I mean, as Aaron Boonie is performing his YES deathbed video, every loss seems like the WLOTY. In their creative ways to mess up, the Yankees Sunday unveiled a new chasm, a new sinkhole into The Abyss, and fans rushed to their favorite internet water coolers to anoint the new WLOTY. It was like in The Lion King, where the monkey hoists the cub for the kingdom to celebrate.
And that's no easy announcement, either. When you study the previous WLOTYs of 2024... Boston's 10 SB game, the Redsocks game-tying HR in the ninth, the Mets series, the Reds sweep, et al... we have enjoyed some truly magnificent humiliations by via a talented human convergence of disappointment.
But I am here to proudly say that Sunday's loss was epic, eternal, infinite... a testimonial to the looming collapse of civilization, and a glimpse into the Yankee 2024 endgame. We don't know it yet, but the quest for a new low is over. We have our WLOTY.
So, how can I say this? Ten reasons.
1. It instantly reversed what would have been the BLOTY - the Best Win Of The Year. Ben Rice's 9th inning HR saved us. The rookie had done it. This was a future YES Yankee Classic. And then... poof.
2. We have four days to ponder it: To mourn, to grief, to shake our fists... but not to heal. Nope. That won't happen. We will just bleed and bleed.
3. We could have ended the symbolic half in first. Instead, we have begun our wild card chase.
4. A second-place Baltimore would feel enormous pressure to make a bad trade. Instead, despite their five straight losses, they can revel in the victory. No sense of urgency. (That's for the Yankees.)
5. The botches by Anthony Volpe and Alex Verdugo. More on each later. But the pair really needed a hopeful, four-day rest. Instead, they get to revisit their errors and maybe even wonder if they'll still be Yankees after Aug. 1.
6. Verdugo... damn. We've wanted him to break out, because of how it would hurt Redsock fans. Now, we wonder: Were they smart to cut bait on him?
7. As for Volpe, there's a piece by Joel Sherman in yesterday's Post that basically trashes the idea that he's some looming star. He looked great in May. Compared to a great wave of young shortstops, Volpe is starting to look like a future defensive replacement. I gotta believe that if Volpe had made that play to end the game, Sherman doesn't write that article. Now, it's out there...
8. Clay Holmes. Even before Sunday, I thought it a stretch to put him on the All-Star roster. Now, it's ridiculous. Look, we all like Holmes personally, but who can trust him to hold any lead? I hope he doesn't pitch tonight. I doubt he'll make it through an inning.
9. The idea of veterans saving this team looks increasingly weak. DJ LeMahieu is hitting .188, and it's no longer a small sample size. Does he need a change of venue? Is the Yankee pressure cooker ruining careers prematurely? Does anyone really think Giancarlo Stanton can play if he cannot run. Because he can't. The guy can barely score from second on a double. As for Gleyber... yikes. How does a guy fall apart like this? And why?
10. If the Yankees had won, they'd be 5-5 this year against the O's with a chance to win the season series at home. The potential tie-breaker in the postseason. Now, at 4-6, they must sweep Baltimore. We've seen how that scenario turns out, because we just watched the WLOTY.
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11. The umpire interference call on the Grisham slow motion, upright, no-sliding, slow heart beat steal of second base.
12. The TV coverage. As bad as the booth was, the video coverage was superb. Every painful pixel perfectly presented in all of its UHD glory. WHO needs YES~MO when this dimwitted dumpster fire of a clown car team plays the game with as much focused urgency as the peanut butter milk fart synapses firing in Boone’s Brain.
8B- I was in game texting with friend who's a rabid Oriole fan, he was crushed when Rice put them ahead, but I reminded him that Holmes will give them pleEEeeeenty of chances to come back and win, which of course he did. URRRRRGGGGGGG!
I rehashed the 9th inning collapse with my wife AGAIN LAST NIGHT! WLOTY for sure.
Peanut butter milk fart is sold gold.
And, fuck Volpe. Should have paid for a goddamn shortstop when they were falling out of the trees. But no, Brain knows better.
As simple and basically as I can put it, the on-field product is suffering from the effects of ruinous contracts given to players in decline. LeMahieu? Now 36, riddled with injuries with 2 more years on his contract. How can you play when you can’t run? He will be released at some point, though probably not this year. Stanton 3 more years after this, and can’t run at all. He too will have to be released at some point. Rodon has 4 more years on his contract! Cole has an opt out after this year and will need additional remuneration of some sort, likely more years tacked on. In a few years Judge will be Stanton. Because of the payroll structure, the value of younger players has never been higher, which makes the failure of Volpe more dramatic. Of the gaffes in Sunday’s ninth, his was clearly the most egregious. Right now his only value is as a fielder, and if he can’t do that, well…
Torres, Verdugo, Holmes, Kahnle, Soto are all FA next year. How can we trust ownership to give the team the reset it obviously needs, especially when they’ve tied their own hands?
Volpe has been a good to excellent shortshop defensively. He botches one grounder--granted, at a key moment--and suddenly, he's a no-hit, no-glove kid who should've never been given a chance.
I don't buy that.
Oh, and...Holmes is not a closer. Why is that so obvious to everyone but the Yankees brass?
If memory serves, that's not the first time Volpe botched a grounder in the 9th inning, with Holmes trying to close it out. But this is the first time that they really paid for it.
I think that we’re all paying for it, Ham’R
The reason why I went ballistic after that loss is that it wasn't just that one loss. That 9th inning with two outs was the moment that the baseball gods pronounced their judgment on Anthony Volpe: "You have been weighed, you have been measured, and you have been found ... wanting." (courtesy "A Knight's Tale")
There is only one way to exorcise the demon from that game. And it would be to win the World Series this year, with Volpe hitting .500 and leading the way to the promised land. Then we could all laugh it off. Sadly, we all know that ain't happening. At least not here. Maybe he could do it with some other team.
Not every prospect that you develop is a keeper. That error convinced me. I loved Volpe and wanted him to make it here. I still love him, but if I were GM, I would trade Volpe. So the realization that he's not The One is what was so excruciating, devastating about that game.
Now, Yankee management almost always does the EXACT OPPOSITE of what I think. So, if you love Volpe enough to want him and his 9th inning defensive meltdowns around, you're most probably going to get your wish, for the next ten years at least, maybe twenty years.
If I am entitled to an analogy, it was almost as bad as finding out that your son is a vampire. And the next thing that dawns on you (pardon the pun) is that you are the one who is going to have to exorcise him. Not for the faint of heart.
The Verdugo fuck-up put a thousand point exclamation point on the Volpe fuck-up. It was the baseball gods, for sure.
When the other team beats you fair and square, you can tip your cap, if you're a gentleman, and admit that you were bested by the better team. But that's not happened in that game.
There's nothing worse than having to look in the mirror and admit you suck. Except, like I said, finding out your son is a vampire.
I think everyone here is in basic agreement. (If not, please tell us why you think the future is bright)
The reason these losses hit so hard is, as HOG alluded to, there is a pattern of these losses, yet team brass keeps repeating the same actions and mistakes year after year. The team is always competitive, but never at a championship level. Yet the money rolls in, and there is never a sense of urgency, of the need for change, even something as simple as firing the manager, which used to an accepted and established practice when your team didn't meet expectations. But if now the expectation is merely turning a profit, it’s easy to understand why knowledgeable veteran fans, such as this commentariat, become so disillusioned, cynical and angry.
The best thing about the game being on Roku was the Baseball Zen interludes.
Wouldn't you love to know what the players really think of Boone? Of Cashman? Of Hal? Of each other? Of Holmes and Volpe and Verdugo? We'll never know, unless someone writes a "tell all" book one day about it. I'm not holding my breath.
I'm trying not to be disillusioned, cynical, and angry. But I am disappointed, skeptical, and pretty annoyed.
Call me JM of Sunnybrook Farm.
Great points, all around.
And it's not just the way these sorts of losses—or these sorts of seasons—keep happening. It's the way these players keep flopping.
I thought Volpe had real potential when he came up. So did Cabrera, so did Peraza. We KNOW they did. We saw them, we saw them play well.
Now...all three of them are a mess, unable to do even the basic things they did before. They are...just like Gleyber. And just like Sanchez was. And just like the Red Menace, and just like Bird, and AnDUjar...
This is more than coincidence. This is an organization that actively destroys the very few players it actually produces.
Some of it is coaching, some of it is managing. Gotta be.
The only guy who they developed who is succeeding here, and thriving, is Aaron Judge. But we've learned that he has been getting private hitting instruction from his personal coach. Every couple of weeks, he says. Wonder how that works, with the politics of it? Does Judge simply ignore the Yankee hitting coaches? Does he only pretend to listen to them, and then goes home to do an enema?
I wonder that other Yankees don't get their own private instruction. Maybe they are, maybe they aren't. I don't know what goes on with these guys outside of game time.
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