Try to make a weather forecast when you can make a weather forecast.
Will this major league event start, continue, end? Those are the secrets that dominate until 2020 that will win a division or a prize.
But for the purposes of sanctity and normalcy, we undergo practice and appreciate that the teams at City City on Saturday night – Q New York, New York – are able to play the final two matches of this year.
The Yankees probably have the most talent from the American League, the Mets, as no National League club named the Dodgers.
It always takes more than talent to play in the end. But never this year. The players have familiarized themselves with infiltration, suspension, turnover in their seasons. Prolonged rain delays, day-night sleep, scared by those two words – Tommy John (sorry for the real Tommy John).
There is no precedent in what is coming in 2020, there is no manual, there is no intelligent person who has seen all this and can pass with knowledge. Rick Porslow has played more than 2,000 major league innings and knows what to do when heading to the bullpen to prepare for a start. But on Saturday night, nothing happened and he certainly noticed the sound of silence. Then on the way to the dugout, the teammates sitting under the canopy behind the house dugout gave him a warm applause, and Dom Smith said, “Let’s go.”
“It was definitely different,” Porslow said.
This may be the motto of this season – as long as it lasts. Or this from Aaron Boon, “Nothing surprises me anymore in 2020.”
The Mets may be somewhat familiar in 2020, taking pregame batting practice, when news begins to circulate that the Canadian government prohibits the Blue Jays from playing home games in Toronto, which concerns personnel coming and going at the border Refers to
It could have been any other Yaniki-Met pregame with Brian Cashman chatting with his Mets counterparts, Brody Van Wagenen, and Lieutenant Omar Minaya. The trio were all wearing masks, maintaining social distance, and Mets officials crowded behind home plate surrounded by hundreds of cardboard cutouts.
A quick brow hug between Tyler Wade and Smith. Standard. But this year is not what the supposedly sinister free zone is that big companies. Gary Cohen and Ron Darling, and John Sterling and Suzanne Waldman were in City City, but Michael Kay and David Coon called the game to YES from a dark Yankee Stadium from where DJ Lemahieu made a daytime call with reporters . Talk publicly about being COVID-19 for the first time.
Still there was baseball, bless it, and, as Porsalo said, “I was just too happy to come out wearing a uniform.” The Yokis won 9–3, third-placed Gio Urshella showed a great game, Mike Tucchman brought a night full of polish-bats, Clint Frazier shot a two-run homer and the Mets scored a Tried fierce defense. The Yankees were over when it celebrated with fake high fives.
Thus, the week begins with all 30 teams moving out of the cocoon to begin the trip, with the first going home-and-a-half this weekend for exhibition games like the Yanks and Mets. Then a regular season that Yenkig would open in Washington on Thursday – though that location was also suspected until recent times.
The results of the test, released jointly by MLB and the players’ union, on Friday yielded encouraging results, suggesting that protocols were working and personnel were being disciplined in their behavior in the park and away. But the degree of difficulty now climbs with airplanes, hotels and buses. On completion of each day it will feel as if a new base camp has reached Mount Everest, whose summit is still far away.
Talent will not be enough in that environment. How do you factor in small weather, big obstacles, maximum unknowns? Who is the most favorable player, biggest group discipline, best mental fortitude? Those elements always matter. Now they matter more than before.
There was a test track on Saturday night and players were thrilled to see a different uniform, play a game. The familiar stands empty and is wrapped in manufactured noise. The Yankees and Mets started here and, of course, dreamed that they could be the last two teams. Why not? But this is a season in which for the first time you have to ask: will the two teams also stand in the end?
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