No more waiting, let's kill the witch

This morning, I feel like one of those hikers in The Blair Witch Project. For uncountable days, we've plodded through the forest, stalked by something we cannot fathom, and here were are: Back at the fallen tree we saw last week. We're lost, and it's now dawning on us: We may never escape these woods.

Thus far, 2019 - overall, a great Yankee year - has felt like a decade in an art house horror movie. Did we really open with Troy Tulowitzky at SS? Did we really lose an opening series to Baltimore? Did Jacoby Ellsbury ever don a uniform? How many do-or-die series did we play against mighty Boston, or angry Tampa, or wild Oakland, or every team in captivity whose fundamental cellular structure includes a Yankee-hatred strand of DNA? Did we really play games in London? How many years have we lingered here, as the league's second best team, a million miles below the incredible, awesome, unbeatable Astros - a franchise built via a dynasty of tanking.

March should feel like yesterday, but I barely recall it. When the Death Star - remember when Cashman coined that phrase? - assembled in Tampa, we knelt cravenly in the shadow of the world champion Redsocks, whose fans - like the Astros, Cubs and Royals before them - gushed about a looming series of rings. So self-assured was the Boston brain trust that it didn't bother to sign a closer: They would show the world that bullpen stoppers were like tonsils, and nobody would miss them. Then came waves of Yankee injuries, defying all laws of math and juju, each bizarre tweak raising a dark new dread. We we found redemption in the "Next Man Up" players from nowhere, like Luke Voit, Mike Tauchman, Gio Urshela and Cameron Maybin. Eventually, even the replacements had to be replaced. When we look at 2020 - and soon, that may be our only escape from this forest - we'll see 20 players fighting over nine positions, a logjam that will require trades of people we've come to love. The future - for all its blessings - looks dark with deals. 

But here we are, where we were always fated to be. This is baseball's version of Alabama v. Clemson, of Golden State v. LeBron, of Ronan Farrow v. Matt Lauer.  Last night, we watched Gerrit Cole lead Houston to our doorstep. The good news is that he threw 107 pitches. All other news is bad. As it now stands, he'll face us in Yankee Stadium, where we must sweep them, and then - if it exists - he'll pitch Game Seven on reduced rest. Houston's bullpen basically took the week off. Four relievers shut the door on Tampa - no runs - so if we're looking for Houston's underbelly, well, I don't see one. If they score four runs early, as they did last night, the game will basically be over... as it was last night. 

The Yankees have personal histories with the three Astros starters. Cole was our first round pick in 2008; a supposed Yankee fan, he chose UCLA instead. Zack Grienke has always been viewed as a bad fit for NYC, and he famously put the Yankees on his no-trade list this summer, reducing the price Houston would have to pay. Justin Verlander has killed us for years, in multiple uniforms. Four times he has faced us in the post-season, his teams always winning. The most recent battle, the 2017 ALCS, he was named MVP. 

So, here it is, everybody. We are hiking the forest, and the landscape sure looks familiar. One of these nights, we will find an old house. We will run screaming into the basement, and we will confront whatever the hell it is that has bewitched us for the last 10 years. But we are not college students on a weekend jaunt. We are the New York Yankees. We may know how this movie ends, but all those Blair Witch sequels were never even worth watching on DVD. It's up to us to write a new one. It's time to march out of the woods.