Written by Grant Brisbee at SB Nation.com
The Yankees and the Twins played a deathmatch on Tuesday, and it was interesting only because baseball was involved. Baseball is that college friend who’s always willing to throw an ashtray through a window for two minutes of laughs. The laughs end, the window is broken, and everyone starts to evaluate why they like him in the first place. And in that context, it was entirely plausible that the Twins could outscore the Yankees for nine innings.
They did not. The Yankees were the better team, and they won. Baseball did not have that many surprises in store. The Yankees’ plan this postseason is to hit dingers and go to the bullpen early and often, turning baseball into something of a Strat-O-Matic thought experiment by assembling half-dozen dominant relievers and shortening every game. In this case, the Yankees shortened the game to a third of an inning, and it worked. My stars, it worked.
There was some chatter earlier on Tuesday, spurred by Ken Rosenthal, that if the Yankees lost, there would be calls for change. It’s right there in the headline.
If Yankees or D-Backs lose, expect wild-card outrage—and calls for change
As a fan of the last team that will ever win 103 games and miss the postseason, my advice to the Yankees would have been to win their division. This will be my advice to the Diamondbacks if they should lose on Wednesday night. Baseball used to have a system so unfair that it made winning the pennant something that made Russ Hodges’ soul escape his body and join the public domain. Then baseball made it a little easier to win the World Series … a little easier to win the World Series … and then a little too easy to win the World Series …
And now we’re here. I’m here to argue that here is the best possible format.
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