Beyond all the other problems the Yankees had for more than 15 games from hell, from their baffling pirates to their cheerful disposition, they encountered a gentle mindset. Fragile. Lack of stomach for the fight.
They seemed to be everything their dynastic ancestors were not, at least until Tuesday night, when the Yankees did to the brave what the Yankees of the 1990s always did to them. They pressed them during a tight and tense game, hardened the bats as the game went on, triggered a bullpen off and waited for the Braves to make the fatal mistake.
Nate Jones ’wild throw with the score tied and the bases loaded in the eighth wasn’t exactly Mark Wohlers’ hanging slider to Jim Leyritz in Game 4 of the 1996 World Series, but hey, after what these Yanks have endured in april, i felt close enough. It’s very possible that no current New York baseball team ever needed a win on April 20, as much as the home team needed this one in the Bronx.
This 3-1 result that ended in a five-game losing streak was not a definite win for a dramatic improvement in physical play as much as for the amount and spirit required to win at the highest level. The Aaron Hicks banquet did not collapse under the weight of its degradation; he helped his team win. He reappeared on the eighth occasion to make a first four-step confrontation against Tyler Matzek and, after moving on to third in singles by DJ LeMahieu and Aaron Judge, scored Jones ’87 mph sliding on the ground.
Later, Aaron Boone will talk about the satisfaction he felt in winning with difficulty, in doing the little things needed to survive a strong start from a distinguished big game pitcher like Charlie Morton.
“Even though we didn’t open it,” the manager said, “there were a lot of good things that happened.”
The good things he swore did not surprise him. Boone maintained that his team’s resolution had not been shaken for a period that his boss, Brian Cashman, called “15 games he would like to forget.”
His players, Boone said, “know they will be a beast. They will be a problem and we will get there. “File that is much easier said than done.
Things were going so badly for Boone, that someone should have taken his old friend, Brennan Miller, to a pre-match ceremony, so the referee could shout in the manager’s face, “Squeeze him now same, right? I close this point ”.
In fact, the only Yankee who was entitled to feel good entering the building on Tuesday night was David Cone, who worked the game as a YES Network analyst. He helped finish the Braves as the starter of Toronto’s Game 6 at the 1992 World Series. He helped diminish the Braves as the starter of the Yankees Game 3 at the 1996 World Series. And he helped sweep the Braves as to headline the Yanks’ Game 2 at the 1999 World Series.
In total, Cone only allowed five runs won in four outings and 23 working innings in the World Series against Atlanta, with his teams winning all four games. But there is one act that rises above all others in Cone-Braves ’passion play: his decision to challenge his Yankee teammates after losing the first two games of the 1996 World Series at home by a combined score of 16-1. “It makes us ashamed here and they put it in our face,” he barked at them. “That needs to change.”
Cone changed it by winning the third game with a sixth inning that would have embarrassed young David Blaine. The Yankees would win five titles after Cone’s start in Atlanta, or five more than the Braves would win that night. He ran a clinic on how to grab a team in crisis by the throat, accepting the immense pressure it brought.
“I didn’t care,” Cone said. “I wanted to be this guy.”
A quarter of a century later, with completely different setups and bets, Cone named a number of prominent Yanks he believes could be this type, including Gerrit Cole, Giancarlo Stanton, Brett Gardner, and Aaron Judge.
“I think they’re covered, really,” he said. “They have people with great experience and expertise, with strong opinions and a strong commitment. This is the last thing I would worry about in that clubhouse ”.
And then the 2021 Yankees came out and beat the Braves in the same way the Cone Yankees beat them. When it was said after the game that the current team finally demonstrated the mental toughness their teams always showed against Atlanta, Cone sent a text message: “Yes. Take the win and run.”
Don’t look back either. The mentally tough never do it.