Wednesday, September 23, 2020

If Minnesota chases down the White Sox, the Yankees can confront their Great Mistakes of this new millennium.

Ladies and gentlemen, please direct your attention to the center-placed graphic located just below this lede, in the main IT IS HIGH concourse: 


Thank you.

As you see, the Death Star remains comfortably pillowed into 2nd place in the AL East, four games above the Buffalo Devil Jays with five remaining in this, the tiniest of seasons, which will lead to the longest set of playoffs ever.

For weeks now, the Yankees have diligently chased Minnesota for the No. 4 seed and home field advantage in the dazzlingly truncated first round. If the season ended today, we'd fall short by one measly game. Next Tuesday, while the presidential candidates debate, they'd be flying to the cold city of Jesse Ventura, Vince Vaughn and George Floyd, preparing for a three-game set.

But last night, the Chicago White Sox said, "Not so fast." The Sox have spent September atop the AL Central, but the dingy is leaking with one oar is in the water. They have blown three straight, while the Twinkies have won three. Minnesota is now one game behind Chicago. The Twins have four remaining, one with the tanking Tigers and three with the .500 Reds. Meanwhile, the White Sox must play two against the streaking Indians (three wins in a row) and three against the crosstown Cubs, a brutal end to their love-boat season. 

For weeks, I've gone Chicken Little about the Yankees facing Minnesota, our traditional sex toy, in October. For years, we've owned the Twins in the post-season. As we learned the hard way in 2004, these dominatrix relationships don't last forever. You cannot continually beat a good team, and the 2020 Twins are just that. If we face Minnesota in the best-of-three, be afraid. Be very afraid. They might have figured out a safe word. Killebrew? 

But wait, what's this... an escape porthole? If the White Sox continue to stumble, they will fall into second, and - holy crap - they become our first round opponent. And here's another one: If we can run the table on these last five games, we could steal home field advantage - forcing the Sox to learn the nuances of a stadium they haven't seen all year. Have you ever played LF in Yankee Stadium during the sunsets of October? Neither have the White Sox. 

Playing Chicago also would bring the Yankees face-to-face with their original sin of this millennium: Yoan Moncada. Every historical timeline over the last decade pivots on our cheap-ass refusal to outbid Boston for Moncada, who came from Cuba as one of the game's top prospects. Back then, we didn't think of Hal Steinbrenner as "Food Stamps." We just assumed - as everybody in MLB did - that the Son of George would fork over the cash and get out of the way. Instead, he hid under the bed, clutching his purse, while the Redsocks rebuilt their organization. They eventually converted Moncada into Chris Sale, who won a World Series and helped kill our chances in recent years.

In a perfectly wicked world, I would now toss out MVP-level stats for Moncada, prosecuting Hal with the righteous vengeance of a Fox News host. But Moncada's numbers this year are crapola - .221 with 5 HRs. (Last year, .315 with 25 HRs.) For now, we're better off with Gio Urshela (.289 with 6 HRs). Also, let's face it: Chris Sale is out until next June. This could be our chance to finally put the disaster of Moncada behind us.

One other Great Past Mistake we might also face: Dallas Keuchel has returned from the IL in time for the playoffs. Last July, he was ours for the taking - a free agent with no draft-pick baggage - if Hal's fanny-pack was ready. Who knows how Keuchel would have fared in the post-season against his old team, the cheating Astros, who had cut him loose rather than pay the money? Had he been a Yankee, might Keuchel have warned us about Houston's love of CF cameras? Might he have thrown, say, a shutout? 

Well, we can put all this behind us. If we have a choice, the answer is clear: Bring on the White Sox.

6 comments:

  1. With a starting staff of Cole, Tanaka, Happ, and Keuchel, I would have made us even money against anybody, even the TB Rays and the Dodgers.

    But that's Cashman's Yankees. For want of a nail, the battle is lost over and over again.

    ReplyDelete
  2. White Sox would give us even more problems than the Twinkies, IMO. They have a boatload of hitters who feast off our pitching. They have a guy, Giolito or something or other, who we couldn't hit in our dreams. Keuchel used to give us fits, I don't know if that will continue. I don't feel too eager to find out. Either way, it's pick your poison. Anyone can win 2 out of 3, for sure. I don't feel confident about our chances against either team. If I had to make a prediction, I'd say we're getting bombed out of the first round.

    The Hammer of God

    ReplyDelete
  3. It's a good thing we have all these pitchers clogging up the roster. Yes, sir, they're really worth the space.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I can't agree with this article more...but let's not forget to get rid of Mr. Rogers Boone and get a real manager. Oh ... I forgot, a REAL manager won't wear the Cashman puppet strings. Billllly ... come back to us ... if only.

    ReplyDelete
  5. HAVE YOU LOST YOUR HARD EARNED FUNDS TO THE WRONG PEOPLE?
    MEET THE PROFESSIONAL HACKERS FOR HIRE TODAY.
    📁 Hiring a professional hacker has been one of the world's most technical valued navigating information.
    Regarding:
    •Recovery Of Lost Funds,
    •Mobile Phone Hack.(Catching A Cheating Spouse).
    •Credit Score Upgrade,
    •HACK.
    leroysteckler@gmail.com
    High prolific information and Priviledges comes rare as it's been understood that what people do not see, they will never know. The affirmative ability to convey a profitable information Systematically is the majoy factor to success.
    Welcome to the Global KOS hacking agency where every request on hacking related issues are fixed within a short period of time.
    When you wonder “which hacking company should I hire, the first aspect that should concern you is Sincerity. Secondly, Rapid response. Clearly, you want to embark for services that povides swift response, With our astonishing Hackers, you will be glad to find out that our services Implies precision and action.
    This post is definitely for those who are willing to turn their lives around for the better, either financial-wise, relationship-wise or businesses.
    The manual Operation of this hackers is to potentially deploy a distinguished hacking techniques to penetrating computers.
    If your shoe fits in any of the services below, you will be assigned to a designated professional hacker who is systematically known for operating on a dark web V-link protocol.
    Providing value added services to clients as a hacker has been our sustaining goal.
    Are you faced with cyber challenges like
    💰Recovery of lost funds:✅(BITCOIN INVESTMENTS, BINARY OPTIONS, LOAN AND TRADING FOREX WITH FORGERY BROKERS.) 🖥️I would try my possible best to shortly explain this in particular.
    This shocking study points to one harsh reality we all face today. It saddens our mind when client expresses annoyance or dissatisfaction of unethical behaviours of scammers. We have striven to make tenacious efforts to help those who are victims of this flees get off their traumatic feeling of loss. The cyber security technique used to retrieving back the victims stolen funds is the application of a diverse intercall XX breacher software enables you track the data location of a scammer. Extracting every informations on the con database. Every information required by the Global KOS would be used to tracking every transaction, time and location of the scammer. This is acheived using the systematic courier tracking base method•
    However, there are secret cyber infiltrators called brokers and doom. The particular system used by this scammers permeates them to manupulate targets digital trading system or monetary fund based accounts. Strictly using a dark web rob to diverting successful trades into a negative outcome. This process bends to thier advantage while investors results to losing massive amount of money. An act of gaining access to an organization or databased system to cause damages. We have worked so hard to ensure our services gives you a 100% trading success to recover all your losses•
    📲 HACKING A MOBILE PHONE:.✅ Do you think you are being cheated on? Curious to know what your lover is up to online? This type of hack helps you track every movement of your cheater as we are bent on helping you gain full remote access into the cheater's mobile phone using a Trojan breach cracking system to penetrate their social media platforms like Facebook, whatsapp, snapchat etc.
    The company is large enough to provide comprehensive range of services such as•
    • Email hacks📲
    • Hacking of websites.📲
    • Uber free payment hacks.📲
    Our strength is based on the ability to help fix cyber problems by bringing together active cyber hacking professionals in the GlobalkOS to work with.
    Contact:
    ✉️Email: theglobalkos@gmail.com
    Leroysteckler@gmail.com
    ®Global KOS™
    2020.

    ReplyDelete

  6. I really want the world to know about this great man who brought back happiness into my life again after my husband left me and the kids 3 years ago for another women online when i contacted Dr Believe he cast a love spell for me within 48 hours my ex husband start calling me and begging for forgiveness for everything that have happened between us. I was so happy to have my family back together with love again here is the email of Dr Believe via believelovespelltemple@gmail.com a man with the great powers you can also call him or add him on Whats-app: +2348156148821
    God bless you
    I am very grateful for your help in my marriage.

    ReplyDelete

Members of the blog can comment. To receive an e-mailed invitation, write to johnandsuzyn@gmail.com. And check spam if it doesn't show up. (Google account required.)

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.