Well, it's so awful that we can start to imagine the Yankees stumbling into Fenway on the last weekend of the season, desperately needing to win three games, in order to keep our pathetic Wild Card birth hopes alive. We are now on a trajectory to fall behind Oakland by Sept. 1. And once we're holding on against Seattle, watch out below!
It's so awful that neither Miguel Andujar nor Gleyber Torres no longer look like the top candidates, much less shoe-ins, for the AL Rookie of the Year award. Andujar's glove has turned to stone; his errant throw yesterday led to a tack-on run that became huge in the tortuous, squandered ninth. Torres' batting average continues to plummet, like a bus over a cliff, no bottom in sight. When will it stabilize? At .220? Is he sliding into Gary Sanchez territory?
It's so awful that Sonny Gray now looms as perhaps Cooperstown Cashman's all-time worstest acquisition - no easy accomplishment on the Steve Whitaker Scale of Yankee Folly. It's a done deal that he'll be traded next winter, but for what? A bag of mothballs? One of these days, J.A. Happ and Lance Lynn will start showing us why their teams cut them loose. Then what? Another dose of Luis Cessa? Holy crap, that is pretty awful!
It's so awful that the Rays yesterday looked industrious for playing ex-Railrider Gi-Man Choi at 1B, compared to the Kleenex origami puppet known as Greg Bird. Choi's .230 batting average suddenly appears Ruthian compared to Mr. Popup. The Rays own us, spending just a fraction of our payroll, and yet all we hear from the Gotham Gammonites is how brilliant our front office is. Yesterday, when Tampa went to the bullpen in the ninth for a lefty, everybody in the Yankiverse wondered if we had a RH bat in the dugout. Nope. Cupboard is bare, folks, and the vacuum extends all the way down to Trenton. Remember being excited about the plush Yankee farm system? Them days are over.
It's so awful that I'm starting to think about the New York football Giants, a franchise that deserves no scrutiny, no loyalty, and none of our time. But that's New York City sports for you. Nothing, piled atop nothingness. And that's pretty awful.
New York has such a wild-cardy sports scene. even extends to Buffalo.
ReplyDeleteYeah, but...I mean...hey, you can't...what about...wait a minute...
ReplyDeleteNah. It's hopeless.
The organization as a whole needs to rethink the "swing for the fences every time -- even if you have two strikes" approach to hitting.
ReplyDeleteHoss commented on on the 1998 team that they did not have one player that swung for the fence every time. Tino led in home runs with 28 and batted 281. Some guy named Jeter led the team with 119 strikeouts (which I think was Stanton's May total). Those guys knew how to choke up and just get a hit when it was needed. Now -- DARE to take strike three with the game on the line.
It's not just Bonehead Boone, it's the entire organization that is encouraging it.
@Rufus...it's not an organizational problem...it's a MLB problem. It's not going to change this year...Manfred needs to go back to the competition committee and figure this crap out.
ReplyDelete@ Rufus, I absolutely agree!
ReplyDeleteI'm going to try and take a few weeks off from following this team so it doesn't ruin the last two weeks of my Summer,,,, my poor suffering saint of a wife, I'm such an ogre after these pineapples, LOL. I tried to stay away yesterday, checked in to see bases loaded 0 outs in the 9th and got sucked back in thinking EVEN this team will pull off at least a tie,,, wha wha whaaaaaaaaaaaa, Pineapple Express! I guess technically it's not a pineapple, maybe a crabapple?!
ReplyDeleteThe open question is -- how does this team change for the better?
The obvious negative answer is -- NOT by "winning" one of the wild card spots. NOT by playing further into the playoffs, and NOT by "just missing out" to the Red Sux in a divisional series.
Since change is what most of us on this blog really want, then we should -- contrarily -- be rooting AGAINST the team in the remaining weeks. Change won't come from losing the one-game wild card nightmare, or getting the crap beat out of us (by the Sox) in the series that follows.
BUT: Change might be expedited by a season that ends with the final regular-season game.
I admit: I never b4 came to such a conclusion. I never previously got to a point where I was even thinking of rooting AGAINST the NYYs. I question whether I have lost my mind on this matter. But trying to read the actual news in the U.S. right now makes me even crazier, so I remain focused on news about this team and postings to this blog.
It's a wonderful distraction from news ab bout the FBI, CIA, Russia, Comey, Brennan, Trump, Pelosi, Alexandria Ocasio-whatever, Supreme Court nominations, the numerous attempts to dismantle environmental regulations -- and etc., etc., etc., and etc. There is nothing I can do to stop our political system from deteriorating. This is also nothing I can do to stop the NYYs from falling apart -- but I can at least watch or listen to the games!
Therefore, I present this thought: Maybe you can win (ultimately) by not winning (now)... Sounds very Zen, don't it?
Good point, Joe FOB. And as with most bad things I see going on, I would LOVE to be proved wrong.
ReplyDeleteIt would be terrific if Cashman were right and I were wrong. If what we are going through now proves to be just an injury-driven lull, and, with everybody back on board, we charged deep into the playoffs and slew all around us.
I would actually love that because...Brian Cashman runs the New York Yankees and I do not.
But I don't think that's going to be the case. And if so, I would rather avoid a reprise of the Great Houston Snore Game in 2015. Above all, I would rather avoid another Beantown Beatdown.
But hey, no matter what happens, you know we are going to be told that it was the injuries. That there was nothing Coops could have done about it, and that next year we will be back, stronger than ever...
Ken,
ReplyDeleteI thankfully missed most of yesterday's game.
Unfortunately, I have tickets to next Saturday's afternoon (rain make-up) game against the fighting Showalters. If they manage to lose against that barely AAA team, I think I'll puke.
A sad, sobering, and terribly good post, Duque. It is stunning how fast this team has deteriorated.
ReplyDeleteAnd hey, even if Happ and Lynn continue to pitch like world beaters? They're only rentals! There's no guarantee at all they will be back next year, and getting them to stay will cost some inordinate amount of money.
Also, loved the Steve Whitaker reference!!!
For those of you who may be too young to remember—can't believe there are any such on this blog; maybe, too hungover to remember?—Steve Whitaker was a very promising Yankees outfielder who took, let us say, a Sanchezian approach to the game.
At one point, the Yanks had to move him from a minor-league team down south, because he was caught having sex in the WW II plane they had parked in the town square as a memorial. Having sex...with the mayor's daughter.
Hey, you have to give him style points.
Anyway, the Yanks finally gave up after he hit .117 in 28 games in 1968. They let the Royals snatch him up in the expansion draft that fall.
But hey, it worked out. KC smartly traded his butt to the Seattle Pilots, before either team had played a major-league game. The guy they got in return was a young outfielder, originally from the Orioles' organization, who everyone thought was a natural-born hitter but who just kept having bad spring trainings.
Lou Piniella would be AL rookie-of-the-year in 1969, and after five productive years in KC, was acquired by the Yanks for Lindy McDaniel. Steve Whitaker would drift over to the Giants, then a couple more minor-league teams before retiring after the 1972 season, age 29.
I second the style points but not the execution (getting caught).
ReplyDelete...and one more burning question -- Where was Mrs. Wormer when this was going on?
ReplyDeleteThe Yankees have two consistently good hitters in their starting lineup: Stanton and Andujar. That's it. Everyone else is either undependably streaky (Hicks, Gardner, Gregorious), underwhelming and overrated (Bird, Walker, and Romine), or in a mysterious and hopefully temporary funk (Torres). The starting pitching is equally erratic, for reasons I need not belabor. Cashman seems unwilling to make a daring dip into the team's young talent to remedy the crisis: No Sheffield, no Florial, not even McBroom. Just hold on tight and wait for all these cold stiffs to get hot--which means wait till next year, Brian.
ReplyDeleteThis is not a team that seems destined for the postseason--in baseball, at least. But I hear October is a glorious month for golfing. Go Yanks in the next Pro-Am.
All of the above is all too true. Even Bill Madden gave up today in the Daily News.
ReplyDeleteWhat sucks is, as Joe FOB put it so succinctly, we need the distraction, we need a part of the day to plant our brains in a happier place. They have gone from the Baby Bombers to the Baby Bummers.
There is no fix. It's funny but if George were alive he might fire Boone and bring in an angry ass kicker who would get the most out of each player and severely punish those who fail to produce. It feels like that's what's needed. Intensity. Urgency.
I think what happened was once the division was no longer in play it took all the wind out of the team and under current leadership there's no one to instill it.
A long time ago it was written that rooting for the Yankees is like rooting for US Steel. I think that might be true again but with a much more modern interpretation. A fading former giant corporation. Boring. Staid. Playing out the string.
And I'll tell you something that we all know. In all entertainment and particularly in sports, the cardinal sin is putting out a boring product. And that's what they are right now. Boring and predicable and sadly, not worth our time.
Doug K.
Doug K. -- The main problem is Cashman, not Boone. The latter takes his cues from the former. Just no excuse to start Cessa over Adams, no excuse not to give Sheffield a try, no excuse not to replace Shane "Little League" Robinson--a walking embarrassment in pinstripes--with Florial, who would be instantly superior on the field and the basepaths and probably better at the plate as well. And why no McBroom, at least as a platoon partner for the hapless, going-nowhere Bird? Let's face it: Bird has had his chances. He can't square up on the ball, seldom makes solid contact. He's a bust. Move on, Cashman. And get unathletic, mediocre Neil Fucking Walker off the team--an energy and roster suck, nothing more.
ReplyDeleteCashman is a moron, ensconced in his incompetence by the morons above him. It's hopeless until the inbred Stein clan sells the team.
Right with you, Doug K. I am just very glad I have not had tickets to any games of late. I can't imagine spending hours to see this baseball equivalent of root canal without anesthesia.
ReplyDeleteYanks are now 1-20 with men in scoring position over their last two games, and 3-28. A couple of long—or short—outs yesterday would've tied that game in the ninth. No could do. We are apparently 13th out of 15 AL teams hitting with the bases loaded, at a .223 clip.
It's astonishing that neither McBroom nor Ford have been given a shot in these circumstances, Anon. And I'm with you regarding Adams and Sheffield.
ReplyDeleteBut that's the thing: nothing will change until Cashman is changed. And he's not going anywhere.
This feels like the fan equivalent of living in Spain c. 1956. 'Hey, nothing can be done until Franco dies, which will be another 20 years.'
That's Cashman, our very own Generalissimo Francisco Franco. Heaven help us.
Time for a run, some rain (at 03:54 CET, AccuWeather says of your skies “Heavy rain and a thunderstorm will continue for 108 minutes”), and ruminations…
ReplyDeleteAlas, thou art cruel, Horace! Slipping in rosy, pinstriped memories twixt the harsh realities of John M. (indeed, we sucketh) and El Duque (indeed, we sucketh evermore). I can remember some of those games from two decades ago far better than anything I’ve seen this year.
I’ve pretty much stopped watching. I still keep weird hours so I do pop on the game every now and then, but I just don’t see a team there anymore. I can’t recall the last time I watched a complete game. I am watching far too much MSNBC.
Does that make any sense? There is no continuity out there, no soul; just a bunch of frazzled strangers with strange and stranger names who seem as if they all would be doing better if they were anywhere else on this planet (perhaps but not necessarily doing the same thing).
The void is screeching out from Brooklyn (past and present) over an ocean and some pretty damned impressive Alps: I am considering (as is Ken) just tuning out till the end of September, and have ever thought (as is Joe) of channeling all my good juju west of the Rockies.
But don’t a lot of us do this (almost) every year? We are set for the hottest week of our summer starting tomorrow, so living in a country where air conditioners (and clothes dryers) just Do Not Exist offers an easy excuse to close the blinds all day to keep rooms cool and switch on the (day) game at 19:00. Enough babbling – ya got 90 more minutes of rain if AccuWeather is to be trusted (and it usually is). Can't you slip in, say, three episodes of "Car 54, Where Are You?"
The Official New York Yankees website homepage oddly mirrors IIHIIFIIC: “Celebrate 20th Anniversary of 1998 World Series Championship” and “Yanks Prep for Fun Players’ Weekend.” Geez – is this like your president’s promise that you will all tire of too much winning? Can the players possibly stand any more fun?
Another headline offers a chance to “Win a Yankees Bucket List Experience.” The horror… the horror…
George's bucket list consisted of:
ReplyDelete1. Another WS championship.
2. Another WS championship.
3. Another WS championship.
4. Another WS championship.
5. Another WS championship.
6. Another WS championship.
7. Another WS championship.
8. Another WS championship.
9. Another WS championship.
10. Another WS championship.
11. Another WS championship.
12. Another WS championship.
13. Another WS championship.
14. Another WS championship.
15. Another WS championship.
...
He was a certifiable a-hole, but boy did he want to win.
Can't say the same about the current leadership crew.
Austria, the rain pulled through, and gave us a much easier win than Arolldis—or Brtitton—ever would.
ReplyDeleteSad to say, it is like the tropics here. It usually is, in summer, but now there never seems to be a respite.
And I feel your disorientation about players. Hell, it could get worse. Another Yankees website is saying that the Grandy Man could well be back soon—and celebrating that idea! They are insane.
At the start of this season, I thought this was the deepest Yankees team I had ever seen, inured against all contingencies. Obviously, I was wrong—but at least in part because our idiot GM decided to strip the team and the system down. Neil Walker in RF? Oy. He probably cost us about 2 runs in the field today, but hit a rare, 3-run homer, so he was very slightly ahead of the game.
Anyway, the big news" the magic number is 6!!! 6, and then I can ignored these jerks!!
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