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Thursday, May 24, 2018

After the ugliest loss of the season... Introducing the Gina Haspel Yankee Loss Discomfort Index

Well, here we are, back on the Pineapple Express. How do we spell relief? Not "B-U-L-L-P-E-N," that's for sure. We just scored 10 runs and lost going away. The Yankees are back in second place and - here you go, comrades: Behold, the 2018 Wild Card Standings. Maybe we should get used to them?

Hell, no. Clearly, I'm talking reverse juju. It's therapeutic to load all your demons into one bloated pinata and then go Aaron Judge on it.  We always knew 2018 would feature some Siberian cold spells, and here we are. It sucks to blow a five run lead, but these things need to happen. We have to know who can rise up after a debacle, and to learn, you need an occasional debacle.

Thus far, the Yankees have given us 15 losses - 15 household items jammed up the Yankiverse's wazoo, causing us to shout, "GHUWAYLI!" (It's like Jumanji, but creepier and far more intense.) Hence, I am hereby unveiling the 2018 "Gina Haspel Up-the-Wazoo Yankee Loss Agony Index," (GHUWAYLI), named for the new CIA director's unique experience in knowing the limits of fan torture discomfort.  

It has five levels - called Haspels - of up-the-wazoo torture discomfort. They are:

1. Sticky bun.
2. Bar of soap.

3. Cell Phone.
4. Alarm Clock.
5. Pineapple.

Here is the season of Yankee losses, based on Haspel torture discomfort.

March 31, 5-3, in Toronto: Bullpen gives up 3 after seventh (Warren, Betances) Judge goes 0-4. Alarm Clock.

April 1, 7-4, in Toronto: Bullpen gives up 6 in late innings. (Kahnle, Robertson) Gardy goes 0-5. Pineapple.

April 5, 5-2 v Orioles: Tanaka loses it in 7th, he and bullpen give up 5 (Green). Gardy 0-4. Alarm Clock-Pineapple.


April 6, 7-3, v Orioles: Bullpen blows it in 14th (Holder); Sanchez 0-6. Cell Phone.

April 8, 8-7, v Orioles: Bullpen blows it in 12th (Warren); Stanton 0-7 with 5 ks. Cell Phone.


April 10, 14-1 in Boston: Severino bombed, Kahnle and Shreve pounded. Cell Phone.

April 12, 6-3 in Boston: Gray pounded, Gardy 0-4 Bar of Soap.


April 17, 9-1, in Miami: Tanaka pounded, Cessa whacked, Yanks get four hits. Loss from the gitgo. Sticky Bun.


April 20, 8-5, v Blue Jays: Gray and German pounded, Gardy 0-5. Bar of Soap.

April 30, 2-1, in Houston: Yanks get 3 hits against Charlie Morton & relievers. Cell Phone.

May 10, 5-4 v Redsocks: CC pounded, Yanks get 5 hits, Didi 0-5 Alarm Clock.


May 11, 10-5 v A's: Gray pounded, Robertson hit hard. Never in it. Sticky Bun.

May 18, 5-2 in KC: Judge, Didi, Gary 0-12, Gardy 1-5 Cell Phone.

May 22, 6-4 in Texas: German pounded, team gets 7 hits Cell Phone


Last night, 12-10, in Texas: CC pounded, bullpen pounded. Pineapple.

Gina Haspel... or Larry Rothschild?

For all our pain and torture discomfort, the 2018 season has hardly delivered Haspels on the level of past years. But last night sure tried. I believe it was the ugliest loss yet, capped by an appearance of "Bad Betances," which always leaves me wondering if there's anything worth trying to salvage. The guy cannot hold a runner, and it's late in a career to start learning a fundamental aspect of pitching.

Still, think of it this way: CC always runs hot and cold, the offense is still percolating, and we didn't lose anybody to an injury. The fear is that David Robertson may be nearing a sell-by date, and Mean Chad Green might be wearing down. The "Circle of Trust" is becoming a dot.

The hope? Justus Sheffield threw four scoreless innings last night in Triple A. Right now, he is next in line to be unveiled in the Yankee debutantes ball. I prefer to be optimistic, even at the risk of summoning bad juju. 

Listen: We must get used to occasional torture discomfort. The Haspels come with the job. Now, if you'll excuse me. I think I need to stand for a while.

12 comments:

KD said...

Is the cell phone an old school flip phone, a regular iPhone, or one of the plus models?

Vampifella said...

Something interesting about the game. Everybody got a hit and almost everybody got a run. No runs for Hicks and we won't count Sanchez's predictable pinch strike out. I cannot remember a game where every Yankee hitter was basically useful.

The hitting good. Pitching awwwful. Then again, just about every contending team needs pitching as much as the Yanks, so we'd probably give up half the farm just for one lump of Cole. It wouldn't matter who we got, he'd just make our skies Gray.

TheWinWarblist said...

[shakes head, tears in eyes]

TheWinWarblist said...

It's my old beloved StarTAC with the broken antenna ... [snif]

Local Bargain Jerk said...


If we're going to use this index moving forward, perhaps we should correct something now?

From Duque's post:

     Gina Haspel Up-the-Wazoo Yankee Loss Agony Index," (GHUWAYLI)

Shouldn't it be:

     Gina Haspel Up-the-Wazoo Yankee Loss Agony Index," (GHUWYLAI)?

In my head, I would pronounce it "goo - why - lie".

Ok, now we can all sleep comfortably. Back to our discussion about how the use of statistics in baseball can be overemphasized if not misleading.



P.S. Last night sucked.

Local Bargain Jerk said...


P.P.S. It's entirely fitting that this post was accompanied by a photo of Larry "Rising ERA" Rothschild.

TheWinWarblist said...

Such a pineappling ...

Anonymous said...

CAN COOP FIGURE THIS ONE OUT?

WE NEED PITCHING. PREFERABLY A STARTER.

INSTEAD OF GETTING RAPED FOR A PRETENDER LIKE COLE HAMELS, HOW ABOUT LOOKING IN OUR OWN CUPBOARD.

THERE SITS A YOUNG LEFTY WITH REAL GOOD STUFF IN SCRANTON.

HE IS RAW (LIKE DOMINGO), BUT THE STUFF IS THERE. (I SAW CLIPS OF HIM THROWING 4 INNINGS OF NO RUN BALL LAST NIGHT...HE LOOKED REAL GOOD).

LET JUSTUS SHEFFIELD PUT TOGETHER 2 OR 3 MORE GOOD STARTS AT SCRANTON, AND BRING HIM UP TO THE BIG CLUB TO START.

THE DOWNSIDE?.... HE MAY GET OVERWHELMED AND NEED TO GO BACK TO SCRANTON TO BETTER HONE HIS CRAFT

THE UPSIDE?.... JUST LIKE COMMITTING TO MIGUEL ANDUJAR AT 3RD BASE, THE REWARDS CAN BE IMMEASURABLE.....

WE MAY BE ABLE TO SAVE ALL OF OUR OWN PROSPECTS, NOT TO MENTION, LIKE ANDUJAR, HE MAY ACTUALLY BE ABLE TO SAVE US $20 MILLION DOLLARS OR MORE (THE COST FOR 1 SEASON OF COLE HAMELS).

IN MY OPINION, THERE IS NO LONGER A REASON TO PURSUE MANNY MACHADO. I HAVE SEEN ENOUGH OF ANDUJAR TO BE A BELIEVER....THAT MAN HAS SAVED THE FRANCHISE $325 MILLION MANNY MACHADO DOLLARS.....HE MAY NOT BE MANNY MACHADO, BUT LOOKS TO BE MORE THAN ADEQUATE WITH THE BAT, AND THE GLOVE.

CAN COOP TRUST OUR OWN SYSTEM AND TRY SHEFFIELD INSTEAD OF DEAL FOR HAMELS?

HE SHOULD....IT COULD SAVE US AND THE FRANCHISE MILLIONS AGAIN.

TRUST.

Joe Formerlyof Brooklyn said...


I don't have a vote in this. But if I did, I'd vote for the following approach to filling starter slot(s) -- in no particular order --

-- Sheffield
-- the return of Warren (as a starter)
-- the return of Monty
-- prolonging German's trial period (and agony?)
-- L. Cessa
-- David Hale
-- A.J. Cole
or
-- even Phil Effing Hughes

.....over trading for some one else's garbage.


There was a (prolonged) period in my life in which, as a reporter and then sportswriter for the Binghamton Sun-Bulletin, I was paid almost nothing (and the people in charge acted as if they were doing me a favor in bestowing such tiny checks on me).

I drove used cars. Went thru a bunch of them. They all sucked. I became really famliar with the guy who ran a local gas station (he fixed the cars, or advised me to throw them over the side).

What I learned: I ain't no great genius at BUYING used cars. It took a few disasters for this lesson to be fully appreciated. Finally, the gas-station guy took pity on me, sold me a 1964 Ford Fairlane for $125 (in 1975) -- and the thing (which was riddled with rust spots, holes, etc.) -- ran like a top!!!

.....I believe my experience THEN with cars is roughly equivalent to Cashmoney's experience in recent years in the acquisition-of-pitching dept.

TheWinWarblist said...

Not Phil Hughes. No. Please please no more sloppy seconds. Especially not with that mook. He was never good. He's not good enough for Minnesota. He's certainly not good enough for this team. Not even as Mr Mop Up.

Rufus T. Firefly said...

Phil Hughes would smell too much more like Javier Vazquez than Andy Pettitte.

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