Dear Tampa Bay Rays,
At times, this crazed, chaotic world calls upon each of us - as sentient human beings - to do the right thing, even though it may seem cruel at the time.
This is your time. You have been called.
Finish it. Today.
End our suffering.
Make it quick. Make it decisive. Make it as painless as possible.
Kick our asses. Kick them all the way to Sarasota. Then kick them across the Tamiami Trail, to Fort Whatever, and then kick them out to sea, kick them all the way to that hurricane in the North Atlantic, and boot them so hard that we never see this sorry mess again.
Bring the broom. Bring the Roomba. Spray the water coolers. Disinfect the disinfectants. Leave no soap in the dispensers. Sweep the dugouts clean - don't forget to look under the benches - and throw everything out with the red tide. Sweep.
Put this Yankee shit show out of its misery.
In the meantime, this we know:
1. Bend It Benintendi's done. They aren't saying it. They aren't saying otherwise. Too bad. We were just getting to know the guy. Now, forget him. He's a Lance Berkman, a guy off the street. Were LF an Agatha Christie novel, Miguel Andujar would turn out to be the killer, driven insane by the front office. Isn't it weird how everybody who bypasses Miggy - Gallo, Locastro, Benni, et al - disappears. Estevan Florial better watch out.
2. Maybe it's impending fatherhood, but Josh Donaldson has become a one-man horror show, botching grounders and flailing at ridiculous pitches. For a while, it's been clear that he's been struggling, but who expected this? The Yankees should just tell him to go already, be with his girlfriend, do the breathing exercises and count the contractions.
3. In essence, the Yankees are now in their postseason. Every game is of playoffs magnitude. They hoped to ease through September, trying out young players and fortifying the rotation. That's out the window. They must win every game, treat each one like a wild card. And in that sense, they have already lost.
4. This afternoon, it's Frankie Montas. To win, he must throw a shutout. If the Rays score two runs, it's over. Three runs, and it's a laugher. Along with all the other changes MLB is plotting this winter, maybe a mercy rule?
19 comments:
1) Couldn't help but notice that last night's game had very few dugout shots of Boone. The other night he was near tears. I guess YES was told to back off.
2) I think my my new least favorite player has to be Stanton because unlike Donaldson - who is just done - Stanton has periods where he is legitimately great so it's still in there.
3) They are no longer a team. The Monty trade ended that. They are now just a collection of loosely affiliated at bats.
4) The magic number to cross into fiasco is now 4.
5) By the time this is over we might not even make the play in game.
Fuck.
The only thing left to us is watching Judge set a new AL home run record.
That's it.
"A collection of loosely affiliated at bats"—LOVE it, Doug!
And this is the added weird thing. While the pitching has not been lights out—looking at you, our un-clutch "ace"—it has mostly rallied. We've been getting plenty of games that we should be able to win...with just a little hitting.
Last night makes us 3-9 in one-run games since the start of August. Oy.
Post is reporting that Benintendi is, indeed, probably out for the year.
That's too bad for him, and too bad for us. But it's great, great news for Brian Cashman—yet another excuse he can trot out for why this team folded like a cheap tent.
"Well, Joel, Bob—you can see how well we were going those injuries started piling up. Just a damned shame!..."
You watch: before this is over, at least one and probably several members of the NY press corps will laud Cashman for the Tots Bader trade.
"He took a lot of heat for it. But who would the Yankees have had to even put in the outfield if he hadn't had the prescience to make that deal?" Bob/Joel will write, after the Yanks lose the play-in game, 3-0. "Now the team can look forward to an entire 2023 season with a healed Bader in center, and a rested Frankie Montas filling out the rotation as Jordan Montgomery never could..."
Forget the Yankees.
I am going to cheer for;
1)my beloved Giants, who although have had inept management lately, you know the the owners care. [Please note they they are 2nd generation owners. FUCK YOU HAL.]
2) the recent sad sacks of college football,Syracuse,
of course,
3) ACMilan. I want them to win and win and win so that they actually make money and Halotosis loses his tax write-off.
In case I forgot to mention it.
FUCK YOU HAL.
YOU ABJECTLY USELESS PILE OF WHALE DUNG.( Whale dung, the largest mammalian shit in the world.)
Maybe Brain should run AC Milan.
I'm sure he knows as little about soccer as he does about baseball.
Then we could read about how they traded their goalie for a striker with one leg.
Looking at today's lineup.
Peraza, our shortstop of the future is at 2nd. IKF the gold glove 3B is at SS. Donaldson who is having the worst run of his career is at 3B instead of sitting.
Oh here's a fun fact:
After Judge and DJ the rest of the order is hitting
.211
.219.
.218
.261 IKF
.217
.000 (well ok that's just Peraza)
.191
I kid you not.
Will this be Montas’ “Yankee Moment”?
Survey says…no.
I expect a fairly well pitched game, just not enough. 3-1, TB. Perhaps the obligatory Judge solo HR, facilitated by the clueless simian in the dugout batting him lead-off so he follows the excremental bottom of the order.
Just not enough. Like this whole team, this whole organization. Not Enough.
Just think next year, for the most part, the gang is all back. Jackie Donaldson, No Stick Hicks, Nat King Cole, Frank Rizzo (16m player option), DJL, Hector Torres, Iron Mike Stanton, Frankie Valli, Master Bader. There's no one in their right mind taking Donaldson contract without prospects added. And Hal is not eating 24M or $30-40 for Hicks. What an F'ing mess, but the press will say Cashman's teams have been over.500 for 30 straight years.
That’s always the Press’ go to excuse. Embrace the corporatist propaganda, promote the excuses, overlook the gaslighting. Anything for a little bit of access, the occasional kernel of news, or the all important “scoop”.
Let me give BaBoone a piece of advice: instead of hitting Judge leadoff, just keep him on the bench and wait for the right time to pinch hit him. And if the right time never comes up? Well, HAL will thank you for keeping his stats down and saving some cash next year! Smart strategists always try to put themselves in a position where they can't lose. It's like a discovered check in chess, or a double or triple pronged attack.
I knew getting Benintendi was a bad idea. I knew it, I knew it, I knew it! Only I thought his wheels would come off, turns out it's his wing.
@Celerino Sanchez, I got a crackle out of those names, especially like Nat King Cole and Frankie Valli. I think you can put an "o" at the end of Rizzo's first name, makes it rhyme, sounds more European or Italian: Franco Rizzo. Italian names are fabulously full of vowels, like Benito Mussolini, one of El Donaldo Trumpo's favorite historical figures.
The questions no one can (no one here, I guess) can answer is:
a. Even with a lost (artistically...) September, will the NYYs make money in 2022? If they recover just a bit and "fight" for a playoff spot -- will that actually boost September attendance in the Bronx?
-- and ratings on the network.
b. If that bottom-line number is as good as we all fear it will be -- is it more money than the NYYs made in, say, 2017? Or '18 or '19?
If the answers are MADE MONEY and MADE MORE -- there is one guy, at whom everyone here hurls Fog Youse curses -- and his name is Hal S.
He will have obtained the one thing that he wanted: Cash-flow generated. More money now than before.
I spent a lot of years writing about businesses (mostly small ones) and THAT is what most business owners want. That, and to not be indicted, to reduce taxes owed, and to hide money from their wives.
If all of this shapes up as I fear, Hal S. could care less (1) what we call him, and (2) what we write about his team, and also (3) where his team ends up at year end.
Add to that (4) whether Boone is slowly going insane, and (5) whether it's Brian Cashman or Nancy Pelosi running the team. He cares not.
If the money has gone or ends up going south, we'll see some "house cleaning."
Just a quick question for Archangel… what is the largest non- mammalian shit in the world? I just ask because the heights of these lows may soon require a new superlative.
As a thought… our home stadium, Guano Island, and it’s inhabitants, is net result of any army of shits greater than no single shit alone.
So I mean… it’s not just Hal. My grandfather had a hat from Vietnam era. It said Kill ‘em all, Let God sort it out.
3-2-1 choke.
I feared the same thing, Hammer! Looking at Beni's mysterious loss of power and drop in stolen bases over recent years, I wondered if there was something wrong with his legs.
Maybe there is—but we'll never know!
Well, to a certain degree his loss just is bad luck. The other stuff...
Joe FOB, I'm sure that most of September's games are already close to sold out, and there is no way that HAL won't make a bundle.
But if the Yanks miss the playoffs altogether, that has to be a big revenue hit. And he'll take a hit from the collapse next year. Especially if Judge does not come back.
I'm sure that the way MLB has set up their cartel, it is almost impossible for the Yankees to actually lose money. I don't think anybody in baseball has lost money since maybe Charlie O. Finley—why is it that you think the owners always refuse to open their books when it's time to renew the basic agreement?
But HAL will find that having a losing team in this town—particularly when the other baseball team is winning—will put a huge dent in his wallet.
The question is how long it will take him to realize that won't change under Cashman. Two years? Five? Ten? But in any case, don't expect another winning Yankees team until he understands this.
Assuming, of course, that he is not spending all his time building Soccer City and just doesn't give a shit any longer.
Rizzo: Bad back. Many of us know how hit and miss the recovery is, especially with having to swing a bat.
Benintendi: Wrist injury. Notoriously slow healing joint.
DJ: Toe injury. He'll be lucky if he ever plays pain free.
Conclusion: The pitchers coming off the the DL had damned well pitch like some of those sixties Dodgers teams. Stanton and Judge need to hit like Ruth and Gehrig. Tator needs to cover the whole outfield. No World Series.
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