If you’re reading this column, the idea that the Yankees are stricken with defensive inadequacies probably won’t elicit anything in the way of a guffaw or spit-take. That’s to say, it hardly qualifies as breaking news. As James Click pointed out in his recent piece on Park-Adjusted Defensive Efficiency rankings, the Yankees had one of the worst team defenses in baseball this season. And most of the blame lies up the middle.
Derek Jeter’s range at short calls to mind an on-duty piano hauler simultaneously encumbered with the dual burdens of Job and Frodo. In center, Bernie Williams’ routes on fly balls reminds one of the stock-price chart of some high-beta outfit from the semi-conductor sector. And, as he demonstrated in the ALDS, Williams has the throwing arm of your garden-variety French intellectual.
I’m done making cheap jokes, but I will add that Alfonso Soriano at the keystone is as erratic as Peter Buck after a bottle-and-a-half of airline Chardonnay. OK, now I’m really done… Except to say that sneaking a base hit through the middle against the Yankees is easier than beating Vin Diesel at Trivial Pursuit. Moving along…
Mark Grace steps out of the clubhouse and into the broadcast booth. Ron Gardenhire is offered a two-year extension. Barry Larkin continues his tenure in Cincinnati. Mike Lowell is activated for the playoffs. And the Pirates aquire Cory Stewart to complete the Brian Giles trade. All this and much more news from around the league in the most recent edition of Transaction Analysis.
Lately, I’ve been doing my writing late at night, with the day’s games fresh in my head. For this one, though, I had to put a night of sleep between me and what transpired. I’ve seen a lot of baseball in my 32 years, but the way last night’s game turned was as sudden and as shocking as anything I’ve ever seen in baseball.
I could point to Game Six of last year’s World Series, or Game Four of the 1996 Series, but those comebacks happened over a period of innings. Game Six in 1986 might be the best parallel. Just like the Red Sox, the Cubs went from a few outs away from the World Series to dead in the water in just a few minutes, and I never saw it coming. Heck, as I look over my notes, there’s this gem:
It would appear I was wrong about Mark Prior.
I was. For six innings, Prior was the same awesome pitcher he’d been since coming off the disabled list in July, workload be damned. His command was a little off at times, but he wasn’t giving up solid contact, and his velocity was good. There was some degradation in both areas beginning in the seventh inning, and that would become important in the eighth, but I had no idea it would lead to what we saw.