Allow me to declare the obvious: baseball isn’t basketball.
Certainly, the sports have two very distinct rule books. One ball is gigantic and orange, one is tiny, white, and hurts like hell if your cousin pegs you with it in the ribs. But in a much more meaningful way, baseball operates nothing like basketball.
As we sit here mesmerized by the NBA playoffs, and the dazzling wizardry of the Golden State Warriors or the methodical destruction wrought by the San Antonio Spurs, it’s clear that are trance-like state is nearly for naught. The Warriors will be defeating the Blazers. The Spurs will send the Thunder packing. Why? Because those two teams are drastically better than their opponents, and in basketball, when the gap is this large, there’s no way for the underdog to close it.
Absolutely no way.
Sure, Damian Lillard is a gunner, elite shooter, and bulldog. He might be able to steal a game all by himself. But in the NBA, talent always prevails. Elite squads send very good squads home. And any basketball fan hooked up to a lie detector test would’ve told you that in December.
Only in baseball do lesser squads have true game-changers. A hot ace, much like an en fuego goalie, can tilt every scale. One good week from a streaky bat can even out some counting statistics that may previously have been lacking. Once the tournament opens, truly anyone can emerge a victor.
It’s one of the most amazing, and also frustrating, things about baseball. Hitters who’ve thrilled you all year long can spend a week in the postseason simply…not hitting. And there’s nothing you can do but shrug. Because it’s justifiable and aggravating. That’s just how it goes.
It happened to the Yankees. In 2005, 2006, and 2007. I thought it might be happening again in 2009, the season I’ve enjoyed most in decades, during Game One of the ALDS. CC Sabathia was on the mound, pitching fine but making a few early flubs, and suddenly the Yanks were down 2-0 in the bottom of the third following a Posada passed ball. Felt like old times. The superior team was simply wilting for no reason, and my World Series prayers would have to spend another season unanswered.
But then Derek Jeter cracked a two-run bomb. They romped, 7-2.
Same deal in Game 2. They couldn’t hit, they were down 3-1 in the ninth, and on the verge of heading to raucous Minnesota locked in 1-1 oblivion. Then, Alex went deep.
Some years, these things happen. Some years, the bats remain as silent as they were in 2006, failing time and time again to make any sort of dent in a weathered, genuinely not good Tigers rotation. Jeremy Bonderman and Kenny Rogers. Wizardry. Some years, the pitching can’t hold any damn lead, like 2005 against the Angels, when Randy Johnson turned back into Aaron Small who turned back into a pile of leaves.
And some years, the Yankees are the team that needs to hope the superior squads just stop ticking.
2016 may be one of those years. In no way are the Yankees this bad, because no one is this bad for a full season. No team scores two runs per game. It isn’t done, because it’s impossible.
I don’t know how good they are. I wish I could purport to be a soothsayer, and then I could come back here and say, “Good news: Aroldis Chapman comes back and bats cleanup, the Yanks win 90 games!”
But it’s certainly not insane to see things changing, the group gelling, the offense humming ever-so-slightly more, and the Wild Card Game being played back in the Bronx. Except this time, Tanaka’s the hot gun who turns a lead over to a string of infallible relievers. The 2015 Yankees were 15-17 in their final 32 games played. That team made the playoffs. April 2016 could be that stretch for this year’s otherwise solid squad. There’s no way of knowing.
But if things turn around just a little bit, and begin to even out, the 2016 Yankees could be the team that forces other opponents to scratch their heads and wonder what went wrong. Because by no means is any other team the Golden State Warriors.
