Welcome to The Abyss: The darkest days in the darkest year... and, damn, it's a Stygian place

Well, nobody was ever going to peg 2020 for a delightful, Jimmy Fallon/Drew Barrymore romp. There's the pandemic, the death toll, the shutdown, the riots, the bread lines, the wild fires and now the hurricanes... Calgon Bath Oil Beads, take me away! As years go, 2020 is a turd. Yesterday, the Yankees joined the shit show and, frankly, they made losing look easy. 

Over 14 innings - the modern twin bill - I never once could shed the stark certainty that Atlanta would win. Scores didn't matter. You could feel it. The Yankees were destined to lose both games, and the only real question was whether we'd suffer a no-hitter. 

Truth be told, I didn't think Mean Chad Green would blow game two. (You can't predict baseball, Ivanka.) I figured that honor of Goat would go to Aroldis Chapman, who hasn't pitched since the political oil cans started bellowing at us. Anyone who has followed El Chapo's ongoing Yankeeography knows that he will return in a storm surge of sweat, walks and wild pitches. In this deluge, he is capable of blowing any lead. Our next brutal, out-of-body loss - surely against the Mets this weekend - will feature a hideous mental snapshot of The Water Cannon bursting with bodily fluids, as the winning run crosses the plate. Mark these words: The worst is yet to come.

Today, the Yankees possess the sixth best record in the AL. If the playoffs began this weekend, they would face the White Sox in a best of three series in Chicago. That would mean Lucas Giolito in game one. 

Fortunately, the Yankees are fading at such a rate that they will face the top-seeded As or miss the post-season altogether. See, everybody? I'm not all gloom and doom!

It's becoming almost impossible to imagine the 2020 Yankees winning anything substantial. The death of this team is its inability to score without the home run. We have a collection of free swingers that would make Becki Falwell flinch. They never modify their approach. They never go to the opposite field. They cannot bunt, probably because they never practice it. They do not move base runners. They cannot react to an over-shift - again, because they surely never practice it. And in the case of their star player, Aaron Judge, they represent a collection of athletes so tightly wound that they cannot stay on the field.

No horror show account of 2020 can be complete without mentioning Judge. The crowning achievement of yesterday's debacle - the worst Yankee day of 2020, thus far - was Judge's five-inning appearance, before tweaking a gonad while running to second base. The Yankees say he might go back on the IL. Why, why, why would we expect anything less?

Maybe I'm over-reacting. But right now, it wouldn't bother me if the Yankees, at this weekend's trade deadline, pulled a Mookie Betts. Some team with an actual shot might cough up a prospect or two for Judge, or - even better - take Giancarlo Stanton and his Ruthian contract off our hands. A week ago, such talk would be blaspheme. Now, why not? Does anyone feel that this team, this organization, is moving in the right direction? If we're going to flounder, let's do it with Cliff Frazier, Miguel Andujar, Clarke Schmidt and Deivi Garcia. Let's see what happens. If we fail, at least 2020 will end in September, rather than October. 

Sooner the better. Calgon, where are you?