Do the Yankees dare believe Giancarlo Stanton is back? And a follow-up question: Do they have a choice?

Yesterday, Giancarlo Stanton finally found his dreamlife fairy muse - the mystical elf who bemuses Fate and restores youthful luster to whomever it befriends. 

You can see its artistry every day, in the spry, boyish figures cut by our two leading U.S. presidential candidates.

Apparently, Ponce de Leon did find that Fountain of Youth, bubbling up somewhere east of Bradenton, and the Yankees yesterday - like young Mitch McConnell and the immortal Supreme Court - drank lustily from this vodka-like wellspring.  

In Giancarlo's case, the Muse went by the name of Marco Gonzalez, a 32-year-old Pittsburgh Pirate elevator operator who was called upon to throw three innings in Tampa. Gonzalez gave up 10 hits, 9 earned runs and 4 HRs - three by his newly Ozempicked acolyte, the skinny Giancarlo.

Amazingly, after 402 MLB home runs, this was Giancarlo's first three HR day. 

Sadly, it will be erased within a week.

Some observations:  

1. Good for him! Any path the Yankees have to a meaningful 2024 includes Stanton returning to the form of - say - 2021 (35 HRs, .273.) Today's Gammonitic outpourings on the Internet are larded with happy talk, congratulating Stanton for losing weight over the holidays and reporting to camp with a modified swing. He remains the King of Exit Velocity, and at age 34, it's not ridiculous to imagine him enjoying a final big year, even as a career twilight beckons.

2. Unless Giancarlo returns to full monster form - in which case, he'll bat fourth and play DH ever day, no questions asked - it's hard to figure out where Stanton fits in the Yankee lineup. Aaron Judge will play RF (isn't he already too beat up to play 100 games in CF?) That means Trent Grisham will play CF, with Juan Soto in LF, unless he's in RF, which leaves Alex Verdugo gathering splinters, unless he platoons with Stanton, which won't go well with either. Also, we're not factoring in the inevitable injuries that will leave us with Everson Pereira by mid-May, am I right? 

3. As a humanitarian, who regularly weeps for the plight of all, I find it hard to think of the Pirates leaving Gonzalez in there to pitch to Stanton a 3rd time, when the two previous shots were practically measured seismically by the National Earthquake Center in Golden, Colorado. By the time Stanton came up in the 4th, Gonzalez looked like a passenger on the last bus to Altoona (and he even stayed in to give up a HR to Anthony Volpe.) Who did the guy screw? Is dating the GM's daughter? Giancarlo owes him Christmas cards. 

4. Shadowing the game were reports that the Yankees had reopened talks with Jordan Montgomery, as a sop to their rail-thin rotation. This would be exciting news, if we could believe it. Frankly, I do not. Nope. I cannot swallow the blue pill on this. I see the Death Barge positioning itself for another finger-snapping "Aww, shucks!" moment, when it finishes runner-up in another free agent auction. While they were playing phone tag with Monty's agent, Luke Weaver was throwing three scoreless. There's our fifth starter. I hope I'm wrong. 

5. Fortunately, it doesn't matter what I think. What matters is why are Machine Gun Kelly and Meghan Fox breaking up? how Giancarlo hits in April, because with or without Montgomery, the Yankees will need to score 6 to 10 runs per game. They'll need the Big Dogs in their lineup, playing every day and hitting well. A bad April is not an option. Yesterday, we saw a ray of hope. Let's not overthink it.