Thoughts after Game 4 of the 2024 ALDS

The Yankees are going to the ALCS and, for the first time since 2012, they don’t have to go through the Astros. They closed out the ALDS with a 3-1 win over the Royals in Game 4 on Thursday night. Four close games, three close wins. The Yankees await the winner of Game 5 between the Guardians and Tigers. That game is Saturday night. The ALCS will begin Monday night at Yankee Stadium. Here are a few thoughts on the Game 4 win. (I’ll have ALCS preview stuff in the coming days. Probably Monday morning.)

1. The Killer Gs lead the way. For all intents and purposes, Game 4 boiled down to the Yankees having Gerrit Cole and Giancarlo Stanton, and the Royals not. We need to show Gleyber Torres some love too. He was great in the ALDS and in Game 4 specifically. Leadoff double to set up the first run, two-out single to drive in the second run. Call these guys the founding fathers because they sent the Royals packing.

“He's just been so good at the top of our lineup now for a couple months,” Aaron Boone said about Torres. “That's what we've been watching for the last couple months. It's that. He's getting on base at such a high clip. But you see the aggression too. First pitch of the game, here we go, boom. Then the RBI, obviously, to extend the lead. He's just been having such quality at-bats now for a couple of months, and it's been huge.”

The Yankees needed only two batters to get more hits from non-Stantons in Game 4 than they did all of Game 3. Giancarlo went 3-for-5 in Game 3 and the rest of the Yankees went 1-for-25. In Game 4, Gleyber lined Michael Wacha’s first pitch to center for a double, then Juan Soto pulled Wacha’s third pitch through the right side to score Torres. Three pitches, two hits, one run.

Torres brought home the second run in the fifth inning with his two-out Nice Piece of Hitting single to right – Gleyber reached base eight times in the four games – then Stanton gave the Yankees a much appreciated insurance run with a sixth inning RBI single that went through Lucas Erceg’s legs (videos):

That ball left Stanton’s bat at 116.9 mph. It came dangerously close to making sure there won’t be a Lucas Erceg II. Torres reached base eight times in the series and Giancarlo went 6-for-16 (.375) with two doubles and a homer. Two walks and two strikeouts too. They don't name an ALCS MVP, but Stanton would get my vote. Torres and Stanton did the heavy lifting offensively this series. Shoutout to them.

As for Cole, he's a big routine guy and maybe going eight days between starts threw him off his game in Game 1? I dunno. What I do know is Cole was ace-like in Game 4, holding the Royals to one run on five singles and a double in seven innings. He struck out four, walked none, and hammered Kansas City with his fastball. Cole threw 48 four-seamers, his most in a game since his final start last season. The locations:

Mostly in the upper third of the zone and above. Spots that tend to get a lot of pop ups and whiffs. Was Cole fortunate the game was played in Kauffman Stadium and not Yankee Stadium? For sure. MJ Melendez and Kyle Isbel (video) both hit balls that would have been out in the Bronx, but the Yankees don’t pack up the short porch and take it on the road. Cole pitched to the ballpark (yeah, let’s go with that) and had the best start of any pitcher in the ALDS. The two best, really.

“I thought Gerrit was great. Really efficient again,” Boone said. “I thought, right from the jump, his fastball was really good, and he had the command of it, and then he was able to mix other things off of that.”

The Royals took some really bad, really impatient at-bats in the first five or six innings before keying in on Cole in the sixth and seventh. By then it was too little, too late. I did not realize this until after the game, but the Royals had only two runners make it as far as second base. They brought the tying run to the plate a few times, but never was there a real threat. A potential big inning, you know?

Cole and Stanton (and Torres) had help in Game 4 – Aaron Judge had his best game of the ALDS, Anthony Volpe continues to look fantastic, etc. – but they were the stars. They are the stars, two of them anyway, and you need your stars to be your best players in October. Cole was really good and Giancarlo is a threat every time he steps in the box right now. Good things are happening.

"We're on the right path,” Stanton said. “We understand there's work to be done."

2. Holmes and Weaver. Terminator Clay Holmes returned for the ALDS. He retired all three batters he faced in the eighth inning of Game 4 (video), including Bobby Witt Jr., and he did it on only 10 pitches. Remember when Holmes kept getting into trouble and giving up extra-base hits because he kept hanging sliders? The Yankees had him put the slider on ice a few weeks ago. It’s been 75%-ish sinkers for a month now.

“You know that 97 mph sinker? Throw that,” was good advice. Holmes threw five scoreless innings in the ALDS – he appeared in every game – and two of the three hits he allowed were infield singles. Where was this guy all season? Well, at least he’s here in October. Given his ALDS usage, Holmes is No. 2 on the high leverage depth chart behind Luke Weaver. He faced Witt and the top of the lineup in all four games.

Weaver slammed the door in the ninth inning on a tight nine pitches (video). Two strikeouts too. Holmes, Weaver, and Tommy Kahnle threw 6.2 innings on only 68 pitches in Games 3 and 4. Dominant and efficient. So many great closers have blown games this postseason (Emmanuel Clase, Edwin Díaz, Josh Hader, Devin Williams, etc.), yet there’s Weaver, being a complete psychopath (that’s a compliment) …

… in the ninth inning. He pitched in all four ALDS games, faced 15 batters, retired 12, and got the save in all three wins. Holmes and Weaver starred but the entire bullpen was outstanding in the four games: 15.2 IP, 8 H, 1 R (unearned), 4 BB, 15 K. I was waiting for the eighth and ninth innings to get messy in Game 4 only because series clinchers are rarely easy, but it never happened. The bullpen was nails.

“We didn't really break through big time offensively, but I thought the at-bat qualities from a lot of different people were solid,” Boone said. “Obviously the pen was excellent. We got enough starting pitching.”

3. The benches cleared for some reason. Game 4 got a little spicy, eh? The benches cleared in the sixth inning after Professional First Baseman Jon Berti turned a slick double play, and Anthony Volpe put a hard tag on Maikel Garcia at second base (video). Volpe then patted Garcia on the back as he walked off the field and I guess Garcia didn’t like it. Here’s the exchange (GIF via Rob Friedman):

Jazz Chisholm Jr. didn't like the slide and said something to Garcia and the benches cleared briefly. No pushes and certainly no punches thrown. Nothing like that. It was a bunch of standing around and barking, and it was over in about a minute. Typical baseball brawl (“brawl”). Frustration and reality was settling in for Garcia and the Royals, and they lashed out.

“I just felt like he tried to go and injure Volpe because he was being a sore loser,” Jazz said after the game. “He was talking a lot on Instagram and Twitter and stuff (after Game 2). I do the same thing, but I'm not gonna go and try and injure somebody if they're winning a game. I didn't like that so I told him we don't do that on this side and I'm always gonna stick up for my guys.”

I don’t think Volpe meant to antagonize Garcia with the pat on the back, I think he was just saying my bad about the forearm to the neck, but I guess I can understand Garcia being unhappy. I’m just glad it didn’t escalate into something dumb and dangerous. The ALCS was 10 outs away. No need to get into a fight and risk injury and suspension. If the Royals want to be sore losers, let them be sore losers.

"If there's someone upset over the slide, just go back and show a little Hal McRae and Willie Randolph, and we'll all laugh at ourselves,” Aaron Boone said after Game 4.

4. Rapid fire thoughts. The Yankees stole more bases than the Royals in the ALDS! Didn’t see that coming. They had four steals and the Royals had two. I reckon Bobby Witt Jr. reaching base only three times in four games had a lot to do with that. Whatever the reason, the Yankees never let Kansas City get into that part of their game … Can’t say I loved pinch-running for Giancarlo Stanton with two outs in the eight. I would have rather kept his bat in the lineup in a close game than hope Duke Ellis could score from first base at some point in the inning. It didn’t matter in the end, but with a two-run lead, let’s not take Stanton out for a long shot scoring opportunity. No outs? Sure, pinch-run and be aggressive. But two outs? Eh … Nestor Cortes (flexor) has increased the intensity of his throwing program and could get back on a mound next week. He’s still considered unlikely to return this postseason, but Cortes is doing what he can to try to make it back … And finally, the Guardians did indeed force Game 5 with the Tigers. Tarik Skubal will start Game 5 on Saturday, so he won’t be available to start on normal rest until Game 3 of the ALCS, if Detroit advances. I don’t care who wins Game 5 – Cleveland and the Tigers are very similar as bad offense/great pitching teams – I just wanted Game 5, and I got it. Hooray.

5. On TBS. We have to talk about the TBS broadcast. It was shockingly terrible. They missed live action because they came back late from a replay or an artsy camera angle. There were times they cut to a camera and it seemed like the operator wasn’t aware they were the live feed. They didn’t have adequate replays, and sometimes that meant no replay at all. The batter’s name didn’t pop up in the scorebug until late in the at-bat, if at all. And what’s up with muting the crowd noise? The broadcasts had the ambiance of a library.

The Bob Costas/Ron Darling booth was a snoozefest. I was at Games 1 and 2, so I didn’t watch them on television, and I thought there was no way the booth was as bad as everyone said. After watching Games 3 and 4, yeah, the booth was really bad. Costas is one of the most iconic sportscasters ever, but he called this series as if it was a March afternoon in Lakeland. Listen to his call on Giancarlo Stanton’s Game 3 homer. He doesn’t need to turn the dial to 11. But how about a 5, maybe?

For a network that has broadcast postseason games for a long time now, the ALDS was all-around terrible work. I understand putting on a good show is really difficult, but guys, you have to do better than that for a prime time postseason series. The broadcast itself (camera work, replays, etc.) was amateur hour and the booth was not good. Darling with Gary Cohen and Keith Hernandez is an ace. With Costas, he’s a No. 5. (I think the ALCS booth will be Brian Anderson, Jeff Francoeur, and Darling. Anderson and Francoeur are pretty good, I think.)

I really wish there were local broadcasts in the postseason. I understand why they don’t happen (money), but I would love it. Michael Kay & Co. are the soundtrack to summer, then a national booth parachutes in to take the postseason and can’t tell the story of the season the way a local broadcaster could. The ALCS will be on TBS, and based on the Yankees-Royals series, they have more than a few things to clean up.