As the Cleveland Guardians rallied to beat them, 4-2, in extra innings, it became clear just how thin that tightrope really is for the Yankees. Judge went 0 for 5 with four strikeouts against the Guardians’ dominating pitching staff, the Yankees’ offense could not score again after Giancarlo Stanton’s first-inning home run, and when the four proven relievers left in the Yankees’ bullpen had come and gone, starter Jameson Taillon began his first career relief appearance by surrendering two bloop hits and the go-ahead run.
“We never expected any of this time of year to be easy,” Yankees Manager Aaron Boone said, “and nothing’s been easy for us this year, especially in the second half of the season.”
A funny thing tends to happen in October in the Bronx, a phenomenon wherein if the Yankees lose it is because they did not do enough, not because the other team did more. And in the case of the Guardians, to suggest that the Yankees frittered away Friday’s game would be to erase exactly what has made Cleveland so good.
The Guardians are built around a lineup that makes contact and a pitching staff that avoids it. Three of the hits that led to runs Friday — Andres Gimenez’s fourth-inning RBI single, Jose Ramirez’s 10th-inning double and Oscar Gonzalez’s go-ahead single — had exit velocities below 80 mph. Against Nestor Cortes and the four relievers who followed the wily left-hander, the Guardians struck out just eight times. Every player in the Guardians’ starting lineup reached base via hit or walk.
“We just try find a way on base any way we have. If it’s a bloop hit, it’s a bloop hit; if it’s a hard-hit single, double, whatever the case it, we just try to hustle,” said first baseman Josh Naylor, whose 10th-inning double was one of the few hard-hit balls the Guardians managed Friday, though exit velocity did not measure their efficacy.
“We seem to have played in a lot of games where that’s the outcome,” Guardians Manager Terry Francona said. “It’s not an easy way to win, but it doesn’t mean you can’t. And fortunately our guys keep plugging away.”
Four runs stood up because the Guardians are also built around a flame-throwing bullpen, marked by depth and swing-and-miss stuff — the kind the Yankees thought they had to start the season before injuries and the disappearance of Aroldis Chapman left them crossing their fingers.
Once Cortes and Cleveland starter Shane Bieber were both out of a tie game in the sixth, it qualified as a distinct advantage for the Guardians given the state of the Yankees’ bullpen. And because of the strange day off after Game 1, followed by the rainout Thursday, they faced the prospect of playing four games in four days should the series go five — a nightmare for even the healthiest of playoff relief corps.
Cleveland’s bullpen pitched 4⅓ scoreless innings, seven outs of which came from hard-throwing closer Emmanuel Clase. Francona could afford to push his closer to win this game, in part because he couldn’t afford to lose this game and in part because he has plenty of firepower available in the form of Trevor Stephan, James Karinchak and others if Clase needs a day off Saturday. Then again, Stephan and Karinchak had to throw more than 20 pitches each Friday. Both bullpens will be tired.
Meanwhile, though the four most proven remaining members of the Yankees’ bullpen — Lou Trivino, Jonathan Loáisiga, Wandy Peralta and Clay Holmes — combined to throw four scoreless, hitless innings, all of them will be needed almost nightly if the Yankees are to win the series.
When Boone had used all of them to his comfort Friday, he turned to career starter Taillon in the 10th. And the Yankees’ bullpen blinked. In fairness to Taillon, he had pitched 143 times in the major leagues, none of them as a reliever. And in fairness to Taillon, the bloop double with which Ramirez greeted him need not have led to a run had Josh Donaldson’s hurried attempt to catch him at second not flown past the base, allowing Ramirez to reach third.
From third, Ramirez had no trouble scoring on Gonzalez’s bloop to right field. Then Naylor doubled over Harrison Bader’s head in dead center field, one of the hardest-hit balls the Guardians had all day. Taillon left the game after that, and the Yankees’ first attempt to push their bruised bullpen past its comfort zone devolved into a loss that sent the series to Cleveland on Saturday knotted at a game apiece.
“Facing two of their more dangerous hitters, we got weak contact,” Taillon said. “And kind of the game of baseball happened there.”
The game of baseball is also striking Judge when the Yankees can least afford it. After going hitless in Game 1, he is 0 for 8 in the series. The one thing the Yankees knew they needed this October, other than their bullpen to hold or their starters to keep games out of the hands of their bullpen or something in between, was Judge to be Judge. If he isn’t, their offense becomes very average.
“My timing’s a little off, and I’ve got to fix it,” Judge said. “That’s pretty much what it comes down to.”
But when Judge’s timing is a little off, the Yankees’ offense is very off. And when the games get to the bullpen, the Yankees can quickly run out of options. They are hardly doomed, just as the Guardians have hardly pulled the upset. But the Yankees’ tightrope is getting shakier, and it is not clear how long they can resist the gravity that has been pulling them to earth for most of the season’s second half.