I haven't the slightest idea what you can say about what occured in a span of 35 minutes between 10:45 and 11:15, other than - whoa!, wow or holy @@@@!. Perhaps the win warble that John Sterling unleashed at 11:57 sums it up best, but this was a win, a hardcore comeback of epic proportions.
It can be classified this way because until about 10:30 nothing was doing and it was turning out to be a lost night since the Rangers lost their home opener to the Maple Leafs while losing two key players. So you might have been closing on acceptance, thinking, ok no big deal, the Yankees have lost Game One of a series and still won before.
Fifteen minutes later and with a run already on the board thanks to Robinson Cano's home run in the seventh, Brett Gardner legs out an infield hit with some big-time hustle and perhaps something is brewing. When Derek Jeter lines a double to left and Gardner races home from first, the comeback is on.
It is one thing to overcome a three-run deficit, quite another to do it when trailing by five. The Yankees last did it in Game One of the 1997 ALDS against the Indians.
One thing you notice on TV when something like this is occuring is the camera work. As the Yankees were mounting their comeback, it seemed every time in between pitches, Ron Washington was shown in various states of tension. You had to wonder what was going through Washington's mind, but whatever it was had to be some state of disbelief.
At the point when the bases become loaded on consecutive walks to Nick Swisher and Mark Teixeira, you know what could be going down. One pitch later, Alex Rodriguez confirms it with a base hit that is lined past third and into left. One pitch later, Cano confirms it again with another base hit, this time slapping a fastball up the middle.
And when Marcus Thames grounds that single into left on a 2-2 pitch, it only affirms the inevitable. The only thing you have to wait for is Kerry Wood and Mariano Rivera to get the final six outs and if they do the Yankees walk away off the mat again, this time with one of their more impressive comeback playoff victories.
They do and you go whoa, that was amazing. Even though the Yankees have comeback numerous times, see Game Seven of the 2003 ALCS, Games Four and Five of the 2001 World Series, Game Six of the 1996 World Series, it always seems like an amazing feat and when they pull it off, sometimes you still wonder the following:
Did that really happen?
It did and then there are three more victories to attain before the World Series.
