Yankeetorial: Mars needs women, and Jesus needs Scranton

Entering spring training, if there was universally accepted point in Yankeedom, it was that Jesus Montero was ticketed for Scranton. The concept worked. He'd get seasoning, roll into a hot streak and then come up ready to catch or DH, or maybe both. He wouldn't get traumatized by teams looking to embarrass a big-ticket rookie. You didn't throw a 21-year-old to the wolves, especially in New York.

When Franciso Cervelli got hurt, everything changed. We drank a keg of giddy reports outlining the great strides Montero has made since last spring -- which is true -- and we celebrated him as a sure thing to make the team. Ever since, it's been fallback mode -- bloggers and scouts competing to lead the negative bandwagon. To make matters worse, he hasn't hit well in Tampa.

The result is starting to scare me. Now, we're saying Austin Romine might go north as the back-up catcher. I don't mean to devalue Romine, but what was meant to be Montero's low-stress spring is looming as the kind of month that can leave bitter feelings. The Yankiverse has a tendency to overhype young players, then rip them for not being immediate all-stars. (Manny Banuelos, they're making your Cross, as we speak.) If Montero comes up and fails, the media drums will start beating out the story that Cashman blew it: He should have traded the kid.

We need Cervelli back, and Montero needs a month in the Anthracite Museum. He needs to come to New York because he's either destroyed the International League, or we have nobody else. He does not need to be sitting the bench and playing every fourth day under a laser scope.

This is the worse-case scenario: A bad start by the Yankees, Montero not hitting, Cashman under pressure -- we trade our future for some Liriano. God save us.