Greg Bird gave this ball wings. https://t.co/qIh3KUx7dY
— New York Yankees (@Yankees) September 23, 2015
What a fucking rollercoaster of emotions that was. I'm out of breath. That's as exciting a regular season baseball game as you'll ever see. Just two heavyweights exchanging blow after blow. The kid Severino and Marco Estrada matching one another through the first six innings. Joey Bats hosing guys left and right. Nobodies coming out of the Blue Jay bullpen and striking out A-Rod every time he comes up in a big spot. Beltran delivering yet another huge go-ahead home run in the late innings. Betances walking the tightrope and striking out Encarnacion with the bases loaded, clinging to a one-run lead. Then just when you thought it was over fucking Dioner Navarro takes Miller deep to tie it in the 9th and sends Rogers Center into a frenzy. I don't remember the last time I heard a baseball stadium erupt like that. I bet you fangraphs win percentage for the Blue Jays after that home run was 100%. After that it looked like a movie script. Miller gives up the double to that pest Pillar, walks the next two guys and all of the sudden the stage is set for the MVP to send the Yankees off quietly into the night. But somehow, SOMEHOW Donaldson strikes out to end the frame. At this point you have no confidence going into extras. All of the pressure in the world is on the Yanks to score in the top of the 10th to give Miller one last chance to close it out before you have to give way to the Nick Rumbelows and the Caleb Cothams to keep you in the game.
McCann leads off the tenth amidst all of the chaos with the presence of mind to lay down a bunt against the shift and get on base with an infield single. Unbelievable. The sky is falling, we're all panicking and Brian McCann couldn't be thinking any clearer. Rico Noel pinch runs and helps facilitate a catchers interference during the next at-bat to put runners on first and second with nobody out for Bird. He falls behind 0-2. Doesn't panic. Takes a couple of bad pitches, gets another breaking ball over the plate and bashes it over the right field fence for a three run home run.
It feels like every week you sit there and say "that was the biggest hit of the year". A few weeks ago it was Beltran's home run in Toronto. Then it was Heathcott's home run in Tampa. A few innings earlier it was probably Beltran again. Now it's Bird. At the time I thought we needed every single one of those runs. I had no idea what Miller had left after that last inning. Encarnacion took him deep in the 10th to make it 6-4 but he managed to get out of it after 42 grueling pitches. Ballgame over. Yankees win.
Honestly words can't express how much I love Luis Severino and Greg Bird. These guys are 007 cool. 21 and 22-years-old, thrown into the deep end like toddlers without swimmies and they're doing the fucking 400-meter freestyle. I don't know what tomorrow or the rest of this year is going to bring but tonight I'm happy because the Yankees are still alive in the division and I've officially become sexually aroused at the thought of building a future around these two guys.
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