MAH-TOOK ONE OFF THE HEAD

Joseph Leo
Sep 1, 2018 · 2 min read

There are not many experiences in life than an open and down roller coaster baseball game. Living and dying on every pitch just makes the game that much more heart wrenching. Tonight, everything just felt weird.

Jordan Zimmerman threw a no-hitter for the first five innings of the game, Luis Severino seemed to find something, and the Stadium was as close to quite as you can get in late August. THAN, Romine reached on an error, Gardner hit a two-run second deck bomb, Hicks hit a game tying no-doubter, and Andùjar hit a laser beam to take the lead. Just like that Yankee Stadium gave the fans watching on TV a sniff of what an October Atmosphere would feel like. Mikie Mahtook and Ronny Rodriguez took the lead back from the Yankee pen. After that, Gardner doubled, Hicks walked, and Luke Voit walked on a questionable check swing call that cost Ron Gardenhire watching the rest of the game from the dugout. Gleyber Torres singled to left as the ball hit a diving Mikie Mahtook on the head and ricocheted into short leftfield allowing two runs to score and give the Yankees the lead.

Speaking of check swings and balls and strikes — the umpiring in this game was atrocious. Nic Lentz should never umpire another Yankee game behind the plate as long as Aaron Boone is the manager. Lentz had an extremely low and wide strike zone that made the game a guessing game. Nobody including Lentz knew what the strike zone was tonight. Boone got thrown out after two calls against Gleyber Torres. Giancarlo Stanton had an uncharacteristic fit at the plate after a low strike call in the bottom of the 8th, and the game became personal from the Yankee side and Nic Lentz.

Finally, David Robertson had a typical closing appearance, where it looks like he is going to blow it in epic fashion but ends up nailing down the game.

Don’t get to worried — normalcy is on the horizon…kind of. Andrew McCutchen and Gary Sanchez will be back in the lineup tomorrow, Gregorius is coming back on Labor Day, and Judge and Chapman will be back in mid-September. As much of a twisty-turny rocking roller coaster that this game and homestand has been, there’s a nice big straight away is coming up soon.

Joseph Leo

Written by

Writer/Creator of The Basement View Host/Producer of The Grind Hours Podcast https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/grind-hours-podcast/id1361270470?mt=2