How the Yankees' 'monsters in the box' could own October

NEW YORK -- The Minnesota Twins' pitchers have spent the past two days chumming the area around the strike zone with sliders, curveballs, sinkers, changeups, bait dropped to lure the New York Yankees hitters into chasing.

But the Yankees aren't biting. Rather, they have waited. And waited.

In Games 1 and 2 of this League Division Series in the MLB playoffs, New York hitters have seen 354 pitches in 83 turns at the plate, drawn 16 walks, collected 19 hits and scored 16 runs, seemingly scoffing at the Twins' attempts to trick them. In Game 1, Giancarlo Stanton drew one of the four walks he's taken so far in this series and slammed his bat to the ground, after ignoring a breaking ball in the dirt, as if to say: You can't be serious with that.

The discipline of the Yankees' hitters has been more than just admirable so far; it has been remarkable. This is what manager Aaron Boone was yelling about when he screamed the phrase "savages in that box" at an umpire earlier this season.

Another manager in MLB watched the events unfold here Friday and Saturday and offered this thought: If the Yankees are to beat the Houston Astros this fall -- the Astros of Justin Verlander, Gerrit Cole, Zack Greinke et al -- they will have to maintain the kind of discipline they've shown so far against the Twins. They'll have to continue to control the strike zone, at least to some degree.

A lot of qualifiers must be attached, of course. The Yankees did their part in setting up a showdown of the AL's two summer superpowers by sweeping the Twins on Monday night. Now the Astros must finish off the Tampa Bay Rays. But for the most part, the Division Series round has felt like a mere formality, with the Muhammad Alis and Joe Fraziers taking care of Chuck Wepners and Jerry Quarrys before squaring off in an American League Championship Series Thrilla.

And in Game 2, the Yankees effectively knocked out the Twins in a seven-run third inning, which saw them string together walks and a few hits, waiting and waiting before Didi Gregorius launched a grand slam into the second deck.

For the second straight day, some members of the Twins referenced a need to change the way they pitched against the Yankees.

"They were really good, especially on breaking balls," said Tyler Duffey, who bent over on the mound in frustration, hands on knees, after surrendering the grand slam. "If you weren't close to the plate, it seemed like they weren't even thinking about swinging, whether that was their game plan coming in, or an adjustment they made after they saw [Jose] Berrios coming at them the way he did [in Game 1]."

"I know it's something that all our guys in the back room" -- the staffers digging into analytics -- "are working hard trying to figure out what the next step is. This game is a game of adjustments. It looks like some of us will have to do that, myself included."

Jake Odorizzi, the Game 3 starter for the Twins, had suggested that the Twins' pitchers need to be more aggressive. "I don't think we've done a good job of getting ahead [in the ball-strike count] in this series. ... We've been too fine. You can't pitch from behind and win games.

"You can't let the hitter dictate the at-bats."

Before Game 2, Boone talked about the collective approach of his lineup. "I absolutely do think it's contagious," he said. "It's something we preach ad nauseam. I talk about it all the time, and I do think those guys take that to heart and really, as a group, have some faith and trust in each other and take some pride in knowing that, when they do that as a group, it benefits all of them because it wears people down. It nets more mistakes over time, and more often than not, when we do that, we've been able to kind of break through at some point."

A little while later, standing near the batting cage, Boone nodded in the direction of Edwin Encarnacion and referenced the quality of his at-bats and what it means to have him back in the lineup, like a link completing a chain. For the first time since Encarnacion was acquired, the Yankees have all their experienced hitters stacked together, from DJ LeMahieu to Aaron Judge to Brett Gardner to Encarnacion to Stanton, all healthy.

"That one who sticks out, obviously, is Stanton," Duffey said. "He didn't really swing at breaking balls these two days. He's been getting hammered [with sliders and curveballs]. But if you throw it over the plate, he's going to get you. Big league hitters make adjustments."

If the Yankees do face the Astros in the AL Championship Series, they won't need to wait for strikes in the same way because the excellence of Verlander, Cole and Greinke is rooted in the fact that each of them will beat you in the strike zone; their stuff is good enough to beat hitters in the zone. Cole threw 118 pitches against the Rays on Saturday, and of those, 83 were strikes.

But what the Yankees might have to do against Verlander and Cole is hope to hang with them and wear them down, in the same way that old Yankees teams found a measure of success against Boston's Pedro Martinez. Run up the pitch count, get the starter out of the game, get to the bullpen, to the softer underbelly of the Houston staff. Because anything will be easier than facing Verlander, Cole and Greinke.

News from around the major leagues

Last winter, the Los Angeles Angels were in the market for starting pitching and flirted with Patrick Corbin, but like the Yankees, Phillies and other teams, they passed to avoid the long-term obligation. They also had discussions with J.A. Happ and Nathan Eovaldi, but in the end, the Yankees outbid the Angels for Happ and the Red Sox gave Eovaldi a four-year, $67.5 million contract.

The Angels instead made one-year deals -- much smaller bets that carried less risk -- on Matt Harvey for $11 million and Trevor Cahill for $9 million. Harvey and Cahill struggled, and the Angels got almost nothing in return in what was a lost season that eventually cost manager Brad Ausmus his job.

But because the Angels opted for Harvey and Cahill rather than win the bidding for Happ and Eovaldi deals -- which look like larger mistakes at this point -- they are better positioned to add pitching as they move forward. Whether the next manager is Joe Maddon or somebody else, the Angels are in excellent position for growth. Mike Trout's future has been resolved: They have the best player on the planet locked up, at age 28. Shohei Ohtani should be ready to resume his career as a pitcher next spring. The rebuilt farm system has started to churn out prospects, like outfielder Jo Adell. Keith Law pegged the Angels' farm system as the eighth-best in baseball going into this season, "and I would probably have them in the 8-12 range again," he said on the Baseball Tonight podcast this week. "Griffin Canning graduated, as did Jose Suarez. There is a mixed bag on the farm system, but Adell is still a superstar. It feels like they might have been passed by a few clubs, given a so-so 2019 draft class and a few setbacks to previous top prospects."

And because of decisions made last winter, they will have money to spend on pitching this winter.

Quick hits: David Ross continues to be viewed as the front-runner for the Chicago Cubs' managerial job, unless somebody walks into the interview room and blows away the team's front office. ... Philadelphia Phillies owner John Middleton continues to weigh the pros and cons of keeping Gabe Kapler as the team's manager. ... A central question in the New York Mets' managerial search is whether they feel the need to hire a more experienced manager -- a Joe Girardi, a Buck Showalter -- in advance of what is positioned to be a win-now season. ... Whoever is hired by the San Francisco Giants to manage might have to wade through a few years of a rebuild, as Farhan Zaidi works around the last years in the contracts of Brandon Belt, Brandon Crawford, Buster Posey and Johnny Cueto. It could be a while before San Francisco climbs back into a position to compete with the Dodgers, although the Giants do carry the potential of quickly building payroll when the time is right.

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