The New York Yankees are making their pursuit of home field in the AL wild-card game a little more hard.
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“It all starts over (now)”, Yankees manager Joe Girardi said.
What’s next: The Red Sox begin the final game of the season in Cleveland Friday night. “It comes down to Tuesday”. Worst American League batting average since September 1. But he still battled through and would not let New York get the big hit.
In October, Anaheim won their first ever postseason series when they defeated the Yankees – the team that finished with the best regular season record – in the ALDS. The Yankees were hoping to win game one to lock up their home field advantage so they could give Severino the night off. I wonder what Nelson Muntz would say about that? “It’s going to be fun, no doubt about that”. “Whether we can do that in the market, that remains to be seen, but we’re going to try”. “Unfortunately, it happened to us at the end“. The last time they had a streak like this was a seven-season stretch during the darkest days of the franchise in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
With the win and sweep over New York, Baltimore finished the season 81-81 and it marked the fourth straight year that they Orioles have not had a losing record.
Baltimore lost a lot of offensive production this season without Cruz (.302/.369/.566 with 90 runs scored, 44 home runs and 93 RBIs with Seattle Mariners) and Markakis (.296/.370/.376 with 73 runs scored, 3 home runs and 53 RBIs with Atlanta Braves), which could certainly be attributed to their 15-game drop off from previous year.
“I was pretty fired up after I hit the first one“, he said.
“It was kind of an emotional day”, Chen said through a translator. I’m going to miss that if he doesn’t return. But he really doesn’t want to go at it alone in 2016.
Fans are concerned – I am too, but I do know I believe in this organization.
Yankees: CF Jacoby Ellsbury(.257, 7, 33, 21 SBs), LF Chris Young (.252, 14, 42, .327 avg. against lefties), RF Carlos Beltran (.276, 19, 67), DH Alex Rodriguez (.250, 33, 86, 83 runs, .356 OBP), C Brian McCann (.232, 26, 94), 3B Chase Headley (.259, 11, 62, 23 errors), 1B Greg Bird (.261, 11, 31 in 157 ABs), SS Didi Gregorius (.265, 9, 56), 2B Rob Refsnyder (.302, 2, 5 in 43 at-bats). Although he was able to hold the Yankees to just one run at Yankee Stadium, he performed worse on the road than at home all season. But sometimes their approach on the basepaths doesn’t pay off. Altuve also leads the AL by being caught stealing 13 times and Marisnick is tied for third with nine. Two months ago, those innings might have belonged to Chasen Shreve, but Shreve’s breakout season crumbled in recent weeks and the Yankees have searched in vain for a reliable middle-innings alternative.
It was still only 2-0 before Machado hit Nova’s 1-and-2 fastball into the Orioles bullpen with two outs in the fifth.
Shortstop J.J. Hardy’s RBI single brought in Wieters, who started the inning with a double, and ended Pineda’s day.
“That led to a tougher inning for him”, said Girardi, noting that Pineda’s damaging pitches were “up and flat”.
A game the Yankees, perhaps contrary to anyone outside their clubhouse, feel they have a good chance to win considering its location. “Veteran team, we know what we have to do – you win and you move on”.
Orioles third baseman Manny Machado failed to homer in a fifth consecutive game but completed the season as the only player in the majors to participate in all 162 games.
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“Everything is erased”, Girardi said. Tanaka has been dealing with a few hamstring issues lately but is ready to go for this one….
