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  “I’m not impressed. That’s Greg Bird,” Judge said. “That’s what I expect out of him. That’s what he’s shown me through the minor leagues, the short time he’s been up here. He’s a fantastic hitter, probably our best hitter, and he’s proving it right now.”

  Sanchez also earned plaudits by sacrificing his body throughout Tanaka’s effort, with the most meaningful blocks coming after Jason Kipnis’ one-out triple in the fourth inning. Tanaka was confident enough in his splitter to use it repeatedly, striking out the next two hitters, and Girardi applauded Sanchez’s bruising effort.

  “Really good. Really, really good,” Girardi said. “As I’ve said, this is our catcher. There’s going to be times where he has a bad day, like anyone else, like any other catcher. But he was really, really good tonight.”

  One day after apologizing to Girardi for his social media faux pas, Chapman gave the Yankees something that they could truly “like,” pitching around a pair of ninth inning singles to convert a five out save. They still needed one more win to force the series back to Cleveland, and that would give Severino his chance to atone for the poor outing in the Wild Card game against the Twins.

  Earning serenades of “Sev-er-ino!” from the sellout crowd, the Dominican righty hurled seven strong innings while leading New York to a 7–3 victory in Game 4, becoming the youngest Yankees starter to notch a postseason victory since Dave Righetti in 1981. He struck out seven, the last of which was a 100-mph fastball that froze Chisenhall for the second out of the seventh inning. After that pitch, Severino pumped his fist and screamed.

  “I was feeling great,” Severino said. “The location on my pitches was great. Of course I heard the stadium calling my name.”

  Seeing Bauer for the second time in the series, the Yankees were ready to pounce on the right-hander, whom Francona brought back on short rest. Bauer lasted 1⅔ innings as the hitters patiently built up his pitch count before striking for four unearned runs.

  Cleveland played sloppy defense, committing four errors—two of them by third baseman Giovanny Urshela, who was smoked on the left ankle by a Starlin Castro line drive, setting up New York’s big second inning. After a passed ball advanced Castro to second base, Todd Frazier ripped a Bauer curveball into the left-field corner for a run-scoring double.

  “A lot of two-out RBIs, those are huge,” Frazier said. “That’s where you make your money. And that’s what we were able to do. Put the pressure on them early.”

  Aaron Hicks and Brett Gardner followed with hits before Judge finally notched his first hit of the ALDS, a two-run double that one-hopped the fence in left field. Judge slid into second base, clapped his hands and pointed both index fingers toward the first-base dugout. Judge had been fed a steady diet of breaking balls and fastballs above the catcher’s mask during the series, but on the eighth pitch of the at-bat, Bauer challenged him with a 96.3-mph fastball that he could drive.

  “It felt good,” Judge said. “I’m not getting those mistakes. When they throw it over the middle of the plate, I’ve got to do damage, and I haven’t been able to do that. It’s been a grind, but we keep winning, and that’s what is most important.”

  Sanchez extended New York’s lead in the sixth inning with an opposite-field homer off Bryan Shaw, greeted at home plate by a leaping biceps bash from Bird. That cushion came in handy when Dellin Betances’ control issues resurfaced in the eighth inning. The right-hander was searching for answers when he threw eight of twelve pitches out of the strike zone, but Tommy Kahnle bailed out his teammate by completing a six-out save in what Kahnle said was the most important outing of his career to date.

  “You always have to have it in the back of your mind that one day you might be on a team that is in this situation,” Kahnle said. “My whole life, I’ve been waiting for this moment.”

  The Bombers had prevented the Indians from celebrating on their turf, bailing out their embattled manager in the process. In fact, Cleveland hadn’t held a lead in the series since they picked up their room keys in New York. As the Yankees walked into Progressive Field, it was impossible not to note the shift of emotions that had taken place since their departure. Gardner observed that, for whatever reason, these Yanks seemed to respond to dire circumstances.

  “I just know the guys in this room,” Gardner said. “They’re going to fight and not give up and keep going until the end. With our backs against the wall, we seem to play a little bit better.”

  They needed that to hold true in Game 5 against Kluber, a meeting which represented their fourth potential elimination game in a span of eight days. This was the possibility that Francona had prepared for by having Kluber go in the series’ second game instead of the opener, and the stars seemed to have aligned perfectly for the Tribe.

  Indians fans packed Progressive Field once more, waving their red towels in anticipation of seeing the Klubot emotionlessly dismantle the Yankees and pitch Cleveland to the next round. Didi Gregorius ordered a re-write of the script, silencing all but a small pocket of Bombers fans with a solo homer in the first inning and a two-run shot in the third.

  Gregorius had been 1-for-13 in the ALDS, but he pounced on a 94-mph Kluber fastball for the first homer and then teed off on an 86-mph curveball for the second. Saying that they were probably the biggest hits of his career to that point, Gregorius thought about the daydreams he’d once lapsed into while taking in Curacao’s mountainous vistas, many of which had involved succeeding on a stage like this.

  “As a kid, we always want to play in a big situation,” Gregorius said. “I wanted to be a major league player when I was growing up. Then I worked for it. Now that I’m here, being in this unbelievable, unbelievable organization, all the history and everything, it’s the best thing because everybody is together and the team is really united.”

  Kluber was dispatched to his second early exit of the series, lasting 3⅔ innings. Francona said that Kluber was “fighting a lot” to be on the hill, and while Kluber refused to elaborate, Cashman later said that Kluber hadn’t been in top form for either outing. Kluber had missed all of May with a lower back strain, prompting speculation that he was also ailing in the postseason.

  “It doesn’t do any good to go into details,” Kluber said. “I was healthy enough to go out there and try to pitch.”

  Sabathia, meanwhile, seemed to be on his game. Savoring the atmosphere, he rolled the clock back by going as hard as he could before burning out, retiring the first nine Indians and thirteen of the first fourteen—including leaving a divot in the turf as he fell to his knees, charging his 300-pound frame toward home plate to snare a third inning bunt attempt by Roberto Perez. Sanchez thumped Sabathia on his left chest, and the big man grinned widely.

  CC Sabathia continued to lend a valuable veteran presence to the Yankees’ clubhouse in 2017, going 14-5 with a 3.69 ERA in his seventeenth big league season. Saying that there is “unfinished business” with the Baby Bombers, Sabathia will return in 2018. (© Keith Allison)

  Four straight hits chased Sabathia in the fifth inning, but Robertson bailed Sabathia out of the jam, needing two pitches to induce Francisco Lindor to hit into an inning-ending double play. As Gregorius fielded the grounder, stepped on second base, and fired to first base, Sabathia screamed with joy, smashing his palms onto the padded railing of the dugout.

  “It’s incredible. The best [bullpen] I’ve ever seen,” Sabathia said. “We’ve got four or five closers down there. We have a lot of confidence they’re going to get the job done.”

  Robertson pitched 2⅔ scoreless innings to pick up the win. Brett Gardner provided two key insurance runs with a ninth inning single that ended an epic twelve pitch battle with Cody Allen, and Chapman converted a six-out save as the Yankees became the tenth team to advance after losing the first two games of a best-of-five postseason series.

  “We moved on for a reason—because we played better than they did,” Gardner said. “They had a better team than we did over the course of 162 games, but I said al
l the time in September, it’s not about how good of a season you had. It’s about playing the best at the right time.”

  In the first-base dugout, Girardi celebrated with his coaches and rushed onto the playing field, granted the sweetest of reprieves. Amid the champagne-soaked celebration in the visiting clubhouse, Todd Frazier declared, “This one’s for Joe!” In hindsight, most of his teammates seemed either hesitant or uninterested when reporters provided opportunities to further discuss that storyline.

  Standing in the hallway outside a kitchenette area, safely out of spraying distance from his players, Brian Cashman gave no indication that a managerial change was in the recesses of his mind. Saying that the ALDS victory “turns the page” on what would have otherwise been an ugly chapter in Girardi’s career, Cashman preferred to focus his attention upon what his players accomplished in those last three games against Cleveland.

  “Coming back against this particular team, it’s a pretty impossible task,” Cashman said. “That’s a special team, run by a special group of people, from their front office to their manager to their coaching staff. This is as perfectly run of an organization as you can have right now. They’re someone that all of us are trying to emulate, the way they go about their business both on and off the field. It seems like every move makes sense and is a stroke of genius.

  “This was an extremely well put together team. I would call this a super-team, actually. That’s why you’ve got to play the games out. I’ve produced 100-win teams that got knocked out in the first round, too many times. That’s why you don’t bet on baseball and you’ve got to play the games out, and play your best in October. A lot can change really quickly, as we’ve just seen again.”

  CHAPTER 15.

  Take It to the Limit

  The fifth episode of Seinfeld’s seventh season was “The Hot Tub,” featuring a storyline in which Yankees employee George Costanza (Jason Alexander) is tasked with entertaining a group of visiting Astros executives. While taking the Texans out to a New York City watering hole, Costanza picks up the habit of casually swearing. The gag culminates in a scene where Costanza is overheard by a superior on his Yankee Stadium telephone, screaming to his new buddies: “You tell that son of a bitch that no Yankee is ever coming to Houston!”

  That episode aired in October 1995, two years before Major League Baseball instituted interleague play, and eighteen years before the Astros shifted to the American League West after spending their first fifty-one summers in the National League. The Yankees and Astros shared some quirky history: Mickey Mantle had hit the Astrodome’s first home run in an April 1965 exhibition, Yogi Berra joined the Astros as a coach after George Steinbrenner fired him as manager sixteen games into the 1985 season, and six Houston pitchers combined to pitch a no-hitter in June 2003 at Yankee Stadium. Roger Clemens and Andy Pettitte headlined the list of notable players who had suited up for both franchises.

  With apologies to Costanza, the Yankees were indeed heading to Houston, as a result of the Astros having steamrolled the Red Sox in the other half of the ALDS. As the Yanks went through airport security in Cleveland, they did so in anticipation of an American League Championship Series that would feature a head-to-head showdown between Judge and second baseman Jose Altuve, the leading candidates for the AL MVP award.

  The award is voted on by members of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America, and since ballots must be cast by the final day of the regular season, nothing that transpired in the ALCS would influence the outcome. In the court of public opinion, supporters on both sides held strong views.

  Altuve won his third AL batting title in 2017, slashing .346/.410/.547 with 24 homers, 81 RBIs, and 32 stolen bases. Judge batted .284 but finished with a higher OPS (1.049) and more RBIs (114), leading the league in homers (52), runs scored (128), walks (127), and strikeouts (208). It was a terrific example of baseball’s equality; you couldn’t have two more different players in terms of size (Altuve stood five-foot-six) and style of play, yet they were both able to make crucial contributions for their respective teams.

  “He goes 100 miles an hour for nine innings,” Brett Gardner said of Altuve. “I can appreciate that.”

  As the hours ticked down to ALCS Game 1, Altuve was asked who he would vote for if offered a ballot. He and Judge had spent some time talking during the All-Star Game in Miami, and Altuve recalled the young Yankee as being wide-eyed, seemingly incredulous that he had been invited to participate in the festivities. Altuve laughed, telling Judge that he had come to the Home Run Derby specifically to watch the rookie slugger hit.

  “He was so humble and was like, ‘No, no, no, I’m happy to be here with you guys,’” Altuve recalled. “And if he wins the MVP, I think that it couldn’t happen to a better guy, because he works really hard and I like the way he plays. He hits all his homers and he doesn’t even—you know, never enjoy it. And I was like, ‘Wow, this guy is so good and he’s so humble about it.’ Maybe in another life I want to be Aaron Judge and hit all those homers.”

  Judge appreciated the compliments, but downplayed attempts by reporters to paint the ALCS as the ‘Altuve vs. Judge show.’

  “It’s about the Astros and the Yankees: who’s going to go to the World Series,” Judge said. “It’s just about the team right now. I think the fans are more excited about two great teams getting an opportunity to play. But I’ve talked to him a little bit—what a great guy. You see what he does on the baseball field, but the type of person he is, you see the passion he has for the game, and it’s pretty fun to watch.”

  With stifling heat outdoors, MLB kept the roof sealed drumtight at Minute Maid Park, producing perfect conditions as the Yankees prepared to battle against Dallas Keuchel. The bearded left-hander had ended their 2015 season with a gem on short rest in the Wild Card game at Yankee Stadium, but only Gardner, Chase Headley, Greg Bird, and Didi Gregorius remained from the lineup that Girardi sent out that night.

  The Yanks’ number three and five hitters from that game—Carlos Beltran and Brian McCann—were now wearing Astros orange, yet the new-look-lineup produced results that appeared much the same as they had two years prior. Taking advantage of a generous strike zone, Keuchel and his array of spinning pitches were again mystifying, as the twenty-nine-year-old struck out 10 over seven scoreless innings to pitch Houston to a 2–1 victory.

  “He just lives on the corner,” Judge said. “He doesn’t miss his spot. If you go through the whole game, there weren’t a lot of pitches in the heart of the plate. He likes to live on the edges and commands it well. He mixes speeds well and keeps you off-balance.”

  The Yanks managed four singles off Keuchel and only one runner reached second base against him. That was in the fifth inning, when Bird singled and advanced to second on an Altuve error. Bird’s best attribute had never been his speed, and three months removed from right ankle surgery, that seemed to be especially true.

  Keuchel hung a slider that Judge rifled into left field for a clean single, and Bird was waved home, having made contact with the third-base bag at the moment left fielder Marwin Gonzalez scooped the ball. Gonzalez uncorked a one-hop rocket to catcher Brian McCann that arrived in time to cut down Bird. Girardi signaled that he wanted to challenge the call, but the review clearly showed that McCann had applied the tag to Bird’s legs before he reached home plate.

  “Well, we thought he was out,” Girardi said. “But God knows I’m not doing that again.”

  Though Bird was in motion on the 3-2 pitch, he had hesitated before getting into his secondary lead, mindful that Keuchel might whirl for a pickoff attempt. Every step counted. Girardi said that if Bird was ten percent faster—five percent, even—he would have scored.

  “I’m too slow. I wish I was a little faster,” Bird said. “That’s baseball. I was running. I feel like I did what I could do there. What are you going to do? He made a good throw, put a good tag on me. So be it.”

  Tanaka was charged with the loss despite holding the Astros hitless into th
e fourth inning, permitting two runs and four hits over six innings. Bird broke up the shutout with two outs in the ninth inning, dinging the right-field foul pole off closer Ken Giles. Despite the one run loss, Bird said that he believed the Yankees were proving that they could hang with the big boys of the American League.

  “I said it after Cleveland, you’ve got to beat good teams and good pitchers if you want to get to where you want to be,” Bird said. “We were in that game the whole way, really. We didn’t get some hits or didn’t get some runs in, but really, we were in that game.”

  It was a fairly quick turnaround for Game 2, with the first pitch thrown after 3:00 p.m. local time, and the score would be the same as Game 1—Astros 2, Yankees 1.

  This time, it was Justin Verlander stifling the Yanks’ bats, with the thirty-four-year-old going old-school by striking out thirteen in a complete game, 124-pitch effort. Todd Frazier’s fifth inning RBI knock to left-center field, which wedged between a chain-link fence and the wall padding for a ground-rule double, accounted for New York’s only run off Verlander. Gardner had been thrown out trying to stretch a double into a triple earlier in the game, a dare that proved costly.

  “[The losses] are both tough to swallow,” Frazier said. “We know what we’re capable of. It’s just going to take one thing and one little spark to get us going. I think in two days we’re going to find that.”

  Carlos Correa touched Aroldis Chapman for the decisive hit of Game 2, a ninth inning double into the right-center field gap that scored Altuve all the way from first base. Judge fielded the ball in front of the warning track and threw to second base, where it was cut off by Gregorius. Girardi said that getting the ball to Gregorius had been the right play, describing him as “the guy on the field with the best arm.”

  “We were playing deep. We didn’t want anything to get by us, especially with Altuve at first,” Judge said. “Anything that gets to the wall, Altuve scores on. I just tried to get it in to Didi, because I thought if I got to him, I’d have a shot at the plate.”