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Yankees Best of 2016: Cowabunga Dude

The last couple of days I’ve been recapping some of my favorite moments from the 2016 season. Admittedly, they were hard to find, especially if you look in the early months of the ’16 campaign. But August and September provided a number of exciting and memorable moments like Tyler Austin and Aaron Judge debuting in a way no other duo in baseball history had or Gary Sanchez unleashing his kraken on the American League.

From a team perspective, no single game stood out more than the dramatic 7-6 victory over Toronto on September 6.

The Yankees, scratching and clawing for their playoff lives against the then division-leading Blue Jays, were being shut down by Aaron Sanchez, one of baseball’s young breakout pitchers. Luis Cessa, young in his own right, was matching him pitch-for-pitch. Trailing by a run in the 7th, rookie Tyler Austin hit a mammoth opposite field go-ahead homer — and he even pimped it!

As if that weren’t enough, the Yankees were able to rebound from a partially mismanaged, partially mis-executed 8th inning to take yet another lead, only to have their lockdown reliever Dellin Betances, who threw a career-high 40 pitches, struggle to record just one out. The bases were left loaded for Blake Parker, a journeyman who wasn’t in the majors last season and probably won’t be next season, to somehow, someway, manage victory.

The elation with which Gardner celebrated his game-saving catch was how every fan watching felt. The Yankees, written-off a month earlier, were in the middle of a 7-game win streak, poised to defy all odds and make the postseason. While it did not happen, this ballgame gave us glimpses of pennant races to come.