“Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant, to step the Ocean, and crush us at a blow? Never!—All the armies of Europe, Asia, and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with a Buonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years.
“At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst
us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide”
Abraham Lincoln here is talking about the dangers of mob rule, of sedition and the undermining of institutions, at 28, some 23 years before he would be tasked with holding the Union together. What I’m about to talk about carries significantly less weight than abolishing chattel slavery, and yet the rhetoric holds true. The New York Yankees will win their 28th World Series, or die by suicide.
Cam Schlittler was tasked with knotting up the ALDS on Monday night, knowing there was little chance of an offensive breakthrough for his club. Two pitches into the game, Yandy Díaz bounced a grounder to Ryan McMahon, who is on this team because of his supposed defensive prowess. McMahon can’t get a grip on the ball, Diaz reaches on an error. Two batters later, Jazz Chisholm Jr., while falling backwards after getting a forceout at second, throws the ball in the general ZIP code around first base, and Díaz scores. It was a preposterously poor idea do anything but hang onto the ball and take the one out. The Yankees were behind the eight ball already.
Two other errors meant that Schlittler, while charged with three runs overall, only had one count against him in a game where he admittedly didn’t have his best stuff. He still had to throw more pitches, against a team that makes you pay for that, and had high-stress innings bloom out of what should have been an easy start to the frame.
Two and a half weeks into this season I wrote about how the Yankees step on a lot of rakes. It was about Jazz not knowing the rules of baseball and the various other ways he can frustrate despite providing his own form of value. We’re past the point of frustration now, the Yankees’ inability to help themselves seems likely to cost them their postseason. The Rays are a very good baseball team, but the Yankees can beat them three times in a series — we saw them do just that two weeks ago. The Rays aren’t even really beating the Yankees; the Yankees are beating themselves.
Austin Wells thrown out at third base by 20 feet, with Luis Rojas waving a giant stop sign the moment the Yankees’ catcher hit second. A dozen flails at pitches well out of the zone. A runner at first to lead off the inning rather than a quick out, and the team you’re playing does not make enough of their own mistakes to let things level out.
I don’t know who to blame for this. I think the Yankees are actually coming close to deciding it’s time to make a change at manager, and I won’t shed a tear when Aaron Boone leaves the organization. Here’s the thing though: Aaron Boone doesn’t have to tell McMahon to field a groundball that hops at his waist. We keened for Boone to replace Anthony Volpe at shortstop, and George Lombard Jr. has been an error machine at that slot. The players are simply not good enough to avoid beating themselves.
If and when the Rays take the series they will have earned it. They’ve outplayed the Yankees in two games, outscoring anyone not named Ben Rice 6-0. They haven’t outplayed the Yankees by that much though, not really. The hole the Yankees find themselves in, the track set on the Blue Ridge before them, is one of their own construction.
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