yankees

Let’s get the rose-colored story line out of the way, right away.

The postseason starts Tuesday, and it could be the last we see of Major League Baseball for a long, long time. The owners expect to lock out the players when the collective bargaining agreement expires Dec. 1, and the owners have made their pitch loud and clear: No new agreement without a salary cap, for they believe there can be no true competitive balance without one.

You’ll hear a lot about how the way this postseason sets up, or how it plays out, could impact the bargaining.

Don’t believe a word of it. Nothing that happens this October will be relevant to the new labor agreement.

Come on. The team with the lowest payroll — the Cleveland Guardians — won their division. So competitive balance can’t be completely out of whack, can it?

Cleveland hasn’t won the World Series since 1948. The opponent was the Boston Braves, who subsequently moved to Milwaukee and then Atlanta.

What about the team with the best record in the American League: the Tampa Bay Rays, who beat up on big-market bullies in the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox?

The Rays never have won the World Series.

Well, what about the Milwaukee Brewers? For the second consecutive season, the team in baseball’s smallest market posted baseball’s best record.

The Brewers got swept in last year’s National League Championship Series. They never have won the World Series.

But aren’t the Brewers the best example of a team playing beyond its payroll instead of using it as an excuse?

They got smoked last October by the Dodgers, who won the World Series and then signed Edwin Díaz and Kyle Tucker and traded for Tarik Skubal.

Isn’t that what got everyone agitated? Doesn’t everyone outside L.A. know the Dodgers have destroyed competitive balance, and the owners are trying to fix it?

The owners were ready to fight for more than a year before the Dodgers helped themselves to Díaz, Tucker and Skubal. For years, the commissioner’s office touted baseball’s competitive balance, citing in part how the league championship series and World Series matchups changed almost every year.

After the Dodgers won in 2024, the commissioner’s office redefined competitive balance as how often a small-market team won the World Series, last accomplished by the 2015 Kansas City Royals. The seeds for this winter’s labor war had been planted.

If the Dodgers flop this October, the owners are not going to suddenly back off a salary cap. If, say, the Brewers or Rays win, the owners will say that’s the exception that proves the rule.

There are ways for owners to direct more revenue to small-market teams without the salary cap the players insist they will not accept, and without limiting the definition of success to winning the World Series, which risks devaluing the product among 29 fan bases every year. Whether the owners wish to consider them without the cost certainty that comes with a salary cap will be the story line of the cold winter ahead.

The Dodgers are scheduled to open next season on March 25. Neither owners nor players would have lost any significant revenue by then — ticket sales and broadcasting rights for owners, salaries for players — so a new agreement by then is uncertain at best.

So enjoy the postseason.

So, at least for now, isn’t the postseason tilted toward the Dodgers and Yankees?

Those screams you hear are coming from New York, where Yankees fans are annoyed that their team finished with the second-best record in the AL and still could be eliminated in two or three days. The Yankees finished behind the Rays and received a wild card.

The Yankees lost 13 fewer games than the AL West champion Houston Astros and 10 fewer games than the AL Central champion Guardians, both seeded ahead of them. The Astros are a .500 team, the worst record a division champion has taken into the postseason. The Guardians get a bye, just like the Dodgers.

The Yankees drew the Red Sox, which means painful amounts of national commentary will focus on (1) how the system victimized the Yankees and the Red Sox; and (2) baseball’s most hyped rivalry.

Until baseball realigns its divisions or seeds its playoffs by wins, regardless of division, the Yankees should simply do what Aaron Judge said about how they should respond to criticism of their fundamentally frightening 2024 World Series: “Play better.” And baseball’s best rivalry will be on October display only if the Dodgers and San Diego Padres meet in the NL Championship Series.

Still laughing, though, at sanctimonious Yankees fans believing baseball is somehow unfair to the poor, gutty Yankees.

Can anyone save baseball in 2027?

We should try Pope Leo. He’s a long-suffering Chicago White Sox fan. In his first full year as pope — and after three consecutive 100-loss seasons — the White Sox made the playoffs.

Some fans call it a miracle, a reporter told the pope. Did the pope have anything to do with the turnaround?

He smiled.

“No comment,” he said, then paused.

“Great things happen in Chicago,” he said.

The Cubs made the postseason too. The Cubs and White Sox have shared Chicago since 1901. This is the fourth time both have qualified for postseason play. Deep dish pizza for all, but a World Series in Chicago this fall might truly require divine intervention.

Cam Schlitter gave up one run and two hits in eight superb innings, and the New York Yankees scored five two-out runs in the 10th in a series-clinching, 6-3 victory over the Angels on Wednesday night at Angel Stadium.

New York loaded the bases with one out in the 10th when Jose Caballero singled, the automatic runner holding at third, and Jazz Chisholm Jr. walked against reliever Luke Murphy (0-2).

Murphy got Luis Garcia Jr. to pop out, but Austin Wells stroked a two-run single to right, Cody Bellinger hit an RBI single to center, Trent Grisham hit an RBI single to left, and Ben Rice had an RBI single to right for a 6-1 lead.

David Bednar (7-3) struck out three in a scoreless ninth for the win. Yankees reliever Michael Fulmer gave up a two-run homer to Moisés Ballesteros in the bottom of the 10th, but New York won its second straight after dropping the opener, despite enthusiasm in Anaheim over an announced agreement for Arte Moreno to sell the team to Rams owner Stan Kroenke.

A marquee matchup between two of baseball’s best pitchers did not disappoint, Schlittler striking out nine and walking none, and Angels left-hander Reid Detmers giving up one run and six hits in seven innings, striking out eight and walking none.

Schlittler, who has an American League-leading 2.04 ERA, retired 20 of the first 21 batters he faced, his only blemish a soft single to left by Vaughn Grissom in the second inning.

But Schlittler grooved a 95-mph cutter to Grissom in the seventh, and the Angels first baseman drove it over the center-field wall for a a 1-1 tie.

It was Schlittler’s franchise-record 19th start this season in which he has given up one or no runs, moving him ahead of Ron Guidry (1978), Whitey Ford (1964) and Jack Chesbro (1904), who had 18 each.

Detmers, who has a major league-best 1.52 ERA since the All-Star break, gave up a run in the fourth on Amed Rosario’s double.

The game was delayed for about 10 minutes in the sixth when a 79.5-mph line drive off the bat of Rice hit a photographer in the head in the first-base camera well. The photographer was able to walk to a medical emergency vehicle and shake Rice’s hand before being carted away.

Spencer Jones homered and drove in three runs, Jazz Chisholm Jr. also went deep and finished with three hits, and the New York Yankees pulled away Tuesday night for a 7-3 victory over the Angels.

Jones and Chisholm launched back-to-back homers to give Gerrit Cole a 3-0 lead before even throwing a pitch in his latest return home. New York moved four games ahead of rival Boston for the top American League wild card and remained 4 1/2 games behind first-place Tampa Bay in the AL East.

A day that began with Kroenke Sports and Entertainment, led by Rams owner Stan Kroenke, reaching an agreement to acquire a controlling interest in the Angels from owner Arte Moreno ended with the struggling Angels losing for the ninth time in 11 games.

Cole (8-7) gave up three runs and eight hits in 5 1/3 innings, striking out five and walking one. Brent Headrick, Paul Blackburn and John Schreiber held the Angels to one hit the rest of the way.

Angels starter Grayson Rodriguez (4-6) gave up four runs and seven hits in six innings, striking out seven and walking two.

The Angels trailed 4-1 when Wade Meckler, who had three hits, opened the sixth with a single. Moisés Ballesteros singled and Christian Moore sliced a two-run triple to right field that eluded a diving Jones and trimmed the deficit to 4-3.

Cole was pulled in favor of Headrick, who stranded Moore by striking out pinch-hitter Jose Siri and getting Oswald Peraza to fly out.

New York pushed the lead to 6-3 in the eighth when Jones walked, Chisholm singled and Trent Grisham, mired in a two-for-42 slump, fouled off two bunt attempts before hitting an RBI single. Ryan McMahon loaded the bases with a bunt single and Paul Goldschmidt hit a sacrifice fly.

Consecutive singles by Cody Bellinger, who had three of New York’s 14 hits, Luis García Jr. and Jones made it 7-3 in the ninth.

The Yankees took a 3-0 lead in the first. Bellinger singled before Jones hit a two-run homer — his second longball in two nights — and Chisholm followed with an opposite-field shot into the left-field corner.

Ben Rice singled in the third, went to third on Bellinger’s single and scored on García’s double-play grounder for a 4-0 advantage.

The Angels pulled to 4-1 in the bottom half when Zach Neto singled, stole second and scored on Meckler’s two-out single.

Up next

Yankees RHP Cam Schlittler (12-6, 2.09 ERA) faces LHP Reid Detmers (4-8, 3.54) in Wednesday night’s series finale.

DiGiovanna writes for the Associated Press.

Vaughn Grissom drove in four runs, rookie Walbert Ureña pitched seven strong innings and the Angels ended a seven-game losing streak with a 10-1 victory over the sloppy New York Yankees on Monday night.

Mike Trout had a two-run single and Christian Moore drove in a pair of runs as the Angels won at home for the first time since Aug. 15. Ureña (9-9) gave up five hits with no walks and eight strikeouts.

Elmer Rodríguez (0-3) failed to make it out of the fourth for the Yankees (78-60), giving up four runs and four hits with three walks over 3⅔ innings. It was the shortest of his six career starts since making his major league debut in April.

Spencer Jones homered for the Yankees, who committed three errors after scoring a combined 25 runs in consecutive wins over the rival Boston Red Sox at home last weekend. New York is three games ahead of Boston for the top American League wild-card spot and 4½ games behind first-place Tampa Bay in the AL East.

The Angels (53-85) took a 1-0 lead in the third on Grissom’s run-scoring single. Zach Neto had an RBI single in the fourth after both Oswald Peraza and Tyler Heineman were hit by pitches from Rodríguez with two outs.

Trout added his two-run single in the fourth for his first multi-RBI hit since a two-run homer on July 8.

Jones connected in the fifth to make it 4-1.

Moore had a bloop RBI double in the bottom of the fifth and scored on an errant pickoff throw to second by Michael Fulmer. Neto scored in the sixth for a 7-1 lead when Yankees shortstop José Caballero made two errors on what could have been an inning-ending double-play grounder by Grissom.

In the eighth, Grissom made it 9-1 with a two-run double off the wall in left field and Moore added an RBI single. Grissom finished with three hits and scored twice.

Up next: Yankees RHP Gerrit Cole (7-3, 3.19 ERA) faces Angels RHP Grayson Rodriguez (4-5, 6.03) in the middle game of the series Tuesday.