Yankees-Twins ALDS will be a fun series for deep thinkers
Yankees designated hitter Aaron Judge follows through on his solo home run against the Toronto Blue Jays during the first inning at Yankee Stadium on Sunday, Sept. 22, 2019. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
In the Year of the Home Run, the Yankees-Twins American League Division Series will be the Series of the Home Run.
So tune in starting Friday, commissioner Rob Manfred. Your suspiciously superball-like 2019 baseballs are going to be flying out of Yankee Stadium and Target Field, just as you apparently want.
This isn’t going to be a series about bunting and hitting-and-running and who does the little things better.
Little things are boring. Little things are the past.
This is Arena Baseball, 2019 style. The two most prolific home run-hitting teams in Major League Baseball history are going to fulfill Manfred’s vision of the game today.
Big cuts. Homers. Strikeouts. So many strikeouts. But strikeouts are just home runs that haven’t been hit yet.
The Yankees hit 306 home runs this season. It would have been the all-time record by a lot, because the most ever hit before that was 267 by the 2018 Yankees.
Except — oh, snap — the Twins hit 307.
“What does our team do well? Our team hits homers,” Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said. “That’s what we do really well.”
The Yankees have their sluggers back and healthy, or at least healthy enough to play. Aaron Judge, Giancarlo Stanton, Gary Sanchez, Edwin Encarnacion, Gleyber Torres, Brett Gardner.
Yes, Brett Gardner, who hit a career-high 28 this season. He’s a slugger now. Everyone is.
Judge set an MLB rookie record with 52 homers in 2017. Pete Alonso hit 53 this year for the Mets. Some slugger who played in Double-A this season probably will hit 54 in 2020.
Don’t expect Judge to apologize for what the game is now. As one of MLB’s most recognized stars and the league’s best-selling jersey name three years running, he's on board. He digs the long ball.
“Just recently, I feel like the game has changed in that aspect,” he said on Thursday. “I feel like there's so many shifts and so many different things going on in the game, why would I want to put the ball on the ground, for the most part? Ninety-nine percent of the time it's on the ground, it's an out. I just feel like hitters have changed their mindset. I'm going to try to do some damage. I'm going to get my 'A' swing off as much as I can rather than take a 'B' or 'C' swing and put it on the ground and it's an out.
“I've got three strikes. Why not take three chances to get one out of the park? That kind of changed the game. As you guys have seen in the wild-card games so far, home runs are going to play a big part of it. A little tougher with pitching, as we see in the postseason, but that's what's happening in the game, man, home runs. We're going to see a lot of them, I think, this series. But maybe not. We'll see. It's going to be a fun series.”
The Yankees and Twins already played a version of this series in Minneapolis on July 22-24.
The Twins won the first game, 8-6. (That was the pitchers' duel.) The Yankees won the second game, 14-12, and the series finale, 10-7. The teams hit a combined 20 home runs.
Judge said he figured the Yankees would see the Twins again. He was right.
“Just throughout that whole series, it was back and forth with homers, great plays, great pitching performances back and forth,” he said, though what great pitching performances he’s referring to is unknown. “They just give you that playoff feel early on in the season. I just knew. It was like I knew we were going to come back and see these guys eventually. That's a great ballclub over there. We've got a great ballclub ourselves, so I knew eventually we'd cross paths. I'm excited for this series. If those couple of games in Minnesota were just a taste of what's to come, it's going to be an exciting series. “
So settle into your most comfortable chair and get ready to watch the balls fly out of the yard. That’s the game today, for better or worse. Last team slugging wins.
Anthony Rieber covers baseball, as well as the NFL, NBA and NHL. He has worked at Newsday since Aug. 31, 1998, and has been in his current position since July 5, 2004.
