Another gut punch, as hope drains for the home field advantage

The Death Star has nine games left to bypass hot-and-healthy Houston - (one player out this month: Aaron Sanchez) - in the race for home field advantage in the playoffs. 

With a 10-game lead in the AL East, the Yankiverse should not be pondering a sense of impending doom... yet here it is. 

Last night, Aaron Judge jammed his shoulder diving for a ball. He spent the rest of the game flexing and stretching, slapping two meager grounders. We've seen this movie many times. It's played nonstop since March. It opens with a player flexing and stretching, and it ends two months later, following the intermission. Judge is a trooper. He'll probably play hurt. That, in itself, is another curse. 

The road to 2019 will almost surely pass through Houston, where our home runs die at the track, and where - if we even make it - our lineup could be a cruel SNL parody. Can Kate McKinnon do Larry Rothschild? 

Why am I so damn negative? Good grief, after what we've witnessed this year, how can anyone not feel hopeless? Has there yet been a tweak that turned out to be innocent? A guy gets bitten by a radioactive spider: He doesn't develop powers; he misses six weeks. When Aaron Hicks hurt himself in spring training, he vowed to miss maybe three games - exhibition games! He returned in mid-May, and was still hitting below .200 on June 22. Severino? He was originally out until the All-Star break. And don't get me started about Miguel Andujar and Giancarlo Stanton. I'm sorry, folks. But when Edwin Encarnacion returned for a week, hit like hell, and then pulled a saddlebag - well - something snapped inside me. The MRI found a tear in my hope gland, and I'm headed for Tommy John lobotomy. I can only hope they remove the part of my brain that clicks on stories posted about Jennifer Aniston's comeback.

Last night, Aaron Judge jammed his shoulder. I ask you: Is there any reason - any frickin' reason at all - why we should not expect this to kill the rest of his season? Tonight, they'll simply announce that he's resting. Tomorrow, they'll say he'll be back my mid-week. Then they'll say maybe spring training. 

This has been the weirdest, most warped, Yankee season in my lifetime. In many ways, it's been the most rewarding. We came to know Gio Urshela, Mike Tauchman, Cameron Maybin, Luke Voit, Domingo German, Thairo Estrada and Kyle Higashioka. They appeared out of nowhere and saved our listing boat. They beat Boston, like the great Yankee teams of yore. But we've always known it won't matter, if we fail in October. 

We kept believing that, at some point, the wave of injuries would end, or at least be shared equally by our rivals. Now, we know the grim truth: That's not going to happen. The fix is in. Jeter wears a slimy suit, and Mariano dines with autocrats. God is a psychopath. 

Last night, Aaron Judge jammed his shoulder. Expect the worst. The champagne celebration won't quite be the same.