Dubious Achievement Awards, Parte de Deux

All right, in the wake of an avalanche of depressing news this last gray, soggy day—no Yonkers Raceway, no Toe but Cano, etc.—I think we need to get to the cheery business of handing out more end of the season awards.




Today's question:  what was The Worst Pineapple Loss of the 2018 Campaign?

Sure, the obvious choices all involve Boston:

—The agonizing, final game of the season, in which a ninth-inning rally fell just short as our best hitter all season sat on the bench and our supposed best hitter swung at pitches like a maddened English explorer swatting at tse-tse flies;

—The awful, 10-inning, August 5th loss in Fenway, in which our closer gave up 3 runs in the 9th, the final one on a throw that Greg Bird dropped at first, thereby completing a four-game sweep and effectively ending the regular season for us.

—The penultimate game of the season, the 16-1 loss in the ALDS to Nathan Eovaldi, for which our starter could not even be bothered to show up on time.  Technically not a pineapple loss at all, I know, but one so gruesomely awful that I don't think the franchise will ever recover from it.

My pick, though, would be another one.

That is, our prickly, 12-10 loss in Texas, on May 23rd.

It wasn't like this game was all that significant in its own right.  The Yanks had been playing great ball leading up to it, coming into the game with a 31-15 record (after that dreary, 9-9 start), and after it was over they would go on another 19-6 spurt, leaving them at their pinnacle for the season—and for this stillborn dynasty, I'm afraid—with a 50-22 record.

It was more everything that the game presaged.  A CC rapidly nearing the glue factory, a relief staff that would not be the impregnable fortress again that it was in the second half of 2017.  An inability to hit in the clutch, the collapse of Sanchez, the idiocy of our new manager, the dedication of our GM to the great cause of getting Neil Walker more at-bats.

It was all there, if only we had been able to read the tea leaves.

Our boys jumped off to a quick, 4-0 lead, despite leaving 6 men on base in the first 4 innings (an ominous note right there).  CC then gave it all up in a hurry, being pounded by Ranger nonentities for 5 runs in the bottom of the 4th.

We brushed it off, scoring six more runs of our own on homers by Judge and The Gleyber.  We were cruising again, up 10-5.

Inexplicably, CC, who had already thrown 77 pitches and surrendered 3 walks and 3 hits—including homers to the likes of Nomar Mazara and Ronald Guzman—came back out for the fifth.  Three more hits later, it was 10-7, and Chasen Shreve and Dave Robertson gave away the rest an inning later.

Meanwhile, we stopped hitting completely.  Sanchez, who had not started the game, came in in the 9th to pinch hit against the immortal Keone Kela, the last king of Hawaii, and struck out.

Neil Walker, who entered the game batting .210, hit a single and a solo homer, thereby guaranteeing him another five months of work.

Sure, there were other games.

Those Boston monstrosities.  Aaron Boone's various insistences on pitching to Justin Smoak, no matter what.  Any number of other Shreve or Robertson or Betances beauties.

We are open to any and all suggestions here.  But for my money, our Pineapple of the Year should have a distinctly Texan burn to it.