Wanna shut down the Yankees? Use an "opener" and four situational righties

Karns, Yacabonis, Castro, Givens, Wright... goodnight. 

Like a vegan first perusing the menu at Chick Filet, so did the Yankees yesterday first glimpse what awaits them in 2019: Junkyard righties, straight from Triple A, whose specialty is throwing side-arm heat and/or junk to RH batters who have never seen them before. All afternoon, they came and went - one after another, never seeing the same batter twice - shutting down a woefully unbalanced Yankee attack.

For reasons that I fear lurk in someone's contract, Greg Bird didn't start yesterday, leaving the Yankee ship tilted disastrously to the starboard. Our lone lefty hitter, Brett Gardner, went 0-5 with a K, finishing with a soft liner to center that was hailed by YES apologists like the shot Vic Wertz once blasted to Willie. It came in the ninth, when the Yankees had their first - and brief - taste of a lefty.

The Yankees spent the month of March denying they have a right-handed problem. Great hitting always prevails, they said. But yesterday, our great hitters looked off-balance and stumbling against pitchers who would struggle in Triple A, if they faced LH bats. Without the switch-hitting Aaron Hicks - (did we dream him?) - and Bird, the Yankees sent out eight RH batters. And if Gardy flounders again - he failed to crack .230 last year - his replacement could be Clint Frazier, making us a complete RH set. This for a franchise that plays in a park carved out for Roger and Reggie, for Graig and George Herman, for even the Grandyman and Sir Didi.

So, we lost to Baltimore. Big deal? Nope. It's comical to watch fans over-react to losses in April. The sky is always falling, the screams are always hysterical, and by June, all the terror is forgotten. Still, though, around October 1, you can look back and count the games that could have made a difference. And April always looms in those calculations.

So, without hesitation, I say this: If the Yankees start 2019 by losing 2 out of 3 to this sad Baltimore team - at home, no less - we will look back on this series as testament to the crapola we were fed all winter. The Yankees have a problem: They have a lineup without lefties; (Bird might not be the answer.) Teams will exploit this weakness. Yesterday's score meant nothing. But those names that shut us down - Karns, Yacabonis, Castro, Givens, Wright - they mean everything.