Yesterday's biggest winner in London: The Tampa Bay Rays

I watched and listened to most of yesterday's game. At times, I turned it off, figuring the Yankees had won a cruel, Little League-style blowout, only to then learn that - incredibly - the outcome was still in doubt. All I wanted was for the damn thing to end, for a halt to the madness, for someone to put the rabid dog down and cease its inhumane suffering. Okay, it was fun, in a roller-derby sort of way. It certainly was exciting, as any slow-motion train wreck will be. Over all, it was an abomination, a crime against nature.

Dear MLB, next year, please, please, please... send somebody else. 

Yesterday, MLB performed lab rat experiments on its two marquee franchises, with a nearly five-hour pinball contest that rivaled the All-Star Game for incoherence. Both teams may have lost a star player. Practically every inning brought a new pitcher. The Fox announcers gabbed with CC Sabathia for 20 minutes during one nearly endless half-inning. Many starting players were gone by the seventh, and had Boston not replaced Rafael Devers at 3B, he surely would have hit a grand slam to tie the game. Close your eyes, and imagine the monstrocity going into extra innings. Can we, as mere humans, fully conceive of the damage to the pitching staffs? Dear God, what if today's game is like yesterday? Will we have anyone left to pitch against the Mets?

Meanwhile, back on Earth, Tampa beat Texas 5-2 yesterday in the dim, quiet, nearly empty confines of their domed stadium. The Rays unveiled another stud pitcher, he threw six perfect innings, and it once again raises the existential question: If a tree falls in Tropicana Field, does anybody hear it? 

One effect of this weekend's splash in London was to give people the false impression that the AL East is a two-team race, the Yanks and Redsocks. Boston is now 10 games behind and, unless the Yankees completely collapse, playing for the wild card. But Tampa is only down seven, and there's a lot of football left to play. One thing we learned yesterday: 

These games overseas are fucking weird, and nobody emerges unscathed. My guess is that somebody will get hurt today on that wicked turf. If I were Aaron Boone, I'd call for a transatlantic concord red-eye flight, fill it with Scranton Railriders and settle for a split by playing the scrubs. 

Please, MLB, next year, please... find another pigeon.