Division Series – Kansas City Royals v New York Yankees – Game 1 / Elsa/GettyImages
Aaron Judge’s strikeouts. Gerrit Cole’s blowup performances when his team desperately needs a win. Giancarlo Stanton’s running. Gleyber Torres’ mental lapses. Anthony Volpe’s underwhelming at-bats. The New York Yankees’ shaky defense and struggles with rising to the occasion. It was all present despite a Game 1 victory over the Kansas City Royals in the ALDS.
The Yanks pulled off a 6-5 victory in front of their home crowd in the Bronx thanks to the Royals pitching staff melting down. After Michael Wacha was removed from the game (he did enough to keep New York’s offense at bay), KC’s bullpen walked five batters and surrendered five hits.
On the other hand, the Yankees’ bullpen saved them. Tommy Kahnle, Clay Holmes and Luke Weaver absolutely dominated to get the win across the finish line. And that was in spite of the offense going 2-for-13 with runners in scoring position and Volpe turning an inning-ending double play into a two-run opportunity for Kansas City.
Oh yeah, and MLB somehow missing an obvious call to overturn that would have prevented the Yanks from scoring their game-winning run.
In the bottom of the seventh, Jazz Chisholm took off for second base with Volpe at the plate. Volpe swung and missed at strike three and Royals catcher Salvador Perez rifled an inaccurate throw to try and get Chisholm. It looked like Chisholm was going to be safe by a mile but an awkward slide and a great tag by Michael Massey made it a lot closer.
Yankees bailed out by replay review, Luke Weaver in ALDS Game 1 as concerns remain
In fact, the slow motion angles very clearly saw Chisholm tagged out, but the replay review center didn’t deem there to be enough evidence to overturn the call on the field (Chisholm was initially ruled safe).
Then, with two outs, Alex Verdugo delivered, smacking a single into left field to drive Chisholm home. That broke the 5-5 tie and the Yanks took a 6-5 lead.
Verdugo went 2-for-3 with a walk, two runs scored and the game-winning RBI. He also made a diving play in left field that possibly saved multiple runs. Torres went 1-for-3 with a two-run homer. Austin Wells went 1-for-3 with two walks and two RBI. Juan Soto had three hits.
But Judge went 0-for-4 with three strikeouts. Cole pitched just five innings and allowed four runs (three earned) on seven hits and two walks. Giancarlo Stanton went 0-for-4 with two pretty bad strikeouts. Volpe’s uncompetitive at-bats continue to plague the bottom of the lineup. We already told you about the defense and RISP issues.
Credit to Aaron Boone for pulling Cole when he did and going to Weaver when he did. Weaver logged a four-out save and struck out every batter he faced. Clay Holmes threw 13 pitches over 1 2/3 innings (he allowed only one hit). Boone was aggressive when he needed to be and it paid off.
A win is a win. There’s no disputing that. But it was an ugly one against an opponent that has been struggling offensively, which isn’t encouraging as a postseason tone-setter. The Yankees have a long, long way to go, and the same old problems persisting is a terrible sign for when they’ve done nothing to dispel them since June.
Hopefully the off day on Sunday helps them re-align their priorities because performances like these will not be able to sustain a long October run.
