"A lot of the times where we’ve lost it’s been soft contact beating him. Obviously, that wasn't the case tonight."

I think I've done it. I've cracked the code! I've captured the correlation between Aroldis Holmes' epic meltdowns and Aaron Boone's most joyful bursts of postgame blather. 

Something in a Holmes' collapse transforms Skippy into Baghdad Bob, the legendary military flack of the first (and seemingly forgotten) Iraq war. The worse it gets for Holmes, the more Boone praises the greatness of Saddam Cashman. It results in the Three Levels of Boonie Hell.

Defcon 1: Entering with a big lead, Holmes fills the bases and escapes with the tying run at third. Boone is thunderstruck with hope: "It's good to have him back!"

Defcon 2: Entering with a small lead, Holmes gives up the tying run and sends the game to extra innings. Boone is undeterred: "It was just soft-contact."

Defon 3: Whatever the lead, Holmes records maybe one out, losing the game with a walk-off HR or something equally disastrous. Boone brings down the ironclad truth: "We've got to get him straightened out."

Here's the fun part: Beneath each buttery postgame quote is an existential reality: The Yankees have no path to a 2024 championship, not with this bullpen. They have have no innings eater. They have no set-up man. They have no closer. They don't even have a committee of closers. There is only whoever didn't pitch last night, and - basically - that depends on who's up from Scranton.

Last night, it was comical, a Seinfeld routine, hearing Boone philosophize about the Yankee condition. He has no options. We haven't been squirreling away a secret stud reliever at Somerset. No trades are in the works. Last night, as Holmes was disassembling - pitches far out of the strike zone, until the gopher ball arrived - out in the bullpen stood Slenderman Luke Weaver, who the previous night had given up a 2-run HR.  

Nope. Baseball is pitching, pitching, pitching, and Yankees have none, none, none. Gerrit Cole has a phantom tweak, Nasty Nestor is falling apart, and the bullpen is a shambles of lost souls. Add a weak defense - Gleyber botched a DP ball (and was replaced in the ninth by Oswaldo) and LeMahieu somehow managed to lose a bouncer in the lights (Buckner never did that) - and an early October exit looks like a done deal. 

The Yankees prevailed in April, when its bullpen was the best in MLB. 

It's now among the worst, and they are a floundering, .500 tomato can. 

Tonight, expect the usual: We'll get blown out by a young team that has had a revelation: The big bad New York Yankees are full of holes. No game is out of reach. And if you take an early lead, they'll be demoralized. They know the truth, and they've heard all of Boone's excuses.