1. The Pitiful Drubbing. From the git-go, the lineup offers Boonian table scraps. They fall behind early, constantly flail, botch a few grounders and lose by at least five. In many ways, these are merciful outings, because you get to see what's on other channels.
2. The Hideous Setback. They stay close for a few innings, then disintegrate, usually via the bullpen. For a few moments, you actually think they'll win. Then the roof caves in. Think Scott Proctor. When it's over, you wasted three hours, but at least you're ready for bed.
3. The Truly Miserable, Stinking, Out-of-Body, Soul-Crushing, Gelatinous Debacle. They blow the lead, walk a bunch of batters, make at least one stupid error and strand critical runners in the final innings. When it's over, you cannot explain to anyone - including yourself - why you bothered.
These losses do not build character or make you a better person. They do not teach you a lesson or give you a refreshing perspective on the human condition. They simply peck at your soul like a million razor-sharp penguin beaks, leaving you to ponder the closest bridge or sheer cliff overlook.
Last night brought No. 3 - the first this season. The loss was a grand team effort. Our pitchers walked nine batters. Nine. The team squandered a heroic outing by somebody named Colten Brewer. They let Guardian base runners steal second without drawing throws. Then, to ice the shit cake, in the eighth inning, they left Gleyber Torres on third with no outs and Judge, Rizzo & Stanton coming to bat. And while it's comical to care, the Yankees are now 4 games behind Tampa.
I suspect this team will give us many truly miserable stinking, out-of-body, soul-crushing losses in 2023. In the meantime, our ace pitches tonight, along with a slew of ex-Yankees, across the landscape. We can still take this series.
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36 comments:
The Master would say that he doesn't look at the standings until 20 games or so into the standings...how dare you mention a four game lead...lol
Good Morning to All -
This was definitely #3. German was…not good. His error was both funny and sad. He will be turning 31 this season and will not get any better. Of course in perfect world neither he nor Schmidt would be starting. There ain’t no perfect world anyway. Nearly every other team has the same problem, lack of pitching depth, so there we sit, mired in mediocrity.
Adding Calhoun to the roster really does push Hicks down the depth chart, all the way to the bottom. Ownership’s concern with Hicks is that to release him would be paying him to do nothing, but that’s what we’re doing now anyway. What exactly is his role now? To wait and see if someone gets hurt? I thought the team would cling to him for at least another year or two, but now I’m not so sure.
Need another strong outing from Cole tonight. Gaddabout Gaddis, a mountain man, pitching for CLE. Need to win tonight to avoid a sweep
Penguin beak are uncommon sharpish. This is why you should never send out a lineup that looks like a school of fat herring.
Fuck Cashman. Fuck Boone. Fuck the dead rotting corpse of Big Papi.
I think we need to wait until he's dead to curse his corpse. That's high up on both Emily Post and Miss Manners proper etiquette lists.
Winny,
You forgot to say Fuck Hal!!
Schmidt is sooo close. Unfortunately, this is not a hand grenade contest.
Somewhere Ian Kennedy is just smiling and swimming in his millions after the Yanks shot themselves in the foot over him.
He's giving Jordan Montgomery a thumbs up.
Only 4 years and 8 months left of Cashman.
@ The Archangel "Only 4 years and 8 months left of Cashman."
You don't think they'll bring him back???!!!
I would not blame the bullpen at all for last night's loss.
Two back-of-the-roster arms, Colten Brewer and Ian Hamilton, threw 5 innings of one-run ball. How are you gonna complain about that? I'll take that sort of performance every single time our starter gets knocked out early.
The biggest culprit last night was our lineup after the first four batters of the game reached base: 3-28 (.107) overall and 0-8 with RISP.
That was another game that turned out to be decided in the 1st inning. The other day, an opponent failed to take full advantage of Brito in the 1st inning. Yesterday, Yanks only scored two runs off a bases loaded, nobody out chance in the 1st. The roof never collapsed. And wouldn't you know it, they never scored again. Yanks "only" struck out 8 times in the game, but 4 of the 8 strikeouts came in the last two innings. Guardians closer almost had an immaculate inning. Two strikeouts on only ten pitches.
And no, it's not too late to worry about the Tampons. If they keep winning like this, and there is no reason to think that they'll fall on their faces at any point during the season, they'll easily take 1st place.
And you know the Yankee record when they finish as the wild card. Other teams finish as the wild card and still manage to win championships. Yankees? HAHAHA!
Carl, your lack of imagination is troubling.
If my calculations are correct, Cole is due for a pouty, man-child performance today.
The lack of tack, coupled with some of this and some of that will bring out the grumpy bear.
Volpe is also due for his first long ball.
All things shall pass.
Fûck Hal*
Guilty as charged!
More to come!
edb, care to comment on EBD? Who I see has not posted a comment today.
Can we expect a DeB or bed or BDe, or will the two of you be the only ones in this club?
On another note, remember when German was great and seemed destined for stardom and then there was the whole thing about him beating his girlfriend that was never fully officially revealed and never had a public airing but he was shut down for a very, very long time and has never returned to his previous form ever since?
If the guy did so something horrible, he's paid for it with his career. A sad story all the way around.
Love you guys—and hilarious, Duque.
TB is averaging 17,306 fans a game, despite the record hot start. Opening Day, they drew a little over 25,000, and have broken the 20,000 mark only once since then.
Something's gotta give there.
JM....my English uncle was both an Earl and an OBE; therefore he was considered an Earlobe.
So true, JM.
I’ve heard that there’s no place like home in Kansas City for rejuvenating “troubled” pitcher’s careers.
Perhaps that will be the next chapter of German’s story.
A++ on that Earlobe comment
Volve and Stanton selected for rest roulette...
Talkin' Yanks
@TalkinYanks
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44m
This is the lineup we guessed for tonight. Boone said all the players and positions are right but our order was wrong
DJ 3B
Judge CF
Rizzo 1B
Torres 2B
Calhoun DH
Cabrera SS
Trevino C
Cordero RF
Hicks LF
Earlobe made my day.
@ AboveAverage, Yeah, I think you're right about Cole today. He's been too too good so far this year. He's due to lay an egg.
Franchy Cordero, Calhoun, these guys might turn out to be decent pickups, as we all know dumpster diving is Cashman's one talent. (He's also great at obeying HAL's orders for manipulating the inflow and outflow of money, but that's not really baseball decision making.) I don't, however, see these guys making the difference in the playoffs against the Tampons or the ASS-stros.
I still think their best chance to win a championship is to bring up Jasson Dominguez and hope that he develops into something by play off time. The lineup has a huge drop off after Judge. And if Judge doesn't have a good game, we'll get results like last night.
This is still a home run derby team. They don't win if they don't hit at least a couple of homers.
Last 162 games in the majors:
Franchy Cordero
.212/.274/.370 (.644 OPS)
Willie Calhoun
.232/.291/.379 (.670 OPS)
Aaron Hicks
.212/.318/.324 (.642 OPS)
Josh Donaldson
.221/.310/.387 (.697 OPS)
Jose Trevino
.239/.271/.376 (.647 OPS)
Kyle Higashioka
.206/.248/.396 (.644 OPS)
Isiah Kiner-Falefa
.265/.316/.328 (.644 OPS)
This is half of our position player group.
(Sorry to lump IKF in here, but the OPS fits too well.)
Way too many black holes right now.
@ ZacharyA, Yeah, those guys won't make the difference against our chief competitors. Stick with these guys for the whole year, and it'll be the same result as last year.
Now Rondon has back stiffness, rehab delayed. See ya in 2025. Another $120m pissed away. Kahle is second reliever that this fool has signed for 2 years that will never pitch an inning during the contract. Either Hal is an absolute Moron (He could be the leader of the Amalgamated Association of Morons) or they secretly married. Nothing else explains why Ca$hman still has a job
Jasson is 0-7 with three walks in AA, so that steak ain't cooked yet.
As for Cashman, he'll retire as a Yankee. They'll give him a number to retire and build him the biggest monument in Monument Park. They'll have Cashman Day every year. They'll giveaway a top prospect to the opposing team, as well as a long term contract to the oldest fan in the stands and trade 3 prospects for the most broken player in baseball.
Mike Fishman will read some statistics he crunched to make Cashman look good and Hal will talk about the process. Book your tickets for 2049, kids! Cashman Day! Yeah!
NYY Lineup Today:
DJ LeMahieu (R) 3B
Aaron Judge (R) CF
Anthony Rizzo (L) 1B
Gleyber Torres (R) 2B
Willie Calhoun (L) DH
Oswaldo Cabrera (S) SS
Franchy Cordero (L) RF
Jose Trevino (R) C
Aaron Hicks (S) LF
@ Doctor T, Yeah, but ten plate appearances, so no big deal. He was great in spring training. I'd put a lot more stock in that than a cool start to the minor league season.
See, they want to develop him down there. They want him to hit for a 1200 OPS and have sparkling defense, or whatever their criteria is.
I want him to develop up here. Because (1) it can force much faster development and (2) I really don't think there is much choice, if they want to try to win the championship. They have pretty much a one year window of opportunity. In 2024, even if he is a great player, I don't think they'll win anything. The other players on the team (Cole, Rizzo, Stanton) will be older and won't be able to get it done.
And if he comes up and sucks? Well, what have they given up? It ain't like they were going to win a championship anyway with guys like Franchy and Calhoun getting significant playing time. They ain't got nothing to lose.
Florial had a fine season at AAA last year in a meaningful sample size. Spring training numbers are meaningless--too small a sample, and both pitchers and batters just getting into condition. Florial should be given priority over proven MLB failures like Calhoun and Cordero. Florial has never been given a meaningful sample size of MLB PAs within a single season.
Half the lineup or more stinks. The pitching staff is erratic. This is the stuff which .500 clubs are made of.
And let's be frank: Volpe is NOT ready for prime time. He has a long, slow-looking swing that is easily overmatched by fastballs in the zone up and in. Another lesson in not taking spring training numbers too seriously, which of course the Cashman.Boone Clown Car has no clue about, with their history of panicky recency bias. Volpe needs some intensive coaching at the plate in AAA. Peraza is the more polished, more "finished" and capable player at this point, and no doubt will replace Volpe on the MLB roster by mid to late May if Volpe continues to come up empty at the plate and Peraza's injury resolves. But the gated-community hacks in the Yankee front office were so eager have a white suburban Italian star at the ready instead of another of those Latins or black types who are seen past their gates only as landscape workers or domestic servants.
Hammer, I'm a little late responding, but of course Hal will bring Cashman back.
4 years and 8 months is the "use by" date on my mortal existence. Anything time after that is house money.
EBD, I don't think that it is a race thing with Volpe. After all Judge and Jeter are idolized.
I think it was more that he was a No. 1 pick and plays a premium position and the suits can say they drafted beautifully, which is different than saying we gave 5 mil to a 16-year old.
I think that if we got Soto in a couple years, no one would really care that he's Latin.
Hammer, a tiny sample size to be sure. But the steak is cold and its still in the AA fridge. I hear what EBD is saying about Volpe and think that fate could be Jasson's. Let him roast a while on the grill. When he's warm, DFA one of the geezers on the AAA roster (all the outfielders are geezers at Scranton) and see what he's got. Bring him up, if he's still on fire.
As for Volpe, also a small sample size. And, yes, I think the Greenwich mafia were thinking more about PR than at-bats. But he's here and his defense is stellar, so here's hoping his bat catches up.
Archangel -- But clearly Peraza is the better, more polished player, but he got leapfrogged by Volpe on the very flimsy basis of one hot spring training. Judge and Jeter are biracial and so more acceptable to the reactionary Yankee suits. If you're a dark black or Latin, your chances of cracking the Yankee starting lineup are tougher (they seem to be more lenient with starting pitchers). I can guarantee you that this regime would be very reluctant to field a starting lineup with all blacks (especially dark-skin blacks) and Latins. Hence the long leash extended to people like Gallo, Rizzo, Donaldson, etc. There really does seem to be a quota of sorts at work, although nothing formal, or course. There's a kind of racial hierarchy at work: if blac, biracial or light-skinned gets priority; same with Latins; whites get first consideration. Whether my speculation is sound or not, Volpe needs clearly needs at least half a season at AAA.
They simply peck at your soul like a million razor-sharp penguin beaks, leaving you to ponder the closest bridge or sheer cliff overlook.
Man, that is just beautiful!😂
I'm sorry, but this talk of systemic racism is bullsht. Go back and look at team photos and the lack of racism is obvious.
Regarding Florial's "fine season" last year, he was one of the older players at AAA skewing the numbers. If he looked so good last year then why didn't a single team claim him off of waivers? My bad, he's a bit too black.
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