Fear and Loathing on the road to the World Series (part 3)
Schlittler wins “Battle of the Rookies”
I was late to the wild card party on Thursday night but still an hour or so ahead of the evening’s main event. The vagaries of the time matrix we all live in I guess, as well as the sporting chance of hoping, but with no real dog in the fight, that the Chicago Cubs would end the season of those pesky Padres from San Diego and my brother Andy’s team and those glorious Red Sox of Boston would send the Evil Empire of the New York Yankees scurrying for a rock to hide under until the baseball carnival returns to the Big Apple early next year. Meat Loaf once said that two out of three ain’t bad and he’d do anything for love (but I won’t do that), but none of this is particularly relevant at this early juncture in our tale of fear and loathing so let’s not distract ourselves with meaningless tangents and songs from the man often cruelly overlooked for his stellar acting performance in Fight Club. Now’s not the time. No. The Cubs won. The Yankees too.
And we have to suffer those evil pinstripes from New York for yet another week on our road to the World Series.
I joined the Cubs/Padres game at the top of the 6th inning with Chicago leading 2–0. They’d eventually triumph 3–1 as the Wrigley Field crowd counted down the number of outs needed from 9–3, and before and after a truly awful “Take Me Out To The Ball Game” from ex Cubs Ryan Dempster and Jake Arrieta in the 7th inning stretch too. But straddling this fever pitch hullabaloo were a trio of extraordinary defensive plays from Cubs shortstop Dansby Swanson that stopped a late game rally from the Padres in both the 6th and 8th innings and although the visitors threatened to do likewise again in the 9th (Jackson Merrill smashed a home run off closer Brad Keller to reduce the Cubs lead to 3–1 before Keller then hit Padres hitters Ryan O’Hearn AND Bryce Johnson to bring Padres into scoring positions on the bases to level or win the game) Andrew Kittredge strode to the mound, doused the baseball fires of Jake Cronenworth and Freddy Fermin, and the Cubs are off to Milwaukee to face the Brewers for Game 1 of the Division Series this Saturday.
For 3 innings at Yankee Stadium the “Battle of the Rookies” was bubbling to the tune of a scoreless epic between two pitchers with the combined age of 47, 19 total MLB games to their names and seen crucially pre-game by experts far and wide and even a mad-dog Englishman watching baseball night after night at 3am in the morning, zero experience of winner takes all play-off baseball in October. For 3 innings, the 6 foot 6 inch frame of 24 year old Massachusetts born Cam Schlittler threw “easy gas” at 100mph and collected as many brilliant strike-outs as did his rookie opponent for the Red Sox, Connelly Early. Although not as tall or as hard throwing as the Yankee opposite him, Early, or the “youngest pitcher since Babe Ruth in 1916” to start a post-season game for the Red Sox, chalked up 6 dominating strike-outs before everything turned sour for the 23 year old lefty pitcher from Virginia in the 4th inning. Cody Bellinger (an ex Dodger and a painful watch in the pinstripes of the Yankees) blooped a double into the Bermuda triangle separating shortstop Trevor Story and deeper fielders Ceddanne Rafaela and Wilyer Abreu, Early walked Giancarlo Stanton before Amed Rosario scorched a single into the outfield to score a scampering Bellinger from 2nd base to the roars of approval from Yankee stadium. Jazz Chisholm cracked a loud and long single to the outfield to load the bases, Anthony Volpe pierced the infield to score Rosario and with the bases still loaded, Nathaniel Lowe made a mess of a routine ground ball off the bat of Austin Wells at 1st base that scored both Stanton and Rosario and from 0–0 and a dominant start to his post-season debut, the defence behind Connelly Early let him down and after 76 pitches, he departed Yankee Stadium a defeated young man. For defeat was always on the baseball cards for the Red Sox after this 4th inning catastrophe and due overwhelmingly to the performance of Yankee pitcher Cam Schlittler. Returning to the dugout in the 7th inning on the back of his 11th strike-out of the night from exactly 100 pitches thrown, Yankees manager Aaron Boone urged his young charge for one more inning, and an 8th time on the mound that saw the 24 year old add yet another strike-out to his nightly total and just a further 7 pitches took care of the Red Sox to leave the Yankees 3 outs from a trip this weekend to Toronto to face the Blue Jays. Closer David Bednar sealed the deal with a minimum of fuss and thus reinforced the theme of Boston’s limp exit from the play-offs: only 5 hits all night and barely in scoring position to ever threaten their hosts early game lead.
The fear and loathing runs deep in October and especially where baseball is concerned. Only 8 teams remain on the long and winding road to the World Series and unfortunately for me and my beloved LA Dodgers, one of those teams, and overwhelming favourites in my sporting eyes, are the Philadelphia Phillies. I see play-off despair heading the way of my Dodgers, but time, as always, will tell. Elsewhere, I foresee the Brewers taking care of the Cubs, I’ll worry about the victors emerging from the Seattle Mariners and Detroit Tigers another time, and I rather hope the Toronto Blue Jays smash the Yankees to smithereens on home turf before silencing Yankee Stadium to defeat too.
The road to the season ending “Big Dance” starts now.
Thanks for reading. Here’s something else sporty I created a little while ago. Lovely cover isn’t it? Fancy a game of Uno?
"The Spirit of Cricket" - link to Amazon
