For Father's Day, Yankees disappoint their dads and send warning sirens across the Bronx

 

The Babadook arrived yesterday, around 4 p.m. E.D.T., while chess master Aaron Boone was playing perhaps the Yankees' worst-fielding outfield in this millennium. 

In LF stood utility infielder Max Schuemann. In CF, it was displaced middle infielder Jose Caballero. In RF, designated hitter Jasson Dominguez. (Apparently, the late Smokey Burgess was unavailable.) Together, this wondrous collection of talent and despair concocted an authentic Little League triple, a tragedy of foul-ups that put a Reds batter on third - from a soft bouncer up the middle.

Impossible, you say? Here's how they did it. 

A Red with the A.I.-generated videogame name of Spencer Steer hit a bouncer up the middle. Second baseman Jazz Chisholm glided over to snag it. Instead, he waved at it, saying, "Get into center, Mr. Ball!" Shortstop Anthony Volpe trotted over and said, "Hello, Ball. I hereby wish you safe passage through our Straits of Jeter." In short centerfield, Caballero picked up the ball and said, "Where do you want to go from here, Ball?" He then fired it toward second base, 10 feet over Chisholm's head, to a place where pitcher Camilo Doval should have been backing up. But Doval was elsewhere, shouting, "Where are you going, Mr. Ball?" The ball rolled all the way to the backstop, while Steer ran to 3B. He later scored, of course.  

Embarrassing, you say? Not really.  

I mean, this happened on a day when the Yankees went 0-for-9 with runners in scoring position, in a series where - when their baserunners weren't getting picked off - they went 2-for-32 in RISP situations, when they lost two of three games, at home to the worst team in the National League Central, which had been decimated by injuries.

I don't know what the Yankees have against their dads. 

But sirens should be sounding across the Yankiverse, because as the team heads to Detroit, the Tigers are shopping Tarik Skubal. Having watched the Knicks trade a century of first-round picks - and win the NBA championship - should anybody NOT expect the Yankees to deal away their future for three-month rental?

Be afraid. Be very afraid. And good luck to you, Mr. Ball!