Leave it to the old hoops star from Vallejo High School to borrow a time-honored basketball ploy, used by clever coaches going back to the beginning of time. You’ve no doubt seen “Hoosiers,” right? It’s one of Norman Dale’s signature moves, too. During a timeout, late in a state tournament game, with his worst player, Ollie, due to make a do-or-die foul shot, Dale addresses his team in a huddle.
“After Ollie makes his second shot” — Dale looks at Ollie here — “and you WILL make your second shot” — back to the team — “get back on defense right away.”
Ollie makes the second shot, of course, and the Hickory Huskers survive and advance, and generations of coaches before Dale and generations after have used the same trick: talk about something to come as if it’s already a done deal.
And so there was Sabathia Friday afternoon, and he was talking about his bum shoulder, the one that forced him off the mound Thursday night and finally put a bracket on the back end of his brilliant career. Sabathia can’t pitch for the Yankees anymore, but that doesn’t diminish his status in the Yankees universe, or in the clubhouse. Someone asked where he goes from here with the shoulder. He shrugged.
“We don’t know,” he said. “Just kind of wait.”
And then the money shot:
“Maybe get an MRI after we get back from Houston and just see.”
The Yankees still had to win a baseball game, of course, to clinch that trip to Houston, but Sabathia was subtly delivering a message: He, for one, fully expected to be making that trip, fully expected his teammates to figure out a way to beat Justin Verlander and the Astros and force Game 6 in this best-of-seven American League Championship Series.
The Yankees have spent 11 seasons following the big man’s lead. They weren’t about to stop now. So after spotting the Astros a run in the top of the first, they jumped on Verlander: a homer by DJ LeMahieu. Single by Aaron Judge. Double by Gleyber Torres. And then, after Giancarlo Stanton whiffed, a three-run home run — clanking off the fair pole in right, for extra dramatic effect, why not? — by Aaron Hicks.
It was 4-1. It ended 4-1. The Yankees, borrowing the basketball theme and strapping it to their backs, survived and advanced, bought themselves at least another day of baseball season. They are still in a 2-3 hole in the series, still have a lot of work to do, but they have a chance, a puncher’s chance, a grinder’s chance.
They swore Thursday night they weren’t finished, vowed they’d be a hell of an out. So far, they are a hell of an out. One down. Two to go. Take a few hacks in Houston, See what happens.
“I wasn’t ready to go home yet,” said James Paxton, who overcame a difficult start to grind out six terrific innings, allowing only four hits and striking out nine and throwing 112 pitches. “I wanted to give my team everything I had.”
He did that. He protected that three-run lead, he muffled the Astros’ bats, he re-energized a Stadium crowd of 48,483 that began the night cautiously, fully aware this could be the last baseball game in New York for six long months. The mob became increasingly vocal and more engaged as the night wore on.
“I knew we were going to Houston when I woke up,” Aaron Judge said, and it was that strain of confidence that permeated the clubhouse all day. It was there in Sabathia’s pregame quip. It was there in the way the Yankees escaped the top of the first, and pounced in the bottom of the first, then played keepaway with the lead from the Astros across the final eight innings.
You can’t win three games in one night, after all. You only can start a three-game winning streak. They did that. They get a plane trip. They get another baseball game.
“Those guys took care of business today,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said, the tone of his voice filled with something that sounded like wonder. “Afterward it was energized, it was focused, it was intense. Now we have an opportunity to play in a tough place, and look forward to that. We can’t wait.”
The old hoops star said it early, and his teammates took it from there, all of them channeling the first half of the old Jimmy Valvano mantra. They survived Friday night, and now have a chance to survive Saturday, too. If they do that? They’ll get a chance to advance Sunday. What more could you want?