Fortunately, it didn't last. The Yankees last night walloped Oakland Las Vegas Sacramento whatever - though it denied Easterners the chance to witness a milestone in Yankee rookie history.
By now, you surely know that Jasson Dominguez, our favorite Martian, had a night he'll remember the rest of his life, or at least the next few days, after Aaron Boone disappears him. But let's not go there. It's a joyous morning. The world has a new pope. The Yankiverse has a new hope. As Maureen McGovern sang, "There's got to be a morning after." And here are 10 loose thoughts for such a time.
1. The Martian more than doubled his HR total (to 5) and nearly did the same with RBIs (his 7 lifted the season's total to 19.) Suddenly, he is 2nd among all AL rookies in RBIs - (ahead of Trey Sweeney, the SS that got away) - and first in HRs. In other words, last night vaulted him into the ROY conversation.
2. Dominguez's night overshadowed Will Warren's great - (breakout?) - start. Warren pitched into the 8th, gave up one run and 4 hits. He fanned 7 and walked just one. Of course, the game was out of reach, but Warren's outing kills any claim that Dominguez' achievement was a fluke of high winds or thin air.
3. M.C. Escher J.C. Escarra notched his first MLB stolen base. Didn't see it. Don't know what happened. But a SB is an SB, and Escarra might be the fastest Yankee catcher since the early days of Jorge. A new reason to be hopeful?
4. Lost in The Martian's ascension was the homecoming of Aaron Judge, who grew up in a Sacramento suburb. In front of family and friends, he went 1-4 with a double, though his BA finally dipped below .400 - to .396. Damn. Trade the bum.
5. Ben Rice got two hits, maintaining his BA at .261. He's in slow motion decline. Rice has to be reading the news wires and wondering WTF? Giancarlo Stanton will soon return - maybe this month - leaving Rice as a man without a position - No Man's Land, which might turn out to be Scranton.
6. Paul Goldschmidt homered - his 4th - with two hits. He's batting .345 and, right now, would be the favorite to win AL Comeback of the Year. His fielding has been great, and you can feel his presence by the way he conducts himself. Another team would think of trading Goldy and opening the lane for Rice. I don't think the Yankees will do that. Goldschmidt has earned a full year in Gotham.
7. Rain wiped out two games in Scranton, leaving D.J. LeMahieu to do whatever people do on a Friday night in Wilks Barre. Probably Netflix. The Yankees say he needs to play two nights in a row, to see how it affects his creaking, 36-year-old frame. That means he'll miss Sacramento and maybe join the team in Seattle. Let's believe it when we see it.
8. Last night... Jorbit Vivas! Two hits! Let's not forget: The guy was batting .319 at Scranton. With them now projecting Jazz Chisholm out for six to eight weeks - mid-July - Vivas should get a long look. Meanwhile, this looks perilously like a lost season for Chisholm. (And the Marlins' 23-year-old catcher, Augustin Ramirez, hitting .278, whom the Yankees traded, looks like another one that got away. Breakout former Yankee prospects are starting to mount up, eh?)
9. Hate to see it, but traitorous Juan Soto is hitting .327 over the last two weeks. The Mets look tough, the first Subway Series is a week away, and when it begins, Soto's numbers on the Trinitron might not look all that bad.
10. The Martian! Today, he gets two.
Posts
34 comments:
I think I'd stick with Rice, but the Yankees won't do that because Stanton is getting paid an absurd amount of money. He will be the DH even if he bats .154 with one HR the rest of the year. And if he can't run, so what?
And I LIKE the guy.
Stanton = Towering Bluto
Rice needs to eat his spinach of Stanton will get Olive Oyl.
Habemus Martian
Happy Red Planet (oh wait-never mind)
That'll be the first of many games where The Martian hits home runs from both sides of the plate, unless they ruin him. They've proven they can ruin anybody.
Let us pray: that they just let The Martian play and let him develop (Lord, hear our prayer); that they don't bench him for the rest of the series (Lord, hear our prayer); that they don't continue to rest him three games a week (Lord, hear our prayer); that they don't send him back to the minors when Stanton gets back (Lord, hear our prayer).
HoG - whattabout some god luv for DJ….
Amen, Hammer!
I remember thinking over the past few days that Dominguez was going to break out with a lot of power soon. He's been doing it the right way: he's been taking his hits, hitting liners. He hadn't been swinging for the fences too much. As he gets acclimated and sees more major league pitching, the home runs will come. He's got too much power to be stuck on two homers for long.
They say he's been working on his right handed swing. He says he's out of practice from the right side, not enough reps.
You know that, on the sac fly, he just missed hitting a home run to the opposite field? Maybe just got under it. If that had gone out, maybe he hits four last night.
They say the ball can fly out of there because there's no upper deck. But Judge didn't hit one out, although he came close. Other than Goldschmidt and The Martian, there weren't many other balls flyin' out.
The encouraging thing about The Martian's homers is that they came on three different pitches: changeup, curveball, fastball. So he's not just sitting dead red and jumping on first pitch fastball.
Something that I really hate about Boone's managing is the lineup changing every day. Why does the line up have to change every day? And Boone loves to stick Volpe in the 5 slot. Why? Against the Padres, Wells has a good game, and the next day, he's hitting #3. WTF? In Yankee Wonderland, you can go from being the #9 hitter to the #3 or #4 hitter overnight, based on one game. You have to wonder what the hell goes on in that thick skull of Boone. And I know he must be getting the lineups from the acorn counting staff, but then what is it with those bozos?
Will Warren finally showed something. He has a pulse, after all.
Back to The Martian, so he's the youngest Yankee ever to hit three homers in one game. With all the greats from their glory days, that's hard to believe, but it must be true, since their stat geeks researched it.
I saw the potential in spring training of (2023, was it?). This kid has the most talent of any young Yankee hitter I've seen. And I've followed the Yankees since 1981. As a hitter, he is not only better than Bernie Williams was at the same age, but he's also got a much higher ceiling than Bernie. And Bernie turned out pretty damn good, didn't he? How far will The Martian go? Only one way to find out. He has to play, not ride the bench.
I don't like it when Boone hits Dominguez like in the 7 or 8 slot. So when he first came up in 2023, he was good enough to hit #3, but all of a sudden, he's the 8 hitter in 2025? If he's comfortable in the 5 slot, I hope Boone leaves him there for a while. I don't want to see anyone going up and down the lineup like a yo-yo from day to day. Forty years ago, if the manager had guys moving up and down like a yo-yo, there would've been hell to pay from the players. Everybody back then talked about stability, a comfort zone. I guess times have changed, but Boone still overdoes it with crazy lineups.
Jasson did a few other impressive things last night.
He made solid outfield decisions.
Good routes.
Was authoritative on balls he could get to but would previously defer on to the other fielder.
And my favorite... drove in a guy from third on a long fly ball because he understood that he didn't have to "kill" the pitch just get it in the air.
JD is no longer eligible for ROY, but he did have himself a night.
Rice won’t be sent down (the mysterious Pablo Reyes will be first on the hit list), and I guess he will split time between DH, 1B with Goldy (who they are NOT trading) and even C, where he caught an inning last night. It seems the roster will crowded when Stanton, DJLM, Jazz all return, but this team is far from done with injuries so playing shouldn’t be a concern,
AA, I think DJ used up his portion already. All right, maybe he gets some crumbs from the leftovers....
Methinks Rice has got to stay. Somebody else will have to go down. A bullpen lug nut, maybe?
I like having three catchers on the team. It's something I've wanted for a long time. Gives a lot of flexibility for the manager to pinch hit or pinch run. Although Boone is too stupid to make good use of it.
As to the wind... The Delta Breeze comes in every night and gives us relief.
The temperature flirted with the 90's yesterday and it's still early May.
Hitters in today's day game will not have the wind to aid or hinder them.
Turned on the AC yesterday for the first time this year. Also got the air purifiers out the garage as the pollen flying though the air can reach the size of golf balls. I'm not kidding.
The city planted thousands of male trees so as to not have to deal with the clean up of numerous fruits and berries. The result was the aforementioned king size hunks of pollen floating everywhere or as I call them, tree sperm.
Sacramento has long been the go to place for drug companies who want to test their allergy relief meds.
That said, I thought the city looked good when YES did their glamour shots coming out of commercial breaks and Sutter Health Park is actually very nice for what it is, a AAA ball park.
I'll be attending a River Cats game in a couple of weeks. Looking forward to it.
Jazz Chisholm is miles away from coming back. I hear he's got three, not one, not two, but THREE freaking rib cage tears. He might not come back 'til August.
Doug, I didn't know trees were male and female. Are they really? Had no idea. Never heard that before.
Hammer - Here's a good article on it.
https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/health/how-male-trees-and-botanical-sexism-could-be-making-your-allergies-worse/3016480/
The Martian has landed!
As I mentioned before, he's got a good attitude and a level head. Remember, he missed a lot of time over the past 2 seasons, and he has always been the youngest player at every level by 3-5 years at least.
By the way, an orthopedic surgeon at a major NYC hospital claims that an ordinary strain takes about 4 weeks to heal, and multiple strains take 4-6 weeks to heal.
I'm not a doctor, but I play one on IIH. Do you suffer from rib strains? Painful elbows? Lats that ate bad clams? Try Serutan, the perky pepper upper. Two bottles of Serutan have the equivalent amount of iron as 30 pounds of calf's liver. Oh, wait, that's Geritol. Ah, it's all the same crap. And remember, Serutan spelled backwards is Nature's. One of my favorite meaningless advertising tag lines.
If you ain't eatin' Wham, you ain't eatin' ham!
Big game tonight, starts at 10 pm Deutschland time. It's really weird, but I'm physically living in Germany, yet my attention, entertainment and virtual life is still pretty much in New York. A very strange disconnect. Also made me realize how much time I spend watching TV, on the computer, or listening to New York radio stations. Turns out my virtual life is a very big chunk of my life, period.
By the way, if you have a bad back or some other complaint that demands you fly business class for long flights, look at Cunard. London to New York in seven days for usually half the price of flying. I never really thought about it, but even with the drinks package and little fees and going to Southampton, we'll still save thousands. They also have room service, so pants are somewhat optional.
good to know
…or not at all.
Yet another different lineup today from booone & ass-ociates. Hitting Volpe 5th, JD 7th, and Reyes/Peraza back to back is particularly inspired.
I’ve had my eye on my neighbor’s willow tree for some time now..She’s got quite a trunk on her, and the way she sways in the breeze…let’s just say the breeze isn’t the only thing that was stiff…
Thanks, Doug!
Post a Comment