Sunday, September 3, 2017

First place Yanks gain on O's, Rays, Rangers, Royals in race for fourth

Quick, somebody peel me a grape! The big Wild Card '17 Single Game Home Field Advantage Bragging Rights series starts tomorrow, when the first place Wild Card '17 Single Game Home Field Advantage Yanks hit Baltimore, looking to extend their Wild Card '17 Single Game Home Field Advantage Crown lead. Excelsior, dammit! Who stole the channel changer?

Tonight, our prospective Wild Card champions play a non-Wild Card '17 Single Game Home Field Advantage contender in a nothing burger exhibition. The outcome is hardly in doubt: Having won yesterday, the Yankees will honor their '17 traditions by losing, surely via some excruciating, out-of-body meltdown, too painful to be imagined.

Oh, hell - let's try! How can the Yankees lose tonight and outdo their other recent 500-year collapses? Having El Chapo blow the save no longer bothers us; meh, it's a mosquito bite. Just seeing him warm up loosens my bowels with the impact of ten bars of Ex-Lax and a prune Danish. He can shoot bullets into my garage door, but he can no longer hurt me. 

Another Aaron Judge golden sombrero runners-left-on-base fest? Sorry, juju gods. You'll have to do better. I don't care how many times Judge fans - let the big dog run! - he can't fall below .240 on the season, and he'll have 37 HRs - they can't be taken away - and somebody next winter will want him under their tree. (Let's remember that even as we speak, the Marlins are looking to peddle Giancarlo Stanton to anybody with an open checkbook, which rules out us.) Judge is earning rookie wages. In the worst of all scenarios, we can trade him to a small market team desperate for a program cover. Let September be Judgement Month - four weeks to judge Judge. If he goes 0-for-100, no problem. We'll know what we've got, and let's cue up Clint Frazier.    

How about a key defensive lapse? A Gary Sanchez passed ball? Been there, done that. The juju torturers would look lame, eh? I'm thinking pitchers' duel, Yanks take lead in the eighth, lose it with Betances, strand the bases loaded in the ninth, then lose in the 17th with - say - Ronald Torreyes on the mound. Now, that would hurt. 

Listen: I apologize for the negativity here. I'm just trying to get something started with the juju gods, because they have been on our cases all year. In the meantime, I'm looking at the real race.  

Tomorrow could bring Buck Showrunner's last gasp for the Home Field Advantage Wild Card '17 Single Game Berth. If Baltimore cannot take 2 out of 3 against the Yankees, they must focus on the Away Field Wild Card '17 Single Game Berth, which we could also be chasing. There's always excitement in the Wild Card. 

13 comments:

HoraceClarke66 said...

I thought for sure that we had seen a sign when Judge hit that ball to Section 536 against the Mets.

536—The Mick's lifetime home run total! Surely, the JuJu gods were telling us that he was the reincarnation of The One Who Ran Without Legs!

Mystified that Judge has not hit a home run since, I had a couple of necromancers over to dinner last night—Bob and Sally Necromancer, actually—and after a few fried toads, and some good bourbon (they brought over Ben & Jerry's for dessert), we opened up a couple of very slow pigeons and took a look at the entrails.

After a lot of tsking and head shaking, and an hour or so chasing the cat out of the livingroom, they asked me, "Has it ever occurred to you that 536 was ALL the home runs Mantle ever hit? And this means that Judge will never hit another home run for the Yankees?"

Oh.

I guess that could be the sign we saw. Oh, those devious JuJu gods! They've played us false again!


JM said...

I like Holliday. It was good to see him park one again.

Hicks' injury may be a blessing. His defense is hard to let go of, though. On the other hand, he seems to be suffering from Judge Disease, otherwise known as reversion to the mean. Judge is reverting with a vengeance. The pigeon entrails may have something.

Remember when the press was falling all over itself (rightly) writing Judge stories in the first half? And Judge showed his levelheadedness by telling reporters that he keeps .179 on his cell phone screen as a reminder of last year? I wonder if he should have let that go? He may just end up hitting .179 for the second half, one of the most incredible Icarus moments in recent memory. He may have been tempting the JuJu gods by keeping that on his screen. He said it was to stay humble. The gods may have seen it as hubris, a stark contrast to his first-half success that mocked his flailings of last year.

It's tough to figure out the JuJu gods. They have a nasty sense of humor.

Ellsbury is showing signs of life. That's good, since he's going to be playing a lot.

Remember, pitching wins championships. All we have to do is score more than two runs per game, and we're golden.

Anonymous said...

Here's how we lose today. Serverino and Sale go head to head for seven innings. 1-1 tie. A home run by Debenidetti or what ever his name is and a walk to Judge, a ground out that moves him to second a a pop up (I'm going to go with Frazier for that one) and a base hit by... Toreyes.

The game goes to the ninth. The Sox brought a guy up from the minors playing in his first game. He's kind of fat, pale and has an enormous head to go with shocking red hair. He works the count to 3-2 and then hits a long fly-ball, obviously gone. Elsbury runs into the center field wall anyway. He's out for the year.

The ball lands in "The Judges Chamber" accidentally killing Ruth Bader Ginsberg and giving Trump yet another seat on the court. He nominates a 12 year old Trump Youther who stays on the bench for 75 years.

In the meantime the guy that hits the home run lumbers around the bases seemingly out of breath. The weight of his head straining every fiber of his being. As he touches home he reaches up to his head and, Mission Impossible style pulls of his mask. David Ortiz!!!!!!

The Yanks go down in the 9th 1-2-3. Judge looking, Sanchez swinging at a ball outside and at his ankles and a pop up. I'm thinking Frazier.

Doug K.

Leinstery said...

Judge 0-11 with 9K's vs Sale.

I'll keep this updated throughout the game. Make you predictions an place your bets on what it is by the end of the game. I'll say 0-13 with 10k's, I'm going the conservative rout and saying he won't strike out every at bat tonight. Or is that the daring rout? Who knows.

HoraceClarke66 said...

Yeah, I can easily see that happening. It's why I was hoping for rain!

Leinstery said...

You and me both Horace

Rufus T. Firefly said...

It's 'HEADLEY"!

Leinstery said...

Apologies I nearly forgot the second update.

0-12 with 10K's. No way Sale makes it another 12 batters, so in all likelihood there is 1 AB left, will Judge defy the gods of fate and make contact? Will Sale even make it into the 5th? Stay Tuned

Leinstery said...

And Starlin destroys the odds and knocks Sale out before Judge can get his chance. What a twist. After that first inning where they blew a 2nd and 3rd, one out opportunity I was positive Sale would cruise through the 7th. Maybe he'd walk a batter, maybe a bloop hit, but dominance was assured.

It's as the Master always says, you can't predict baseball

Parson Tom said...

Gary Sanchez: speed merchant

Rufus T. Firefly said...

The idiots on ESPN(redsux jocksniffers) didn't know if he was safe? Give me a four king break!

Anonymous said...

So apparently I was wrong. I've been wrong before. I'm ok with it.

Doug K.

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