Steve Carlton was the best lefthanded pitcher I've ever seen. I'm not old enough to have watched Sandy Koufax, but I have watched Ron Guidry, Vida Blue, Fernando Valenzuela, Randy Johnson and Tom Glavine, and I take Carlton over any of them.
One of the things he was known for was that he prefferred having Tim McCarver as his catcher, even though the Philadelphia Phillies had a n All-Star Gold Glover in Bob Boone. When you're as good a pitcher as Steve Carlton, you can get away with demanding a personal catcher.
Gerrit Cole might be the best pitcher in baseball right now (I don't want to hear about anybody who pitches to pitchers in the Natinal League), but he is not, yet, good enough to be entitled to ask for a personal catcher.
Nevertheless, he insists upon pitching to Kyle Higashioka instead of Gary Sanchez. And, for a while now, that's been justified -- not by Cole's pitching, but by Sanchez's struggles, both at the plate and behind it.
But after a year and a half of very nasty criticism from Yankee Fans, it seems as though the revenge of Gary Sanchez is at hand.
At first, it looked like the Yankees might have a lot of fun with the Toronto Blue Jays at Sahlen Field in Buffalo. The game began when DJ LeMahieu reached on an error. Aaron Judge singled. Gleyber Torres drew a walk to load the bases with nobody out. Giancarlo Stanton hit a sacrifice fly to score LeMahieu.
But Gio Urshela and Miguel Andujar both flew out, ending the threat. And then, the 1st batter Cole faces was Marcus Semien, and the result was a game-tying home run. In the 5th inning, Cavan Biggio, Craig's son, hit a home run off Cole, maing it 2-1 Toronto. Given how the Yankees have hit this year, the game already felt lost.
Anduar led off the top of the 7th with a single. Rougned Odor struck out. And Aaron Boone made a strategic decision: He sent Sanchez up to pinch-hit for Higashioka, even though Cole was officially still his pitcher. Sanchez hit one 446 feet, giving the Yankees a 3-2 lead.
Sahlen Field is 98 miles from the Blue Jays' Rogers Centre, and, due to the curve of Lake Ontario, maybe only a little over half that as the crow flies, making Buffalo an easy target for the Jays' TV and radio broadcasts. It's 377 miles from Yankee Stadium. The Cleveland (193) and Pittsburgh (218) ballparks are also closer than the Yankees.
But Buffalo is still in the United States, not Canada. And it's still in the State of New York. There seemed to be a lot more people cheering the Sanchez homer than cheered the Semien and Biggio homers.
Cole pitched to 6 batters with Sanchez as his catcher, and got them all out. He later admitted that Sanchez was the player of the game.
Cole was clearly paying attention during the bottom of the 9th. Aroldis Chapman came in, and, as he so often does, made things more difficult than they had to be. He allowed a leadoff single to Vladimir Guerrero Jr., a double to Teoscar Hernandez that would have scored Guerrero if he had been built like his father (instead of being built like Cecil Fielder and his son Prince), and threw a wild pitch to make it tying run on 3rd and winning run on 2nd with nobody out, and Randal Grichuk, who has hit the Yankees hard these last 2 seasons, at the plate. There might have been more wild pitches had Sanchez not done such a good job of blocking the plate.
With Sanchez's guidance, Chapman struck Grichuk out. Santiago Espinal hit the ball right back to Chapman, who threw home -- forgetting that 1st base was open, so there was no force place at home. Sanchez realized the mistake immediately, and threw to 3rd base, and Urshela caught Guerrero trying to sneak back in. Lourdes Gurriel Jr. -- unlike Vlad, Cavan and Bo Bichette, his father didn't play in MLB -- hit a line shot to center, and Brett Gardner caught it for the last out.
Yankees 3, Blue Jays 2. WP: Cole (8-3). SV: Chapman (14). LP: Ross Stripling (2-4). Two games, two nervy comeback wins for the Yankees.
The series concludes tonight. Michael King starts for the Yankees, so don't get your hopes up. T.J. Zeuch starts for the Jays.