These Yankees stress tests are the ones champions must survive

Every champion has to figure out how to wiggle through games just like these two. There is no EZ Pass booth to the Canyon of Heroes, no passing lane to zip past the anxieties of October. In a couple of weeks, maybe you’ll be able to laugh about Thursday afternoon and Friday evening. 

In a couple of weeks, if you’re lining the streets of lower Manhattan and Mark Leiter Jr. passes by on a float, you’ll be able to shout your thanks for a most improbable October helper, same as you will the stalwarts: Giancarlo Stanton, Aaron Judge, Juan Soto. By then, maybe your heart won’t be in your throat. 

But get used to it. This is October. This is the toll. This is the surtax for the ticker-tape showers to come. 

“I want a ring,” Stanton said after the Yankees survived this 8-6 torture chamber of a win over the Guardians, a day after the 7-5 Cleveland win that had given the Yankees something to think about, something to maybe fret about. 

This is how you get that ring. You have to figure out how to endure. You have to figure out how to survive. Sometimes you have to figure out how to put a devastating loss behind you, and the only way you can do it is to skip out of the way of another devastating loss. 

History is written by the victors. 

And World Series are won for the survivors. 

“We were trying to get to the finish line,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said, “and I wasn’t quite sure how we were going to get there.” 

Sometimes you have to make it up as you go along. Sometimes you have to improvise. That’s the other thing about October. The moment you’re sure you know how a script is going to resolve itself, that’s when red flags and red herrings start to litter the pages. That’s when it gets hairy. And that’s when it gets fun. 

Soto had given the Yankees a quick 2-0 lead with a homer that swiftly separated them from the memory of Thursday’s calamity. Austin Wells reported for offensive duty for the first time, adding a solo shot. And then, somehow Cleveland skipper Stephen Vogt decided to pitch to Stanton with two on and Anthony Rizzo on deck and a lefty warm in the bullpen, and Stanton made a baseball disappear. 

The Yankees were up 6-2, and Progressive Field seemed to briefly accept what seemed inevitable. But nothing is really inevitable in October. The Yankees bullpen is exhausted. The arms out there are dangling gingerly. Leiter was inactive Thursday morning, and by Friday night, he was getting two of the biggest outs of the year to close the seventh and close the eighth. 

By then the Guardians had tied the game. We can stop making jokes about the American League Central now. This team isn’t like those teams, the ones the Yankees have merrily mauled the way Mike Tyson did to Michael Spinks one time, over in 91 seconds. This team comes back. They came back Thursday. They came back Friday. It’s hard to believe they won’t come back again Saturday, even after the Yankees scored twice in the ninth to kneecap their latest comeback, even after they had knocked Emmanuel Clase flat with a slingshot for a second straight day. 

“Last night was tough,” Wells said wearily at game’s end. “This feels good. It was good to come through tonight.”

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Said Stanton: “You just have to get it done. There’s no other mindset than that.” 

It’s gotten them to the doorstep of their first World Series in 15 years. They’ll give the ball to Carlos Rodon Saturday night, ask him to put them in place to sit back starting Sunday and hope the Dodgers and Mets beat the hell out of each other for two more days. 

They’ve earned that spot. No matter how confident they sounded after Game 3 and before Game 4, the fact is the Yankees were facing their first crucible of the season, their first stress test. And passed. 

There will be more of these, too. Don’t worry. That’s the path. That’s the route. October is about darkness and light, surviving the former and seizing the latter. It’s about getting hit in the jaw, hitting the deck, trying to regain your footing. It’s about someone like Mark Leiter Jr. — not on the team at the start of the season, not on the roster at the start of the playoffs — falling out of the sky, making a few pitches and pitching in. 

Yeah. You want easy-to-digest baseball games, move to Chicago and follow the White Sox. That’ll keep your blood pressure normal and bore you to tears. Better to crawl to the edge of the abyss every few days, see if you can find your footing, see if you can locate your courage, see if you can punch back. That’s what champions do. That’s what gets you a float in the Canyon of Heroes.