I don’t remember watching a game that seemed so intense.
It seemed apparent that John Schneider and Pete Walker had a plan for which pitchers they wanted to use for which Yankee batters. I didn’t always appreciate it, I felt that some of the pitchers could have gone longer. I worried that they would run out of pitchers before they ran out of baseball game. I had the thought that, if the game went into extra innings, it could turn into a disaster.
I thought Louis Varland could have gone longer, he was
cruising. I was sure Eric Lauer would need to do 2+ innings, if we were going to get to the finish line with anyone left. Yariel Rodriguez, facing just one batter, seemed like a waste to me.
But they had a plan, and it worked. It could have failed if a couple of the pitchers hadn’t had it. Mason Fluharty gave up the home run, and Braydon Fisher had a bit of a rough time. And, as always, I likely burned 500 calories watching Jeff Hoffman in the ninth.
But the plan worked.
Who do you pick as series MVP? Vlad right? Well, lets go through the top suspects:
- Vlad Guerrero: He hit .529/.550/1.059, with 3 home runs, 9 RBI, 2 walks, 1 strikeouts. He also was terrific defensively.
- Davis Schneider: Not really a serious choice for MVP, but he had some great at-bats and I think he deserves mentionI . He hit .333/.500/.500 with 2 walks and 3 strikeouts. I wish he had taken charge of that pop-up that Barger got the error.
- Daulton Varsho: He hit .438/.471/1.000 with 7 runs, 4 RBI, 1 walk with 3 strikeouts. And he made the plays in center.
- Nathan Lukes: He hit .333/.333/.500 with 2 doubles, 5 RBI, 1 strikeout. He seemed to come up big in every big moment, and made a couple of very nice catches.
- Ernie Clement: He hit .643/.625/.929 with a double, a homer, 5 RBI. I always it is funny when the BA is higher than the OBP, but he had a sac fly. He was also hit by pitch, and I’m happy he didn’t charge the mound. And, as always, was very good defensively.
- Kevin Gausman: 5.2 innings, 4 hits, 1 earned, 2 walks and 3 strikeouts. He set the ton for the series on the mound.
- Louis Varland: Pitched in all four games, 4.0 innings, 4 hits, 2 earned, 2 home runs, no walks and 5 strikeouts. Yeah, the one game didn’t go great (I still can’t figure out how Judge hit a 100 mph fastball, that was 3 inning off the inside edge of the plate). He did remind me of Brandon Morrow pitching in all seven World series games, in 2017. It didn’t go so well for Morrow. He had a 8.44 ERA in those games (though most of that was one bad game, when he gave up two homers and four earned).
- Trey Yesavage: 5.1 innings, no hits, runs, 1 walk, and 11 strikeouts. One of those game that we’ll remember forever. I really figured he’d come into yesterday’s game, once we had that lead at the end.
I think that Andrés Giménez deserves mention too, in part because of the catch of that popup that no one else seemed like they were going to make a play. But he played good defense in every game, and drove in 2 runs and scored 4. He hit .267 with 1 double.
