The threesome at third: The Yankees have maybe a month to sort out the infield

Last night, as the Death Star pleasured itself against Baltimore - (Note: After today, only seven games left against our generous, Showalter-less hosts) - a revelation burst from my YES-influence thought-sack: Come Oct., our 3B might just be Thairo Estrada.

Certainly, many predictions lie ahead. And you can't predict predictions. But when Ser Didi Gregorius returns next month - (a hopeful prediction) - he will create a three-way logjam at 3B by a trio of contestants worthy of the final weeks of The Voice. (It will remind us of last year's duel between Brandon "Migraines" Drury and the now-vanished Miguel Andujar.) Competition is good, unless Ryan Seacrest is nearby.

In recent weeks, Gio Urshela has become our rock at 3B, and he deserves our loyalty. Good grief, he's hitting .336. You don't bench a guy hitting .336. Of course, he's come to bat only 114 times, not enough to qualify among league leaders (if so, he'd be second in the AL.) And there's no sign of a slump. Over the last 30 days, he's hitting .355 - and over the last seven: .368. You could say he's heating up.

The problem? Urshela has never before hit like this. (Previous MLB peak: .233.) We cannot ignore the possibility that his stagecoach will revert to a pumpkin. August can be cruel to the stars of May. (If tomorrow, Urshela lapses into a 1-for-20 road slump, his average would still be .293.) We just don't know. You can't predict predictions.

But here's one: If Gio collapses, DJ "General Curtis" LeMahieu will be next man up, right? Right now, he's Reason No. 1 why Brian Cashman is 2019 MLB Executive of the Year. (Read it and weep, Cashman-haters.) It's hard to compare LeMahieu's glove with Urshela's; both are elite fielders. LeMahieu - currently third in the AL in hitting -  shows no sign of cooling. Over the last 30 days, he's at .355; over the last seven: .370. And like Gio, he's hit in the clutch.

But last night, when Thairo Estrada homered to put the Yankees ahead, it hit me: Why not him? At 23, Thairo has hit at every level in the minors - aside from last year, when he was hobbled by a bullet wound from a bank robbery; he was an innocent bystander. He has recovered from the kind of adversity few players ever experience. That suggests a character trait the Yankees would be ill-advised to ignore or trade away.

Of course, Estrada has a mere 38 at bats, thus far. He's hitting .316, (three HRs, though.) Like Urshela and LeMahieu, he's hot. Let's not anoint anybody with oil just yet. But if Gio fades - as we should expect - the answer might not necessarily be LeMahieu, who was signed to be our all-purpose IF. Close your eyes, and you could Estrada as our starting 3B in October. THAIRO! 

Other scattered thoughts:

Giancarlo Stanton has hurt himself... again. Now, it's a leg thing. We must remind ourselves that injuries are injuries, and you can't blame a player for being hurt. Also, Stanton played much of last season with a bum hamstring, because Aaron Judge was out, and the Yankees needed somebody. So let's give him that, and not question character. Okay... so, that said, the guy is a freakin' rubber band stretched to its limit and left in the sun. How can we ever have faith in him staying healthy? At any time, this guy can retweak a retweaked tweak. It will never change. 

I can't recall a pitcher being hit so hard, and still stay in a game, as CC Sabathia was in the fifth, as the Yankees seemed to put his personal quest for win No. 249 over the potential outcome. If Gardy hadn't thrown a guy out at the plate - our five-run lead would have been cut to one, and it's hard not to imagine that the next batter would have hit one to Delaware. Now, they tell us CC's knee was barking, and he might hit the Injured List. If this isn't a wake-up call for the need to sign Dallas Keuchel, I don't know what is. You know how I said upstairs that Cashman is Exec of the Year? Well, he can cement his award by getting Keuchel's name on the dotted line. (And I'd love to see Dallas face Houston in the playoffs; something tells me he'd administer a nice form of cruelty.)