THIS IS NOT A TEST. THIS IS AN EMERGENCY MESSAGE FROM THE NATIONAL YANKEE BROADCASTING SERVICE...
A YANKEE COLLAPSE WARNING IS NOW IN EFFECT FOR NEW YORK, CONNECTICUT, NEW JERSEY AND INHABITABLE PARTS OF PENNSYVANIA. SEEK SHELTER IMMEDIATELY TO AVOID BASEBALL-SIZED HAIL, WHICH IS NOT HAIL, BUT ACTUAL BASEBALLS, BECAUSE THE YANKEE BULLPEN HAS BEEN ACTIVATED...
I believe I speak for the entire Yankiverse in saying... Folks, it can happen here.
Okay, we sit nine games up in the loss column, with 49 left to play. A seismic meltdown is still unlikely, right? (PLEASE, NOD YES.) Because I don't feel so good. Not long ago, it looked flat-out impossible.
We could be watching, in YES Mo, the greatest Yankee meltdown in recorded history.
NO, you say, THIS CANNOT BE. The worst collapse - 2004, the Yankocalypse - happened nearly 20 years ago. That cataclysmic, five-day unraveling had long-term consequences. It reversed the magnetic polarity between Boston and New York, installing the Redsocks as the dominant team and turning the Yankees into a buttery, inept franchise that chokes on its own tongue, year after year.
And if the Yankees fall, what of the Republic? Any reputable historian will tell you that, in the natural order of American culture, the Yankees dominate their league. It's been that way for 100 years, with the few down periods linked to the cultural tumult - the Vietnam War (the Horace Clarke era), the banking crisis/first Iraq War (the Danny Tartabull era) and various Wall Street hiccups in October. Now... this? If the Yankees blow a 14-game lead, can our Republic survive?
Remember this, next time you are attacked for being a Yankee fan: We are all that stands between peace and chaos.
Last night, chaos won, 3-2. Listen...
1. Clay Holmes must be relieved of his closer duties. I can't look at him. The guy had a great run, April to July. Best in the game, April to July. But it's August. Last night, you could see it on his first pitch, straight to the backstop. If Rafael Devers didn't flail at balls in the dirt, Holmes wouldn't have recorded an out. Not one.
Who closes? Dunno. Obviously, they'll try Aroldis, but we know how quickly things can go south, once the flood waters start gushing from his cap brim. Do we have ANYBODY at Scranton, or did we trade them all for the guy with the bum foot? Whoever is down there, bring him up. This is a BREAK GLASS EMERGENCY. Think of this: Had Lou Trevino last night survived the 10th, Albert Abreu would have been the next pitcher out.
2. Gleyber Torres needs to sit for a week, or maybe September. Let DJ play 2B, and Miggy Andujar DH. Or something bigger. We have a rarity at Scranton - a top tier prospect who has been underhyped - named Oswaldo Cabrera - (great baseball name, by the way.) He's 23, switch hits, and plays infield. The reason you didn't hear much about him: He got off to a terrible start this year, then tweaked something and went down for a month. Right now, he's back and hitting (.365 this month.)
Yes, I recognize that I am merely flipping APBA cards, hoping for a miracle, and I don't know a damned thing about the potential holes in Oswaldo Cabrera's swing, but I ask you, in all sincerity, why the fuck not? It can't get worse than watching Gleyber strikeout or - worse -hitting infield fungos and yelling, "OK, EVERYBODY, LET'S GET TWO."
The Yankees have an offense of three - LeMahieu, Judge and Rizzo. After that, it's not YES. It's the Shudder Channel.
If Toronto hadn't lost three in a row, we could be looking at a six-game lead in the loss column. And make no mistake: By next week, we could be there. This is not a test. This is real. Get thee to a nunnery. And watch out for falling objects. It might be Clay Holmes, and he's pitching from Mar a Lago.
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26 comments:
Nothing to fear, we will have Stanton doing "baseball activities" any day now and then he will run the bases and we should see him in the dugout next homestand.... watching everyone else play.
Well, at least we have stockpiled all those great AAAA players in Scranton.
Just ignore infusing the lineup with any legitimate prospects being called up.
Chief Scout to George Armstong Cashman, "General there are a whole lot of Indians [Native Americans] down in that valley."
G.A. Cashman to Scout, "The analytics guys say that our soldiers have a much better exit velocity than they do, so....Charge!!!!."
Wait till the "Lou Gehrig" of our generation, Iron Mike Stanton comes back. I think 3 weeks ago he was 2 weeks out, so he'll be ready come October. Everyone knew that Johnny Holmes couldn't keep it up forever. And Gleyber day is right around the corner, Houston should be up 5 games by then. HOF Cashman oversaw the greatest playoff collapse and now maybe he'll oversee the greatest regular season collapse, but can Masters Bader & Beeter save the day?
Oh and Monty threw 6 more shut-out innings last night
I think people sometimes confuse Oswaldo Cabrera and Oswald Peraza. OP is considered the better prospect of the two, but OC forced his way into the conversation with a surprising 2021 campaign in which he hit 29 hrs. The knock on him has been his size, he weighs in at 145 lbs. soaking wet. I guess you have to be 200 + to play for these Yankees. IKF is taking a lot of heat, and while no one is more tired than I at seeing him ground out to SS and 3b several times a game (although he actually produced a well-struck fly ball last night) the obvious issue now is the bullpen. The media should be screaming at the feckless Boone demanding to know when Schmidt, Marinaccio, or (as Cashman gulps) Weissert will be brought up.
Meanwhile, the beat goes on…
La de da de de, la de da de dasay…
Yes, Monty becomes the first Card since 1966 to have two scoreless first appearances as a starter.
People come to NY and suck, leave NY and thrive, Why?
Is it just a modern cultural shift away form the emphasis on winning rather than participating?
NY expects you to win and that may be pressure at a level theses guys have not seen before.
Yes, there is always pressure for them to excel in order to make the mlb, but once they get a few years under their belt and start to make 700K or more a year, why get the extra pressure of actually winning.
So many places are just happy to support a mediocre product and the players make lifetime wealth for 5 years work.
The rare person, like Castillo flourishes in a pennant race, yes, but playing in laid-back Seattle is a tad easier than NYC.
Most become Gallo, Sonny G., Whitson.
I guess we will see how Montas does tonight.
I hope that I am wrong, butI don't think that we will see a WS Champ in NY in our lifetimes.
Sadly, Archie, I fear that you are right. Cashman has not only wrecked the team for this year, he has wrecked it for a generation to come, most likely. Assuming he is ever fired.
You're right, too, about players struggling in NYC these days. They often seem amazed at how much media there is in the clubhouse, or how intense the fans are. I wonder how they possibly would have coped back when there were 7—or 13!—working dailies in the immediate city alone.
But Monty, of course, actually performed pretty well in New York. Now, he is lights out in St. Louis. This implies, I think, another major problem we have noticed before, which is that the Yankees' training and coaching methods are for scheisse.
I know, I know: Throw strikes hard!
Loved Custer Cashman, Archie. And great point about "Iron Man" Celerino.
Stanton is fast closing in on his 250th missed game as a New York Yankee (241 and counting). He would probably be over 300, were it not for the Covid year. His signing was a disaster—as was that of Hicks, of Donaldson, of Ellsbury and Pavano back about a century ago.
And yes, Archie: Montas will be another disaster.
Anybody else think "DP. Game over" on Martinez's 600 hopper in the 9th. To the shortstop side of second. Of course your SS would be in the area, thinking game ending DP, proximity to bag an advantage, anything deep in the hole a tough turn anyway, and a single to left in Fenway rarely scores a runner from second. So, SS should play up middle-ish there. But IKF didn't get near the ball. Wasn't close. Either got a horrible read, has a terrible first step, or was irresponsibly deep in 5-6 hole. Just bad baseball.
Cashman and his lack of vision. He needs to go!
A small statistical correction to an excellent post, Peerless Leader:
If the Yankees team blows the division, it will have squandered not a 14-game lead, but a 15 1/2 game lead—which would be the all-time record and which, as a couple of us have mentioned, would mean that Cashman has presided over both the greatest regular-season and the greatest post-season meltdowns in major-league history.
And yet, he'll probably be rewarded with another big contract.
There are certain strata of American society today where you simply cannot fail. No matter how much you fail.
as I sit here drinking a super lovely cup of my above average morning coffee I am hopeful that this yankee PAIN will cease and desist today
So much to unpack...
1) I turned last night's game off in the ninth with a one run lead against Boston as soon as Holmes lost the first guy.
Let me repeat that. I, a lifetime Yankee fan, who spends a decent portion of his day, reading Yankee related news and opinion, and then several hours a day watching the games - Not to mention commenting and writing on this blog - TURNED A ONE RUN GAME VS. BOSTON OFF IN THE NINTH.
Because I knew they were going to lose and didn't want to see it.
2) If I were an acolyte of Maria Kondo I would toss this team out into the trash because they, DO NOT SPARK JOY. They do not spark any thing because they are lifeless.
3) Holmes needs to have "tweaked something" (wink). So he can take a week off and we can get Marinaccio back a little sooner.
4) Part of me (granted a small part) - hopes the Orioles take it all! Because that, combined with the Yankees inevitable collapse would make this one of the most amazing seasons of all time. It would be like 1969. Hey maybe they could beat the Mets.
Last...
5) Forget the division - is it possible that the Yankees won't even win the 12 more they need to have a winning record?
Doug - I share your PAAAAAAAAAAIN!
I actually feel a bit of sympathy for the Judge's and Nestor's of the bunch - giving their all - having big years whilst being part of the ship governed by fools.
Doug K., I'm not even conceding that they will win the 7 more to prove my prediction of 77 wins wrong!
You ever see the great, SCTV take-off on "The Towering Inferno"? Hilarious. Someone has built a 150-storey building. With a Hollywood studio on the 148th floor. And a nuclear plant on the 149th floor. And a cocktail lounge on the 150th floor.
And every now and then, someone—I think John Candy?—runs in and shouts, 'Hey maybe you guys didn't hear me before. But this is...A TOWERING INFERNO!'
I want to run around Yankee Stadium shouting, 'Hey you guys—this AN EPIC COLLAPSE!'
Hoss, can we book Cashman on Farm Film Report/ Celebrity Blow Up? Bet he’d blow up good, blow up REAL good!
This is the kind of systemic collapse that Cashman does so well. The important things just aren't there, including good field leadership, quality trainers, lineup depth and backup talent. And what galls me the most is that he always lays the blame somewhere else.
THE BUCK NEVER STOPS at Brian's desk. For that and other reasons, I have zero respect for him.
Why Why Why leave in Holmes? Why why why is Abreu here and Montgomery there? Why why why trade for a disabled oufielder. Why why why was Stanton all daisies and dashing in LA and the Peril of Achilles in NY?
This waste of a historic season by Judge is criminal.
The spiteful exile of Sanchez brought us Donaldson who is worse in the clutch than Sanchez is.
Donaldson, Hicks, Gleybar, IKF- are you kidding me? A Murder Me Row. Please, just put me down now.
Aaaaaaaaaaak
Doug, I too could not bring myself to watch the bottom of the 9th. I knew they’d blow it badly, as bad as a $20 hooker behind an I-10 truck stop.
BTR999, can you please paint a more detailed picture of your metaphor? please fill in the blanks a bit...
or did I mean "analogy?"
either way, what's going on at that truck stop?
Cashman would not bring up Joe DiMaggio or Mickey Mantle. Much less admit that Torres ( and Hicks ) are killing us. He will bring Cabrera up in the September call up and say, " see, I did it."
Cashman is a death knell. Only the death keeps being put away under a cloud.Maybe not this year.
LOVE "Murder Me Row," Yankee Daddy!
Oh, and 999: Yeah, he'd blow up REAL GOOD!
The ship be sinkin'!
I think most of us saw this fiasco coming. It happens almost every year. Usually starts around the middle to end of June.
I looked back at the scoreboard calendar to try to see when the Yankee Titanic struck the iceberg. I've identified three key losses: June 19 against the Blue Jays; July 3 against the Guardians; and July 21 double loss against the ASS-stros.
June 19: we were riding high, having won two against the Jays, looking to sweep. We had a 6-2 lead in the 5th and an 8-3 lead in the 6th. Boone left Severino in too long and Miguel Castro imploded. Then Wandy Peralta imploded. All of a sudden, we trailed 10-8. The game ended 10-9. A winnable game, thrown away with stupid managing and poor relief pitching.
July 3: Coming off a doubleheader sweep of the Guardians on July 2, looking to sweep the series. Triston McKenzie holds the Yankees to one hit in 7 innings as the Guardians win 2-0. Notably, Judge sat on the bench until late in the game, even though there was an off day the following day. I think he pinch hit.
July 21: The ASS-stros sweep a doubleheader from the Yankees, 3-2 and 7-5. By this time, we knew the Yankees were in trouble.
I think the "iceberg, dead ahead", moment was June 19. We blew one against the Jays, and it seems that it was the harbinger of things to come: the bullpen meltdowns; the insistence on keeping lousy relievers on the roster; the insistence on using those lousy relievers; the parade of short relievers, instead of using one long reliever; throwing games away like used toilet paper; sitting Judge on days immediately preceding an off day; keeping starters in too long, perhaps because they hadn't hit their pitch count yet; the inability to beat the ASS-stros.
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