During the fifth inning of Monday night's broadcast on TBS, the crew showed a shot of the USS Intrepid, the retired ship on the eastern flank of the Hudson River.
A shame they couldn't show the Titanic.
They've played nearly 200 playoff games in the Bronx -- 196 to be exact -- and only eight times have the hosts hemorrhaged 10 or more runs. The New York Yankees, the most celebrated team in the history of team sports, suffered their worst defeat ever in October, losing to the Boston Red Sox, 16-1. While some blowouts are misleading, this one was grotesque from whistle to gun.
There wasn't a single redeeming swing, pitch or catch in Monday night's disaster. In cinematic parlance, this was the baseball equivalent of Sonny Corleone's beatdown of Carlo after he raised his hand at Sonny's sister. Or the baptism scene at the end of "The Godfather."
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Brock Holt -- who hit a single and triple in the fourth inning -- became just the second Red Sox player ever to get two hits in the same inning of a playoff game. Boston batted around in that fateful fourth, sending 11 players to the plate, turning a 3-0 contest into a 7-0 laugher. By the end of the game, after Yankees manager Aaron Boone butchered the bullpen, Austin Romine was chucking flat fastballs down the middle, which allowed Holt to add to his historic night, belting a home run in the ninth to hit for the cycle, becoming the first MLB player to do so in a playoff game. It was also the most lopsided win for a road team in playoff history.
For those of us who scratched our scalps at the Yankees firing Joe Girardi and replacing him with the dugout neophyte in Boone, this game gives heft to our confusion and our concern. Boone, a fine chap who comes from high-grade baseball stock, had never managed a team at any level. And it showed Monday night.
Boone kept starter Luis Severino in the game way too long. He brought in another starter, Lance Lynn, to relieve Severino with the bases loaded in the fourth, and every subsequent choice he made exploded in his face. It ended with a catcher on the mound tossing batting practice to a Red Sox lineup all too eager to embarrass the Bombers in the Bronx, smirking, pointing and dancing in front of the stunned Yankees fans at the game and millions more who watched this horror film on TV.
Severino, who left the game without recording a single out in the fourth, yielded seven hits, six earned runs and two walks while striking out two. Few of us understand why Boone let Severino load the bases in the fourth or why he shoved a starter onto the mound to clean it up. Now there are murmurs about Severino not knowing when the game started and not tossing the proper amount of warm-up pitches.
BEHIND ENEMY LINES (From WEEI in Boston):• Bradford: Nathan Eovaldi made a few people look pretty smart• Red Sox pulverize Yankees because that's how they've responded to adversity all year• Brock Holt on first postseason cycle in baseball history: 'This one I'll remember for a long time'
Meanwhile, Boston starter Nathan Eovaldi was short-circuiting the radar gun, routinely firing 100-mph fastballs at an overwhelmed Yankees lineup. After winning Game 2 in Boston behind Masahiro Tanaka, the Bronx Bombers had the diamond stars aligned for them. But then they posted their worst home performance since the moved from the Polo Grounds to the old Yankee Stadium in 1923.
If there is something resembling a silver lining in the wake of a 15-run drubbing, remember that the Yankees vaporized the Red Sox, 19-8, at Boston, in Game 3 of the ALCS, while coasting toward a sweep. Then the Red Sox flipped history on its head and won the next four games and then their first World Series since selling Babe Ruth to the Bombers.
And Tuesday night, the Yanks get to lean on their old ace, CC Sabathia, to save their season. Maybe the hulking southpaw isn't quite the pitcher he was five years ago. But surely you trust him for five innings, and trust him exponentially more than Severino, who had the anxious look of a rookie and pitched like a position player. If confidence is the barometer behind any champion, Severino had none. Sabathia made his bones on big games just like this, from the ALDS to the ALCS to the Fall Classic.
So as the Yankees follow their historically horrendous night, they hope they can turn back the clock and lean on their old leader one more time. The Red Sox may be a better club, but let them prove it at Fenway. Even more painful than the Game 3 loss would be a champagne-soaked visitor's clubhouse after Game 4.
Follow Jason on Twitter at @JasonKeidel.
