Last night in Arizona, the Death Barge scored five in the 1st and coasted to a 9-2 win - homers by Ben Rice and George Jr. - while the YES barkers reminisced about 2001. You missed zip. The game didn't matter. It could have been the Arizona Fall Instructional League, featuring Dax Kilby, or a spring training nothingburger.
The Yankees' postseason fate - a three-game series vs Boston - is encased in carbonite. And it looks as though we'll do it without a fully healed Aaron Judge, who has caught Giancarlo Golden Calf Condition, which gives us a chance of survival roughly akin to that of the Kennedy Center.
Surely, by now, you've heard: Judge tweaked a stem and has gone onto the 10-day IL, which means he might make the final weekend against Baltimore. But which Judge will we see? The Hall of Fame captain or the rusty, potential 0-for-13?
Dear God. After six months of wrangling, 2026 will boil down to three games against Boston, either with Judge flailing at balls in the dirt or Heliot Ramos launching his signature DP grounders? How does this end without us measuring bridges and - gulp - rooting for the Jersey Giants?
For six months, the Yankees have been unable to find a lineup. Every week, every night, Boone has mixed and matched, a platoon garage sale, with so many permutations that it's almost not worth the currency of caring.
Wanna know what'll happen? Whatever goes down in game one, Boone will run out a completely different lineup on the second night. If Jazz is hot, it won't matter; next night will be Volpe. Same at 3B. Maybe SS, too, where every ball to Lombard has become an adventure.
Our hope, of course, is pitching. We'll have to shut them down. But it's hard to do when one mistake - one HR ball - puts your team into a bottomless hole.
Damn. I don't know when I've felt so hopeless about this team. Losing Judge will do that. I always thought he'd be back. Now... who knows? And if next year is a lockout, we may never see his greatness again.
Damn. I never thought the Yankees could fall so easily. But we watched Food Stamps Hal sit out last winter and congratulate himself all summer. He could have signed Alex Bregman, and our 3B woes would be gone. He could have signed a catcher. Instead, he drew an arbitrary line in the payroll, and though we didn't know it, our fate was sealed. For six months, we've been staggering toward this wild card destiny, this runner-up certainty and - honestly? - a part of me now just wants it to end. Dear God, is this hell?
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Although I risk joining the nattering nabobs of negativism, we may be better in the playoffs without the big guy. He hasn't regained his eye and his timing at the plate, and the latest tweak would probably keep him out of right field. So, what, DH? What about Rice, then? Platoons at first with Garcia? This offense can't waste either of them. Who plays RF, Helium Noodnick? Eek.
Judge coming back in rusty, limpy condition is not a good thing (prompting Billy Mumy to send it to the cornfield). A Stanton comeback for the postseason seemed foolhardy, but this is a close second.
Glad they didn't sign Bregman. Cheater taint is hard to shed.
A certain Cincinnati Red should have been the third baseman.
If bonehead knew how to field a lineup, not having Judge and Glassman would be a plus at this point. Robert Frost wrote a poem about "IF". Boone writes horror stories.
I have FLA reservations for late October. Seems safe.
1. Simply waking up every morning is a search for meaning in a meaningless universe.
2. Boston simply LIVES for moments like this. Whereas "the rivalry" mainly died for me many years ago - not 100%, but mainly - they burnish it, they kindle it, they cherish it. They live for their Yankee hatred. It animates them. THEY will be up for this game.
3. God help us. At least we seem to have pitching. Knock wood. Was it Koufax who once told the Dodgers, "All I need is one run."? Didn't he say something like that?
and I meant "series" when I said "game." Life may be a game, but this is a series.
Breathe deep the gathering gloom
Watch lights fade from every womb
Bedsitter people look back and lament
Another day's useless energy's spent
Life could be a dream. Sh-boom.
Judge line, as DH, vs Boston...1-9, 6 K, 2 walks, a single, 0 rbi. Yanks lose in 3.
Echoing JM, he probably shouldn't play
O Canada
Thank god you have
Caffeine
With maple!
Another great piece capturing where we are. (Measuring bridges?) Last nights game did remind me that this team can hit with two strikes, smash mistakes, grind out ABs, move runners — when it has to. We know we can pitch great and are adding strength to the bullpen. Maybe guys like Cab and Rosario are really clutch and can get hot. Are Ben and Cam ready to lead?
Judge is gravy right now. Maybe that’s what needed.
You’re point about this maybe is the tail end of Judges zenith does make this a kinda sad pre-post season.
Love "the currency of caring," Duque!
As for meaning...well, it's right here. We're the game. We're what gives it meaning. The people who own it are billionaire twits. The people who play it at its highest level are, mostly—sad to say—millionaire twits. All those people who sit in the luxury boxes that crowd out affordable seats, or who see it as nothing but the latest object of their gambling addiction—same.
The game's for us, for our lifelong love of it, and the companionship we have found around it—with each other, with our other friends (we do have other friends, don't we?), our relationships with fathers and uncles and other, older kin, so many of them now gone on before.
Judge will be missed. So many are missed. Let's honor their memory, and hope we somehow pull this season out. If not, well, there's next season. Maybe. And if not, we'll find something else to come together around.
About Bregman, absolutely! Can't stand that guy.
When Judge got the rib fracture, we said he's probably done for the year. So he came back, and now once again might be done for the year. We're not really missing anything.
Another thing is that Judge hasn't hit in the playoffs. Not anywhere near what he hits in the regular season. Not anywhere near what the Yankees need from him. So, once again, are we really missing all that much? If he makes it back, he might be able to be a glorified pinch hitter, part time player in the postseason.
I wish he could send Cashman into the cornfield because Brian is " a bad man...a very bad man!" I've been told SpiroT. Agnew is also in that same cornfield.
The Yankees could've got Okamoto for 3B. But they've developed a Japanese allergy and cannot bring themselves to win any of those posting fee auctions.
Montreal is such a great city. The cafes and restaurants are world-class. Enjoy your visit there!
And an apropos line for the blog from "The Lament": " Senior citizens wish they were young."
" A part of me now just wants it to end." Exactly.
I'll never forget what that condescending scumbag, Lonn Trost, said about the supposed riff-raff trying to buy Stub Hub seats. implying that lower-income people should sit in cheaper seats and be happy about it:
"The problem below market at a certain point is that if you buy a ticket in a very premium location and pay a substantial amount of money," Trost said. "It's not that we don't want that fan to sell it, but that fan is sitting there having paid a substantial amount of money for a ticket and (another) fan picks it up for a buck-and-a-half and sits there, and it's frustrating to the purchaser of the full amount."
"And quite frankly, the fan may be someone who has never sat in a premium location. So that's a frustration to our existing fan base."
Fuck Lonn Trost....sideways!
We will win 2/3 in AZ, split with TB, lose 2/3 to BLT, and stagger into the playoffs and lose to either BOS or TB. Judge, no Judge, it won’t make a damn bit of difference.
We are actually in real danger of losing the season next year. Too many sources saying that both sides are willing to sit it out. When we reconvene in ‘28 (TV & Draft Kings will demand it) almost all our key players will be past their expiration dates, especially Cole and Judge. Talk about beating a dead horse.
It feels like the 80's and not just because it's 5787.
Between 1983 and 1986 the Yankees won 91.87, 97, and 90 games and never made the playoffs. Right now they are at 89 wins. So the winning 90+ is a foregone conclusion.
Each of those years would have made them a Wild Card team .
It wouldn't have mattered. There was always a better, hotter team. The Rays are that team this year.
The real question is, will the Yankees get cute and not start Schlittler in Game One so they can save him for Fenway in a must win Game Three or if there is no Game Three be available for Game One of the next series?
I could see them doing that and then losing games one and two and the kid doesn't get to pitch. They are that "cute" and, that stupid.
Yeah, next year it really could all blow up. And if it does...we shouldn't let them put it back together again.
The game itself—not just the finances—needs to change, and change fast. If it all falls to pieces tomorrow (as someone wrote), somebody will play professional baseball again, somewhere, somehow.
Time for a new idea of major-league ball.
I hate to side with owners over players, but I've favored a hard salary cap since the $200 million/year, all-offense-no-pitching Sheffield era when the Yankees seemed destined for ALCS exit after ALCS exit after ALCS exit. If baseball has to be blowed up real good for a year or two to get there, so be it.
To all my Jewish friends on Yom Kippur:
https://www.facebook.com/share/r/19S2B44DPm/
Carl,
I hope you don't mind that this goy forwarded that link to some friends that it was appropriate for.
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