twilightdawning

A writer's thoughts – mainly about music, sport and theatre. Shakespeare, Bob Dylan, live shows, New York Yankees

A New York Yankees Diary – Day Twenty-Seven – September 27th, 2025

Posted on October 1, 2025 by twilightdawning

So, the Yankees steered their way into the last weekend of the regular season, knowing that if the balance of power stayed the same, the Toronto Blue Jays would take a tie in the division lead and therefore would be able to have a “bye” through the first round of the playoffs.

The tiebreak rules favour Toronto as they have won the majority of the games between the two teams this season.

On the other hand, The Yankees were facing the Baltimore Orioles – the weakest team in the American League East – so going into thi Saturday afternoon game anything could happen.

Cam Schlittler would start the game on the mound for the New York Yankees whilst for Baltimore, Tomoyuki Sugano would be the starting pitcher.

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A New York Yankees Diary – Day Twenty-Six – September 26th, 2025

Posted on September 30, 2025 by twilightdawning

And so, the Yankees had moved into the last series of the regular season as they faced the Baltimore Orioles. Baltimore were 75-84 and bottom of the division, compared to the Yankees who were 91-68. The Yankees therefore had more to worry about – specifically what was happening in Toronto.

There, Toronto would face the Tampa Bay Rays for three consecutive games and the Yankees knew that if the Blue Jays should win all of those games then because Toronto had won the lion’s share of the games between the Blue Jays and New York then it would just be as though Toronto had won the division.

They would take the “bye” through the first round of the playoffs.

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A New York Yankees Diary – Day Twenty-Five – September 25th, 2025

Posted on September 29, 2025 by twilightdawning

And so the Yankees headed into the final game of three against the Chicago White Sox. Carlos Rodon would start for New York and Davis Martin was on the mound for the Chicago team.

Needing to finish ahead of Toronto to clinch a bye through the first round of the playoffs as well as the need to clinch to take the honours of winning the American League East – which these days is peculiarly not essential but is more than nice to record.

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A New York Yankees Diary – Day Twenty-Four – September 24th, 2025

Posted on September 26, 2025 by twilightdawning

So, the Yankees closed the gap on Toronto yesterday. Now they come to the second game of their three games series with the Chicago White Sox, hoping that it will not be as close as the first game, and also knowing that they could not afford to lose unless they should ruin their chances of taking of taking over at the head of the American League East.

Max Fried was to be the Yankees starter and Fraser Ellard would start on the mound for the Chicago team, in a game that would prove to be a bullpen game for them – intentionally or otherwise.

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A New York Yankees Diary – Day Twenty-Three – September 23rd, 2025

Posted on September 25, 2025 by twilightdawning

And so back in NYC, the Yankees faced quite a comfortable run in. They would first face the Chicago White Sox – the worst team in the American League, second worst in all of major league baseball. After that they would face the Baltimore Orioles who have the poorest record in the Yankees’ own division – the American League East.

The difficulty is that, through these six games they will not only need to keep pace with the Toronto Blue Jays but surpass the Blue Jays record over the same period. They went into the first Chicago game two games behind Toronto and (because of Toronto having the advantage in the tie-breaker rules), they would need to finish one game ahead of the Blue Jays.

The tie-breaker stipulates that the team with most wins in the games between the two teams would finish top in event of a dead heat. And in this, Toronto have the clear edge – and the two teams will not play each other again in the regular season.

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A New York Yankees Diary – Day Eleven – September 11th, 2025

Posted on September 15, 2025 by twilightdawning

The day for memorials. A day to remember a great tragedy.

There was a rumour that President Donald Trump would throw out first pitch. He didn’t, but he did attend the game and drew uproarious cheers from the fans, even at one point drowning out the singing of “God Bless America”.

But I am here to talk about baseball, so let’s turn our attention to the game.

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A New York Yankees Diary – Day Ten – September 10th, 2025

Posted on September 12, 2025 by twilightdawning

So, on September the 9th, the Yankees went into the game against the Detroit Tigers looking limp and surely enough they were demolished by their opponents. The game ended 12-2, and now they desperately needed to bounce back – in order to even the series, and give them the best opportunity of going into the post-season playoffs as division winners.

One of the few highlights of yesterday’s game had been the starting pitcher, Will Warren and indeed it was when the Yankees had to substitute him and go into the bullpen that things really began to fall apart – the relievers (Fernando Cruz and Mark Leiter Jr) conceding 9 runs in one inning.

So today, with one of their strongest starters Carlos Rodon on the mound, they seemed to have a great chance.

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A New York Yankees Diary – Days Eight and Nine – September 8th-9th, 2025

Posted on September 10, 2025 by twilightdawning

The Yankees additional reward for taking the series against Toronto 2-1 was a day off on the 8th. This was mainly because of the timetabling issue of making sure that the Yankees had a game on 9/11 to enable appropriate commemorations of the dreadful events that took place on that day in 2001.

Tonight’s game was the first of three against the Detroit Tigers. The Tigers are ahead of the division in the American League Central and more wins helps them cruise towards the division title and clear of the second place Cleveland Guardians.

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A New York Yankees Diary – Day Seven – September 7th, 2025

Posted on September 9, 2025 by twilightdawning

And so, an afternoon game at Yankee Stadium with no seeming threat of the rain that drained the energy (in the Yankees’ favour) in the late innings of yesterday’s game. Today, Max Fried, who has bounced back well from the struggles that he had immediately after the All-Star game and has dominated in his last two appearances, took the mound. Versatile, veteran, Max Scherzer would be Toronto’s starter, and Fried would be first to take the mound.

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A New York Yankees Diary – Day Six – September 6th, 2025

Posted on September 8, 2025 by twilightdawning

So, one down in the series and time for the Yankees to try and turn things around.

On the mound is the rookie of the year from 2024, Luis Gil who has recovered from injury. In his first games since returning, he started slowly but he has now built up his stamina and is settling well.

The Toronto Blue Jays started with George Springer leading off and popping up to Anthony Volpe for the first out, and then Addison Barger lined out to Cody Bellinger who is in rightfield this afternoon. So, a good start for Gil but then the Yankees’ nemesis from last night, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. hit a double on a sharp line drive towards Jasson Dominguez as a way of welcoming Jasson back to the line-up.

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