The Yankees could be facing the most critical juncture in the last - (and the next) - 10 years.

Across the Yankiverse, there are whispers of a unicorn - a lefty hitter with a rifle arm, who grinds out walks, and roams left field like Brad Pitt at a DAR  convention. This mythical cryptid - if he exists - would instantly transform the mildewed, meager Yankee lineup, bringing light to places of darkness and hope to places of, well, Willie Calhoun.

We cannot assign a name to this player. He visits us in dreams, lurking overhead, just out of reach. He wants to help us. He wants to save the Yankees, the most prestigious franchise in American sports, before they sink into middling mediocrity.  

Is he real? Is he Memorex? Is there a way? And if so, what personal treasures would Hal Steinbrenner surrender to acquire such a champion? Or could the Yankees end up overpaying, selling their future for one fantastical, all-or-nothing shot at glory? 

I cannot remember a sharper crossroads than what the Yankees face over the next three weeks, as they head to the Aug. 1 trade deadline. 

Whatever they do, every move will come with enormous potential consequences, as the front office weighs a wild card chase against missing the postseason and losing New York City to the Mets - a cultural change that is already underway, and which might last for a decade.  

Comrades, this is big. What happens in the next three weeks will define your chances of living long enough to witness another Yankee world championship.

Some things to remember.

1. In trades, nobody ever helps the Yankees. If anything, when the Death Barge calls, rival GMs drive up their demands. Their fan bases despise New York - Gomorrah - and the notion of losing a trade to the Yankees will kill any front office career. Thus, the Yankees have a tendency to trade with a small handful of franchises - Pittsburgh, Texas, the Cubs. This year, each is still a contender. So... a relevant question: Will anybody deal with us? 

2. The whole Yankiverse hinges on a big toe. Aaron Judge's big toe. Is it blistered? Is it swollen? Can we see a picture? Would we want to see a picture? Does it have a cute little cast, maybe a smiley face painted on it? Could he do a Senor Wences bit, "S-all right? S-ALL RIGHT!"

Will it heal in time for Judge to regain his swing? Will it allow him to hit, even if he can't run? Will it compromise his swing, rendering him to flail at pitches? If he can hit but not run, would they DH him, putting Stanton into RF, where he looks like Mr. Magoo searching for his car keys. 

3. Will Luis Severino continue to be capital A Awful? I mean, we've seen bad pitchers - Colter Bean, Edwardo Ramirez, Scott Proctor at the end - but Sevy's epic portrayal of Mr. Hyde is ridiculous. By the 3rd inning, Isiah Kiner-Falefa is warming in the pen. Either Sevy self-corrects and becomes a serviceable No. 3, or the Yankees are screwed. We spent five years waiting on a ghost. 

4. Could they spin the wheel back to 2016 and go with youth? It's not as if they have a Gary Sanchez or Aaron Judge to unveil, but there are options. 

Oswald Peraza, Estevan Florial, Ben Rortvedt - maybe Austin Wells - deserve a chance. (And Oswaldo Cabrera needs to return to Scranton and figure things out, because he's had more than enough chances.) 

In his second year at Scranton, Pereza is now officially wasting his time. Dude can play 2B or 3B. Let's see what he's got. 

Same with Florial in LF. Give him three weeks - 50 plate appearances. Even if he fails, he'll still be a defensive improvement.

And the offense needs a lefty platoon catcher. If that means trading Higgy or Trevino, both popular Yankees, so be it. Right now, we're going nowhere. 

If we just wait for the unicorn, it might be years. 

Alas, poor Boone!

 It's always alarming when New York coaches and managers start to behave weirdly at postgame pressers—usually a sign that they're ready to crack.

Who can forget that Giants coach who talked himself out of his job in the space of about ten minutes? Or the various Jets coaches, too numerous to mention, who seemed on the verge of commitment. That poor Rangers boob who whined, "We just had a bad week in the playoffs!"

Across town, Buck Showalter has turned into Mumbles McGee, his cap pulled down so low over his face that he looks as if he's in the witness protection program.

After yesterday's dreary, first-half finale, it was Ma Boone's turn to tumble into a vortex of meaningless verbiage. Trying to deny that he was anything but joyful to be managing your New York Yankees—remember, expressing doubts or fears on Brian Cashman's team risks a fate like the farmers in that Billy Mummy episode of The Twilight Zone, buried in the cornfield—Boone riffed at weird and dreadful length on what still gives him hope.

Sounding like Teddy Roosevelt—or perhaps Spartacus—Boone repeatedly gassed on about how great it was to be "in the arena" with this team, which generally shows about as much grit and character as overcooked asparagus.

Stranger still, Boonie started gabbling about the "craft" of his team, utilizing a word famously abused by actors and others in the show business.

Look, I got nothin' against show people, there's no people like 'em, like no people I know. But c'mon.

The bit about "craft" was applied in particular to one Gleyber Torres, who Boone has previously praised for his easy, relaxed style of playing—after The Gleyber's whiff on a routine throw from the outfield cost us a game against Boston.

Mr. Torres now seems so relaxed that one might be forgiven for thinking that he has lapsed into a fugue state. Yet Boone seems willing to look past anything. 

Yesterday, he shrugged off Gleyber's disastrous booting of a double-play ball by basically saying that errors happen, and that he didn't think Torres was making a lot of errors, and so what?

In fact, when it comes to physical errors alone, Torres now leads all AL second-sackers with 9 (He has one more at short, just to reassure us that that position was always beyond him.).

That 9 not only leads the league, but already represents 2 more than the 7 Gleyber had in ALL of 2022. It would be nice to think that our manager was aware of such things.

I know, I know: This is the dawning of the Age of Analyticous, and mental errors don't matter, and fielding doesn't matter, which is why Billy Beane has all those rings. Gleyber has a WAR of 1.4 this year—and never you mind that the two former Yankees farmhands who could have replaced him, Thairo Estrada and Ezequiel Duran, sacrificed for a bag of money and Joey Gallo, have WARs of 2.2 and 1.8, respectively.

The fact is that, even by the Yankees' advanced scientific approach of "Swing Like a Drunken Goat" at the plate, Gleyber has quietly been doing precious little for weeks now. Like a wayward toddler, he has simply wandered off.

In his last 20 games before the All-Star break, Torres hit exactly one (1) home run, and drove in all of 6 runs—and all of those ribbies came in a total of 3 games. He's walked 7 times, and struck out 17, and his OPS has drooped from .770 to .739.  

True, these figures are not yet close to Gleyber's horrendous August, 2022, when by some statistical frameworks he was the very worst player in the majors, hitting .180 with a .464 OPS (and a 24 OPS+), hitting 2 homers, driving in 5 runs, walking only 3 times and striking out 33.

But hey, there's still half-a-season to go!

It's past time, I think, that Boone gave up on behaving as if this were the Royal Shakespeare Company, and tried another approach.

I keep thinking about Gil Hodges' famous walk out to left field, to remove Cleon Jones from the second game of a long, terrible doubleheader loss by the Metsies to the Astros, in 1969. 

Jones was hitting .346 at the time, and the Mets were already the feel-good story  of baseball, but Hodges wanted to send a message about effort.  And surely, that game—one in which the Mets were already trailing, 8-0, in the third, after losing the opener, 16-3—was one that must have taxed everyone's ability to hang in and pay attention more than any game that Torres has ever been involved in as a Yankee.

I know, I know. Pulling anything similar today would probably get a manager hauled up before a court in The Hague. But there has got to be some way to motivate a problem like The Gleyber. Allegedly, that's the manager's job, not to prattle on about craft in the arena.

 

Dazed and confused, Cashman's croakers head to the break. Could this be Hal's worst Yankee team of the millennium?

The '23 Yankees - baseball's Edmund Fitzgerald - are on track to win 87 games, take 120 tabloid back pages, miss the postseason by two games, and jettison two coaches in what might be the most torturous, nothingburger season since Hal Steinbrenner took over the ship.

Yep, we may be looking at the worst Yankee season in Hal's ownership career. Generally, the 2013 team - Pronk, Vernon Wells, Lyle Overbay - is viewed as the Gold Standard in Yank mediocrity. But that unhorsed team still won 85 games. With a dab of bad juju - and we have a barge full - the '23 Yanks could bore even deeper into the AL strata.  

This could be the worst Yankee team of the millennium, though - make no mistake: We could beat it next year!

Yesterday, the Death Barge added another disaster to its shoebox collection of soul-crushing losses. It handed a winnable game to the miserable Cubs, as players began decamping to homes and halfway houses for four days of barbecue and microdosing. 

The team's lone presence at the All Star festivities will be Gerrit Cole wasting an outing for AL - that is, unless Cooperstown Cashman uses the occasion to jettison another scapegoat. 

Soon, according to past moon phases, Cashman will trade a bundle of minor league prospects, who - we will be assured - never really fit into the team's plans. They were illusions, craftily pumped up as trade bait, and we will have hoodwinked some small market bumpkin GM into giving up a Joey Gallo, or a Scott Effross, or a Frankie Montas, or an Andrew Benintendi, or an INSERT YOUR NAME HERE - whatever - does it matter? Whoever it is, he'll tweak a gonad within three weeks.  

Okay, this is the part where a hopeful blogger starts yapping up potential Yank trade targets - you know - like Shohei Ohtani (!) or Juan Soto (!), neither of which will ever play for us until they're 39 and shitting their knickers. Sorry. I cannot do this. I just cannot. I am torn between hoping for a miracle resurrection of a few oldsters - DJ, Stanton, Sevy - and rooting for a complete collapse, utter destruction, which would mean starting over next year with Aaron Judge and some kids. We must wonder: Can the planet survive five more years, until the Yankees rebuild? 

Right now, it doesn't matter. We are stuck in a revolving door of aging stars with dead contracts, and - sadly - looking to acquire a few more. You never have too many Josh Donaldsons, right? 

So, about yesterday...

Courtesy of Above Average

1. We fired batting coach Dillon Lawson, a de facto admission that this year has been a total disaster. Until now, Cashman never fired a coach during a season. There's always a first.

Obviously, Lawson wasn't the problem. Those ex-stars who aren't hitting their weights? They won't take advice from a guy whose highest playing level was Transylvania University. (BTW, that's no joke. He was a college catcher at TU, never played pro.) Whoever gets hired as his replacement: Good luck, madam or sir. I hope your plaque is already in the Hall. You won't get there by coaching Yankee hitters.

2.  Adorably, late in Sunday's game, Michael Kay noted that the real shame of the loss to Chicago was that - somewhere out there, beneath the pale moon light - Tampa won. Thus, the Yankees lost ground in the AL East. 

This was a wonderful, treasurable moment of fantasy pretend. I doff my cap to Kay. It's gotta be hard, conjuring up a pennant race from thin air. Whatever drugs he's taking, I want some.

3. After all the adversity and disappointment that seemed to embody their spring, Boston is a game behind us. 

Worst Yankee team since Hal took over? We got a chance.

Jackie Donaldson is having a year like no other

First, congrats to Mr. Giancarlo Stanton, whose two blasts yesterday move him into 5th place on the Yankees 2023 season HR Leader Board, with 9. 

He's on course to belt 18 this year - two above his seasonal average since 2019. (Over the last five years, Gio has 82!) 

Still, as symbolic unicorns of death go, it won't be easy for Stanton to catch the statistical trotting corpse known as Josh "Jackie" Donaldson, who is cobbling together a season for the ages. The Dark Ages, that is.

I cannot fathom how the Yankee front office and its algorithms manage to put a value on Donaldson, the 2023 poster boy for offensive incontinence. At certain junctures of the season - such as the All Star break - it's important to stand back and admire what we've witnessed. 

Fun Facts...

1. On the season, Donaldson has 10 HRs out of 14 hits, with a BA of .146. He has one double. The other three were singles. 

2. Eight of Donaldson's 10 HRs came with nobody on base. For the season, he has 15 RBIs, tied for 13th on the team, with Jose Trevino.

3. In his 96 ABs, Donaldson has fanned 30 times, about one every three appearances.  He has drawn 10 walks, with an OBP of .222. That's lowest on the team except for Franchy Cordero, who has reached base at a staggeringly rancid rate of .186. The Yankees just promoted Cordero to fill an injury hole. 

4. Donaldson currently sits 13 points below the hot seat occupied last summer by Joey Gallo - a BA of .159 - before the Death Barge traded him to the Dodgers. After starting hot there, suggesting his problems were related to the traffic snarls and pizza-eating rats of NYC, Juggalo Joey hit .162 for the Dodgers. This spring, he began hot with Minnesota, suggesting his problems had been relating to the formerly allowed defensive over-shifts. Well, Gallo is now hitting .189 for the Twinkies. 

Last summer, in the Gallo deal, the Yankees coaxed pitching prospect Clayton Beeter from LA. He'll appear in next week's Futures Game, the lone positive from a string of disasters. 

Unfortunately, Donaldson will attract few, if any, suitors. Most likely, the Yankees will have to DFA him and take a bath, publicly, by paying his salary for a rival. This, Brian Cashman is loathe to do. Thus, the Yankees stand in the corner where they've painted themselves, waiting for the shellac to dry.  

Damn. This gets tedious - the same story, week after week, year after year. Believe me, it's no fun, writing shit about the Yankees. But entering 2023, everyone with eyeballs foresaw major holes at 3B and LF, and the team vowed to do something. 

Hal Steinbrenner  had just spent gobs of money on Aaron Judge and Carlos Rodon, and you sensed that he was THIS CLOSE to shelling out for a free agent that might solve at least part of the problems. Then Hal abruptly zipped up his fanny pack and assumed the fetal position. The front office chased some Willie Calhouns and Jake Bauers - and while I mean them no disrespect - that doofus plan, from Day One, was a mortal self-wound. 

The Yankees are on course to miss the post-season for the first time since 2016, when they unveiled the Baby Bombers, a talent surge of youngsters who were going to launch a new Yankee era. We have no hidden arsenal rising through the ranks. We just have Donaldson and Stanton. Congrats to both on their homers yesterday. 

"...somewhere in the sands of the desert..."

"...A shape with lion body and the head of a man,

A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,

Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it

Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds...

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, 

Slouches towards Flushing, waiting to be born?"

Those desert sands were in Arizona, where the last real Yankees dynasty came to its sad end. And in case anyone hasn't noticed, with all these scintillating Bombers games of late, the Mets seem to have finally got it in gear, reeling off six-straight, thrilling or dominating wins in a row.  

Is the Queens team for real? I dunno. They're still not in a wild-card slot. They play in a tough division, and they don't have much of a bullpen. 

But aside from Aaron Judge, I would gladly take the rest of their team for ours, wouldn't you? They're run by a smarter manager and a smarter general manager, and they have an owner who actually seems interested in winning.

Who knows, maybe the All-Star break will derail them again. But right now, it looks like the Metsies have turned into a freight train just in time to meet our broken down truck of a team, stuck on the track, later this month.

And really, faced with this Yankees team for the rest of the season, what could be more fun than watching a giddy, miraculous Mets run to destiny?

More importantly, what else might finally motivate HAL & Co. to start paying attention?

 

Boone cuts loose in furious rage: “We’ve obviously been in and out of some personnel. That’s been an issue. But we’ve also had some guys we lean on that we’ve struggled to get them going. We’ve obviously got to be better.”

In the sixties, before they began growing "the Curse of the Bambino" marketing strategy, the Redsocks were known to be a) a racist organization and b) a "country club" team. 

Basically, they were run by an owner, Tom Yawkey, who was intermittently cheap, who treated employees like lice, and who hated to make hard decisions about his pet players. Year after year, the Redsocks folded in September like a stick of gum. Eventually, to save faith, their new owners birthed a myth about the Babe and based their business plan on hating the Yankees more than anybody else, a move that proved to be incredibly lucrative. 

I'd hate to think the Yankees are racist - (though there was the Jackie Donaldson embarrassment last year; many teams would have ditched him.) But right now, they play with the intensity of Mar a Lago Sunday croquet. They mope to and from the plate as if they've read this blog, and their feelings are hurt. Their body language is from The Walking Dead. 

This week, they had a golden opportunity to simultaneously gain ground on Baltimore and Tampa, and they sank without a bubble. They had the O's on the ropes, and Tampa was being swept by Philly at home. The Yankees might not get a better chance to pressure their rivals. 

The Yankees have now fallen behind Toronto in the AL wild card race, and Boston - winners of three straight - is closing on them. This has been a catastrophic few days - they quit for the all star break four games early - and instead of spewing hot magma, of taking a bat to a water cooler, of screaming to the cosmos - Aaron Boone is hemming and hawing, blathering cud into the Yankee bullshit machine.

I haven't said this all season. But I'll say it now: 

Boone needs to go. 

The Yankees need a firecracker poked up their butts. He will not do it. 

Other thoughts on a miserable morning after.

1. The other night against Baltimore, I turned on the TV to the 7-0 score and mistakenly thought the Yankees were ahead. My next thought: Wow, seven solo HRs!

2. I wonder if Carlos Rodon thought he was going to pitch for a team that can't afford him giving up two runs?

3. Last night, against a righty in Yankee Stadium, we had one legitimate LH batter in the lineup. One. This has been an issue now for two seasons. No lefty sluggers... in Yankee Stadium? For the front office, this is absolute malpractice.  

4. The Yankees have a possible breakout minor league prospect. (No, it's not The Martian, who is still stuck at .200.) It's 22-year-old CF Everson Periera, who was promoted to Scranton this week. Last night he went 4-for-5 with a double, lifting his incredibly small sample BA to .571. (Naturally, he bats RH.) Don't bother to fall in love. His is elevation to Triple A suggests Periera is being shopped for the inevitable July 31 trade for Sidney Ponson.

5. Anthony Volpe is 0 for 8 since being moved into the leadoff spot. His average, which had risen to .225, is now .217. His DP grounder last night quickly killed what appeared to be their best rally chance. The team seems to be determined to bungle this kid's future, and the Yankee Doomsday Clock is hereby moved up a minute. 

Yank offense erupts for two hits in big night

 

Game Thread: It's Luis Severino Bobblehead Night!

 

Maybe the fans will throw them onto the field 

like they did with the Reggie Bars. 

Time Just Stopped

 Sure, the game was long lost.

Everyone, including the Orioles wanted it to be over. 

A foul pop was hit between first and home plate.

Trevino and DJ both wanted someone else to get it.

To get in position required a bit of effort.  Some running. 

Neither had any energy.

The ball "plopped" between them, giving Baltimore another hack at another Hack.

DJ and Trevino didn't dare look at each other.  Someone might have swung a fist.

But neither had the energy.

It was a " plop" heard round the world. 

Like a baby ruth in the swimming pool.  

This year's Yankee team. 

The Yankees are the used lithium battery of baseball.

 

At any moment, in any game, almost any member of your New York Yankees is likely to go haywire.

To suddenly meltdown, burn out, burst into flames and never be usable again.  Or at least not for another month or two.

Maybe, as Neil Young sang, it's better to burn out than to fade away (My, my, hey, hey.). But really.

Any given game, any given season, it can happen. Setback Sevvy yesterday, who still has not got over one July night in 2018. Domingo German, a perfecto one game, a tomato can in another.

Aaron Judge, done in by a fence in Dodger Stadium, and The Toe That Will Not Heal, our Telephus and Philoctetes. Giancarlo the Man of Glass, Rizzo who's gone ratso, Nestor whose injuries doth fester, Jackie who has done crackie, etc., etc.  

What are the odds, from MLB's many gambling partners, that Rodon the Savior will walk off the mound early in his "comeback" tonight, clutching some part or another?  

Go to any game, any day or night, and you are likely to get burned. A bristling July showdown with a big divisional rival? Chances are you will end up watching IKF throw his middle-infielder stuff by the end of the game.

Brian Cashman is the sleazy, e-bike repairman of the majors, running his fly-by-night shop off a side street in the Bronx.  If it blows up on you...too bad!

A miserable night in the Bronx leads to fears about what will happen on August 1.

Remember your crazy uncle's remedy for a throbbing back molar? Don't take a pill. Don't smoke a doobie (though that's what he secretly did.) Just whack your hand with a ballpeen hammer and - presto! - no more toothache! 

Apparently, that's how the Yankees plan to solve their recurring LF stomach distress, where nobody can either field or hit, and some cannot do both.  

Last night, the strategy worked! We stopped fretting over LF, where converted SS Isiah Kiner-Falefa was preparing to pitch. (He has now appeared in four games with an ERA of 2.25, ranking 6th on the team behind, among others, Josh Donaldson. In innings pitched, he ranks 21st, ahead of Jonathan Loaisiga and Matt Krook.) Nobody bothered to care that IKF went 0-3, or that his replacement - converted 2B Oswaldo Cabrera - is hitting .204. Or that Donaldson is batting .144, or that DJ LeMahieu is rocking a steady .219. Nope. Nobody cared. 

That's because the hammer blow - Luis Severino - was so abundantly awful, so perfectly putrid, that all our brushfires were briefly overwhelmed by Sevy's criminal, Spinal Tap drummer-level, self-immolation. 

Nope. Forget our mini-woes. Minor disasters no longer matter. What we must start worrying about is Cooperstown Cashman and his army of algorithms, who will seek to remake this sorry team on August 1 by trading what's left of the franchise's heirloom seed corn. Now, that's worth fearing. Is there a Chris Carter out there, waiting to be traded? 

As for Sevy - who didn't escape the third, leaving Orioles fans to lurk in the rafters in an otherwise empty stadium - we can spend the next five days awaiting his next start, wondering how much of his Future Hall-of-Famer fame was a YES Channel mirage. 

It's been five years since Severino last looked like The Future. Five years... 2018. Trump was flirting with Kim Jong-Un and avoiding Stormy Daniels. Sevy looked like the next Pedro. His first half ERA was 2.61, with a 14-2 record. He made the All-Star team. Then something happened: he faltered... a second half 5.57 ERA and a losing record. 

Then came the strained tweaks and the tweaked strains, the anticipatory build-ups and the sad endings, and a gargantuan contract that gets lugged into every Severino story like a suitcase full of smelly laundry.  And here he is - the Yankees' version of Noah Syndergaard, except instead of trading him, we've held onto the guy, hugging him tighter as we both go down.  

Sevy's last two starts were out-of-body death experiences, whacked by disappointing St. Louis and then Baltimore, the young upstarts we were supposed to school. The worst part: Sevy's solid outing against Texas, which means he'll get the month of July, if not August, to renovate himself, before the Yankees inevitably shut him down, citing a discomfort or a dislocation, whatever. It's always something. They never suggest the most common ailment: That a guy who was once really good just no longer has it. 

Meanwhile...

Who decided it was time to thrust Anthony Volpe back in the leadoff spot? The poor kid was just getting traction, rising each game and - boom - suddenly he's back in the bullseye. If he were a kite, they would have yanked him into a tree. Maybe that's why the call themselves the Yankees?

All Hands On Deck

 

Enough, already.

Enough with the utility infielder playing centerfield, and the never-was first baseman playing left.

Enough with Giancarlo Stanton in right field, or getting another day off, and Gleyber DHing, and Donaldson and DJ...I dunno what.

Enough with Harrison Bader getting a "cautionary" night off because he was hit on the wrist. What, all of a sudden the Yankees don't have access to an x-ray machine?

Your New York Yankees are currently in third place in the AL East, hanging on to the last wild card play-in spot by one skinny game over Toronto. With Boston right behind them. And the Yankees' only position player of worth out until toe-knows-when.

Next week, thanks to their incompetence and underproduction, nearly all of our lads will have a blissful, four days off. Even the two who will go to the All-Star Game, Flouncy Cole and Gleyber (Somehow; is it now the All-Meh Game?), are highly unlikely to play more than an inning or two.

To reach that golden oasis of extended rest, all the Yankees have to do is play four more games, one against a division (and wild card) rival, and three against a rebuilding Cubs team.

That's it. 

There is no reason whatsoever that the Yankees cannot play all-out for those four games.

No reason why every alleged starter cannot play every inning of every game where he will help the team most. No time for Injury-Prevention Days Off—which, as many of us have noted, never prevent injuries.)

No more sitting these hardy young men can get a full five days off instead of four, and feel "fully rested." 

No more Boone Excuses. ("Boonies"? "Swoonies"?)

Contrary to what their manager seems to believe, these Yankees have not just marched back from Moscow with Napoleon's Grand Armée. They are not about to sign up with Shackleton for a years-long jaunt around Antarctica. They don't have to clear forests, or plough the bottom forty, or pound spikes on the railroad, all the live-long day.

It's the summer time, and in return for a staggering amount of money, they are being asked to play baseball for four, consecutive days, two-three hours a day. 

Boggles the mind, I know. But I believe that they can do it.

And if they can't...so what? 

Does anyone truly believe, after all the injuries of the last six seasons, that if these Yankees get more rest over the weekend, they will run injury free for the rest of the weekend? Of course not. And frankly, the way most of the team is playing—and has, in fact, played for years now—would we miss them?

No, we would not.

The situation is dire. The hour is late. And no, I don't know what those chickens are doing in this painting. But you can bet they need less rest than the average Yankee.

No more Swoonies. The Bronx expects every man to do his duty. At least for another four days. 

A punchless middle of the order is killing the Yankees

Yesterday, some tired soul on Reddit posted that the Yankees boast only four hitters with batting averages above the MLB norm of .248. Four. Worse - one of them - Aaron Judge - is out until God knows when with a barking big toe. And nobody likes a barking big toe. (The other three hitters: Harrison Bader, Isiah Kiner-Falefa and Anthony Rizzo.) 

The Bronx Bombers? Or the Bronx Big toes?

Nowhere in this lineup lurks a saboteur, an agent of chaos, someone who the other team dreads. Our leadoff hitters - Rizzo and Gleyber Torres - are hardly threats to steal.  Then comes the March of the Penguins - a foursome of career freefallers - each one perpetually on the verge of "breaking out," if you accept the infield chatter of the YES courtiers. 

The worst, of course, is Giancarlo Stanton - who was supposed to lead this team if Judge tweaked something. After global warming, micro plastics and artificial intelligence, Stanton's collapse is the most looming existential threat to our future. The Yankees must pay him $118 million over the next four years, and the guy is currently hitting .201, and he stinks in the OF. For the last three years, Stanton was overpriced. Now, he is on the verge of being a total write-off. The Mets still celebrate Bobby Bonilla Day. Maybe the Yankees will have one devoted to Giancarlo.

The shadow of Stanton's collapse will darken the Yankees for years. But they need him right now. This lineup is exceptionally weak. 

Last year - July 6, 2022 - this was the order. Five hitters above .248.

Five years ago, July 6, 2018. Seven batters. 

Why am I doing this, aside from self-torture? Well, this year's team is particularly toothless. The occasional solo HR is not cutting it. At some point, you need a single up the middle, and the Yankees don't seem to have any.

Other matters:

1. The elephant in the room, Jimmy Cordero. In the past, I've suggested that the media glare of NYC puts the Yankees onto a higher plane of scrutiny, and I do believe there is something to that argument. New York teams have one advantage in pro sports - wealth from their huge market size - but it doesn't matter if the owner chooses austerity. That said, I'm not blaming NY for Cordero. I blame Cordero. 

I don't know what happened with the guy, but I'd hate to think that the jubilation surrounding Domingo German's perfect game may have suggested that it doesn't matter how much of an asshole you are to your spouse, as long as you throw hard. Cordero let his family and his team down. Sad.

2. Tonight, it's apparently Luis Severino (though Carlos Rodon has been promoted, so not sure.) He damn well better hold them down, because a) the Yankees need this game, b) the bullpen needs this game and c) Sevy needs this game. Seriously. He's been intermittently awful. We can't go on this way.

Two days ago, we were on the verge of catching Baltimore and striding confidently into the all-star break. Now, the O's sit on the verge of eating our lunches in a home series. And all they have to do is feast on the middle of our lineup. 

Is It Something In The Air?

A Second member of the Yankees pitching staff has recently violated the laws of christian values.

Both Yankee violators were from the Dominican Republic.  

Each was suspended for the season for "domestic abuse" issues.  No details were provided.  But the MLB ( and norms of society ) code of conduct was broken.  And no defense has yet been offered by either perpetrator. 

Johnny ( a distinctly common name in the DR ) Cordero is the latest abuser to be identified and dealt with.  

So what is going on? 

I know the DR background is purely coincidental.  It can't be something in the air. This happens in every society.

But Johnny Cordero's suspension is a poor brochure headline for the lovely resorts in that country.  

It is beginning to look as though the Yankee GM is not carefully vetting some of the pitchers he finds on the trash heap. 

Do other teams have these issues? 

Psst, pass it on: Suddenly, Baltimore looks catchable

I'm tempted to say that, at the end of the day, Baltimore is still Baltimore: 

Jimmy McNulty and Omar, meeting below the Domino's Sugar sign with Aaron Hicks and H.L. Menken. Remember how we loved playing the mad and miserable O's, back in the Covid-19 era, when they depended upon Chris Davis and Anthony Fauci? Or way way back, when Jeffrey Maier reached over Tony Tarasco to snatch Jeter's HR? Now that was entertainment. That was Baltimore, a less frat-boy version of Boston, who simply took their beatings and went home. Always fun to host them. 

If tonight and tomorrow, the Death Barge can take just one - (won't suggest a sweep, due to the obvious juju implications) - we'd move within pissing distance of the first wild card slot. We'd still be a couple heat domes, sinkholes and Burmese pythons behind Tampa - August in Florida, anyone? Also of note: Houston - which has tortured us, as we once did Baltimore - has rejoined the race.

Honestly, if our choice is losing to Houston in the playoffs, or missing October altogether, I'd choose the latter. It's something about watching Jose Altuve celebrate. I cannot handle it. 

Revelations and prevarications...

1. With the two wins over Charm City, we are 13-13 since Aaron Judge hurt his fateful big toe. I have never seen Judge's big toe, and until recently, I never attempted to imagine it. But it must be the size of a Big Mac. It must be angry, like a death planet, with its own gravitational pull. When Judge unsheathes it for therapy, the room must fill with gasps.  

For now, there is no return date for Judge. They are whispering about off-season surgery. Considering the Yankee track record for poo-pooing injuries, we could be staring at this empty lineup through July and even August. 

More than likely, it means Cooperstown Cashman will go wild at the trade deadline.

Dread the Aug. 1 deadline, people. If Cashman remakes the roster, the worst is yet to come. 

2. Every time Anthony Volpe appears, the entire Yankiverse holds its breath. Every hit, every walk, every pitch in the dirt that he doesn't chase - they just might suggest his recent hot streak is not a glitch - but the new normal. Do we dare believe it?  

There are two Yankee realities: One with Volpe as a solid SS, and one with Volpe as a tax payer in Scranton. If the latter, we will have wasted three years, with three more ahead of us. The Yankees need Volpe hitting and leading off. It's still too early to move him up, but one of these days, fingers crossed, we will see him there... and delivering.

3. Randy Vasquez tonight. It's always bracing when, after a great victory, you realize that we'll basically be throwing the bullpen at them. Vasquez has pitched well, and you can almost see Cashman measuring him for the shipping crate, when he's dispatched to Arizona for a new Joey Gallo. 

But win tonight, and we take the O's. Win tonight, and we're above .500 without Judge. Win tonight, and McNulty is on the verge of catching Stringer Bell. 

Biggest win of the season?

Great win last night. Here's where we sit...

With Judge, we take the wild card.

Without him, nothing.

Afternoon game today.
Have a great Fourth!

Is Giancarlo Stanton the Anti-Ruth???

 

In the first inning yesterday, Jordan Montgomery missed his spot with a pitch, and Giancarlo Stanton nearly hit it out, hooking it just a foot left of the foul pole. 

Monty adjusted, put the next pitch where it was supposed to go, and Stanton obligingly grounded out to third. 

That was about it for the Yankees' offense. In the sixth, with the Yanks trailing by 2-0, Big G came up with Gleyber Torres on third and, apparently startled to see a teammate in such a position, flied out to right to end the inning. In the eighth, he came up with a man on again, the Yanks now down by 4-1—and lined to center for the third out.

Ballgame, with Giancarlo falling back to .195.  And the question must arise: 

Is Giancarlo Stanton—dollar for dollar—the worst player in major-league history? Is he...shudder...the Anti-Ruth???

My friend James, who is the most fervent Yankees fan in all of SoCal, insists that Stanton is not the main problem with today's Yankees, and never has been. And he's right. That individual is sitting in the general manager's office in the Bronx.

But Stanton is an enormous dead weight on this team. He takes up approximately one-ninth of the franchise's major-league-high payroll, and has for six years now. By the end of this season, the Yanks will have spent $167 million on Giancarlo, with at least another $98 million they are obligated to pay through 2028.

What they have got in return is someone who:

—Cannot (really) play the field.

—Cannot stay on the field (Almost 40 percent of all games missed.)

—Cannot—increasingly—hit.

There have always been moments in Stanton's Yankees career when he has gone on a tear and carried the team for a week or two, or even a month, the way that big sluggers—for all their streakiness—are expected to do.

No more. Not since he came apart again midseason 2022, finishing with career lows in batting average, OBP, and slugging—figures that he looks likely to underwhelm again this season.

There were hopes that he might be gearing up for a tear when he went on a relatively modest, 5-17 binge against Texas and Oakland, with 1 homer and 6 ribbies. But that sputtered out with one single in seven at-bats in St. Loo. 

Big G's power seems barely to exist anymore—just 7 home runs this season. He never did draw many walks for a power hitter, but he's now down to 9 in 35 games.  In other words, about once a week, he'll hit a homer, and maybe once or twice a week, he'll get a walk. 

That's it. And as usual, every attempt to accommodate Stanton's frailties seems counterproductive. Can he ever really get going if he needs to take every third or fourth game off?

IS he the anti-Ruth?

Well, you tell me. 

The Babe was also paid a fantastically high amount for his time—$80,000, or about $1.5-$5 million in today's money, depending on how you figure it. Plus plenty more with the Yanks' constant exhibition games during the season—but not nearly Stanton's $32 million a season.

Ruth, also like Stanton, joined what was already a pretty good Yankees team and took it to the stars. His arrival in 1920 jumpstarted an unrivaled, 45-year dynasty, including 7 pennants and 4 World Series wins over Ruth's time in town.

Stanton joined the 2018 Yankees, a good team he was expected to carry to the top—The Dynasty What Never Was. He's not responsible, of course, for everybody on that team not named Aaron Judge flopping miserably. 

But Stanton didn't carry anyone anywhere. Instead, year after year, he blocks the team's flexibility, and puts much of its ample payroll in deep freeze. He present but absent—part and parcel of the Yankees becoming just another ball club, or the exact opposite of what George Herman "Babe" Ruth did for them.

Let's face it. Stanton—pictured above adjusting his arm pads to cover the "666" tattooed there—is the anti-Ruth. Start preparing for the Rapture.

Tonight, Aaron Hicks returns to Yankee Stadium. He deserves a warm and boisterous ovation.

Baseball Ref still hasn't updated Hicksy's cap.

The coolest part of visiting St. Louis this weekend was how the hometown crowd greeted Harrison Bader. When he stepped to the plate, a long and loud ovation began, so boisterous that their catcher called time and sauntered to the mound, just to let the crowd roar run its course. Classy gesture from my wife's home town.

Bader had been a fan fave, and it wasn't his fault that Cooperstown Cashman valued him over Jordan Montgomery, their great young pitcher. Cashman's inability to judge pitching is as legendary as - well - Clint Frazier's bat speed. St. Louis showed that it remembers Bader, and frankly, it was the best thing that happened to the crap-the-bed Yankees all weekend.

Tonight Aaron Hicks returns to the Bronx, and I hope he receives a warm response. I'm not calling for a Mantle-at-Old-Timers Day ovation, nothing associated with a Jeter or Mariano. But Hicks gave us seven years, and - despite the pain of his final days - I don't recall him ever jogging out a grounder. It was not his fault that the Yankees bestowed upon him a ludicrous contract, and that he signed it. 

Hicks is hitting 75 points above his meager average when the Death Barge jettisoned him May 20. 

A golfer to the core, he has refused to rag at his old team, saying what they did was just baseball: "They loved Oswaldo Cabrera and they loved the guys they had in the minors like Jake [Bauers], and Jake is doing phenomenal. Those are the guys they wanted to go with. I knew it.”

Or maybe Hicks is just cutting his losses. Over his last five games, he is 2-15 with one RBI. It's his first mini-slump since joining the O's. And like Joey Gallo before him, Hicks had plenty of opportunities to win the Yankee LF starting job. He just didn't hit. 

Tonight launches a four-game holiday series against Baltimore, a team we've owned for the last decade. Back in the old days, we'd greet them at the airport with dog collars and horse laxatives, and we'd pencil in a sweep, or at least three of four.

That was then. The O's are no longer a tomato can - we are far closer to that distinction - but we can still be classy. Hicks deserves to hear some love. I hope the crowd gives a nice ovation, loud enough to warrant Higgy or Jose calling time and sauntering to the mound.

Volpe. McKInney. Sevy... Thoughts after a split, for a holiday acceleration ramp Sunday

 1. Anthony Volpe - the chicken parm fire alarm - went 4-8 Saturday, raising his BA to .220. Guy's hot. 

Could it happen? Dare we think it? I'm not going to say it. I'm not going to hex anyone. You know what we're thinking about:

It. 

Could it happen? It's just .220. Then again, that's 30 points in about two weeks. Could it happen? Not saying yes. Not saying no. Not saying anything. Lips buttoned. Not giving the juju gods a headline to hang in the locker room. 

2.  For Jake Bauers and Billy McKinney, it isn't happening. Yesterday, Bauers went 1-5, lowering his BA to .224. McKinney went 0-5, to .254. Damn. Busses off a cliff. 

They've been the feel good, where-would-we-be-without-them? narratives on this team. I mean, where would we be without them? Chasing the wild card, I suppose. Or maybe signing another scrap heaper.

Even since Joey Gallo began dousing it with eye drops, LF has been a double-secret, evil, Yankee black hole. It sucked down the vulnerable Aaron Hicks. Then it ate earnest Tim Locastro. Then Miguel Andujar. Anthony Benintendi. Oswaldo Cabrera. Franchy Cordero. Isiah Kiner-Falefa. Willie Calhoun. Bauers... McKinney. Who's next? Dopey Dildox? Filthy McNasty? 

I mean, LF has killed all those who sought to scale it. Hicks hit the walls. Locastro blew out a knee. Benintendi tweaked a gonad. Willie waxed a hammy. Lately, Bauers has taken some hard dives.

Two names haven't received a full LF audition: Estevan Florial and Giancarlo Stanton. Florial is absolutely out of the question; he's gone All-Scranton and supposedly has been photographed using the salad fork on pasta. Stanton is simply too precious to play LF. He might strain something, and we can't afford to lose those high exit velos off his molten hot bat. (Note: That's a joke.)

I have a premonition: The Yankees will not win a world championship until they have a solid, every day left-fielder. Right now, none is in sight.

3. It's definitely not happening for Luis Severino. In fact, it's so not happening that I'm starting to wonder if he was ever as great as we wanted him to be. Sevy has never followed up on 2018, when he went 19-8 and sorta ran out of steam. Since then, it's been setback after setback, season after season. Maybe this is Real Time Sevy. 

I prefer to think he's Domingo German without the perfecto. Yesterday's pounding means that Sevy - like Domingo before him - will throw a masterpiece next week, right? 

The Truth About Bobby Bonilla Day.

 

With thanks to Rufus and AboveAverage for reminding me that today is the day.

Ah, Bobby Bo! Who can forget that charming rascal? The man who once threatened Bob Klapisch—on camera—"I'll show you the Bronx!" 

And he wasn't talking about the rat dogs at Yankee Stadium.

Of course we all know the story. Bonilla's agent so bamboozled the Mets' ownership during his hapless, first stop in Shea, as part of "The Worst Team Money Could Buy" team, that each July First, until the end of time through 2035, Bobby gets nearly $1.2 million—thereby turning a $6 million contract into what will be $30 million when the last check is cashed.

Hey, sounds like just another, typical piece of Hapless Mets lore, right?

Well, as the song goes, it ain't necessarily so. 

Bobby Bo himself would make much of the legend, doing commercials, saying "Don't skimp on the agent," and describing him as "a special man." 

And for years afterwards, Fred Wilpon would look down at the ground and shake his head and smile ruefully, over how he and his partner, Saul Katz, had been taken by that "special man"—one Dennis Gilbert, a former insurance agent, who supposedly understood annuities like nobody's business, and suckered the Metsies into deferring Bonilla's money into one such policy.

Uh-huh.

This story smelled from the get-go. 

No disrespect to Dennis Gilbert, who I'm sure was the Merlin of life insurance. But we're supposed to believe that Wilpon and Katz, two self-made men who clawed their way up through the world of New York real estate, and then managed to wrest control of the Mets away from Nelson Doubleday...had nobody who understood annuities?

In fact, there were one, two, many Bobby Bonillas. 

Right now, Bret Saberhagen is receiving $250,000 a year, and will through 2029.  On, I guess, "Bret Saberhagen Day." Bret, who once sprayed a group of reporters with bleach from a Supersoaker, was also a Dennis Gilbert client.

But Daryl Strawberry, who was NOT a Gilbert client, receives $1.64 million every year from the Mets on "Daryl Strawberry Day"—and will through 2033. 

General manager Frank Cashen's salary was also paid in deferments. And there is even a "Bobby Bonilla Day II" payment from the Mets, of $250,000, going back to his second, even more disastrous stint in Queens, in 1999?

So what gives?

Well, mostly Uncle Bernie.

Why would the Mets defer so many salaries, at such a high cost?

Because Wilpon and Katz had invested heavily with Bernie Madoff, the man who made Ponzi look like a piker. Every year, come rain or come shine, they could count on a solid, 18-percent return from Madoff. 

With this sort of guarantee, it made sense for the Mets to defer all kinds of salaries. They were making even more, every year, year after year.

It all came a-cropper, of course, when Madoff went down in the Big Crash. But Wilpon and Katz were more anxious than ever, then, to make out that they'd had been thoroughly suckered by the great Dennis Gilbert. A federal arbiter was looking to claw back most of the money they had made via Uncle Bernie.

Did Wilpon and Katz know that Madoff was the Ponzi de tutti Ponzis?

Almost certainly not. It's hard to believe that they would take so big a risk—or that anyone could believe Madoff was running a total scam on such a scale. No one did, until it fell apart.

Were they suspicious about all those consistently great returns? Well, maybe they thought Uncle Bernie was doing some insider trading. But that would not have fallen on their heads.

Hey, it all worked out. Fred Wilpon—a charming man who loved to sell sportswriters on very dubious stories about himself and his team—got to pretend for years that the Mets couldn't spend money because Madoff had ripped them off. (He didn't.) 

The feds never were able to claw back more than a tiny percentage of what the Mets' partners made by "investing" with Madoff, and Wilpon and Katz ended up selling the team for an immense profit to another operator, this one from Wall Street. 

Win-win. And Bobby Bonilla, and all the rest, still get paid.

The only people who got screwed over were Mets fans. But don't they always?

Mid-Season Limerick Roundup

We’re at the half way point and to say that the season isn’t going as planned is an understatement. Over the next week or so I’ll be attempting to explain why by using a number of different methods. Today… Limericks! 

Starting Pitching

It seemed at the dawn of the year

That our starters were something to fear.

Cole, Rodon, Nestor, and Sevi.

Our staff was ace heavy.

Now we wish we had back JP Sears.

 

Gerrit Cole

Gerrit Cole is the team's only ace.

Twenty wins? He is close to the pace.

But, when he gets a bad call

the next pitch clears the wall.

You can tell by the look on his face.

--

Carlos Rodon

The deal for Rodon really sucks.

Often injured, he still got the bucks.

It made him quite rich.

Maybe one day he’ll pitch.

Our front office is run by a schmuck.  

--

Nestor Cortez

Like Tiant and Bartolo Colon,

no one knew what pitch Nestor was thow’n.

Hitters no longer have doubt.

Did they figure him out?

Or was his greatness overblown?

-- 

Luis Severino

When not hurt Luis can pitch great.

But often, it’s not worth the wait.

Something’s always off.

What’s next? Whooping cough?

At what point do we just cut bait?

--

German and Schmidt

They’re both number fives, this is true.

Forced to pitch like they were one or two

Sure, we got a perfecto…

Also, lots of dreckto.

So, let’s see what Brito can do.

 

Extra Limerick!

Frankie Montas

For Frankie we gave up a ton

To land our second number one.

But are hopes are gone, oh!

He’s another Pavano.

Who throws off flat ground just for fun.

We never shall understand the essential mystery that is Domingo German

Write this down: Some existential questions to the universe are not meant to be answered, just as some universal answers to existence are not meant to be questioned. Get it? I mean, a rainout inspires questions...

Cheese. Is it a virus? Is it bacteria? Is it alive? What is it?

Why did Fred Flintstone bother to carry his car? Wouldn't he be faster just running by himself?

If humanity can somehow put peanut butter into pretzels, why can't we end war?

How did gerbils get such a bum rap? I mean, there's nothing wrong with them but - damn.

How can restaurant menus go more than four pages? Christ, by page 3, you forget what happened in the beginning.

Domingo German... WTF?

There are other questions - what was Styx really saying in Mr. Roboto, and why sell the song to car commercials? - but because this is a Yankee site, let's stick with German, who is right now the greatest sporting enigma on the planet. 

No other current professional athlete is so shrouded in mystery. Consider: 

In 2019, how did he go 18-4 - eighteen and four! - with a meh ERA of  4.04?  That's ridiculous. Through the rest of his career, he's never had a winning record, going 13-26. And yet in 2019, the juju gods bestow upon him a record of 18-4. What were they telling us? Why did they choose him? 

What happened that night in 2019 when German was accused of abusing his partner? He never faced police charges, yet received one of the harshest penalties given out by MLB. It caused him to miss the better part of two seasons. I'm not suggesting that Yankee fans should be granted access to private matters, but we have never really had a chance to figure out the depths of German's misdeeds. 

This season, how did he get caught so obviously, so utterly boldfaced, with sticky fingers? Was he actually cheating, using a banned substance? If so, why didn't he wipe his hands before showing them to the ump? (Not suggesting he cheat - [well, actually, maybe I am] - but wondering how skillful he is at bending the rules?) 

What is the deal with the zero on his jersey? How did he pull that off? There haven't been many Yankee Number O's, aside from Adam Ottavino, for obvious reasons. Was it an attempt to play on Domin-GO? If you think about it, the  zero doesn't make sense. 

What in God's name will he do next? His previous two starts were abominations - 15 runs, two blowouts. Then he throws a perfect game. 

So, which is he... the batting practice clown or Mister Perfect? And one more...

Could a masterpiece become a cathartic career moment, or will it be just another unexplainable blip in the cosmos, another glitch in The Matrix?

This world is full of questions. Wither goest, Domingo German?