Yanks take two-game lead in race for AL Wild Card

I'm crapping bloody pineapple rinds this morning - opening day for the '17 Yankees' Single-Game Away-Field Rug Selig Memorial Wild Card derby - and, as you can see, it's a race among teams of Olympian gods. We're two up on the mighty Twins and Devil Rays, though nobody's counting out the always-scheming Seattletonians, just a doubleheader-sweep from that coveted, final, all-out lunge for the greasy brass ring. We're 75 games into 2017, and the worst team in the American League - (the one that beat us last night with a World Series walk-off style celebration) - is only 6-and-a-half games behind for that last wild card slot, the sports industry's Pia Zadora Golden Globe Award for ignominy. 

Last night, the team-wide suicide that the Yankees had been carefully foreshadowing for the last four weeks finally commenced. The angel of death mixed our Kool-Aid with Draino, and we happily drank it down. Sleep will be a relief - a word we haven't known recently. The Yankees have now suffered 11 excruciating losses in 14 games - including a few out-of-body, Nicholas Cage-chasing-an-Oscar collapses - against fundamentally bad teams. At this rate, the fates will soon be done with us, Netflix will beckon, and maybe we can trade a few veterans for handfuls of magic beans, and then see what the kids can do. Who knows? Last year, we expected to tank like Carly Fiorina after dumping the jinx casserole known as A-Rod; instead, we made it a race into mid-September. This year, with Tyler Wade, Chance Adams, Dustin Fowler and maybe Clint Frazier sprinkled into the lineup, who knows? At least we're not losing with Chris Carter anymore. Progress, right?

In some ways, last night's humiliating loss would have been easier to digest had the Yankees not rallied in the eighth, leading to yet another Syrian desert bullpen disaster. But actually, the final, horrible loss was sort of funny, in a Hannibal Lecter sense-of-irony way. Everybody knew Jose Quintana was pitching his heart out, auditioning for a Yankee trade. But the joke's on him: We don't need starting pitchers. It's the bullpen that's killing us, and he can't help. 

Also, for my money, we don't need anyone over age 27. Let the old-timers play in Old Timers Day. I'm becoming a pro-Millennial generational bigot. For me, it's the veterans who have sank this team. Last night, Chase Headley - inexplicably batting second - went 0-5 with three strikeouts, leaving four runners on base. Gardy failed with two men on, Betances couldn't hold the lead, and because Tyler Clippard didn't give up a grand slam, it's an encouraging sign? Hey, YES team, can we set the bar a little higher than walking in a run? It's disabled vets who populate the training room - from CC to Castro - each one is a giant hamstring waiting to be tweaked. It's not their fault that they're hurt. It's just that when you depend on oldsters, they're always healing from something. 

Today, we lead the 2017 Wild Card race. But unless Joe finds somebody to pitch the 7th, 8th and 9th innings - (currently, we have no one) - we will soon be looking up from behind Joggy Cano and/or the Royals from the great closed-schools/tax-cut-experiment of Kansas. It was a nice ride, while it lasted. But if you'll excuse me, I need another Fleet Enema. The worst of the pineapple is yet to come.