, Sabathia and Derek Jeter have been, they can help keep Girardi in the dugout, and win another pennant.
And thus you have a very simple formula:
52 + 13 + 2 – 27 = 40.