The ball is in the air, rising in a beautiful parabola to the deepest part of the football. Therefore, it seems that Juan Soto is not sure. He took a good, hard look. But it didn’t take long for him to see what everyone else was seeing.
He could see that Cleveland quarterback Lane Thomas was starting to fly back into the wall. For most of the ball’s flight, it looked like Thomas thought he had a shot. He waited until it fell. Waited on and on. Waited on and on. But he kept coming back. Keep coming back. Keep coming back.
Then, you can see Thomas’s shoulders go down a little and his legs go a little weak. The ball was on his head. He ran out of the room, and the ball was still far away. By the time the ball landed, so had the Yankees – going straight to the World Series for the first time in 15 years.
Three outs later it’s Yankees 5, guardian 2, and it’s 41. American League pennant for Yanks. Friday night – either back home in the Bronx or out in Los Angeles – they will begin their quest to win the 28th World Series. And he played his best ball this season. It’s a hell of a thing and a hell of a time.
“I’m overwhelmed with emotion right now,” said Yankees manager Aaron Boone, who 21 years ago took it himself to have his own Juan Soto moment, a homer off the bat to take another set of Yankees to another Word Series. “I am very proud of these people. Another gritty, difficult game, so many people are up for us. We have knocked on the door several times. And now, we’re going to dance.”
The Yankees are out because they always seem to be out. Gleyber Torres single leading off the game, again. Soto followed with a rocket – this time double to the wall – again. The fly in the ointment was that Torres couldn’t get home before the ball arrived.
And for a while, it seemed like it might be expensive. The Guardians lead 1-0. They lead 2-0. The starter, Tanner Bibee, is starting to gain confidence. He began to mow the Yankees down. People in the Progressive Field are starting to feel it. They began to believe.
Cleveland is Faith-land.
But Stephen Vogt, who has done a great job with the Guardians in this, the rookie managerial season and led to 92 wins and a playoff win over the Tigers, has also made more than a few questionable decisions in this series. And he made it worse now. There were two outs and a single in the sixth. Giancarlo Stanton stepped up.
“Give me a million times more than the way Tanner throws,” Vogt insisted, “and I won’t give him (Stanton) one.”
Stanton, who has been the Yankees’ most consistently destructive bat in the playoffs. Stanton, who has made Progressive Field his personal playpen.
Stanton, who fell behind 0-and-2, worked the back court for 3-and-2.
And then saw the most incredible thing: a slider from Bibee that was not just a hanger, not just a spinner, apparently everything but stopped for half a heartbeat when it reached the plate.
And Stanton knew what to do with the gift. When he landed, the Yankees were tied, 2-2. And when it lands, it feels like it’s only a matter of time before someone else will deliver the kill shot to stop the Guardians.
Yankees’ ALCS-clinching win over the Guardians. Charles Wenzelberg / New York Post
Soon, Soto did it.
“We did a really good job,” Soto said. “And right now, we’re the best team in the American League.”
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For years, the Yankees have struggled though one October after another, never seeming to get a hit when it really matters. Usually, against the Astros, a few times against the Red Sox, twice against the Tigers. He will approach and will want.
Not this time.
“These guys, they’ve lost tough games, like we lost Thursday,” Hal Steinbrenner said, “and they’re resilient.”
In Cleveland, in three consecutive nights, the Yankees came up with one hard-to-believe explosion after another, a pile of forever swings. Aaron Judge and Stanton were there. Stanton is there. Stanton was there again. When it ended – appropriately enough, with a fly ball landing in Soto’s glove – they celebrated with vigor and passion that befits the moment. Even the Yankees are allowed to act like little children when they win the pennant. They did. They should.
“It’s the best feeling you can have,” Soto said.
It’s definitely there. It certainly is.
