1. The 22-16 Yankees lead the AL East, three up on Boston and four over the hateful Jays. (And four behind today's record, on the right.)
2. To the rapture of YES, Aaron Judge is chasing .400 - hitting a Ted Williamsesque .396 - though his HR total stands at only 10. (Today, he has 15, tied for the most in baseball, and hitting .270.)
3. Ben Rice has risen to No. 3 in the Yankee lineup, hitting .261. (That's 79 points below his current BA.)
4. Anthony Volpe is our everyday SS, batting .230.
5. The Yankees are about to win 13 of their next 17 and seemingly run away with the AL East.
Well, so much for time machines. As you may recall, around Memorial Day, 2025, the Yankee Edmund Fitzgerald hit an iceberg and sank in the Strait of Boonefuk, off the coast of Cashmanland. Toronto took first, and the Yankees spent their summer chasing a wild card. Deja vu, all over again.
I note this because last winter, the Yankee brain trust chose to rerun the same basic roster of 2025, and here we are, where we were, hiking circles in the deep dark woods like campers in The Blair Witch Project. We've been here before, but it remains a mystery how we got here.
Listen: It's hard to find hope when your team looks completely outclassed, as the Yankees did last night.
We can tell ourselves that the batting order hit a buzzsaw, an unhittable starter and a lights out bullpen. We're not playing Baltimore anymore, and the National League looks like a raging dogfight. We can tell ourselves that help is on the way - Carlos Rodon will pitch Sunday. We can tell ourselves that Spencer Jones is here, and an experiment has begun, and maybe the Yankee farm system will save the day, after all? (Last night, George Lombard and Volpe: 1-4, each with a SB.)
Dunno. It's still too early to gauge this team. But last year's hot streak in May? We've gone through it, a bit ahead of schedule. We we've been here before. Has anything really changed?
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6 comments:
Nothing makes my morning like mixed shipwreck references! Thank you!
Let's just run the same team out there. It'll be different this time. We caught a few bad breaks, a few injuries last year. This year, it's all going to come together and we can - AND WILL - win it all before everybody gets locked out for an extended labor dispute. Hot damn! Baseball is so much fun these days.
A little off topic, but I'm wondering what will happen with the new CBA after the lockout.
Consider this -- Ca$hole has ruined many a prospect with (in addition to horrible player development and coaching) by yoyoing them between AAA and MLB. And he's doing it to many of the current prospects. Part of the reasoning for this is apparently controlling service time to lengthen the time to free agency.
What if he has done all this and the new CBA changes that to make it all for nought?
GENIUS!
I wouldn't worry about that, Rufus. Cashman is really, really good at finding new ways to finish in 2nd place and then get booted out of the playoffs faster than the Titanic sunk after grazing that giant iceberg.
That loss last night was a look at the true 2026 Yankees. They can beat up on the Orioles all they want, they're not going to convince me that they're championship caliber. The three losses in Tampa & now they're probably going to be swept in Mill-Walk-Key.
The Battlin' Bronx Bastards are back! See the BBB get their butts handed to them! Watch in amazement as they have to fight their way out of the ice freezer known as the Korean Peninsula, surrounded & outnumbered by naked & bootless & rifleless Chinese Communists 10 to 1. Hell, they're not retreating: they're fighting backwards! Coming soon to a theatre near you!
And don't forget - the naked Chi-Com soldiers have huge Red Sox logos tattooed on their butts and foreheads....
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