On trade deadline weekend, maybe we should listen to this Yankee team

Last year, in this annual week of musical chairs, the final days before the trade deadline, Tampa swept our old and buttery butts - dealing us three losses so horrific that Prince Hal benched Brian McCann, sent A-Rod to the J-Lo retiree home and traded our three best players to actual pennant races. As a result, Gary Sanchez burst upon the national scene like the Irritable Bowell Syndrome lady, and Aaron Judge received two free months to suck, (which he did) - and to learn major league pitching, (which he also did.) The basic plan for 2017 was to give Clint Frazier and Glyber Torres a year to do the same, and then we'd make our run in 2018. Funny thing about musical chairs and long-term plans, eh?

But during last year's meltdown, I could not escape a sense that the team itself was weighing in, sort of, what should happen. We lost three straight to a team that was otherwise floundering. When that weekend ended, the Yankiverse was a raging forest fire of pitchforks and bile, and nobody - NOBODY - was clamoring to trade for a Todd Frazier or a Lucas Duda. Everybody knew the season was done. That weekend in Tampa showed us who we were. 

So here we are, halfway through 2017, farther along than we ever expected to be, still debating whether to fall back and save our horse for a brighter future, or to whip its ass and go for broke at the home stretch. In these final days before the Aug. 1 tsunami, could it be that the Yankee team is weighing in? (Or maybe the Rays are?)

Last night, Brett Gardner - our de facto captain - almost single-handedly turned a devastating loss into a 50-yard Lou "The Toe" Groza field goal, square into Tampa's young nuts. In Tampa, that loss had to feel like the worst massacre since Hernando de Soto arrived in 1539, and they needed a giant sponge to blotter up the entrails.  

Well, if we've learned anything as fans - (by the way, who says fans ever learn anything?) - it's that one loss - however horrible - cannot break a season. Our worst defeat in game one of the recent Boston series, the game El Chapo pissed away, seemed to end hope in 2017. But then, on the next day, the failing Matt Hollidayhomered in the ninth off their unhittable closer, and we beat the Redsock '17 Hall of Fame Superteam of Destiny (TM) in 16 innings, and ever since Boston has wobbled like the Hindenburg. 

One game does not end a season. 

But last night, damn, we got 'em good.  

We walked into their Dali Museum and pissed on the Abraham Lincoln pixel painting, smashed the Chihuly Collection with a ball bat, shut down their bridge and turned Tampa into Punta Gorda with traffic lights. We sent Evan Longoria back to Desperate Housewives. We play three more games against them this weekend, then face Detroit on Trade Deadline Eve. By midnight Monday, we will have a clean picture of 2017. But unless we lose all three - a complete meltdown - we should be viable going into the Monday night shakeout.   

And before I leave, a few words about Mr. Gardner... 

Of all MLB left-fielders, Gardy ranks 11th in batting average (.261) and sixth in homers (18), which is weird since he was never supposed to hit for power. His asset was speed, and he ranks 5th in stolen bases (13.) Statistically, you'd think he's a meh, except for runs scored. There, Gardy ranks 1st - with 66. 

I don't know what happens when Aaron Hicks returns - I mean, somebody in that outfield has gotta go, and we'll be pissed if it's Clint - but trading Gardy is no longer an option. Maybe it never was. Either way, the Yankee team has three more games to weigh in on 2017. Maybe we should listen.