The end shall come not with fire or ice, but via the double play

What a fool I am. What a gullible, sad, home-bound, idiotic fool. Last night, I could have been out clubbing across Syracuse, bounding from rage to rage, twerking away the final days of summer in a vortex of champagne and showgirls. Instead, there I was - staring at the TV, pacing the dungeon, snorting the snake oil, grasping at strands of hope and belief. What a fool.

We'd put runners on base. I would rise. We would leave them. I would sit.

One on in the first, McCann hits a DP grounder. (The man runs like Amos McCoy.)

Two on in the third, Jeter strikes out looking.

Two on in the fourth, Prado and Drew fail to move them.

One on in the sixth, Prado grounds out.

One on in the eighth, McCann another DP.

In the ninth, the Empire spares me from the temptation of hope, which appears in the form of closer Joe Nathan, who has thrown gasoline-dipped blasting caps all season. They go down 1-2-3, like Valium tablets.  

Technically, summer is not over. But spiritually, emotionally, psychologically - damn, we have been dead for a while. In hindsight, I'd put the flat-line moment two weeks ago in Baltimore, when Jonathan Schoop and Adam Jones hit those home runs off Dellin Betances and Seabuscuit Kelly, blowing a 2-1 lead in the eighth. We ended up losing five in a row to Cleveland, Baltimore and Tampa. At that point, I was ready to trash the season and turn this site into a self-righteous blog about the need to stamp out twerking during the Video Music Awards, something like that, which would allow me to post photos of scantily-clad women, while pretending to be outraged.

But then we won five in a row, and last night, there I was - needing to believe again.

What a fool.

We can still win this series, I suppose. All we need is for Shane Greene to out-pitch David Price, for Brian McCann to take the concrete out of his shoes, and Derek Jeter to regenerate - 15 years younger. Stranger things have happened, I guess. But only fools are willing to believe it.