At 6:38 p.m., Eastern, the '24 Yankees trial begins and - honestly? - tonight is not a critical game.
Wait. Not a critical game? Get the tar and feathers. How can I spew such blaspheme?
The rules were that you wouldn't fact check...
Listen: All year, the Yankees have shown a superhuman ability to win Game One, then go liquid nitrogen cold, a transformation worthy of Lon Chaney, or even Cher. We could hit our mattresses tonight, 100 percent sure of victory, then botch the next three as easily as pissing in a pond.
That's our '24 Yankees: Hot and cold on one thin dime.
Think the Brewers blew it the other night? The Yankee bullpen has entered the chat.
But here's our real Babadook:
This may be the last, best Yankee chance in our lifetimes.
An October demise could propel Juan Soto out of town, or to its other side. Then there is the impending free agency exodus of Gleyber Torres, Alex Verdugo, Tommy Kahnle and Clay Holmes - none who, individually, might distress us, but who, collectively, will be harder to replace than we think.
The '24 Yankees were built on an all-or-nothing premise. Check the Cot's chart. Next year, we could lose all the players in yellow, while continuing to shell out $93 million in dead or dying contracts. That's a long, deep, dark hole, especially when your main strategy is to keep digging.
The last time we faced KC in a postseason - (1980, Danny Tartabull was 17, in the Reds rookie league, where he hit .299) - the Yankees were baseball's marquee team, with an owner who demanded a world championship every year.
Today, the owner seeks to contend every year. Big difference. In fact, you can argue that the front office has achieved its objective. We made the playoffs. Mission accomplished. G'NIGHT, EVERYBODY!
Baseball's premier franchise is the Dodgers, it's best team is the Phillies, and NY's miracle narrative is the Mets.
The Yankees had the best record in the AL this season. So why do we feel so lost, so worried, so on the outside, looking in? It's just Kansas City, right?
Well, get ready, folks. Tonight, it begins: Our last best shot. Don't tell me about The Martian, or Ben Rice, or the Yankee Project 2025, or anything regarding next year. There is no next year. This is all we've got. And tonight, it starts.
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14 comments:
I wish I could feel better about this series but I can’t. I just can’t.
Doesn't really matter. Come hell or high water, this is what I live for.
If we don't expect anything, we can't be disappointed. But we will be.
I am torn. On the one hand, I root for the Yankees. Always have. I want to see Judge and Soto crushing home runs. Volpe scooting about the bases, stealing half of them. I want to see Chisholm upsetting pitchers with key hits and a game tipping homer. Cabrera keeping the rally going. Cole, Gill, Schmidt making it a one sided pitcher's duel. The bullpen shutting down the other side. I want WS Championship #28. And I want them to resign Soto, keep Cole, rebuild the bullpen. Learn how not to break ballplayers like breadsticks and develop prospects into successful, complete players who can rise to the level of their talent. All of that.
But I absolutely don't want Cashman or any of his sycophants anywhere near the organization. I truly despise them all. I want a real manager, not a PR sock puppet like Boone. I want Levine facing charges of accepting bribes and going to prison. I want Trost fired for his bigotry and blatant disrespect toward the working people who paid for his corporate stadium. And I want Steinbrenner to sell the team and go back home to Cleveland.
However, I fear that the slightest success of the Yankees, despite its pathological mismanagement and arrogant, incompetent leadership, will only prolong the legacy of the misrule by Cashman and everyone he's hired.
But the sinking feeling in my gut is no matter how quickly they are dispatched from the playoffs, Cashman and his band of overprivileged incompetents will be rewarded, forever failing upwards, like the useless nepo-babies that they are.
And my darkest belief is that even if this season was a complete bust, with half the roster on the IL and every prospect flaming out, while Soto, et. al. leave to join more competently-managed teams, we'd still be stuck with Cashman and every idiot he brought to the team. Nothing will change.
I feel like a Cubs fan before their long-awaited WS.
Well put, Doc. In fact, I'd say you've articulated the dilemma of Yankees fans perfectly: success will mean failure, and failure will mean greater failure.
And this is why we can't have nice things.
By the way, Verdugo is our left fielder. Which I can't argue with, really. Pitching and defense tend to outweigh theoretical, possible offense in the playoffs. We'll be facing some very good pitchers and we can't afford to give away runs. The Martian will have his day, but it won't be today.
Amen Doc 🙏
No comment until the time limit is up….
From mlb.com article on "secret weapon" of each playoff team (ours, by the way, is Tim Hill, who has a 2.05 ERA since joining the Yanks):
Padres: C Kyle Higashioka
One through eight, the Padres’ offense wears you down. They take long, feisty at-bats. They make contact and spoil pitches. “There’s not a breather in [the lineup],” said Padres manager Mike Shildt. And that’s largely because of Kyle Higashioka in the No. 9 spot. He does it differently than the rest of the Padres. He’s liable to strike out. But he’s also a 17-homer catcher, with two more in the postseason already. In addition to backstopping this excellent Padres staff, Higashioka posted a .476 slugging percentage during the regular season. Dylan Cease called Higashioka “the best nine-hole hitter in the game,” and he’s probably right. -- AJ Cassavell
Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose.
Yanks v. Wacha
Aaron Judge: .056 (1-for-18), 11 K
Gleyber Torres: .063 (1-for-16)
Giancarlo Stanton: .235 (4-for-17), 1 HR
Alex Verdugo: .273 (3-for-11)
Anthony Rizzo: .393 (22-for-56), 3 HR
Andy Martino reports Verdugo to start in left, Wells at C, Berti at 1B
Duke Ellis is on the 26.
Caleb Durbin attended all this week’s workout and will be in the dugout, but not currently eligible to play.
I hear ya, Dr. T. But I fear winning now is our only chance, even if it extends Cashman's reign of incompetence. There may never be another opportunity like this—and this one isn't very good.
Duke Ellis on the 26? Ridiculous. And by the by, I know that it's too late to put up Rumfield. I just think he should have been tried long before. Also, I would go with The Martian. Guys like that have a history of breaking through at the plate, where we are generally at our worst in the postseason. Flopsie will do nothing good, field or plate.
It was also reported that not starting Verdugo in left field was a "no-brainer of a decision" given Verdugo's season numbers, and that the better choice would be to let Domínguez start in left because it would give the team the best chance offensively THEN replace him with either Grisham (Gold Glove defense) or maybe Verdugo in the later innings.
The problem here is the application of the phrase "no-brainer" because what happens when the person "making the decisions" who doesn't have much of a brain to begin with has been making a different kind of "no-brainer" decisions all season long?
Honestly, perhaps leaving Boone off of the ALDS roster would be the best way to increase our chances to beat KC.
Is there still time for Boone to make this "no-brainer of a decision?"
Hoss, I guess PR / Ghost Runner…
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