Five games in, any reaction is a kneejerk, and the wisest critique of the 2025 Yankees is to STFU and flush the toilet.
We can bemoan the bottom of the batting order, as the zeroes march to and from the plate. But tonight could bring a deluge, and we'll just look more like the overreactive fools that we are.
Here's a cheap prediction: One month from now, we will be embarrassed by whatever the fuck we said this week. Fortunately, we don't know what's coming. Otherwise, we'd grab the loaded Luger.
But but BUT... in the spirit of Warner Wolf, here are five fast takeaways.
1. In the super Dodgers - now 8-0 - MLB might finally be glimpsing the Babadook.
Entering last winter, they had the best team in baseball, which they then supplemented with the best player from Japan and the best free agent pitcher, with the highest payroll. They will steamroll the NL West - (San Diego's 7-0 is a blip) - then win the NLCS, and then the world series. And next winter, they'll do it again.
For decades now, the Yankees' vast upper level mediocrity has saved MLB from the super team that buys pennants. (When I look at Hal, I always have the same thought: There is no God.) Rather than spend on yesterday, the Dodgers build for tomorrow. The baseball world is witnessing what money and acumen can do. The Yankees did it in the 1990s, nearly 30 years ago. They didn't learn.
2. By June, talk this talk about torpedo bats will draw chuckles and - if there is a God - embarrassment from the chatterers. To make a bat actually matter, you must hit the baseball. Therein lies the problem.
Last night, the Yankees struck out 16 times. That's not a typo. They average 10 per game (ahead of six teams, including Boston, with 11.) Every spring, they bring in a new batting guru, with a new scheme and new philosophy - a new bullshit reason for us to think things will change. Then we watch everything coagulate into a chasm of strikeouts, walks and home runs.
Last night, as they marched to home plate - and then back to the dugout - one conclusion rose above all others: I can't watch nine innings of these games. It's just... boring.
3. Cody Bellinger can play CF. Last night, he handled blasts that I shudder to imagine how The Martian would have played. He turned his back to the ball, ran to the track, spun around and made it look easy. He saved Carlos Rodon from what could have been a two-inning battering.
Thus far, in the late innings, the Yankees have been replacing The Martian in LF, due to his still-questionable fielding. They move Trent Grisham into CF, and Bellinger takes left. But make no mistake: Bellinger can hold his own.
4. It's hard to note all the changes in the 2025 Yankees - Soto, Bellinger, Dominguez, et al - when this team so resembles last year's disappointing finale. Yeah, they won the AL pennant, but this lineup seems to have picked up right where Game 5 left off.
It is becoming part of Yankee lore to strikeout three or four times a game. Everybody does it. I wonder: Can Judge lead us from this fog?
5. Okay, gotta mention Babe Volpe. He's had a week. By golly, if he can hit, say, 30 HRs - that is, keep going to RF - this could be a breakout season. Everybody else, thus far, looks the same. Volpe looks different.
Then again, it's Overreaction Week.
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12 comments:
The team may have lost the game yesterday, but there's a bright side. Most people didn't realize it, but the Yankees proclaimed "Fan Liberation Day." All non-Yankees fans will be charged an additional 25% on tickets and concessions. This will quickly lower the price we pay and enable Hal to spend heavily from this moment on for free agents. MAKE THE YANKEES GREAT AGAIN!!!
Volpe looks the same to me…a few YS paint scraper homers doesn’t change anything. Yeah, last night we struck out 16 times, and ZERO walks. It was pathetic, and Volpe’s 320 ft home run doesn’t change that. I felt sorry for the fans (the place was half empty) who had to sit through that dreck on a cold night.
No one should be surprised by the ineffectual lineup with its unending parade of strikeouts. I’ll say it for the last time: Spring Training is full of lies. Yes, the Dodgers are awesome, and yes that could’ve been us. That’s what makes me mad, not losing Soto, but the overall organizational failure, led by the lack of leadership everywhere.
Duque got this right: that shit was boring last night. Very boring…
Thanks Carl, very apropos!
I went and signed up for gotham sports to get the YASS!! network and I have no idea why I thought this team would be different, more fun to watch. Smokin that hopium again.
Brilliant, Carl!
Yeah, facing decent pitching is...a whole new ballgame. Just 3 walks and 30 strikeouts in the last 2 games. One Bad Outcome baseball—again.
I was thinking the same thing, Carl, watching the highlights: what a miserable night to be at the game! But over 40,000 bought tickets. Drizzly, cold, early April NIGHT baseball (hey, gotta maximize profits, every day in every way)...and the only runs scored come on a Volpe "home run" that just sneaks over the RF fence with two outs in the 9th. Followed by a Martian K.
That is some entertainment. Duque, I'm afraid that Volpe looks just the same to me, only he's flipped to his (spotty) power game, instead of his high(er) batting average game.
It's just that now we've installed our equivalent of the Green Monster to make heroes out of fall guys (And they say it's good for business...). What's the old line about how you eventually become your enemy?
Dominguez kept swinging a the same pitch out of the zone over and over and over. Worse than Stanton/Sanchez and that's saying something.
Perfect. I'm putting it up.
And they’ll keep throwing it until he learns to lay off it.
Yankee accountants are cheering. They can't wait to send Dominguez back down to the minors. As soon as Stanton gets back.
That game was a preview of Yankee playoff baseball. When they run into pitchers who actually know how to pitch, they can't hit. When they face nothing but off speed, they can't hit. When was it, like 2017, that a certain ASS-stro pitcher closed out a playoff game/series by throwing something like 95 consecutive off speed pitches? I got that same vibe last night. Utterly pathetic.
By the way, when the Artful Dodgers go something like 155-7 this year, fucking asshole Manfred is going to have to figure out what they're going to do about all the best Japanese players going to LA LA Land. Gotta level the playing field. This is ridiculous. If the Yankees had been signing all the Japanese MVPs, you know MLB would've done something to stop it by now.
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