Today, instead of being feted as Captain America, Aaron Judge might go down as baseball's version of the "Quad God," having gone 0-for-4 with a game-ending strikeout in the 2026 World Baseball Classic.
Once again, we're back to wondering what happens to the sport's greatest slugger when a big game is on the line - when a lazy fly ball clanks off his glove in the 2024 world series, or he swings through strike three, as he did last night, with the tying run at the plate.
Listen: Yank fans love Judge. Always will. He's the greatest Yankee in this millennium - (and, yes, I realize the extent of such a statement) - and we should treasure the time on this earth that we get to watch him. But like Don Mattingly, he's never won a championship, and that's the only measuring stick we know.
Team USA may still advance to the knockout round, based on some ridiculously complicated scoring system, which makes the federal tax codes look like instructions for chewing gum. But if America's team fails, last night's loss to Italy - Italy! Mamma Mia! - is going to sour our tongues far beyond opening day. And, across the landscape of baseball, nobody will carry the burden of that disappointment more than the Captain.
All rise?
Maybe, all over.
Another sad moment in an era when the Yankees - the mighty Yankees - have lost their way.
In other news yesterday, both the Martian and Mr. Jones homered, salting the wounds of fans who dreamed of a breakout Yankee in 2026. Instead, we'll get Randal Grichuk in an algorithmic platoon with Trent Grisham. The homers came shortly after Spencer Jones was relegated to Scranton, with Jasson Dominguez's bus ticket all but printed out.
If there is a lesson to the upcoming Ides of March - a time that will be remembered for an unpopular war, endless airport lines, exploding gasoline prices and, now, the colossal disappointment of Team USA - it is that you cannot teach hunger, and a team of distracted millionaires will always lose to one of angry youngsters.
It's a lesson the Yankees do not seem capable of learning. What a fiasco.
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13 comments:
The Knicks have Captain Clutch. The Yankees have Captain Choke…
"I'm Artie Choke. And we're just a joke." as the Firesign Theater once put it.
It's true that no one player exemplifies this long Yankees drought more than Judge. He tears through the season putting up jaw-dropping numbers and then...splat. Just like his team.
The splat, that is. The team doesn't put up jaw-dropping numbers.
Beginning to feel a bit like Lucy and the football.
That football of which you speak - is it nuclear ?
DeRosa should be relieved of his duties.
When Judge dropped that ball in the 2024 World Series, wasn't he playing CF? He's a RF, should never have been in CF, especially for the playoffs and WS. And it was rumored that he lost that ball in the lights, due to one of HAL's million dollar suites, which probably cost a billion dollars a game for that WS. None of that was Judge's fault. It was Yankee management and ownership. As ye reap, ye shall sow.
The Martian has changed up his stance a bit. Gone is that drooping bat behind his back, perpendicular to the ground. (Thank God!) Now it's resting on his shoulder, kind of horizontal. He seems to be getting into hitting position a bit earlier. As a righty hitter, the leg kick was reduced to a slight step forward. And the follow through is cleaned up a bit: he doesn't hit himself in the head with every swing.
They cleaned up his righty swing a bit. I would've gone a bit further, but it's much better than nothing. It yielded instant results: home run.
I read somewhere that Dominguez has only had 200 at bats against lefty pitching in the minors. It's just bad coaching. They allowed his natural side to deteriorate. If he's not getting enough righty at bats, then he has to be taking extra extra extra batting practice, standing in on bullpen sessions - even if he doesn't swing the bat, in order to learn the strike zone. Should be hitting right handed against pitching machines cranked up to 100 mph, against Yankee pitchers on their throw days.
People keep saying that he should quit hitting right handed. I don't understand that thinking. If it was the other way around, if he was a natural lefty hitter who learned to hit right handed, then sure. But this is a natural righty hitter who learned to hit left handed, probably because he couldn't hit righty pitching right handed. Flip him over to face lefty pitching as a lefty hitter, he won't be able to hit lefty pitching any more than he could righty pitching as a righty hitter. His right side is his stronger side. At this stage in his career, he should be a much better righty hitter than lefty hitter. Many switch hitters are natural righty hitters who eventually get better from the left side (because of all the reps), but that would be halfway through their careers, not at the beginning. This is just another example of piss poor coaching.
Possibly, the elbow injury and surgery prevented Dominguez from hitting righty for a while, so maybe that delayed his righty batting practice. We're not in the clubhouse and don't sit in their doctor's visits, so we don't know.
Sorry, as ye sow, ye shall reap!
.257 in his rookie year was a pretty good result. The only thing that'll take him the next level (becoming a big time hitter) is facing major league pitching. It'll be a huge mistake to stash him in the minors for another few years, waiting for him to "finish" his development. They'll be wasting the prime years of his career. By the time he finally comes up, he'll have, at best, maybe one or two years before he flames out and starts getting injured.
Spencer Jones is another one that's ready for the majors. Strikeouts? I don't care if he strikes out 50% of the time. That's what most of these guys do here anyway. Jones is a classic HR/SO/BB hitter. Ain't that what Cashman wants? Funny, that the Yankees always value much more highly three true outcome 29 yr olds from other teams. When they have one in their own system, they cannot bear to give that guy a major league chance.
Isn't Dominguez in CF and Grisham on the bench a better team on paper?
Isn't Spencer Jones in CF, Dominguez DH, Grisham on the bench, and Stanton put out to pasture a better team?
I think so. These kids might not be a lot better right now, but they will be in a couple of months. By the All Star break, this would be a vastly improved team. But I don't get a vote. HAL and his minions, it's their ball club, and if they don't want to win, they won't.
And....they don't.
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