Another rotten, good-for-nothing West Coast swing

I hate West Coast swings. Nothing good ever happens. (Personal theory: We should blame California, not Canada, for the spawning of Justin Bieber.) The Yanks can be MLB's best team - as they were last week. Send them out to the perfumed shadow of Kim and Kanye, and they crap the futon. Every time. The only positive West Coast swing I can recall came in 2003, when a recently benched Raul Mondesi refused to fly on the Yankee plane. Days later, we dealt him for David Dellucci, Bret Prinz and somebody named Jon-Mark Sprowl. The West Coast ruins everyone. Out there, toilets flush backwards, and people secretly like disco. California gave us kale, 8-Minute Abs videos, piece-of-shit electronics and Jar Jar Binx. Never forget. 

Thus far, only three days into our California nightmare:

1. We have lost CC Sabathia for at least four weeks. Probably six.

2. We have butchered two entirely winnable games against a team that was below .500, a light year behind Houston, without its best player.

3. We have watched Michael Pineda revert to Jeez Montero status, blowing a 4-0 early lead, and reminding us of how quickly our rotation can fray. In a game we desperately needed, following CC's injury, Big Mike floated a turd. (And yes, we can start reassessing the trade again: Montero, now of the Norfolk Tides, is 4 for 18 on the season, after returning from a juicer suspension.) 

4. We have managed to let our bullpen so implode that Joe turned to Ronald Herrera - a rookie starter just up from Double A - in the seventh with the game tied. WTF? I can see the kid used in a blowout or early situation. Debuting with the game on the line? Holy crap, how fried are we?

5. We have watched Boston quietly climb to two games behind us. For the whole first third of the season, they have been playing rope-a-dope.

We now do four against the wretched A's, a team even more miserable than the Angels. Mark my words: Nothing good can come of this. Meanwhile, back in Scranton, Greg Bird is floundering, creating a situation that we thought was impossible: We are actually missing Mark Teixeira's .210 batting average. Four days ago, we ruled everything. Now, we're stuck in a line at Disneyland. It's a small world, after all. Excuse me. I gotta eat my kale.