In recent years, the pinstriped shock troopers of Brian Cashman and Aaron Boone - assembled through the House of Hal - have generally adhered to a strict Yankee Code of Conduct. And I'm not referring to facial hair.
What they do is run hot & cold, up & down, in & out, back & forth, nip & tuck, higgety-piggety, waggity-paggity, Bob's yer uncle! sit on it, Potsy! that's China Town, Jake!
They follow every win streak with a libido-devouring string of losses, a market correction that saps hope from Yankee fans, like Lucy trying to stay afloat on an assembly line of chocolates.
It's simple: With the Yankees, what goes up must come down.
Last year, beginning May 14, they won 11 of 13 games and looked unbeatable.
Then, on June 7, shortly after the hot spell ended, they lost 5 of 8.
In July, they mingled a losing streak of six with a winning streak of five.
Hot and cold. So went the 2025 Yankees.
Now, following yesterday's loss - their first in 9 games - we shall learn the truth about 2026.
Do we launch a new win streak? Or piss away what we gained?
This happens as we encounter another annual event: the return of Giancarlo Stanton, the Glass Giant, to his rightful perch on the Injured List. Nobody is surprised. He was always fated to end up there, sooner or later. What's different, though, is his replacement. Instead of some veteran Triple A lug nut, we're turning to the Martian, Jasson Dominguez.
So... what will we find? Can he hit lefties? Can he play the outfield? We'll soon know. If yes, we could be entering a new phase in Yankee history. Or we could be back in the REPEAT cycle. (Though we'll always have Boston. Hats off to you, Varitek.)
11 comments:
Are they bringing up The Martian? We might not find out anything. He might sit on the bench for a month, then they'll say "we want him to play everyday, so we'll send him back down". After all, guys like Grisham, Grichuk and Rosario are sure fire Hall of Famers, right?
Maybe a week ago, I checked on The Martian's stats in AAA. You wanna know how many at-bats he had against lefty pitching? 8 at bats. That's right, 8 fucking at bats batting right handed. (He was 2 for 8 with a HR.) I'm too lazy to check for an update. Somebody else do it.
But at the same time, I did check Aaron Judge to see how many at bats Judge had against lefty pitching. Wanna know what Judge's total was? 27 at bats. That's a big difference, right? I'm sure it's gone up even more since then.
Sure woulda been nice if The Martian had 30 at bats against left handed pitching by now. It was just bull shit when they sent him down to AAA. He was not going to get any at bats right handed. They wanted his development to stall.
There's just about nothing we can do about it. It's their ball club. They'll do what they want. The only thing we can do is call 'em out about it. Which we've been doing for years, but nothing's going to happen to change their wicked ways.
So the correction finally happened yesterday. Gil got lit up. The offense sputtered (again). Judge hit a solo HR when it was 7-0 ASS-stros. Yeah, this was more like what we expected for this year.
All the signs also pointed to a Yankee loss yesterday. It was a Sunday (the curse of Domingo German; coupled with the curse of Domingo Jean). Last game of a series, which Boone always likes to throw away. Gil pitching, coming off a good start previously. Judge birthday boy, playing in ASS-stro Land Railway Station, where he usually doesn't hit much. I'm surprised Boone didn't rest half the regulars and play the "C" lineup. He probably should've.
I agree, Hammer! Probably the only thing that kept him from doing just that was that the Yanks have to play today. Usually, Boone likes nothing better than to rest his best players BEFORE an off-day, so it will be "a true off-day." With logic like that...
Loved the Lucy analogy, Duque! Yeah, this really will be telling—though I fear very much that they are just as likely to do what Hammer predicts, and sit The Martian...
And...the Giancarlo March to 500 homers, stalls again. So far, it makes the Long March of the Chinese Communist Party look like a hundred-yard dash.
"Big G" is currently at 456—and so far this year, averaging 1 home run every 8 games. At age 36, that's not going to get it done. He SHOULD get to over 2,100 strikeouts, though (currently at 2,088), and with his now lifetime .871 OPS, and .258 BA (.245 in New York), Cooperstown is slipping away.
A juiced career, followed by the usual injuries—it's hard to feel sorry for the guy. And he always has the $300 million or so in salary to fall back on.
Defector: Jazz Chisholm is so bad at ABS challenges:
https://defector.com/jazz-chisholm-is-so-bad-at-abs-challenges?giftLink=70410d2f4a191da13ff6d54ea88d30ce
He is incredibly terrible. I wonder how a major leaguer can be so wrong about where a pitch is and still get any hits at all.
So there's a fine in the clubhouse for various wrong challenges, $1000 if the ball is all the way in the strike zone, various amounts if it's not, etc. Jazz pays a lot of fines, but that's not enough. He really does need to be banned from trying. Concentrate on just hitting the ball, if possible. That seems enough for him to concentrate on.
Boone says he's a smart guy. I have yet to see any evidence to support that.
Boone may not be the best of the best person to determine someone else's intelligence level.
Yesterday I was thinking that Jazz (and no one else batting) should be encouraged to tap their helmet early in the count, early in the game with no one on the bases and nothing at stake other than the count going 0-1.
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