Today, for the first time, the Yankee rotation features Gerrit Cole and Max Fried. Is the Singularity upon us?

 

I was starting to think that I would never see...  

1. A poem as lovely as a tree.

2. Madonna as an opener for Justin Beiber. 

3. Measles back atop the U.S.A. medical charts.

4. Gerrit Cole and Max Fried pitch for the Yankees on the same day.

This we know: God is a nut job. 

Never doubt the universe, when it comes to chaos and crapola, the two pillars of American culture. Always be a Beleiber. Yes, you can imagine the Muppets playing "Seven Nation Army" in an open-air stadium, but it's not crazy enough unless you add an orchestra of violins. Odysseus might take 10 years to get home to Ithaca, but you damn well better believe he'll make it in time for the Cortica Jug Game against Cortland State.  

 

Getting back to Cole-Fried, (which sounds suspiciously like a dead bill before Congress):  I never saw this happening. The two pitchers were like moons circling Pluto - you'd never see them on the same day. Together, they represent $50 million in Yankee payroll this season - $134 million through 2028, when the money kicks in on Fried's contract. 

When you factor in the notion that 2027 could be a labor lockout, who knows? This could be it! This could be the Yankee Rotation Singularity - Cole and Fried, together at last, blowing up the Yankiverse, as bookends in a doubleheader. 

Soon, Carlos Rodon could join them (though his lingering elbow issues are troubling) - and then Clarke Schmidt. The infusion of veteran arms would offset the lack of a breakout Yankee farm hand - no Cam Schlittler down the stretch. What we see is what we got. 

For now, all eyes are on the Aug. 3 trade deadline, when King Cashman will try to pry loose a decent RH-hitting catcher from some second-tier tomato can. 

 After that, here are more impossibilities we will see... 

1. The NY Football Giants will tear up that beautiful sod grass in the Meadowlands, laid down for the World Cup, so their team - the sixth most injured NFL roster last year - can play home games on a parking lot covered by a throw-rug. The soccer stars were too valuable to risk on artificial turf. Not the Giants, though. They'll play 15 games on the remodeled asphalt, tied with Tennessee for the most likely to be shredded. Cannon fodder, right? 

2. Yankees will promote George Lombard Jr. A piece in today's Times - via The Athletic - all but demands the move. In it, Boone and Bellinger call Lombard everything but the most terrifying juju curse: "The Next Jeter." They say he's already a better glove than Volpe/Caballero. Hard to Beleibe, am I right? If that's true, what are they waiting for?

3. Jazz Chisholm should bat higher in the order. Why are they sticking him below Belli, Goldie and The Martian? The guy is facing an existential crisis: it's his contract year, and what he does over the next three months will dictate the fate of his family. The Yankees seem to be acting like he's an afterthought, that they're already moving on (as they did with Gleyber.) 

I don't know Chisholm's future, but it seems to me that they could give him some rope and see what happens. Let him bat leadoff, or 2nd, or 3rd - see what happens. When it comes to Jazz, why not be a Beleiber?