No matter what happens - no matter how deep this slide - the Yankees will make it to the all-star break in prime position to reach the postseason.
Thank you, expanded playoff system. Once again, you'll save the Yankee month of September.
And listen... I hate to sound like a pimpled 14-year-old, constantly losing my braces by calling today's game "the most important of the season," when there are 77 left to play, plenty of time for the Barge to correct its course or disappear completely in a First Testament sinkhole. What happens today cannot end our year. It just might make the season harder to stomach.
That's because we're facing the ghosts of Yankees past and future - Isiah Kiner-Falefa and Vlad Guerrero Jr. - who somehow turned into the Soto/Judge duo that propelled us for three months, and which now looks ever compromised, as Soto's hand continues to bruise.
We've seen what happens when Juan Soto misses a game: The Yankee offense shuts down like Utica at sunset, we don't score runs, and don't get me started on the bullpen, except - wait - take this pop quiz:
Name the member of the current Yank bullpen:
a) Phil Bickford
b) Cody Ferguson
c) Caleb Poteet
d) Tim Cousins
The correct answer: "e - whatever, we're sooo fukkin screwed."
Right now, when a Yankee starter fails to reach the 6th, we're fucked. There is no way our scrap heap bullpen will hold down the opposition, and that's not even considering our closer, who is either overstressed from too many innings, or rusty from lack of use.
Wait... did I mention Jose Trevino's throwing issues? Or Cash & Boonie's famous comedy routine, Who's on first? Doesn't matter: Gleyber and DJ and Verdugo and the cast of The Bear are getting "good swings," so... any day now...
No. I won't call today's game a make or break. But if we lose three out of four to Toronto - worst team in the AL East, which had lost 8 of 10 before we pulled into town - we're officially sinking without a bubble. We have one hitter, one star, and he's dangerously running gap to gap in CF, diving for fly balls and coming way too close to the walls, which win in any collision. Mark these words, if the Yankees don't protect Judge, one of these days, the MRI scanner will call for the Captain...
So, hello, Mr. Gerrit? Hate to be a nudge, because you should have 20 more starts in this season, and each will be big. But today, your team needs six solid innings in the way that Joe Biden needs a teleprompter. Somebody has to staunch the bleeding. Because late next week, Boston is coming. That shouldn't have mattered. Things have changed, eh?
Please, let’s drop the false narrative that Judge shouldn’t play CF.
ReplyDeleteWhat position was Judge playing when he broke his toe?
This is an era when seasons end on a check swing and players can’t slowly jog around the bases without pulling a hamstring. This makes having adequate depth even more of a priority, a process made even more difficult by littering the roster with overpaid 35 year olds.
Finely crafted open, dear leader.
ReplyDeleteLike a Chrysler Cordoba, “lined” with rich, luxurious Corinthian leather - it was like my eyes spawned brains as I read through to the finish.
Lettuce Crush, Kill and Destroy these Canadian Blue Birds today.
Make ‘em cry out for their Daddies (sugar or otherwise).
I’M LOOKING AT YOU IN YOUR CORNER , RALPH KINER!
Okay. Nothing to see here. We will resume the scheduled dismissal programming.
ReplyDeleteBut Winny - imagine the amazement if Cole melts down again - giving up sixteen in the first three innings.
ReplyDeleteThere’s more - in 2024
Stay tuned
As amusing as it was, I would hate it if we had to start saying "Colace" again.
ReplyDeleteI am firmly on the side of BTR on the CF issue. It's a made-up narrative that doesn't hold up in reality. Judge got hurt last year playing RIGHT field. Judge LIKES playing center field.
ReplyDeleteAnd I bring up the NBA yet again. If big guys can't cover a lot of ground just because they're big, basketball would be manned by guys who are five feet ten and throwing set shots. Big guys are proportionately big: their bones are bigger, their muscles and tendons are bigger, their entire physical infrastructure is bigger to support their size. As far as I know, Judge has no birth defects or medical conditions that make him a special case. He's not like Andre the Giant, God rest his soul. (Andre, by the way, was fond of Cavalieri's, an Italian restaurant in Albany that proudly displayed his photo for years. My family used to go there pretty often.)
So really, please stop with the "Judge is too fragile and dangerously proportioned to be diving around the outfield and running more than Verdugo." It's fake news. He's as fine out there as anyone anywhere in the OF. Just don't run into cement, big guy.
I'm sad that JM didn't tell us all that he was responsible for the Ricardo Montalbán Chrysler Cordoba campaign.
ReplyDeleteOh well. . .
We have entered into an era of disappointment.
ReplyDeleteIt is considered "quality" when a pitcher can go six innings.
Bullpens, the leaking sieves that they are, too often determine the outcome of games.
Players, the millionaire prima-donnas that they are, are constantly (as BTR so well put it) hobbled with minor injuries.
And the Yankees management, if it can be called that, is comfortable with "championship-caliber" team.
Baseball as we know it, and the Yankees in particular, is no longer the game that it was.
Now, get off my lawn you kids!
ReplyDeleteAA, I like what they've done to my car.
ReplyDeleteObvious tit-for-tat on the HBP to Judge.
ReplyDeleteI doubt mind the tit, but can’t stand the tat.
Verdugo caught with his thumb up his ass on p/c violation. He’d just ground out to second anyway.