You never have to get up from the table in Boston these days. Sustenance in the form of high-level sporting entertainment just keeps getting slid in front of you.
B’s eliminated by Tampa Bay in five games on Sunday?
You don’t even get Monday to push your plate aside and straighten up in your seat. You have a ridiculously enjoyable Celtics team within a win of the Eastern Conference Finals this evening.
Who knew this Philly team could become so loathsome so fast? Ben Simmons was as nervous as a cat around a vacuum cleaner for the final five minutes and Joel Embiid bullied his coach to get back into the game in time to throw up an exhausted flamingo shot from the elbow in crunch time.
(“Don’t you just love him? So refreshing.” No. Not really, Dave and Doris.)
And when you’re done with tonight’s course, do you get to dab the corners of your mouth and utter a light belch?
You don’t. The waiter is here with your baseball on Tuesday.
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And it’s not just USDA Choice and Select baseball. It’s Angus Prime. Yankees-Red Sox. Boston at 25-9 –-- the only team in baseball not yet at double-digit losses -- and New York at 24-10, having won 15 of 16 and its last six in a row.
Boston Red Sox
Every time these teams get together with a little something at stake we have to have the requisite conversation of whether the rivalry will ever be “the same.” Jaysus. No. It won’t. We gotta stop.
They aren’t bringing back bench-seating in the bleachers. The Fisk-Munson rivalry-Reggie/Billy/George Era is 40 damn years ago this summer. You can’t reclaim that, or the feeling in your cells in October of 2003 that the misery would never, ever, ever end.
But it did end. The Shakespearean subplots to the 2004 season -- the aborted trade for A-Rod, followed by his neatly fitting into the villain suit once worn by Reggie/Thurman/George/Billy, the addition of Curt Schilling, the Nomar trade -- built to an ALCS climax that defies explanation. It was cleansing and catharsis and people burbling “Now I can die in peace!” so often, I really started to root for it. It’s not going to be the “same” as it was in the late ‘70s, or 14 years ago.
So? Stuff’s not supposed to stay the same. That doesn’t mean that this isn’t “like” it.
Because it is. David Price patronizingly patted fans on the head after the April 12 multi-scrum dustup at Yankee Stadium: “It’s Red Sox-Yankees. That’s what everybody wants. That’s what they got.” Shrug. Yawn. Eyeroll.
He can have it his way. People who immerse themselves -- gorge themselves -- on the game take it differently. It’s a Yankees team whose most recognizable trait is that it’s inhabited by 527 pounds and more than 13 feet of human in Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton. Their very presence invites Goliath into the esoteric discussion of the two teams regardless of what payroll, pitching staff or overall talent might do to debunk that. “David and Goliath . . . ummmmm, I feel you’re being a little . . . ummmmm, reductive?”
Oh ya do, do ya? Whatever. Nobody asked you. We have an early-May showdown of the best teams in baseball right now.
The Yankees rise from 7 1/2 games back on April 20 dovetailed perfectly with the Sox inevitable self-correction from their 17-2 start. While Sean Manaea was no-hitting the Sox on that Saturday night in Oakland, the Yankees were winning their first of nine in a row.
They’ve slowly reeled the Sox back in but have been stuck one game behind and unable to draw even as they won three straight over the weekend against Cleveland and the Sox did the same in Texas. Stanton is 4-for-23 over the past week and is at .227 with 7 homers and 19 RBI and a .768 OPS. Judge is 5-for 24 over the past week but he’s been a beast - .296, 8 bombs, 23 RBI and a .982 OPS.
The Yankees best player, though, has been shortstop Didi Gregorious. He’s at .311 with 10 HRs, 30 RBI and an OPS of 1.063. He is right there with Mookie Betts as a very early frontrunner for AL MVP. Betts would get the nod -- he’s at .355 with 13 homers and 26 RBI from the leadoff spot with an absurd OPS of 1.252.
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The Sox had eight- and nine-game winning streaks already this year and won 16 of 17 between March 30 and April 20. They got no-hit by Manaea on April 21 and are 7-7 since, but have won their three straight, including Sunday when they got Chris Sale’s best (7 IP, 103 pitches, 1 ER, 4 hits, 12 Ks, 1 BB, 2 HBP just to keep ‘em loose).
No Sale this series for the Yankees. Instead it’s Drew Pomeranz vs. Luis Severino on Tuesday, Price vs. Masahiro Tanaka on Wednesday followed by Rick Porcello and C.C. Sabathia to wrap it up. You like that?
Good. Nothing ever stays the same. But it’s hard to remember too many times we’ve had it better.