All the Devils Are Here

An embarrassing loss.

One game into the season and...all the demons that undid this team last season are back in spades.

Absolutely zero clutch hitting or clutch pitching, shoddy fielding, a lack of concentration against a bottom-dwelling team that walked six batters, made several fielding miscues, and generally gave the Yankees every possible chance to win this ballgame.

Which they had no interest in doing.

This had all the general slackness of your usual, wretched, game-after-Opening Day-contest.

We got to see yet another home-plate umpire who cannot keep up with the speed and movement of modern pitching, and seemed to call most pitches by sound.  Fortunately, at least, he was an equal opportunity incompetent.

It also marked yet another ponderous step forward for the Frankenstein's Monster that is the Anonymous Pitcher, with the Orioles prevailing with an "opener."

For all the concentration on time of games and shifts, the elimination of the most heroic figure on the field, the pitcher—reduced now to an interchangeable, 2-3-inning stint—will go far to leech any and all remaining interest in the game in the years to come.

But let's puke talk Yankees.

First, two things people need to stop saying:

—James Paxton is an ace.  He is not.

He has been, at best, a pretty good No. 3-No. 4 pitcher in his short career, throughout which he has rarely managed to stay off the DL for more than 2/3 of a season.

After effortlessly dispatching the Orioles for five innings, he could not get through the sixth.  And while I know some of that was due to the appalling defense behind him, it is still not how an ace pitchers, especially against this bunch of Birds.

—We have maybe the greatest bullpen ever assembled.  No, we do not.

Our arson squad gave away the game today, unable to retire the Orioles' Sweet Jesus, who had more hits and more ribbies than I think our own catcher did all last year.  Again, the clanging mitts behind them didn't help, but Green's performance, in particular, was pathetic.

The hitting was exposed:  11 more guys left on base, making 21 in the first two games.

A truly bad sign:  Giancarlo Stanton taking "A-Rod Gulps"—sucking air like a drowning man—in his next-to-last at-bat.  

His last at-bat seemed to be a tribute to his last at-bat of 2018, whiffing on a 92-mph, hanging curve.  What makes me think that Giancarlo's curve in NYC is going to be one straight curve straight into the ground?

(When he's finally dealt away for lottery tix after the next 2-3 years of hitting .230, can we then please please please replace Coops with Derek Jeter?)

Awful day for El Matador, against pitchers he slugged last year.  And Sancho continues to look like crap with a bat in his hand.

A bad day for Coops and Zieg Hal.  Once again, this is a Yankees team so poorly put together that there was no one available to pinch-hit for a flailing Gardner in the ninth (speaking of people who should not be here).  Pathetic.

And then there was the fielding.

Voit looked even worse at first base than Bird did the game before.  Yes, Tulo had that encouraging home run and gunned down a runner at the plate.  But he was once again caught flat-footed on a play, this one Voit's ill-considered throw to second that he did not so much as move to corral.

Sancho did another good job of framing pitches for Mr. Magoo behind the plate.  But his bad throw to second on the Orioles' double-steal in the sixth was maybe THE key play in the loss.

It was, to start with, a throw to the wrong base.  He should have been trying to cut down the lead runner at third, of course, and if he had no shot there, he should have held onto the ball, in the latter innings of a one-run game.

But of course SOMEBODY should have been reminding everyone of the situation, checking the Orioles' leads, etc.

Hmm, let's think for a minute.  Who should that someone have been?

Yes, it was Ma Boone, who instead looked as sleepy and uninvolved as his players did on this pleasant, sunny spring afternoon.

He and his players should have all taken a nice, long walk in the park today instead of attempting to play baseball, a more complicated endeavor they clearly did not have the attention span or interest to undertake.