BLUE JAYS 3 - YANKEES 2 - 10 Innings
Rob Manfred 1, Yankees 0. That was basically the final Thursday afternoon in the Bronx as the Major League Baseball's horrendous runner-on-second rule bit the Yankees in the behind on Opening Day, as New York fell to the Toronto Blue Jays 3-2.
The second base rule was implemented last season by Major League Baseball, with the commissioner using the Coronavirus as a excuse to implement a rule the sport had been toying with down in the minors for years.
The result is one of the most archaic and childish finishes to any baseball game. Beginning in the 10th inning the last person to bat in the ninth inning takes his base at second before a pitch is ever thrown. It puts the pitcher and everyone in the field under tremendous pressure. Baseball has stated it implemented this rule to speed up the game, but all they did was create an unmitigated disaster.
Sure enough with Jonathan Davis starting the 10th inning at second base, Randal Grichuk took the second pitch he saw from reliever Nick Nelson, and deposited it in right field for an RBI double to give Toronto the lead for good.
Granted the Blue Jays had to face a similar fate in the bottom half of the 10th inning -- with Aaron Judge at second base, and the heart of the Yankee order coming up -- but closer Julian Merryweather struck out Aaron Hicks, Giancarlo Stanton and Gleyber Torres in succession to end it.
Still though you can certainly understand why fans are upset. No ball game should have such a archaic ending where teams are basically rewarded runs, especially in an era where offense dominates the sport.
On the mound, Gerrit Cole pitched well for the Bombers, scattering two runs on five hits over 5.1 innings of work. He was matched pitch-for-pitch by Blue Jays ace Hyun-Jin Ryu, who held the Yanks to a couple runs on four hits over 5.1 himself.
Offensively, the Yankees were completely stymied. Outside of Gary Sanchez's two-run homer in the bottom of the second, the Yankees didn't record a single extra base hit. The combination of DJ LeMahieu, Judge, Stanton, Hicks, Torres, and Gio Urshela were 2-for-26 on the afternoon. There were even boos for Stanton from the 10,000 plus fans in attendance.
The Yankees (0-1) now look to their shaky rotation to try to get a 'W' when both teams return on Saturday.
Fans Maskless in the ballpark. Let's just say the first game back for fans didn't exactly go without a hitch. In fact many were spotted without masks, and were not social distancing. There was even a video of two maskless women screaming at each other on Twitter.
Not to mention fans were too close to the field throughout. Whatever happened to tarpping the first five rows of the stadium to keep fans away from the players? What a nightmare. If New Yorkers want to return to normal, this isn't going to do it. In fact it might cause New York's government to rescind the 20 percent fan capacity limit back down to zero.
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