New York, New York: Big Apple squads are hot

August 10th, 2019

There is a baseball expression as old as infield dirt, the one about the dog days of August. Just not in New York City, and not right now. Ya gotta believe me on this.

The Mets won another game on Friday night, and not against one of the weaker teams they’ve been feasting on lately. They won it against the Nationals and their closer Sean Doolittle -- putting up four runs in the bottom of the ninth after they hadn’t come from behind to win a game all season. That made it 14 out of 15 for the Mets, as good a regular-season run as they’ve had in their history.

When Michael Conforto’s ball landed between Adam Eaton and the right-field wall at Citi Field, the Mets stayed a half-game out of the second Wild Card spot in the National League. They are just seven games (in the loss column) behind the first-place Braves in the NL East -- with six games against the Braves to be played over the next two weeks.

The Mets are chasing people now the way Conforto’s teammates chased him around Citi Field when it was over, as Pete Alonso even ripped off Conforto’s jersey.

“When guys’ shirts come off,” Mets manager Mickey Callaway said, “it’s probably a good day.”

The Mets won again. It is all they have been doing -- around one loss to the Pirates on Aug. 2 -- since July 24. Their record stood at 46-55 following a loss to the Padres that day -- eight games out of the second NL Wild Card spot, 13 games behind the Braves, closer to last place than first. They were the ones being dogged in New York to trade everybody except Mr. Met.

Now all this gotta-believe, ain’t-over-till-it’s-over stuff has happened.

So that is the current state of one side of the place I’ve always called Baseball New York. The Yankees finally lost a game on Friday night in Toronto to end their own nine-game winning streak. It meant that since August began, the two New York teams each lost one game. What the Mets have done over the last 2 1/2 weeks has looked and felt completely and unexpectedly improbable. The Yankees? They have been New York's improbables for months.

The Yankees ended Friday night with a 9 1/2 game lead over the Rays in the American League East -- and 15 games ahead of the defending World Series champion Red Sox. They have done this in a season in which over two dozen of their players have ended up on the injured list -- including Luis Severino and Dellin Betances, who haven’t pitched yet. has played a grand total of nine games and hit one home run.

Slugger Aaron Judge missed time due to injury, too, suffering an oblique injury back in April. Carlos Beltran, who now works with Yankees general manager Brian Cashman and once suffered an oblique injury himself, said in May he didn’t think Judge would return to full strength this season. Maybe Beltran was right.

Through Friday night, Judge has played in 61 games this season, posting 12 homers, 30 RBIs, and an OPS of .873 in 221 at-bats. By comparison, former Rockie Michael Tauchman -- one of the Yankees’ unlikely stars and one of Cashman’s regular irregulars -- has 12 home runs, 41 RBIs and a .956 OPS over 186 at-bats in 63 games.

Tauchman was in manager Aaron Boone’s batting order on Friday night in Toronto, along with Cameron Maybin, Mike Ford and Breyvic Valera. The Yankees' two best hitters for the entire season continue to be DJ LeMahieu and Gio Urshela. Despite the loss to the Blue Jays, the Yankees were tied with the Astros for the best winning percentage in the Majors, and in a statistical dead heat with the Dodgers for the best record in the sport.

I listed all the things that have happened to the Yankees this season for Cashman on Friday -- starting with Severino and Betances not having thrown pitches yet in games that count and Stanton barely having played at all.

Then, I asked this about the series of unfortunate (injury) events that have happened to the Yankees since Spring Training and seemingly continue to happen:

“If I told you in Spring Training that all these things were going to happen, where would you have thought your team would be on Aug. 9?”

Here is Cashman’s answer:

“First place.”

Cashman, of course, had some non-Yankees, non-baseball excitement of his own on this same day -- getting surrounded by Connecticut police offers at a gas station near his home. It turned out Cashman’s Jeep had been stolen and returned, but the NYPD hadn’t cleared the car from its stolen-vehicle database. All the excitement at the pump ensued.

"I had a welcoming committee descend upon me as I pulled out of that gas station," Cashman told the New York Post.

So the general manager of the Yankees, whose regular irregulars have run away from the field in the AL East, had some drama off the field on Friday. But the better story continues to be on the field, with one of the most remarkable and compelling regular seasons in the history of the Yankees -- because of all the injuries and the stars they haven’t had on the field. Last year, with most of their players healthy, the Yankees finished eight games behind the Red Sox -- despite winning 100 games. This year, with so few of their guys healthy, they are going to win 100 again and make the Red Sox eat their dust.

The Yankees keep winning, while at the same time, the Mets can’t lose. Forget about dog days in Baseball New York. It’s more like the old song says: "Hot fun in the summertime."