The Yankees are a mile ahead of everyone but the team they fear: 10 takeaways from a seemingly quiet off-day

As Hoss expertly noted yesterday... with the Knicks, Rangers, Mets and even Springsteen on the shelf, the Yankees now walk alone through the storm, dreaming the impossible dream, on behalf of the oppressed, downtrodden, loveable, Leo Gorcey Jr. street urchin billionaires of Gotham. Climb every mountain, ford every stream...

Ten takeaways from the non-day, yesterday...

1. This season remains a long, hard death march, evidenced by the mosquito's butt-crack of space between the Yanks and Baltimore, whom we cannot shake, like a coal miner's cough. In theory, we have two impact players on the way: Gerrit Cole and The Martian, Jasson Dominguez. Unfortunately, the O's have four of the top hitters in the International League, including a RF named Heston Kjerstad, challenging for a Triple Crown, and Jackson Holliday, 20, supposedly the best prospect in baseball (though recently demoted after hitting .059.)  They have enough young talent for a massive infusion, either from fresh legs or trades. We should be at least five games up. We're one, in the loss column. 

2. Redsock fans still have the Celtics. Tampa and Toronto are watching cornhole. 

3. Yesterday, the Yankees promoted Dominguez to Scranton. He's 21. Right now, there is no place for him at the Show. That will change with the next injury. He was destroying Double A pitching. Dare we dream the impossible dream: What if he's for real?

4. Modern comparisons to Ruth & Gehrig, or Mantle & Maris, are always toad-licking, full-gone bonkers. But - damn - if Hal opens his wallet, the Yankees could have Judge & Soto at their career peaks for the next three years. (Judge turned 32 in April; Soto is 25.) And if Dominguez is for real...

No. I am not thinking such things. It does no good to write of such things. FOR FANS, NOTHING GOOD EVER COMES FROM BEING OPTIMISTIC. 

5. On that note, I cannot believe Luis Gil is for real. He cannot be that good. I see him as a Nasty Nestor 2022 type, who will make the all-star game and then falter due to the workload. The Yankees will hand him the ball until his arm hurts, and then yelp, "Who thought this could happen?" 

6. The Yankees will need to fortify their bullpen for the stretch run. But I don't seem them benching or trading Gleyber Torres, unless his game further degrades, or the team slides into a deep funk. Our most intriguing replacement, the tiny Caleb Durbin, is injured, and there is no solution on the way from Scranton. They'll go with Gleyber for at least another month, probably two. (By the way, he's hitting .250 over the last 15 days, .246 over the last 30. Not a streak, but a sign of life?) 

7. The most beautiful moment last week came in Juan Soto's late-inning bunt single against Frisco. They used to say Mantle could hit .400 if he bunted all the time. I get the feeling Soto can break out of any slump by laying them down the third base line. Moreover, it speaks to the quality of the player. When Soto came from SD, I think Yankee fans expected a raw, undeveloped, unrefined talent. He's a disciplined, cerebral, skills hitter, far more than we anticipated. Lock. Him. Up.

8. Nothing succeeds like success. If somebody suggested Cody Poteet would pitch well, I'd have said he had as much chance of succeeding as a Jewish lady has of winning the Mexican presidency. 

9. I cannot remember the last time a Yankee starter got blown out - a full-scale bombing. We have seen bullpen meltdowns, but who hasn't? An earmark of Yankee disappointments over the last 10 years is the sense that, when we fell behind 2-0, the game was over. With this team, right now, they can overcome almost any setback. 

10. Springsteen out until June 12 with "vocal issues." If he were on the Yankees, that would mean he'll be gone through July.