Playoff JWIB! Sending the Runner ...

Oct. 5: Red Sox 6, Yankees 2

So we wake up on a Wednesday morning, and the Yankees are dead, and Phil Nevin is one of the prime suspects. The key suspect unquestionably is Gerrit Cole, who lasted only two-plus innings and inspired this sympathetic back page cover in the New York Post:

When you sign with the New York Yankees, there’s money to be had and glory to be had … but there are also back page covers calling you “Gerrit Bleeping Cole” if you come up small in the big moment.

And, yes, Cole will get most of the attention, but you could imagine Detective Benoit Blanc at a Manor House, in his over-the-top Southern drawl, asking: “While I do understand that Gerrit Cole was perhaps not at his best, I find myself wondering why — and please forgive my impertinence but I am only trying to get an accurate impression — why you would send Aaron Judge home in the sixth inning when you are on the wrong side of a 3 to 1 score.”

It’s hard being a third-base coach. You’re nobody until somebody gets thrown out at the plate. I don’t think I knew that Phil Nevin was the Yankees third-base coach. It’s something that I’m sure I knew somewhere along the way — this is, after all, his fourth season — but I had forgotten it, just like I forgot the conversational Spanish I learned in high school.