CLEVELAND — It wasn’t midges this time. It was a mind cramp. But the damage was just as devastating, both to a Yankees team fighting for its life against…
CLEVELAND — It wasn’t midges this time.
It was a mind cramp.
But the damage was just as devastating, both to a Yankees team fighting for its life against the hometown Indians in Game 2 of an American League Division Series, and to the reputation of a manager who had spent much of his tenure enjoying mostly positive reviews.
Exactly 10 years and one day after Joe Torre refused to ask umpires to halt a game when a swarm of microscopic bugs made a collective beeline from Lake Erie to the pitcher’s mound, feasting on (and ultimately freaking out) Joba Chamberlain, it seemed some of those old critters might have made a return appearance, settling instead in the nook of Joe Girardi’s brain that houses common sense.
Torre had the misfortune of making his faux pas when George Steinbrenner was still alive, and it cost him his job by the time the next week was over. Joe Girardi won’t answer to as harsh an authority. But he will have some explaining to do — to his fans, to his players, and to history itself, to a record which will forever insist the Indians won an epic 9-8 thriller Friday night when this should have been a walkover.
“Tough game, but we have no choice to come back from this,” first baseman Greg Bird said, reflecting the mood in a clubhouse trying desperately not to look as despondent as it felt. “We get to go home now, which will be an advantage for us.”
(Note to Girardi: steer clear of talk radio for a day or two. Or forever.)
Girardi was the main culprit because he’s the guy who wears the annual Yankees goal — No. 28 — on his back, for the world to see and, on occasions like this, to aim arrows at. He wasn’t alone. The Yankees built an 8-3 lead in the sixth inning, and five-run playoff leads don’t just disappear because the manager makes a bad decision.
In this case, for instance, that bad decision just made four-fifths of the lead disappear.
Two quick strikes from Chad Green to pinch hitter Lonnie Chisenhall. Four gritty foul balls from Chisenhall, stone cold after 2 ½ hours on the bench. And then: an inside pitch, Green to Chisenhall: Green grunted on the mound at the pitch — “Awful mistake,” he said — but thought it was just ball one. From his reaction, so did Chisenhall, who didn’t make a motion toward first.
But home plate umpire Dan Iassogna gestured to first. He thought Chisenhall had been hit by the ball. And it turns out everyone was wrong: the ball had hit the knob of Chisenhall’s bat, deflected into Gary Sanchez’s mitt. Should’ve been strike three. Should’ve been end nine, Yankees still up five. Sanchez tried to argue that point. Nobody, it seems, was listening.
It’s a reviewable play. The Yankees still had two reviews left. Girardi later said the super slow motion version of the play was slow in coming. He added a little nonsense about being an old catcher, not wanting to interrupt his player’s rhythm.
Ten years ago, Torre said he never even considered asking Bruce Froemming, the home plate ump, to stop the game so the midges could retreat, and Froemming wasn’t inclined to do so if asked, terming the bugs “irritants, like light rain.” In reality, Torre had no recourse.
But admitting what he did went a long way toward drilling the final stake in his fate.
Girardi had no such restraint. He had two challenges burning holes in his pocket. It’s like a football coach ending a game with unused time-outs. It makes no sense. Asked if he regretted not doing that Girardi said: “I guess I could have,” and let’s just say it is good that this Joe is working for a different Steinbrenner than the last one was.
Of course, this didn’t force Green to immediately surrender a grand slam that Francisco Lindor hit off the right-field foul pole, immediately turning this from footnote to folly. It didn’t force David Robertson to admit he was annoyed at an Iassogna call that left Jay Bruce with a 3-and-1 count instead of 2-2, at which point Bruce promptly deposited the next pitch in the bleachers to tie it at 8-8.
Didn’t force Ronald Torreyes to commit one of the worst base-running blunders you’ll ever see, getting picked off (as a pinch runner, no less!) with no outs in the 11th. And didn’t force the Yanks to go scoreless across the game’s final eight innings. You’ll think about all of that if winter arrives ahead of schedule in a few days.
But what you’ll remember most was the madness that replaced the midges, 10 years and one day later. That one’ll be forever.
