Tonight, the Yankees need to see Giancarlo and Gary

Fans don't experience "slumps." We undergo "bad days" that sometimes lead to a "bad week," but neither is generally tied to how we're swinging our bat. Some shittiness happens - a misplaced wallet or a flat tire - leading to a lousy, miserable, rotten, stinko few days. But it's as if you fell into a slump. It's just life. It's China Town, Jake.

Ballplayers, however, fall into slumps. They start lunging. They start flailing. They start overthinking. In a given year, it's a certainty that they will slide into the Stygian abyss of at least one 0-for-16. The slump can be self-generating, the result of too much awareness. If Rene Descartes had been a baseball fan, he would have written, "I think, therefore I slump." 

In the post-season's first two games, Giancarlo Stanton and Gary Sanchez are a combined 0-8 with one run, one RBI and four strike outs. Their contributions have come in walks: Six of them. Normally, two games aren't enough to raise concern. But Stanton and Sanchez are back from tweaks, and neither has shown a spark of his former self. 

If they go 0-for-tonight, the "s-word" might get uttered. 

I donno what Aaron Boone can do here. Nothing, probably. A dirty little secret of the 2019 Yankees is that Austin Romine became the best backup catcher in baseball, and the Yankees lose almost nothing when Gary is hurt. (Over a long haul, Romine breaks down, but in short spurts, he's great.) It's also true that Stanton remains a dumpster fire in left field, an impersonation of Rudy Giuliani on any ball hit his way, while Cameron Maybin brings defense, speed and situational hitting to the lineup. In both cases, the Yanks might be a better team by playing the replacements - a fitting moral to 2019, wouldn't you say?

Alas, it cannot happen. We know the reality of Boone's options: He cannot bench either Sanchez or Stanton, not yet anyway. In NY, you can't have a star on the bench, brooding in front of the cameras, with the Gammonites salivating over post-game interviews. If their "slumps" extend deep into the Houston series - assuming we get to that series - there will come a desperate moment when Boone drops the bomb. It will probably be too late, after Stanton has blown a critical fly ball, or Sanchez has secured his second golden sombrero. By then, it probably won't matter. Games three, four and five will happen in NY. It's easy to imagine the cascade of boos as either of them marches back to the dugout. We've been there. We're heard it. It's the kind of wretchedness that puts a blemish on an entire season. You go 162 wonderful games, and an in the end, all you remember is that the Grandyman couldn't.  

The message here? We've been here before. We're on a predestined course, and once it becomes crystal clear, nothing we do can change it. Tonight, it sure would be wonderful if Stanton and Sanchez break the ice jam of their .000 batting averages. An infield hit (like the one Stanton just missed in game one) or a blast (like the foul ball Sanchez hit in game two) could do the trick. If Stanton and Sanchez start hitting, we can win this October. But with two massive holes in the center of our batting order, nope - it will only get worse. For now, everybody is contributing, and nobody is saying the s-word. A bloop and a blast, that could do it. A seeing-eye grounder, a roller down the line, anything... let's hope.