The Yankees Can Get All the Way Out of Here With This Pathetic Exit Velocity Whatabouttism

The New York Yankees return to the Bronx down two games to none and with the knowledge it will take something special to prevent losing a third straight time to the Houston Astros. It's a tough pill to swallow, especially because the first two contests have been played on a razor's edge and decided by a few easily identifiable moments. And being tasked with exploring one's emotions shortly after great professional disappointment can create less-than-ideal responses. We get all that.

At the same time, Jesus Christ, there was some embarrassing stuff coming out of that locker room late last night. Taking the cake was Game 2 starter Luis Severino, who pitched extremely well yet was undone by allowing a three-run home run to Alex Bregman. He got the excuse train going with some classic whatabouttism, comparing the 360-foot dinger that would have been out at 23 of 30 Major League Baseball ballparks to an Aaron Judge flyball in the eighth inning that would only have been out at Yankee Stadium.

"[Bregman] hit it at 91 mph," Severino said. "That's the only thing I'm gonna say. And Judge hit it at 106 mph and it didn't go out. I don't know, they got lucky."

Here are the two plays in question. It feels ridiculous to fact-check this statement like poor Daniel Dale yet this is where we are now. Having arguments about which batted ball had a higher exit velocity and crying foul about baseball happening.

People go way to far in saying that analytics have ruined baseball but if a losing player is actually going to stand in front of cameras with a straight face and have an exit velo-measuring contest as if it has anything to do with what happened or is some omnipresent god dictating everything that occurs on a diamond, perhaps there's pretty good points being made by those shouting at clouds.

Kyle Higashioka and Yankees manager Boone had further thoughts about how hard things were hit and how far they traveled through the air, with Boone suggesting the open Minute Maid roof killed Judge's fly ball.

Obviously not as ridiculous as Severino, yet the roof was open for both teams and no one had an advantage and anyone who thinks otherwise is not connected with reality. There's something truly disturbing about watching someone who played in the actual game turn into the worst excuse-maker from Twitter or a team message board.

Now, the roof in Houston has been closed almost permanently since 2005 when the Astros went to the World Series then had their own sour grapes about being forced to play it open. Chris Burke lamented the loss of homefield advantage at the time as the Chicago White Sox won it all, so it seems baseball players will find a way to bitch about something when the game is over. That's nothing new.

What is new is the demented idea that Judge's ball was more worthy of being a game-winning home run than Bregman's. Because it was hit harder. We cannot go down this road. We mustn't. We're trying to live in a society here.

If that's the way people feel then replace all the players with robots now and get it over with. Let's adjudicate and ruin the sport based on what StatCast says and not how a particular hit or pitch interacted holistically with a complicated environment.

Perhaps MLB history was made last night and it was the first time a team ever lost after hitting a ball to the warning track that could have changed everything. Our perhaps the Yankees are just down very, very badly.