With Severino pitching, we have a shot at a 2 game winning streak !
It may be our last chance.
The Big Dog slowed down again today.
But the little dog might be emerging at third base.
Someone please teach him how to recognize those breaking balls out of the strike zone!
We have a shot.
We once ran the table after going 12-10 in April.
I think.
As a certain grumpy individual likes to remind us, it's early yet. But how strange:
Red Sox vs. Yankees: 2-1
Red Sox vs. everyone else: 15-1
Blue Jays vs. Yankees: 3-3
Blue Jays vs. everyone else: 10-3
Orioles vs. Yankees: 3-1
Orioles vs. everyone else: 3-13.
You didn't ask for it, but you got it!
Season number four: 1959.
Yankees 79-75, 3rd in an 8-team league
After winning 9 of the previous 10 pennants, the defending world champion Yankees were a clear favorite. But nobody told the White Sox. Or they did tell them, but they refused to listen. Or something.
Background:
During their amazing, 1947-1964 run, the greatest in North American sports history,* the Yanks lost out on the last weekend of the year to a terrific, world champion Indians team in 1948, and were outpaced again in 1954—despite winning 103 games—by a Cleveland squad that did some all-time champion bottom-feeding, going 89-21 against the last five teams in the AL to set what was then the American League record with 111 wins.
In other words, they were just beaten out by great teams. But then came 1959...
*No, we don't count the Celtics, who were playing in a primitive, tiny NBA with franchises in places like Rochester and Syracuse, where you didn't even have to finish first to win it all, which was the case with the last 3 of the Celts' 11 championships in 13 years, and when nobody was sure if the league champion was as good as the Harlem Globetrotters. So there!
What happened:
Ennui? A pause to reload?
Hard to say, exactly. This Yankees team really tanked, finishing 15 games behind what was a middling Pale Hose assemblage, and never contending. They had dropped all the way to last by the end of May, and only moved back over .500 in mid-September.
Sure, veterans such as Gil McDougald, Hank Bauer, and even Yogi Berra were finally starting to show their age, while such potential replacements as Norm Siebern, Johnny Blanchard, and Clete Boyer were not quite there yet, and highly touted young players such as Andy Carey and Jerry Lumpe gave indisputable proof that they were never going to be what was hoped for them.
Moose Skowron missed over half of what was shaping up to be a terrific season with injuries. And Mickey Mantle, by nearly all statistical measures, showed that he was once again the best, all-around player in the American League—as he would be for an astounding 10 straight years, 1955-1964. But he had already scaled such amazing heights at age 27 that his 31-homer, .904 OPS, 21-steals-in-24 attempts season was viewed as a huge disappointment, and Yankees fans booed him relentlessly.
The pitching was all right, with crazy, alcoholic Ryne Duren wasting his best season out of the pen, Art Ditmar throwing well, and Whitey Ford still winning 16 games in what was (a little bit) of an off-year for him.
But as was his wont with the Yankees, Bullet Bob Turley suffered through arm miseries after a superb season the year before, going only 8-11. Other young heroes of year just past—Johnny Kucks and Tom Sturdivant—demonstrated that their arms were blown out for good (hmm, could there be something to that pitch limit stuff??).
And once again, Don Larsen—still just 28—failed to emerge despite a good season and excellent World Series in 1958.
"You look at him out there, and he always looks like he's gonna be great," Casey Stengel caustically told the writers, "but he ain't."
Casey's own behavior had become a matter of concern, as he had started to nod off in the dugout late in doubleheaders, and become cranky and impatient with young players. Del Webb and Dan Topping, the Yankees owners, started to plot his demise, desperate not to lose out on that great, up-and-coming talent on the bench beside him...Ralph Houk.
Bright spots:
A number of the young guys—Bobby Richardson, Tony Kubek, Siebern, and Ralph Terry—showed that they were clearly ready to step up and start producing. Elton Howard showed that he was ready to take over Yogi's position as Best Catcher in Baseball.
Beloved vet Bobby Shantz had another good year out of the bullpen and spot starting, as did almost universally hated young guy, Jim Coates.
And a new guy acquired from KC to fill in at third showed that maybe that wasn't his best position, but Hector Lopez, picked up for Lumpe, Sturdivant, and Kucks, hit 22 homers and drove in 93 runs on the year, and showed that he was ready, willing, and able to fill in just about anywhere. He would be the Yanks' consummate utility man for years to come.
Oh, and filling in for the Glass Moose on Opening Day was another player who had lingered in the Yankees' farm system for six years, belting 185 homers there, showing some power but not quite making it in two previous, brief stints with the club.
In the Yanks' opening win in Fenway, though, he was one for three with an RBI single, and fielded 11 balls cleanly at first. Yes, clearly Marv Throneberry looked like the Yankees' first baseman of the future.
What happened next:
The collapse in 1959 convinced many experts that the Yankees were a spent force.
The Go-Go White Sox team lost the Series to a very mediocre Dodgers squad that had somehow beat out more talented Giants and Braves teams, in one of the tawdriest World Series ever played. But Chicago had a host of good-looking players already on the roster: Johnny Callison, Norm Cash, Earl Battey.
All would be traded for various piles of magic beans. While the Yankees used their own kids and their "farm team" in KC to reload.
GM George Weiss brought in a young man named Roger Maris from the Athletics, in exchange for Throneberry, Bauer, Larsen, and Siebern (not as one-sided a trade as it now appears; Siebern was a terrific young outfielder for several years), and bought a nifty little reliever named Luis Arroyo from Cincinnati.
A revived Casey Stengel booted the team home with a great stretch run in 1960—the first of five straight pennants, which would give the Yankees 15 in 18 years. They would average 101 wins during those five years, looking more dominant than ever.
But after a flukey, Game 7 loss to the Pirates, both Casey and Weiss got the boot, one of the most foolish and callous moves the team ever made.
Yesterday, I posed the question: "Can we win two games in a row?"
We know the answer now.
We rolled " snake eyes" ....one win and one loss.....to be followed by one win and one loss.
A .500 team.
A team that has to score 10 runs in a game to win.
That projects as follows: 82 wins.
Likely 4th place.
Bust up the team and begin again.
And play the young guys.
And send someone to break Greg Bird's other foot.
And find a new GM.
With apologies to the Fab Four...
Sonny Gray is a pitcher you would hear about
It was said that he was very good indeed
But when you see him come and throw this muck
You say WTF?
Sonny Gray is in my ears and my eyes
Dear God, please make it stop!
Sonny Gray is a useless piece of junk
And once again he stunk.
Sonny Gray was quite the pitcher back in Oakland
But he hasn't got a bit of guts or sand
He's a useless gland
Ain't it grand?
Sonny Gray is in my ears and in my eyes
Just like tse-tse flies
Sonny Gay deserves those blue suburban skies
After all our piteous cries
And not more rotten lies...
Look. You put a six-two guy behind home plate, and have him catch pitchers who specialize in bouncing balls in the dirt?
There are going to be passed balls. That's just the way it is.
What I want out of Gary Sanchez?
I want him to go all Tommy Lee Jones on their ass.
I watched that fifth inning. As remarked, it seemed to take about three days, as Domingo looked scared to death against a bunch of truly mediocre Blue Jays hitters.
I didn't care so much about the couple of Sanchez passed balls.
What I needed was for Gary to run out to German, who frankly looked scared to death, and get in his face and tell him:
"Son? Did you like the way the clubhouse boy carried your gear to your locker when you arrive? Did you like the free massage, and the after-game meal, and all that crap? You did? And you didn't miss the 32-hour Triple-A bus ride?
"Good. So why don't you get out there and pitch like you mean it? Why don't you try throwing like you're not scared to death? Here, I have the actors from the start of that Johnny Cash movie. They're here to say, hey, if you have one inning to pitch before you die, let's see it.
"Let's not see some wimpy-ass pitch on 0-2 that a hitter nobody's ever hear of can hit into right for a run. Let's not see you walk in a run because you're scared to death.
"Let's see you pitch like a gawd-damned MAN, son! Just for once. Just this time."
In my opinion, when Gary Sanchez is capable of this, then he will be a great catcher.
In the meantime...this is what it's all about. It accounts for a bunch of the errors, I'm sure—all these scared little boys, slowing the game down until the fielders lose their concentration. It's why we can't win a damned thing.
Get out there and act like a man. Very simple, really.
...where'n is Mike Ford???
Y'kin hear the name, whisperin' in the wind, up the hills an' down the dales, from Balmoral to Brigadoon, where our gallant Robbie still sits in limbo: where is the one mun who kin hold first base for us?
He's Mike Ford, as well they know from Dumfries to John O'Groats, and his time is now.
Tyler One is suspended for looking cross-eyed at various Fenwankies. Walker obviously can't play this (or any) position.
And what do we have at Triple-A?
A fine, mature laddie who is hitting .280, has been an on-base machine everywhere he's gone, and has worked hard to increase his power and to learn to pay the position.
The knock on him, through all of baseball, seems to be that he took time out to go to Princeton, and we all know how having some Ivy League guy at first worked out for the Yanks in the past. But still!
Get the man up here. I know it may be difficult, because MLB has adapted the old "Punish-the Knicks" rules, wherein we officially have to go with a 24-man roster while Austin is suspended. But still!
Time to send down Tyler Too—he's going anyway, folks, as soon as they assure themselves that the Gleyber's back is all right—and move Walker back to the other position he can't play. Time to give this Ford a test drive!!
Damn. We almost did it again. What Good Samaritans are these 2018 Yankees! Last night, they nearly gave away another game to the poor. They lead the AL in errors (18), are dead last in the MLB fielding percentage (.971), and our catcher has contributed three passed balls in the last two games. That's not counting the botched plays that are charitably ruled as hits, several of which have triggered opposing rallies. Nor does it take into account that Yankee pitchers have the third most strikeouts in baseball (190). Imagine how many errors we can stack up if opposing batters start putting more balls into play.
Boston has the fewest errors in the AL (5), and if you seek the Essential Knowledge as to why they lead the division by 4 games, you needn't butt dial the Oracle at Delphi. The box scores paint it quite well.
Last night, we watched Scary Gary Sanchez wave his concrete glove at a pitch barely grazing the outside corner, the ball soaring to the backstop, allowing a two-out run to score from third. An inning later, Ronald "Big Toe" Torreyes - moments after conjuring a YES booth debate on why he doesn't play more - flat-footed a throw to first, which Neil Walker - the veteran 2B-1B who cannot play either position well - failed to snag. It led to another gift-wrapped run.
Around here, outcomes generally dictate our drunken, post-game, prison-riot mood. Last night, we won. So who cares about the diddly shit, right? But to beat the looming powerhouse Blue Jay .500 dynasty, we had to burn our entire big four bullpen lug nuts - wringing nearly 2 innings from Chad Green, the surest thing we have to a lights-out power arm. Tonight, unless Sonny Gray takes us into the seventh - (what are the odds?) - we'll be dealing with Adam "Elizabeth" Warren and the Lost Chasen of Shreveport. Last night, had we simply played solid defense, we might not have wasted so many silver bullets.
You know what the poets say about happenstance: The butterfly flapping its wings in China eventually causes a tornado in the Midwest. That, my friends, is why baseball is a metaphor for life. A botched grounder in April can eventually cause a Tommy John surgery in September. We cannot win the AL East, or even a wild card appearance, with five-inning starters and a Swiss chess defense.
Apparently, this spring, Alex Cora made defense the No. 1 priority for his Redsocks. I'm still trying to discern what Aaron Boone prioritized, beyond his dimples.
The man went 1-3 with a walk.
Disregard the infield single.
He didn't strike out once !
He is feeling it.
And soon, so shall we.
As many have pointed out here, it would be difficult for the Yankees to hit or field worse than they have so far, and the team has already taken an inordinate number of serious injuries to day-to-day players, including young and usually healthy ones.
This should all point toward a general improvement in the season as it goes forward, right?
Wrong.
I, too, expect the Yanks to hit and field better, and if they get at least some of their fabulous invalids back, they should look better.
But if anything, the first tenth of the season shows them headed toward a total breakdown of the most vital element of the game, which is pitching.
This team cannot win if it's starters to continue to pitch so little, so badly. It's that simple. Yes, the bullpen has been bad so far, too—but it will only get worse if the starting staff does not pick it up.
Let's take a look at a little history, namely the best years of the last Yankees dynasty. The 1998 team's top five starters—Pettitte, Cone, Wells, Irabu, and El Duque/Mendoza—threw a total of 1,036 innings.
This really empowered the team's Big Five bullpen—The Great One, The Other Mike Stanton, Nelson, Moonlighting Mendoza, and Graeme "The Fighting Kangaroo" Lloyd—which needed to throw only 260.1 innings. Throw in the sixth reliever, the little-used Darren Holmes, and you were still up to only 311.2 innings.
No surprise, the team led the AL in complete games with 22, and was second in saves, with 48. The two stats ARE related.
All right, I know, I know: the fabled 1998 team was pretty special in all ways. But even in 1999 and 2000, after Lloyd and Wells left for Clemens, the top five starters stayed pretty strong:
1999: 984.2 top five slot starter innings, 316.2 top five reliever innings (366 top six), 50 saves (1st in AL), 6 CG (6th in AL)
2000: 946.2 top five slot starter innings, 329.2 top five reliever innings (354.2 top six), 40 saves (7th in AL), 9 CG (5th in AL).
So based on the first tenth of this season, how are we looking? Well, it projects to:
2018: 833 top five slot starter innings, 383 top five reliever innings (456 top six), 20 saves, 0 CG.
Scary, no? Especially those 456 innings for the top six relievers. Obviously, the team will run up more than 20 saves in the end (right?)—but as is, those 20 would make the lowest total for the Yankees, a team that has traditionally thrived on good relief pitching, since 1946.
But of course, I hear you say, the game has changed a great deal, even since 2000.
Well, let's take a look at the Yanks' last championship team, then, in 2009. Even with a makeshift starting staff of CC, Pettitte, Burnett, Joba, and a No. 5 made up of Gaudin/Hughes/Wang/Sergio Mitre, it looked like this:
2009: 937 top five slot starter innings, 301.2 top five reliever innings (340.2 top six), 51 saves (1st in AL), 3 CG (11th in AL).
That's right: even a team that didn't really have a fifth starter managed to get over 100 more innings out of its top five than this team is projected to get now.
My friends, at its current rate, this Yankees' squad is headed for a complete pitching breakdown—and thus far, we have only had CC on the DL, in which time he did not even miss a start. Undoubtedly, he and Tanaka will miss more time—maybe go down altogether.
Who will pick up the slack?
The man of men, slugger of sluggers, could show himself today:
Look at those " guns " ( gun ) !
He can easily hit 50 dingers and drive in 100 +.
Right?
This baseball card says he is an OF. Of what , you ask? Of greatness.
He has all the tools.
Right?
So let's be our usual upbeat selves and give him a big hand, when he comes up with runners in scoring position (RISP) !
He is going to come through.
The season is based upon that. Brian Cashman has delivered.
We are ready. We are hungry. We are optimistic.
Let's begin the run.
Mark today on your calendars.
Giancarlo Stanton OF
From the diary of M. Jacoby E______.
For a long time, I went to bed early. But it didn't help. This morning I awoke with a new pain in my heel, along with the continuing agony of my side, et mon hanche. Worst of all, though, is the pain in my soul.
Today the trainers from the team came by, to insist that I visit their absurd whirlpool bath. They wish to train me, all right, as a man trains a seal.
I turned them away, and closed the shutters of my hotel room. I was afraid that the sunbeams would dry up my essence. Also, I have had the entire room lined with cork, lest I bump up against the hard floor and walls.
But there is nothing to relieve this malaise.
Today, again, I smelled them cooking up the lobster bisque. I could not help but think of chunks of the delicious crustacean, dipped in small bowls of butter.
What memories that smell brings back! Of my days in Boston, when I could still run like the wind, and had the power and endurance of many men!
How fondly I remember my walks around the Fenway! Sometimes I would take the Van Ness way, and sometimes the Landsdowne way, under le monster vert.
Best of all was how, sometimes, when the season was over, a few of us—moi, M. le Pedroia, M. le Manny, M. le Poppy Grand—would rent a house together, up in the little fishing village of Pigeon Cove, on the North Shore. There we would paint outside in the good weather, and spend hours writing odes to our favorite baseball annies, les jeune filles en fleurs.
I shall never forget the delicate way le Poppy Grand would hold his pen, the beautiful tributes to feminine beauty that would pour out of it!
Today, while reading about the Premier League championships in les Temps du New-York, I noticed a small item about the Yankees. The team has not started well.
Le Swann Noir is striking down one player after another. M. R___ T____ et M. Mc_____ have already been injured, throwing themselves against outfield walls like men hurling themselves against Fate. Poor fools! They can no more escape their destiny than any other men.
Is it time for me to return? The pain in my heel feels slightly better. Perhaps I could tolerate a week or two in the city.
Zut alors! Now my hand cramps up like Giancarlo at the plate! Best not to return north until the warm weather has returned, je pense. For now, I return to bed, to dream of those chunks of lobster, and happier days en Boston.
Please note right away: I am not necessarily for trading any of the following players.
I still think we have a solid core of a team for the years ahead in Judge, Sanchez, and Gregorius, and that the future is, if not really bright, at least no worse than partly cloudy. And who knows? Even Giancarlo may start to hit one day. The stupidest thing would be to make panicky, silly moves.
BUT—what one-tenth of the season has told us, irrevocably, is that we have no pitching.
These, not Tinker-to-Evers-to-Chance, are the saddest of possible words.
Not only do we not have any pitching, we have even less pitching than we did in those disappointing-but-transitional seasons of 1975 and 1995.
There's no veteran ace still strong and ready to lead the staff, as Catfish did in 1976, or Cone in 1996. No phenom waiting in the wings, as there was with Ron Guidry in 1977, or The Great One.
We not only don't have pitching, we don't even have pitching on the broad horizon. Which means that acquiring enough to be a bona fide contender is going to be hard. As a great man once sang, it will be like trying to get gold from a silver mine, like trying to drink whiskey from a bottle of wine (which, believe me, I have attempted on certain late nights during losing streaks).
Building a staff from this tower of rot is going to take some major-league finagling. So we might as well start by looking at the value of what we have. And with the notable exception of Sir Didi, I don't think anyone should be off the table.
Again, I have no possible idea of what combinations these guys can or should go in—if they should go at all. You might have to trade some pitchers to get better pitchers. You might have to trade stars.
That's all for a general manager—I mean a real general manager—to figure out. But here is what he will be dealing with:
Thank you for your service...
...and please pick up your ginormous parting checks at the door.
CC
Gardy
Sellable scrap
Tyler
Tyler Too
Walker
Romine
Montgomery
Rommel
The Toe
Hicks
Houdini
Chance Adams
Higashioka
Warren
Shreve
Heller/Holder (really the same person)
Broken stuff we are probably stuck with
Tanaka
Bird
Drury
Red Thunder
McKinney
Ellsbury
Cessa
Kahnle
Toonces
El Chapo
Deal 'em while they're still hot (IF you deal 'em at all)
Judge
Sanchez
Andujar (all right, tepid)
The Gleyber
Mean Chad Green
Severino
Sonny Gray (cooling rapidly every second)
The great stone head that will sit in the basement forever
Scranton
I am adding to my collection of Giancarlo cards because, one day, it will be like having all Ty Cobb's cards. And I can cash them out for bitcoins.
As you know, this man is my favorite Yankee. I recently started a fan club for him on one of
the ( unnamed ) social media sites and, so far, there are three "followers." One seems to be a White House spokesperson ( you see her on tv a lot ) whose political views, and personal appearance, are not to my liking. But I digress.
And this is baseball. So politics doesn't enter the dialogue. But she lies a lot. So how can I believe her interest in " Mike " is sincere? Moving right along....
In any case, I did a survey and 50% of the " followers " ( one abstention ) believe Giovanni is terrific, and simply going through an adjustment period. The fact that he has been in the major leagues 8 years, and was MVP last year notwithstanding. And being MVP in that other league...where pitchers hit for God's sake....doesn't mean much.
Think how you would perform if you were paid a guaranteed $265 million, and presented as
the cog that would bring us the championship? That is a lot of pressure. Add to that the dreary weather, and Mike's personal concerns for the welfare of those Yankees already on the DL.
And no one ever mentions that his strikeouts are already on the decline...only TWO in each of the last two games. True, they tend to demoralize everyone east of the Mississippi River, and kill rallies. But, as some intelligent blogger opined the other day, " it isn't Stanton that is killing the Yankees, it is our pitching." If Stanton had homered four times yesterday, we still lose by a run!
It is also the fact that only one team in the world has more errors to date than we do. When was the last time the Yankees all wore concrete gloves? And the fact that Stanton has made a few of those errors, is not reason to give up on the man. He is playing anew position. The balls all look different, coming at him. Same as in the locker room.
We all know he is going to " do his thing." I heard Al Leiter say so. I heard Aaron say so. And O'neil and Coney. And that former catcher and his partner on the post game show. Everyone with a head and a suit, knows that Giovanni ( Mike ) Stanton is going to deliver, and make his critics eat crow.
That's why he is my favorite. Thank you Brian Cashman!
P.S. If any of you have rookie cards of this future hero, I will buy them from you. But you must take cryptocurrency. You can sign up at " FillMyWallet.com" or some such.
With apologies to the Pythons...
"Some guys on our team are bad
They can really make you mad
Whereas Giancarlo makes you scream and curse.
When you're reaming out some Tyl-er
Don't choke on all your bile or
You'll never get through
All hundred-sixty-two.
And...always look on the bright side of life
Always look on the right side of life.
If Tanaka's jolly rotten
There's one thing you've forgotten
Which is that we can't field a ball to save our lives.
If we can't pitch at all
We still can't hit the ball
And we're playing like our hands are taped to knives.
So always look on the bright side of death
As these Yanks draws their terminal breath
Our team's a piece of shit
When you think of it.
It's best they suck in all ways the same year.
We'll sort out these feeble lads
And get past these hitting fads
And put out all these sad-sacks on their ear!
And always look on the bright side of life—
Worse things happen at sea, you know!
Always look on the bright side of life—
I mean, what did we have to lose?
We lost to the Sox by two games last year, we're going to lose to them by twenty this year.
It's still losing!
Always look on the bright side of life—
Cheer up, you old bugger!
It could be worse—Jacoby could be playing!
Always look on the bright side of death...
(Much whistling)
Why are they calling him Mike? I though Mike was a former Yankee reliever.
Have we got this entire thing confused?
Is Giancarlo supposed to be pitching rather than hitting?
Did Cashman screw up?
In any case, as I announced yesterday, I am now a Giovanni, Giancarlo ( Mike ) ...you know, old #27....I'm his biggest booster. This trade will make the Jesus Montero deal languish in the detritus of unfinished ice cream sandwiches.
Yesterday, he started to show flashes of the greatness which lies within:
- he blasted a tape measure foul ball down the left field line
- he defied the Vegas odds makers by striking out but twice ( I had the tri-fecta).
- he walked and scored a run. SCORED A RUN.
Sure, he fouled out with the bases loaded, but we were getting the bases loaded all night, and we have others who can drive in runs.
Some of you are complaining that he is hitting third in the line-up, while sporting a batting average of .210. Come on, folks. A 10-10 run this early in the season, and he is right back with the league leaders.
Others have said that the Marlins pitching is worse than minor league staffs, and Stanton was the only Yankee not to register a base hit. Big deal. He came very close to a huge home run, and he made contact at least one other time ( the foul out with the bases loaded).
And for this, they boo?
He had to adjust to the nasty weather up north, new team rituals and pranks, and then his old team comes to visit, and Jeter refuses to show up. That is a lot of pressure.
Watch him unload today. We might mark this day on the calendar as the day he claimed his rightful place in New York Yankee glory.
Mike is now my favorite player.
 |
| Last night, after a 12-1 victory. |
 |
| "My captors want $1 million to secure my release..." |
Thanks to the great Elvis Costello for providing the title of this post.
It fits perfectly with what Billwitz, henceforth to be known as "The Little Assassin," did to Giancarlo Stanton in the Times today.
Picking up the paper, desperate for some baseball news, I found to my surprise a feature on Stanton—under, of course, the thrilling, SportsMonday lead piece on how Man City won the Premier League on its day off—and which was all about how Giancarlo's troubles were due to...his new furniture taking awhile to arrive.
Oh no, I thought, they'll never forgive him this. A big, rich athlete falling down on the job because he's worried about home decorating.
Except he didn't say that. Not once.
Read past the split and into the piece, and the only quotes from Stanton come from when he was asked if he was trying too hard.
"No, I just felt there was a lot going on. Focusing on maybe too many things. But not trying too hard, I don't think."
Asked to elaborate—presumably by The Little Assassin—all Stanton would do was smile and say, "Not to worry about."
Asked to elaborate again, all he would say was, "I'm not going to make excuses."
So, how did a polite, smiling effort by an athlete NOT to make ANY excuses, become a big feature on how he's more worried about home decor than baseball?
Well, because The Little Assassin then went and asked everybody he could about it, including Ma Boone, Mets pitcher A.J. Ramos, whom Stanton is subletting from, and even Stanton's father.
Not knowing the context, of course, and trying to say something nice about Stanton, they all said something to the effect of, Yeah, it must be hard to concentrate when you're not settled in yet.
And voila! A new "truth" is invented.
It really is a beautiful piece of work. A perfect gutting that poses as a sympathy piece. The Little Assassin missed his calling by not going into politics.
Meanwhile, Soccer and the Yankees have been making as much ground on each other as the two sides did on the Western Front in WW I. Each has rung up five pieces, making our total for the year, Soccer 61, Yankees 57.
Gonna be a long season.
Last Wednesday, the Marlins drew 6,150 fans - while their Double A farm club in Jacksonville drew 6,960. (It was their home opener.)
“Baseball, like some other sports, poses as an institution dedicated to the public good, but it is actually a big, selfish business with a ruthlessness that many big businesses would never think of displaying.” –Jackie Robinson— Lindsey Adler (@lindseyadler) April 15, 2018
Almost forgot: today is April 15th. Jackie Day.
On this day in 1947, Jackie Robinson debuted for the Brooklyn Dodgers.
He did not get a hit, but his speed forced a bad throw from future Yankee Johnny Sain on a bunt in the seventh inning, something that set up the Dodgers' win, with Robinson himself scoring what proved to be the winning run.
The color line was finally broken.
Robinson, the very epitome of class, had gone off that morning to Brooklyn leaving his wife and their sick baby behind in a cheap Manhattan hotel room. Even with all the burdens of the world on his shoulders, he had enough of a sense of humor left to tell Rachel Robinson, who would be leaving for the game with their son a little later:
"I'll be number 42."
So he was. And so we honor it still.
The sort of thoughts inspired by a second-straight rainout:
Right now, the Yankees are 7-7.
They have also scored 77 runs, and allowed 77 runs.
Weird, huh?
Beyond the obvious iconography relating to our own St. Mick, this should tell us something.
That 77 runs scored? It's fifth best in the American League. That 77 runs allowed? It's 11th best.
I agree with Alphonso that Giancarlo has been a big bust so far, and I agree with John M. that the increasing one-dimensionality of baseball is hurting the game, and hurting my enjoyment of it. Too many strikeouts, too many guys going for the long ball, all the time.
But even with this less than auspicious start, the facts are that our Twin Towers so far total 21 runs scored and 19 driven in.
They are not the big problem. Nor is our offense, in general—and let's face it: we excuse those players we like the best. Gary Sanchez has spent most of April sucking because there's too much pressure on him? C'mon.
I think there is a whole book to be written on what fans, managers, and GMs will do to excuse a fatal lack of...pitching.
In 1929, Miller Huggins blamed his team's fall from first all the way to second on their supposed preoccupation with playing the market.
The Yankees of that day, who aside from Ruth were paid mostly in stale moon pies and jumping jacks, scored 899 runs in 154 games, and had a team ERA of 4.19. Hmm, I wonder what went wrong?
This century, we heaped all the troubles of the world on the shoulders of Alex Rodriguez because he was, well, such a twit. While in the very definition of insanity, we kept sending the Jaret Wrights, Kevin Browns, Javier Vazquezes and Carl Pavanos of the world out to the mound and expecting better results.
Our problem in 2018, thus far, isn't that we don't do enough situational hitting, though it's true that we don't. It's that we don't have a starting pitcher who can throw six innings.
This started out as a comment to Alphonso's post below, but it got too long and leeched into another issue entirely, so it's post time.
Of course, we didn't get the right guy. That was kind of a given, but since Babe-san would not sign with us, it's like Jesse Jackson said back in the 1970s: "The point...is moot."
I was clenching my teeth when the Yankees got Stanton, regardless of Judge and other players singing their hosannas. It seemed to upset the delicate apple cart that the Yanks had achieved near the end of last season. Now, instead of one gigantic guy who hits a lot of home runs but strikes out four or five times as much, we have two. I'm not sure what the statisticians and number crunchers have to say, but that equates to a big gaping hole in the lineup. And it puts more weight on the shoulders of Gardner, Didi, and Sanchez to be productive enough to pick up the slack. (Would've included Bird in there, but it looks more and more like he's the second coming of Nick Johnson, with his foot being what Nick's wrist was.) Say Clank and Judge are up 1200 times, and maybe they hit 100 home runs but strike out 400 times. That's gonna kill a lot of rallies and scoring opportunities. (Judge's silver lining is his OBP, which hovers in the .400s. Over 100 walks is nice, but it still shifts the burden to other guys. They didn't pay Mantle and Reggie and DiMag and Tino to walk.)
All of which would be less of a problem if we had the pitching. But so far, as we all know, we don't. In fact, aside from Severino and a few guys in the bullpen (who are not named Betances and Chapman), we got nothin'. When your pitching staff basically demands that you score 10 runs a game to notch a win, the strike-out kings become that much more of an albatross.
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