ALWC3: Yankees 4, Red Sox 0

Red Sox - 000 000 000 - 0  5  2
Yankees - 000 400 00x - 4  8  1

"I guess the Yankees are bound to beat us in the playoffs
every 22 years or so." – Petagine in a Bottle (SoSH)

Cam Schlittler's pitching performance (8-5-0-0-12, 107) was the only story worth telling from the Yankees' 4-0 win in the deciding game of the ALWC series. Schlittler spent his evening steadily – and seemingly without effort – firing fastballs at 100/101. He spotted his pitches extremely well, but even when his offerings came right down the middle, many of the Red Sox were overmatched. Boston managed to get one base runner to second base – and he stood there for all of three pitches.

Perhaps more importantly for New York, Schlittler didn't give manager Aaron Boone any oppourtunities to fuck up the game for the home team. (If Boone had tried to go the pen in the seventh or eighth, he would no doubt have been stopped by several hundred fans running on the field to tackle and beat his ass. (A lot of fans probably want to do that anyway. Bafoone!) This factoid is hard to believe, but Schlittler is the first pitcher in major league history to have a postseason pitching line of 8+ innings, 0 runs, 0 walks, and 12+ strikeouts. It was also the most strikeouts by an MFY pitcher in a postseason debut.

New York advances to the ALDS against the Blue Jays, thanks to a 10-batter fourth inning in which nothing was hit with any authority. Connelly Early pitched far better than his line would indicate (3.2-6-4-1-6, 78), and he showed remarkable poise as he fell victim to shitty fielding and shittier luck. Also, Alex Cora was astonishingly slow to call the bullpen, an inexcusable mistake considering his no-fuckin-around yank-job of Brayan Bello in G2 and the fact that this was a do-or-die game. A cognizant skipper would have pulled Early at least three batters earlier than Cora did, maybe even four batters early. Cora might have been wary after he used six relievers after Bello on Wednesday, three of whom tossed 23 or more pitches.

Early was the youngest Red Sox pitcher to start a postseason game in almost 110 years, at 23 years, 182 days. Back in 1916, Babe Ruth was 21 years, 246 days, when he started Game 2 of the World Series against Brooklyn. Boston won that game in 14 innings, the longest World Series game until the Red Sox and Dodgers spent nearly 7½ hours playing 18 innings in 2018.

Early and Schlittler traded sharp innings for the first three innings.

1st inning:
Schlittler: perfect inning, one strikeout looking, 14 pitches
Early: pefect inning, one strikeout looking, 8 pitches

2nd inning:
Schlittler: leadoff single, then three outs (two strikeouts), 22 pitches
Early: leadoff double, then three outs (two strikeouts), 23 pitches

3rd inning:
Schlittler: perfect inning, two strikeouts, 12 pitches
Early: leadoff single, then three outs (two strikeouts), 14 pitches

That's where the similarities ended. Schlittler gave up a single in the fourth, tossing 10 pitches. Early ended up throwing 33 in the bottom half as everything around him went to absolute shit.

Cody Bellinger hit a sinking liner to shallow right-center. Ceddanne Rafaela ran in and dove, but his glove was just shy of the ball. (I wondered if the thought of a charging Wilyer Abreu appearing out of nowhere was in the back of his mind.) Bellinger got a gift double out of a hit that had an expected batting average of .070. Early walked Giancarlo Stanton – and earned a visit from pitching coach Andrew Bailey. This is also when Justin Slaten should have started warming up. (Maybe he did; I don't know.) 

Early struck out Ben Rice on three pitches. Rosario grounded a single past Trevor Story's reach to his right and into left field. Bellinger was sent home and beat Jarren Duran's throw. There was something unhurried about Jarren Duran's fiedling; he seemed slow to get rid of the ball or his throw was not as hard as I expected. Where was Cora? Jazz Chisholm poked a single to right field to load the bases. Seriously, where was Cora? Anthony Volpe grounded a single past Romy González's glove at second and into right. A second run scored. Okay, quit fuckin around. Where's Cora? Austin Wells battled for eight pitches before chopping a routine grounder to first. (Sidebar: On the eighth pitch, Wells claimed Carlos Narváez's glove had touched his bat. The umpire ruled catcher's interference (and a run scored). Boston challenged that call and the replays were crystal clear – no contact between bat and glove. Not even fuckin close. The call was rightly overturned.) Nathaniel Lowe went to his backhand and the ball clanked off his mitt. Christ! The ball ended up in shallow right, as two runs scored, making the score 4-0. WHERE WAS FUCK IS CORA? Early threw a strike and retired Trent Grisham on a fly to right. Then – oh, look, it's Grady Cora – ready to bring Slaten in. His first pitch drilled Aaron Judge in the left arm and his second pitch was popped to center to end the inning.

Four hits, a shallow sinking liner to right-center and three average grounders that were just out of reach. Naturally, the ESPN dipshits acted like it was a rocket barrage. Cora knew Early wasn't getting knocked around the lot, but all those baserunners were real and the runs crossing the plate counted. Just bring in Slaten four batters earlier and ride the same arms as he ended up doing. Might have kept the game at 1-0 and then who knows? Maybe Schlittler is more likely to make a mistake or he gets pulled an inning earlier.

To the Red Sox's credit, the bullpen shut the Yankees down cold the rest of the way. The Boston bats were absent. There was a single in the sixth and another one in the ninth. You could see the hitters pressing by the sixth inning, if not earlier. Masataka Yoshida's wave at strike three was pure Cactus Sasahe. As was Rafaela's futile attempt to connect with high 2-2 pitch directly afterwards. Abreu struck out in the seventh on five pitches, all of which were not far from the middle of the zone. González climbed the ladder as well when he fanned to start the eighth. By the ninth, plate umpire Mark Ripperger was calling those high pitches strikes, just to get the fuckin game over with.

I followed the SoSH game thread during the second "half" of the game. Some posts:

Jed Zeppelin: "Pop up, dribbler, dribbler, dribbler for an error, fuck all the way off."

canderson: "Boston has scored more than 4 runs 10 times since Sept 1. And not once since Sept 24."

brandonchristensen: "Schlittler is apparently a mega stud. Who knew?"
Mueller's Twin Grannies: "MFY fans are in a Führer over him."

RSN Diaspora: "Getting blanked by a Schittler on Yom Kippur is the cherry on this shit sundae."

benhogan: "For all you youngsters out there...this is what the Red Sox looked like in most big playoff spots pre-2004. Just enough fuck ups to lose."

Bob Montgomerys Helmet Hat: "Boone is having a good game"
JOBU: "Well it's easy when you literally don't have to do anything."

Norm Siebern: "I am in a rage. A full=on blue fucking rage. I truly fucking hate these neanderthal fucktwit MFY fans. I hope the Blue Jays sweep them in three."

jose melendez: "This team got to exactly where they should with their talent and injuries. Spend some money, come back young and strong next year."
Remagellan: "This. We were doomed once the Giolito news broke."

Hank Scorpio: "Thank you GameDay for telling me what happened before the feed caught up. Allowed me to turn the game off before I got to see/hear the final out/celebration."

YED will have to wait at least another week. But it's coming. 

Looking at the Post's sports section, I did a bit of a double take when I saw this:

Saturday, October 4

ALDS
Yankees / Blue Jays
Tigers / Mariners

NLDS
Cubs / Brewers
Dodgers / Phillies