From our own DickAllen: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times..."

 

From the tortured desk of our own commenter, DickAllen:

It was the worst of times. It was the best of times.

What are we to make of this season? Our illustrious GM saw fit to start the season with a pitching staff of cripples and nary a left-handed bat in the lineup. Then he added to the mess by hiring a nice guy with no coaching or managing experience at all. Hell of an interview though. They actually admitted that part in public.

We watched in horror (or at least I did) as an expensive, old, and rickety team lurched from tantalizing wins to horrific, last minute defeats made worse by my own belief that this team was capable, if everything went according to plan, of winning the division. I know. I know. Everyone else here thought it was a mediocrity at best and a dung heap at worst. And nothing went according to plan. The first half of the season had most of us considering homicide or suicide. The Yankees were a plodding, dull bunch who couldn't bunt, didn't have the first idea of how to run bases, stood around waiting for home runs that didn't materialize, and when they had a lead, couldn't hold it. In short, it was a mess.

Then, the unimaginable happened. The Office Boy who calls himself a General Manager (an ambiguous term in itself) made a series of bewildering, almost maniacal moves to improve the team and miraculously, improve the team it did, and thanks to a series of COVID-related IL stints, this misfit bunch started winning and has kept on winning much to our collective astonishment.

Some young upstarts who, much like in 2017, were forced into service began doing the kinds of things baseball players are supposed to do: they began to hit the ball, throw the ball, and catch the ball. They took the extra base. Stole some of them too! The turnaround was so sudden and unexpected that most of us are either still in shock or denial.

I myself am not falling for this Phoenix. My memory is not that short. Like all of you, I've watched in horror and indignation as Boooooone, who in spite of the New York Murdoch's insistence that the Yankees turnaround is due to his calming hand at the wheel (a complete load of festering turd), still needs to go find another job. And in spite of this miraculous turn of events, The Office Boy still needs to go too. For him to have hired a novice manager was a disaster waiting to happen (as it already has), and for the Yankees to start the season with no left-handed bats was unprecedented in the history of the New York Yankees. The first half of the season was a total failure. You know the old saying: you can't win a pennant in April, but you can lose one. And if this team doesn't win the division – which in theory it still could, they are currently four back and have three games with the Tampons to end the season – it is the failure of the GM to put together a balanced team during the off-season. The Yankees might very well have lost the division in April

As much as I hate to say this, I have to give The Office Boy some props for the trades he made to correct his glaring mistakes. But only some: trading for a guy like Andrew Heaney was a disaster of a move – no one is going to convince me that one good game covers all sins. Part of this resurgence is due to the fact that the team has been forced to dig down into the minors for help. There was no plan in that. Teams like Tampa and Oakland regularly replenish their rosters with youth while our prospects, such as they are, find the light of day in other cities. Cashman is an absolute disaster of a GM – he's still an intern as far as I'm concerned.

All in all, I don't know which team to believe in – the shit show that was the first half or the best team in the majors right now. The team is winning against a soft spot in the schedule, but I can't help but feel like it's peaking too soon. This gravy train won't last and the pennant race doesn't begin in earnest until Labor Day. Where will they be then?

I guess time will tell. As a victim of popular culture, my head is always swimming with useless trivia and memories of television shows past and the only thing I have left is this:

Will the real New York Yankees please stand up?