The Moonshot: Death, taxes, New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox

Well, we believe in exit velocity, bat flips, launch angles, stealing home, the hanging curveball, Big League Chew, sausage races, and that unwritten rules of any kind are self-indulgent, overrated crap. We believe Greg Maddux was an actual wizard. We believe there ought to be a constitutional amendment protecting minor league baseball and that pitch framing is both an art and a science. We believe in the sweet spot, making WARP not war, letting your closer chase a two-inning save, and we believe love is the most important thing in the world, but baseball is pretty good, too.

Welcome to The Moonshot.

Yankees-Red Sox and the inevitability of Sunday Night Baseball

After the historically hot New York Yankees took the first two games of a four-game set at Fenway Park on Thursday and Friday, they fumbled away Saturday’s game one out from victory, then blew two successive four-run leads in the finale, settling for a split. But that’s alright, considering a split is seemingly the best these modern Yankees can ever hope for at the House of Horrors and Horrific Accents on Lansdowne Street.

Since those Four Days in October in 2004, these teams tend to clatter to the midpoint no matter how the season series began. Outside of a few outlier seasons (2019, thank you for existing), it feels as if they always end up 10-9 in one direction after a season’s worth of rivalry games, no matter what type of inane collapse it takes to get there. In fact, it “feels” that way because it’s very nearly true. Perception matches reality.

Including 2004, the season slate has wrapped up 10-9 three times (two Sox advantages, one Yankees triumph), 11-8 four times, 10-8 once, and a 9-9 tie three consecutive seasons from 2008-2010. That means that these two theoretically evenly-matched teams should create a 50/50 coin flip result every time they clash in important contests … and yet, there’s Boston, stealing a 4-3 ALCS advantage from the depths of hell in 2004, then reeling off four postseason wins in five tries since then (a 3-1 ALDS in 2018 and a Wild Card disaster in 2021).

That’s what makes Boston — and Fenway Park games, specifically — so frustrating. No matter how spectacular a Yankees’ season has been in the leadup to a Fenway showdown, any loss on that hallowed ground feels as if it lays the blueprint for an October defeat. The two sides are annually even, but when the Yankees are left with the taste of a loss in their mustachioed mouths, it’s easy to lose control of the steering wheel and extrapolate their failings into a Norman Rockwell painting of a playoff loss. You know, three local newspaper boys standing outside Fenway Park, as corporate Yankee fans shuffle out dejected, ignoring the fact that both fan bases are comprised of 18 million of the same brash, boorish, entitled winners at this point.

The Yankees are the Red Sox. The Red Sox are the Yankees. A 6-0 lead at Fenway Park is like a one-run advantage at Safeco. One team takes the first two, sitting pretty and claiming nothing can prick their balloon, before a knife arrives, forcing that team to go, “Oh, yeah, there’s that familiar knife. Well, it was a fun balloon while it lasted.”

Either side carrying a defeatist attitude after these inevitable primetime four-gamers and Sunday Night Baseball roller coasters reeks of false modesty. But when Red Sox fans do it (“Can you believe we just did the thing we always do?!”), it rings particularly hollow considering we’re now coming up on 18 years of the two sides being dead-even big spenders … until they meet in the postseason. One Yankees playoff series win over their hated rivals, and this will all melt away. The seesaw will begin to dip in the Bombers’ direction. Until then, though, a 2-0 series lead in a four-game set is just another excuse for the ghosts of the frustrated New England fans of the 1940s-1980s to trigger another meltdown for the modern generation, a group that’s seen an unfair share of success in their still-ongoing era.

— Adam Weinrib

Baseball, but for your ears

David Bednar is not an MLB All-Star roster problem

Sunday’s talk of MLB All-Star snubs is valid, as plenty of baseball’s finest were left off midsummer classic rosters for reasons we don’t quite understand. Yet, the gripe should not be with the league’s ruling that every team MUST have a representative at July 19’s All-Star Game.

Case and point: David Bednar of the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Despite some young talent to look forward to, there are few members of this year’s Bucs we’d classify as All-Stars. Yet, Sunday’s news that closer David Bednar had made his first All-Star appearance was greeted with locker room cheers and fan excitement — the exact reaction we ought to applaud.

Bednar is from the Pittsburgh area, growing up in Moon Township. The Pirates originally acquired him in a trade with the Padres for Adam Frazier. It’s safe to say that’s worked out for Ben Cherington and Co.

Rather than a bottle of champagne and cheap cheers, Bednar is revered by a fanbase grappling for any hope in the middle of a rebuild. In the locker room, Bednar received a pack of Iron City Lite, a locally-produced yet disgusting beer water that is surely in his heritage as a Yinzer.

No, despite all the snubs around baseball, Sunday’s celebration for Bednar is exactly what MLB should be clamoring for.

— Mark Powell

3 stories from around the MLB Division you need to read

It’s been a busy few days, from MLB All-Star Game roster announcements to a draft pick being traded! Here are three stories from around the MLB Division you need to read today to catch up.

Atlanta Braves Trade Drew Waters to Kansas City for Draft Pick – Folks, we have a draft-pick trade! The Braves are sending a top-100 prospect (Drew Waters) to the Kansas City Royals in exchange for their No. 35 overall pick in the 2022 draft. Adam Hoffman and CJ Alexander are also headed to KC’s organization. “Quite frankly, both (fellow former Braves prospect Cristian) Pache and Waters stalled offensively once they got to Triple-A and Michael Harris blew by both of them,” Tomahawk Take co-expert Jake Mastroianni wrote. “With Harris and Acuna as locks in the Braves outfield for years to come, Waters became expendable and it’s not surprising to see him get moved.” The draft pick was tradeable because it’s a competitive balance pick.

MLB All-Star Game: 5 more snubs from the rosters – All-Star rosters were announced on Sunday (with fan-voted starters already announced Friday) and there were more than enough snubs to go around. Noah Yingling of Call to the Pen details five more who should have been invited to visit Chavez Ravine next week. Among them: Mariners’ first baseman Ty France. “Of all of the players left off the MLB All-Star Game rosters, the omission of Seattle Mariners’ first baseman Ty France might be the most egregious,” he wrote. (Check out FanSided.com for even more MLB All-Star Game snubs!)

Astros’ Yordan Alvarez should be the league MVP – A good argument could be made for Yordan Alvarez being the DH starter for the American League this year, although he wouldn’t have played after recently hitting the IL. Climbing Tal’s Hill contributor Brian Dunleavy wrote that Alvarez fans should have even bigger sights: MVP: “Alvarez is putting up MVP-level stats with his .310/.410/.653 slash line and not to forget his 1.063 OPS. He leads the league in slugging percentage, OPS and OPS+ (201).”

— Kurt Mensching