Game #147 Chat: He ain't Sevvy, he's my brother

The Yankees are 1.000 in games where we live-chat.

Ooooh...he makes me so MAD!!!

So Garcia is pissed about being lifted before getting the win and Betances is pissed about getting yanked in favor of Chapman. And Girardi says he's not about making players happy, he's out to win because it's not April or May or June or July, and he's glad to have pitchers pissed at him because that means they believe in their stuff.

What to make of this massive pile of bullshit?

In the first place, if Girardi had a few more brains he'd realize that those games in April or May or June or July count just as much as these do. And if he hadn't fucked up so many pitching situations in those months, we'd be cruising to the division title.

In the second place, the idea of Girardi being a big meanie and fine with it goes against numerous bad decisions he's made in order to protect his players' fragile psyches (hi, Arnoldis, how are ya?).

And in the third place, the reason he went to Green instead of letting Garcia get the potential win is because of the match up with the next batter. Binder Boy strikes again.

And in the fourth place, the reason he went to Chapman and took out Betances wasn't the "gut feeling" he claims to have gone with. It was crap statistics of such a small sample size they are absolutely meaningless. Souza, the next batter, was 3 for 9 against Dellin this year, but...wait for it...Souza was 0 for 3 against Chapman.

Really? That's pretty thin gruel (which is all Girardi obviously eats, which is why the skin on his head is pulled so incredibly fucking tight).

The stupid, it burns. How in the world can we get rid of this guy? Calgon bath oil beads are just not working anymore.

Jacoby Ellsbury: The Great Interferer

Today, the chaste, Ward Cleaver-worshipping

lords of MLB no longer must feel embarrassed at the notion of the foul Pete Rose - gambler, accused grabber of a 17-year-old and serial coot - standing atop the all-time record for Catchers' Interferences.

With his 30th Catcher Inference this week, Jacoby Ellsbury has replaced Rose and assumed the mantle of "Mr. Catcher Interference," making him the greatest interferer of catchers the game has known. 

Nobody ever catcher-interfered better than Ellsbury. He stands atop the pantheon of catcher-interferers, and catchers for the Twins, Indians and Astros had better watch out in the post-season, or they will find themselves ensnared by his amazing skill. I predict Ellsbury's eventual record - he's not done interfering yet; oh, no, not by far - will stand forever.

When it's finally over - his seven year contract, that is - the Yankees should build a statue in Monument Park, showing Ellsbury erect, proud and interfered with - a catcher crouched behind him, touching his bat. When he goes into Cooperstown, a gaggle of catchers should cheer, knowing that - without them - it could not have happened.

Congratulations to Jacoby Ellsbury, "the scourge of catchers."

If we're lucky enough to reach the playoffs, we'll get Chief Wahoo (and that might be a good thing)

For weeks now, the sweetest fake-karma about the AL East divisional race was that its "winner" - presumably, the Redsock '17 Hall of Fame Superteam of Destiny (TM) - would be rewarded by facing Cleveland, the hottest team in baseball history, in the first round.

For six months, Houston enjoyed the league's best record, which meant the Disastros would receive the door prize: Playing the diseased and depleted Wild Card winner... presumably us.

Twenty-two straight wins changed things. They usually do. Now, Cleveland is "the Golden State Warriors of Baseball," - a moniker that seems to kill every team it touches. Now, if we can beat Ervin Santana, the likely Twins Wild Card starter, our reward will be facing Yankee-killer Corey Kluber - (say that three times, fast) - in game one. Ouch.

Obviously, it's too early to print playoff tickets. But were I a Clevelandite, or a Clevelantonian, I would start worrying that this streak for the ages will end up tasting like a warm dish of microwaved mothballs. The former greatest winning streak - Brad Pitt's Oakland A's - never won nothing (a minor detail left out of Moneyball) - and though I believe the phrase "peaked too soon" stems from that great Boston hope Michael Dukakis, it remains one of the most important educations for anyone whose memory includes Yahoo Serious. 

We have all seen teams so blistering hot that we'd bet the house on them - (didn't Hal Steinbrenner do just that this July?) - only to watch them fall like Sonny Liston. Remember the 2012 Tigers - Verlander, Scherzer, Porcello, Fister, Smyly - who knocked out Oakland, then swept us in the AL Championship series... seeming en route to the championship? And then they were humiliated by the San Francisco Giants, 4-0.

Remember the snake-bitten 2000 Yankees, who lost their last seven games of the regular season, nearly blowing an insurmountable lead, belly-flopping over the finish line. Everything had gone wrong. And then the righted the ship. And all the losses, all the wins, meant nothing.

I don't presume to know what the Indians are thinking, but I suspect that in the backs of their minds they know that a) they're not the greatest team in history, b) what comes up, comes down and c) anything less than the World Series will make them a long term punch line. If we lose, we'll be mercifully forgotten. They're in a tricky place. And we'll get them in a best of five. Interesting.

Game #146 Chat: Tanaka/Jawaka

Got my easy chair. Got my beer. Got my hydrocodone. Got my backscratcher. Got my thick ham slices. Got my Bacon Ranch Dressing. Got my Dentyne Gum. Got my drawstring pants. Got my big TV. Let's go. Let's roll. Let's do this thing. Play Ball!

Live Game Chat Tonight

Coming at 7 p.m.

Never watch alone...

Everybody loves Redsock fans because they've suffered so much... right?

This was unfurled over the Green Monster last night. Neat, eh?

The next seven games should do it

"By this time next week, boys, Buck Showalter will be defeated, and the 2017 Wild Card shall be ours, mwah-ha-hahahahaha!"

If only we were still the Evil Empire. That's how Hal would be cackling. (Instead, he's probably still down in the cellar, riding out Irma.) But by next Thursday, we will either wrap ourselves in the Wild Card one game flag... or drape our rotted carcass with black. Here's what's coming:

1. Four with Baltimore, all with crowd-boosting swag. (Tonight is Yankees Earbuds Night. Tomorrow: Yankees Knit Cap Night. Saturday: Yankees Gel Pack Day. Sunday: Yankees 1997 Yankees World Championship Fan Ring Day. I'd go with the Gel Pack, because I have no clue what the fuck it is.) The O's have lost three in a row and dropped to two below .500. Barring a Clevelandesque run, they're chum. Last week, if not for Dellin Betances' ninth inning meltdown, we would have swept them in Buckamore. They have won three in their last 10. The only guy hitting lately is Adam Jones (.370 over the last seven games.) Everybody knows how to beat these guys - pitch around Manny Machado and Johnathan Schoop. 

But here's the rub: This is exactly the kind of home series we have flubbed all year. 

2. Three swag-fests with Mini-Sota. (Yankees Cap Night, Yankees T-shirt Night, Yankees Mastercard $5 Game.) This looks like the 2017 Wild Card Pre-Game Show. It could be gruesome. 

At right are Twins batting averages over the last 30 games. Look at Byron Buxton. He is finally emerging. Look at Jorge Polanco. The guy is 24. (Overall, he's hitting .259 on the year with only 11 HRs, so clearly, he is a rising nation.) Now, imagine what they would look like if not for the Aaron Hicks-John Ryan Wilkes Booth Murphy trade. (By the way, Murph is now with Arizona, up from the mines for September.) 

Compare this to the Yankees over the last 30. Not good, right? Since the All-Star break, the Twins are hitting .269, sixth best in MLB. The Yankees rank 18th, at .253.

Listen: There is danger lurking in this next week. The O's recently swept Boston, restoring us temporarily into the AL East race after a wipe-out series. They could do the same to us. And Minnesota increasingly looks like the team you don't want to face in a one-game season. (Actually, come to think of it, there is no team we want to face in a one-game season, eh?)

Think of it as a seven-game series. Might be the last meaningful one in 2017.

As The Master Tells All on CenterStage...LIVE CHAT TONIGHT AT 10 PM EDT!

UPDATE: For posterity, we present the entire chat transcript after the jump!

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It's not new, the Yankees' failure to hit

From 2012, Roger Angell...

Here’s what we saw around home plate, starting in late September: Curtis Granderson spins to the right, drops his head, and becomes suddenly smaller as he turns toward the dugout. Nick Swisher makes a little backward lean as an inside fastball goes by, throws up his head as the ump punches him out, then smiles knowingly as he heads back to the bench. Robbie Cano, grounding out to second once again, maintains unconcern or maybe disconcern as he slants off toward foul ground after the out: he’s an evening dog-walker out there, in no hurry to get home. A-Rod, popping up, takes a backward step, bumps the upper part of his bat with his fist—bad bat—turns left and lifts his chin on departure, as if he were counting the house. We Yankee fans know all this by heart; watching the Yankees make outs is what we’re really good at now.

The New Yorker 

The Curse of the Cuomos

In case you've forgotten, the Yankees have never won a World Series with a Cuomo running New York.

Coming this winter: The Ultimate Test of Yankee Brand Domination

According to the Internet, Shohei Otani - "the Japanese Babe Ruth" - has decided to forfeit millions of dollars and come to the U.S.A. next season, at age 24, after signing with the team of his choice.

Hence, the long-awaited, apocalyptic bidding war for Otani will be confined to amounts that virtually any team can afford. In simple terms, Otani will decide where he wants to play and for what team, and that will be that.

In the past - (SEE: Hernandez, Orlando; Matsui, Hideki; Orabu, Hideki, et al) -  such free agent announcements indicated that players sought to join the franchise with the largest market, the broadest international stage, the most money and the greatest winning tradition - the New York Fucking Yankees.

But that was the last millennium, the previous generation of Steinbrenners, and the last run of Yankee dominance. Today's Spend-the-Most Yankees are the Dodgers. Today's Win-the-Most Yankees are the Giants. Today's Beat-up-the-AL-East-the-Most Yankees play in Boston. What exists is the We're-Not-the-Mets-the-Most Yankees, which are powered by Jeep and, of course, nepotistic white privilege.

It's interesting the Brian Cashman recently visited Japan to see Otani play. So will the other Yankee franchises. And between now and December, when and if Otani comes abroad, we will have a much clearer picture of the long and short term Yankee future. But let's be clear: 

If we are to remain the New York Fucking Yankees, we need to have the next Babe Fucking Ruth.  

Yanks lose and it doesn't matter, because we are Wild Card material

Listen: We're in the Wild Card one-game playoff. Nothing will change this. We're Wild Card stock, Wild Card worthy, Wild Card-carrying Wild Carders. So we lost last night? Boo-fucking-hoo. We're five up on the Angels - and we're not catching the Redsock '17 Hall of Fame Superteam of Destiny (TM). Nope, we're just Wild Carding, killing time until our 9-inning season, now three weeks away, arrives. We're authentic, Grade B, passable, government-inspected, mid-level Wild Card material. 

Sure, we could still fall apart. If this team were a comic book villain, that would be our super-power: The ability to instantly collapse into nothingness. The terrifying Doctor Disappear! But we're no longer battling Cleveland or Houston. Look who we're up against: Two .500 teams (Texas, KC), the Always Awful Angels (TM) and Minnesota, which remains a year away from dominance. For us to miss the wild card, California must win 13 of 18, and even then, all we'd have to do is go 9 and 9. Say what you will about the slightly-above-mediocrity (SAM) 2017 Yankees, but they ARE a .500 team.

Whenever something rises, something else falls. We're a perfect Rube Goldberg leveling device. First, the hitters go out. Then the bullpen. Then the starters. Then Joe delivers a loss. Someone is always doing their part to maintain the perfection of SAM. 

Aaron Judge whacks two HRs against Texas, raising hopes for an end-of-season streak to dispel the roiling clouds of fear over his long term future. So what does he do against Tampa? Oh for six with five strikeouts! If not for the walks, he'd be a total wipe-out. Does anybody think he'll get walked in the Wild Card game? (I don't.) 

Greg Bird returns, whacks HRs against Boston, raising hopes that the player we briefly glimpsed two Septembers ago, and during March fantasy camp, will finally arrive. Then - POOF - he's popping up, grounding out and talking about back spasms. Since returning, he's .214. For this, we ditched Chris Carter? And another injury? Dear God, where is Tyler Austin? Where is Garrett Cooper? Where is - gulp - Lyle Overbay? 

Starlin Castro returns, gets a few hits, raising hopes for the early summer power lineup to finally re-emerge. Nope. He's 0-14 in his last three games, including two strikeouts last night. He says, "I'm late with the fastball and out in front with the off-speed." Oh? Isn't that marvelous? Maybe he'll fix it in time for the one-game season?

Last night, once again, you turned on the YES crapola spigot and watched strikeouts and popups, strikeouts and popups, strikeouts and popups, and you knew - YOU JUST KNEW - the Yankees weren't going to score twice. The Rays were homeless, fatigued, stressed from wondering if their homes are flooded and their kids are safe, and with a tad of luck today, they'll take two out of three in alien NYC, when only the Yankees should give a damn. 

Nope, the 2017 Yankees would make a great super villain. We would be Captain Light Switch, with the amazing ability to turn on and off. And soon, our origin and our fate will be decided over the span of nine innings. Until then, nothing matters. We are what we are: Wild Card material.

BREAKING NEWS

It Is High's own John Sterling will be the special guest for the full hour of CenterStage, the YES Network's intimate one-on-one interview program hosted by the Emmy Award winning YES Network sports announcer Michael Kay, on Wednesday at 10:00 PM EDT on the YES Network!



Urgent question: should we live-blog it?

What is wrong with the Redsock '17 Hall of Fame Superteam of Destiny (TM)?

They're limping toward the restrooms, three up with 19 to play. Nobody's hitting except Li'l Pete, and he's a living "Get well!" card. (See: Bird, Greg.) Tonight, they face the Oakland A's, a/k/a the Charlie Sheen School for Wayward Girls, and their prayers have been answered: They found someone - at 17 games below .500 - playing worse than they. Jubilation! Glory to Dombrowski, the Belichick of baseball! 

But it wasn't supposed to be this way.

Everybody knows the Redsocks, as God's most beloved tribe of suffering saints, continually consolidate all their woes, finish last for a while, and then rise to win miracle championships. Ever since vanquishing the evil curse of the Bambino, many years ago, Boston has lived the dream, embracing that puritanical New England spirit of hope and self-righteousness, knowing the dreaded Yankees have been exorcised like that Annabelle horror movie doll, and the new millennium belongs to those who are willing to lose for a few years in order to draft high. 

Last 30 days

And 2017 was going to cement their future. This would be the year when the B's - Benintendi-Bradely-Betts-Bogaerts - would replace Belichick-Brady, and the Sale-Price dynasty would begin. For the first half of the season, they simply lurked, waiting to make their move. In July, when the Yankees had punched themselves to sleep, Boston took first, and ever since, the only question was how much space they would put between themselves and the AL East.

Well, they're sputtering. The above chart shows Redsock hitting over the last 30 days, and it's not Ted Williams or even Trot Nixon. Most notable, I direct you to the numbers for Mookie Betts, now hitting .261 on the year with 19 home runs. (Keep in mind, practically everybody in baseball has at least 20.) We can debate hopes and fears about Aaron Judge throughout the coming winter, but Betts has dropped 60 points in average since last season, when the Gammonites pushed him for MVP. (Mike Trout won it, by the way.) Of course, he could go on a tear and lift his average 15-20 points, but that "future superstar" trajectory is no longer in place. He's just 24, so we won't dismiss him. But Boston's mad expectations have taken a turn.

And then there is Bogaerts, who last winter in the World Baseball Whatever forced Didi Gregorius to play 2B, causing him to hurt his arm on a twisting throw to first. Then, Bogaerts was the star and Didi the bench warming underling. Would anyone now buy such a comparison? For the record, Xander has 8 home runs and is hitting .266 on the season. Didi is the Yankees' best player. Period.

Still, with 19 games to go, it'll take a full collapse for Boston to lose the AL East. Once in the playoffs, anything can happen. But they are a team the Yankees can beat, and that - my friends - says it all.

That was a big Yankee win.

Tampa dodged the hurricane... 

But not the Toddnado.

It's over for the Rays.

The great doubler

From Jogginson Cano's p.r. man, aka Buhner's Ghost... this clip and putt:

Standing next to the Man: Cano’s double in the third inning with his 30th of season and moved him into a select club. Cano joins Hall of Famer Stan Musial as the only players in history to reach 30 doubles in 13 consecutive seasons.

Musial had a 16-year run from 1942-58 with 1945 omitted because of military service. Tris Speaker (1916-27) and Honus Wagner (1899-1910) are the only other players to have 30 doubles in12 consecutive seasons.

Cano is the only player in history to have his streak at the start of his career.

And No. 31 on the season came in the sixth inning.

Hurricane Bud's one-game Wild Card is three weeks away and approaching NYC dead-on

At last, we're seeing the Yankee storm surge - that long-anticipated rise within the MLB Cone of Mediocrity - as the team's one-game, wild card, Bud Selig Memorial post-season destiny becomes apparent. 

Today, the only thing that can keep New York City from hosting the Selig Single Game Home Field Wild Card Fake Post-Season is a directional change from Hurricane Jose, currently lonely and drifting somewhere out in the Atlantic.

Barring an unspeakable collapse - (wait, is that not a hallmark of the '17 Yanks?) - the former Evil Empire will reach the one-game post-season, allowing Cooperstown Cashman and his army of front office interns to claim YES Network vindication, as the team pursues its first playoff victory in six cold years. Close your eyes, and you can hear the accolades raining down from W.P. Mason and the Yankee Radio Network, driven by Jeep.

The Yanks have 20 games left - most against teams that are still sand-bagging the windows - and 17 of them in Gotham, thanks to the savagery of an increasingly angry god. If we win 10 - that is, play feeble .500 - the sad and measly Angels must go 16-3 to snatch away our rightful away-field spot. 

Ainta. Gonna. Happen.

Joe Girardi will also have the luxury of altering his rotation so either Sonny Gray or Luis Severino pitches. In the last month, both have gone 3-2; Gray has a 2.64 ERA, with Sevy at 3.16. There is no case for letting Masahiro Tanaka or CC Sabathia near the Wild Card, unless we're down by five in the third, and the boos are already cascading down from the upper decks. 

There remains, however, one major concern. It's not who'll start the one-game season, but who will finish it. Neither Gray nor Severino will pitch beyond seven innings. Neither has a complete game this season. Since the All-Star break, the best Yankee relievers - by far - have been David Robertson (1.50) and Chad Green (2.10) neither of whom are allowed to close games. Nope, the eighth and ninth belong to our two two most explosive cans of gasoline: Dellin Betances (2.84 since mid-July) and El Chapo (4.10.) (Joe will want them feeling good over the winter.) Both are overly stretched bungees, ready to snap at any time, if a call goes against them or a bloop single drops in. Can you imagine either holding a one-run lead? (Think of that 3-2 count on the lead-off hitter, or the speed merchant coming in to pinch run... ugh.) 

As we stare into the clouds of September, three things are now clear:

1. The Yankees will make the 2017 Wild Card.

2. The Yankees can beat Boston in a seven-game series.

3. It's hard to see the Yankees beating Cleveland or Houston, and thus reaching that seven-game showdown against our mortal enemies.

Eleven and nine, folks. For where we're going, that's all we need.

"Green has nothing today. 12 won't be enough."Alphonso suffers, invokes Lincoln

It starts with football, but Alphonso's most epic text-storm yet quickly circles back to a game the Yankees would win by a score of 16-7:

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Wherever we face them, whatever their plight, Tampa will be playing on pure anti-Yankee spite

No team hates us like the Rays. Nobody. Yeah, the Redsocks are our "traditional rivals," but that's all marketing: They need us, like the Joker needs Batman, like peanut butter needs jelly. If not for us, they're Boston College playing West Virginia. Talk to a nutjob Redsock fan, and he'll tell you the Yankee pitching staff down to Caleb Smith, which many Yankee fans can't do. I've seen these poor Redsock people. They are closet Yankee fans, pinstriped trannies, all torn up inside due to their denial. They are living a lie. They simply hear people booing Aaron Judge, and they boo along with the mob. Sad.

Tampa fans are a different critter. The city fathers want them to be whipped into a froth by the mere image of the Yankees, but they just don't care. They're more inclined to root for the NFL Bucs or, better, watch reruns of Cougar Town. The Tampa Ray ownership desperately wants the city to hate the Yankees, because - kaching - it would fannies in seats and, besides, the Yankees have set up shop in Tampa, behind enemy lines. Their games are on Tampa radio, and they directly challenge old fashioned Tampa civic pride. 

Thus, when they hear the word "Yankees," Tampa Ray Ray players are programmed to explode with a blistering, coronal mass ejaculation of pure hatred. The Rays are always young and naive: Tampa trades them, as soon as they start earning money. This is their first taste of the Major Leagues. They'll not just climb a wall to steal a Yankee homer, they'll run through it. When the Yankees arrive, Eva Longoria becomes Evan Longoria. The Rays go nuts. They want to beat the Yankees because it's the last time in their professional lives that some fake home town spirit will motivate them. 

This week, we play Tampa at Citi Field, theoretically a Yankee home crowd. It won't matter. We should be very afraid of the Rays. They may be almost out of it, but they will be spiteful.

There will be fans rooting for them out of sympathy - (and who doesn't feel it? what's happening is a catastrophe; dear god, I have lifetime friends hunkered down, trying to ride it out in Punta Gorda!) - but nothing will more delight the Rays than knocking out the Yankees. 

Beware this series, folks. They're going to come at us with pitchforks.