Just for a Day

No doubt, the powers that be in baseball are hoping for a Yankees-Dodgers’ World Series. Guardians-Padres, not so much. But it was fun to see those two teams win yesterday while employing lots of small-ball and old-school baseball. In New York (and God help us if aliens ever judge humanity’s fate on the behavior of Yankees’ fans), the long ball was nowhere to be seen when it counted most, that being the tenth inning of a 2-2 game. Jose Ramirez blooped a ball to left and immediately thought two bases, forcing a hurried throw to second from Josh Donaldson. Donaldson’s throw sailed into the outfield, and Ramirez made third base. Somewhere, Tim Anderson is smiling. Oscar Gonzalez followed with a bloop of his own to score Ramirez. That brought up Josh Naylor, who must’ve thought he was in Chicago the way he doubled over the head of center fielder Harrison Bader; Gonzalez scored from first on Naylor’s double. That gave Cleveland closer Emmanuel Clase a 4-2 lead going into his second inning of work. And, guess what? Not a Yankee reached the fences in the bottom of the tenth, not even with a runner on and one out. Nope. In fact, the Bronx Bombers fanned fifteen times while collecting just one homerun. All of which makes today’s game in Cleveland all the more interesting. As to the Padres-Dodgers, San Diego held Los Angeles to one run on six hits. The mighty Dodgers struck out twelve times in a 2-1 game, including twice in the ninth inning. Wait for the long ball, die by the long ball. Of course, everything could change today. Aaron Judge may stop striking out (seven times in eight at-bats against Guardians’ pitching), and the Dodgers could return to their hammering ways. But I hope not.