Around 9 p.m. last night, the word "Tauchman" began trending on Twitter. It wasn't pretty. (A cautionary note: The following contains words and images of fan brutality that some viewers may find troubling.)
Trust me: These are some of the nicer tweets. Around 9 p.m., Mike Tauchman was 0-3 with three Ks, on his way to a withering 0-4, lowering his average to .250. Between him and Brett Gardner - the Yankees' lefty OF options this year are 32 for 151, a paltry .212. Tauchman has yet to hit a home run. Our next trending handle on Twitter might be "Train wreck."
Coupled with Brett Gardy, who hasn't hit a pat of butter, the Yankees cannot protect themselves against RH starters, which comprise about 80 percent of the MLB pitching population.
Last night was tortuous in so many ways, it's hard to list them.
1. We were blown out from the first inning on, with little hope against Charlie Morton, a known Yankee death trap.
2. We might need to ditch our fantasy that Jordan Montgomery is a front-line starter. Last night, giving up 4 runs in two-thirds of an inning, he looked on the verge of collapse.
3. Mike Brossard - infamously buzzed the previous night - bashed two HRs, showboating on the base paths, while we stewed in El Chapo's sweat. Talk about revenge. That was ugly.
4. Tampa showed that the Yankees are not in their league. Message received.
5. Then there is Tauchman...
Last year, he looked like the second coming of Paul O'Neill. Last night, he couldn't hit meatballs bisecting the plate. On Aug. 16, Tauchman was hitting .357. Ever since, he's plummeted like a bus off a cliff.
And the cavalry here is suspect. Aaron Judge remains probably two weeks away. Considering how quickly he re-injured himself, he's probably out until mid-to-late Sept. 19. Meanwhile, Giancarlo Stanton is a punch line. If he returns this season, he'll have to DH. It would be crazy to play him in the OF. That kills a lot of flexibility.
Make no mistake: This team could finish out of the playoffs.
Last night, a Redsock fan mocked me on Zoom, saying he hopes the Yankees win in 2020, because the season will carry an asterisk and never truly matter. This is how bad it's getting: I was mocked by a Redsock fan. Worse: In response, I assured him the Yankees will win nothing in this fucked-up season. Yeesh. What hath God wrought?
Final note: Another word began trending last night on Twitter...
I cannot leave without remembering the great Tom Seaver, whose final days in baseball came in the WPIX broadcast booth. In the early 1990s, when the Yankees were terrible, our "Poetry of Phil Rizzuto" appeared weekly in The Village Voice. Often, in a playful way, Seaver would tease poems from The Scooter, or mention the "pure poetry" of his words. I always had the feeling that Tom knew what we were doing. Also, the two loved each other; you could sense it. After Phil's legendary friendship with Bill White, I'd say his times with Seaver were next on the list. (He also loved Bobby Murcer, as we all did.)
Seaver and - later - Ken Singleton proved that great Yankee announcers don't always need to have been great Yankees. In fact, I believe the YES team would be well served to add to its ranks one of our greatest nemeses - drum roll, please, and no booing - Pedro Martinez.
Yeah. Pedro. I am not kidding. He is funny. He is personable, rich with tales to tell. Best of all, in the end, like all announcers, he would come to root for the team that is paying his bills. He would be a Yankee homer. It would wreck Redsock fans - like the one who mocked me last night - in a way that arguing with them cannot. Just a thought.
Dear Mr. Steinbrenner, hire Pedro Martinez for YES.
And Rest in Peace, Tom Terrific. Thank you for the memories.
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15 comments:
R.I.P. Tom Terrific, you were terrific in every way, and you were the only real terrific. The other guy who tried to steal your nickname, who shall go nameless here, was just an imposter, in more ways than one.
Re. Pedro Martinez I would love to see Pedro as a Yankee broadcaster. Anyone who was nuts enough to say the Yankees were his daddy deserves a chance.
Yeah, the Yankees are getting tortured by good right handed pitching. When your best lefty hitters are Gardner & Tauchman, that's not too good. Brain Cashman is probably rationalizing it with some inappropriate truism like "good pitching stops good hitting" and lefty righty doesn't matter in today's game. This is the kind of pitching we would face if we made the playoffs, so how long would our playoff run last? The pathetic moron lives in an alternate universe and needs to fired ASAP.
And yeah, it sure looks like we won't make the playoffs in this coronavirus year. The Orioles have been getting better. I suspect that they won't be the pushovers that they were when we last played them. They're only 4 games behind us!
The Hammer of God
Goodbye Tom Terrific - the one and only.
As for the Yankees, you can’t expect things you buy at goodwill to last forever. There are too many spare parts serving as the real thing and they just don’t hold up long term. The league eventually gets wise to them. Which is why they were spare parts to begin with. This “next man up” idea is wearing thin.
Call me a heretic, but Aaron Judge should be dumped. The guy is terrific, but he can’t stay on the field long enough to be a force. The fantasy we had of the Two Towers is just that - a fantasy. He’ll cost way too much in his arb year even as a regular on the IL, and we can only hope Brain has the good sense (what am I thinking?) to not sign him to a long-term deal once he’s FA eligible.
Another thought: the injury thing is a recurring theme with this roster, year-in and year-out, and can’t be dumped in the lap of Matt Blake - he was hired before ST.
I have no desire to see the Yankees swept in a 3-game playoff. Not making the playoffs might serve to jettison this underwhelming organizational worship of analytics, a creed that believes righty-lefty matchups don’t matter anymore. Let non-baseball people run your organization and this is the result: mediocrity.
BRING BACK ANDUJAR AND STICK HIM AT THIRD! GIVE THE KID HIS AT-BATS.
Regrets to Urshela. - there’s no good reason he can’t be a shortstop. The analytics people will have us believe a third baseman can play left without a problem, so...
A few things...
1) There is a reason that a lot of our guys are, as David Cone would say, "Reverting to the mean." Tauchman is probably a pumpkin and it's midnight. Gardy should have been gone two years ago. The talent just isn't there. I've been done with Ford for a while. Someone said give the AB's to AnDUjar. Yes!
2) Our "Star laden" team is missing a third of it's stars.
3) Tampa's manager fires them up. Boone's style is designed for a different type of club. The one he thought he would have, where the talent level was so high all you had to do was keep them in the right direction. We lack scrappers. And, we lack star talent, so we lose!
4) SCHMIDT!!!!!!!
Doug K. (Somewhere in Oregon where the air is clear)
Richie,
We were writing at the same time and said similar things. I agree with you.
Also, I forgot to say RIP Tom Seaver. This is a stupid thing to write but, I was once playing a baseball sim and I took over the Yankees in 1965 and traded a bunch of good players to pry Seaver from the Mets. By the time his career was over he won 545 games.
Doug K.
This club simply sucks, needs a major overhaul in the worst way. Besides two starting pitchers, we obviously need 3-4 lefty hitters. That's practically a whole new team. And first things first, a new GM.
The Hammer of God
@RichieAllen1964 I think you're right about Aaron Judge. Both you and Hoss were right. Unfortunately, Judge is an injury magnet. Durability is a very big part of the game. You can't help the team if you're never on the field.
It looks to me that this winter we should negotiate with Stanton to buy him out. It will be next to impossible to trade him.
Then trade Judge, Sanchez, and Hicks. If Hicks is impossible to trade, then we'll have to either keep him or buy him out as well. Drop Gardner and Tauchman. Frazier will play right and Andujar will either DH or play left. Play Estevan Florial in CF.
Notice how much dead wood we have to buy out. Brain Cashman, despite all his dumpster diving, has led us to financial disaster.
The Hammer of God
Hammer,
If DJ leaves at the end of the season we will have gone from a team that won 100+ games for the last two years to a shell of a team.
As you said, no starting pitching and you have a starting OF of three "kids" because Stanton,Judge,and Hicks can't give us 160 games between them.
Sigh.
Doug K.
Add to that no second baseman (or shortstop )depending on where Gleyber lands.
Amen, JimmyEHD. I have the cynical idea that they simply liked Gardner because he hits a home run or walks. Even though he's a little guy who's not really a "home run hitter", he fits in their stupid scheme of moneyball metrics, BB/SO/HR. Gardner was a decent player but he should have been traded a long time ago.
The Hammer of God
The key is Kratz. Pitchers have pitched real well with him cooperating. Just watch Deivi tomorrow, and keep your fingers crossed, kratzed.
Doug K., I started to agree with you on all points, but now I'll say that David Cone, while he's given a stat-enthusiast pass, in general, is just parroting a frequent observation they use selectively to satisfy their need for confirmation. Outliers abound, yet ignored when you're looking for a majority. Tauchman played with the zeal of a slighted player who knew he could do more, and here he was with the gd Yankees. Well, the league figured out a weakness, and he may have a torn lat or something from his heroics, but he's not proving a mean reversion, he's going through a test that ...I think they should check him out good, he might want to play through it. Or, yes, they may have found that he can't hit a fastball, but it shouldn't take a whole season to find he hunts a single pitch.
And Wade has had his turn, let AndUhar rediscover his flexibility at DH.
Doug, ps, Torres has completely lost his angelic glow as a shortstop, thus at the plate, too. But, I would hope to resurrect the angel of a quick-thinking, clever tagger, second baseman, rather than give up on him - were you saying?
and Duque, I second the motion for Pedro. Love to hear him and Coney, I think.
Hammer, Jimmy, I ALWAYS thought Gardner would have been best as a fourth outfielder type. Because when they played him too much, he ALWAYS slumped or broke down. Now he's just old.
With Tauchman, it may be that he's hurt—something that is less and less an excuse and more of an indictment of the Yankees these days—but then I looked at his lifetime stats and saw zero home runs over 52 games for Colorado. Hmmm. It may well be they just talk this long to figure him out.
But of course, as usual, there is nobody to help him get going again. No instruction, no medical care worthy of the name.
Someday, I am going to piss that on Brain Cashman's tombstone.
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