It's getting to be time for Yankee stars to shine.

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

 

Boris Karloff as the Frankenstein Monster during a charity baseball game in 1940. That is Buster Keaton behind the catcher's mask. pic.twitter.com/5qrb1yaOf7

— Classic Horror Films (@HorrorHammer1) September 10, 2024

An Above Average Haiku ~ Korova Milk Bar Edition!

 

Leaving Home

I was at the game last night as part of my "Farewell NY" tour, I'm headed back to CA, my time in NY at an end, and was hyper aware of the idea that, aside from one more game with my cousins at the end of the month, this was pretty much it as far as attending Yankee games goes. 

As much as I dislike the current stadium, and I say current because I'm sure Hal has one more bilking of NY left in him. Probably in 2041. 

After all, "Customers attending Yankee games uh.. I mean fans, need and deserve a stadium with gambling kiosks and immersive goggles at every seat. Our customers... uh fans, need to experience what it's like to be at the plate in order to fully engage with the product uh... game."

But I digress...

As much as I dislike the current shopping mall / Vegas hotel homage to a non existent team, it is still Yankee Stadium and the Yankees, such as they are, play there. 

So, my mind kept leaping back and forth from its current iteration to times spent sitting behind pillars and eating popcorn out of Yankee themed megaphones. Getting Phil Rizzuto's autograph because the press box was once an open area. Being called a huckleberry by him for daring to ask him for it but getting it any way. 

The mid-seventies. Out of college for the summer along with a bunch of Yankee fan friends and no place on earth we'd rather be than in the upper deck, stoned, and watching what to me is still my favorite Yankee teams of all time. Flinging Reggie Bars. Seeing Chambliss hitting a game winning HR in the 9th in 1976 that presaged the one he would hit in the playoffs. Yankee Stadium an oasis of green and endless possibility, even as the Bronx was burning. 

The eighties and nineties when a visit home meant a pilgrimage.

In the 2000's taking my son, first to the actual stadium, then to the current one. Showing it to him like I lived there. Like a part of my old neighborhood. Because that's how the stadium always feels to me. Like I'm home. 

Last year, doing the IIHIIF meetup and getting to hang out with and talk to so many of you. Bringing back how it felt in the seventies to watch a game with a bunch of friends. 

And, last September watching my uncle, my late father's twin brother, get honored as the Veteran of the Game. Getting to stand on the field, if off to the side, as a packed house out cheered for him and by proxy, for all the remaining WW2 vets. A guy who, as a kid, rode his byclcle down the Grand Concourse hoping to catch a glympse of Joe D. The stadium was his home too. 

And so, last night I went and I decided to put aside all the negativity and the all too accurate assessment of this year's team and just enjoy watching baseball. Yes Gleyber made bad plays. Rodon almost melted down... you all know the drill.  Hey, they won.

More importantly, I got to see, for perhaps the last time live, the best baseball player I have ever watched regularly, in Aaron Judge. 

I got to watch a future Hall of Famer, Juan Soto and got to witness what I hope is the the actual beggining of a long and great career as The Martian took his place in the lineup. 

And then there was watching Austin Wells continue his emergence and sensing that, when all is said and done, he will be my new favorite Yankee.

But what I really got to see... was me. From age eight to age sixty eight with all of life's visisitudues. Still loving the game. Still cheering. Still walking around the building like it's my home.  

One last time. 

Have Yank fans seen the last of DJ LeMahieu? And nine other takeaways from last night.

 1. There's no humane way to say this. Yesterday, the Death Barge pulled the plug on DJ LeMahieu. He probably won't be back. Maybe never. His 2024 numbers are staggeringly bad: .204 with 2 HRs, and coupled with a clear decline in fielding. Awful. 

The Yankees have him for two more seasons, at $15 million per. Next winter, he might be held up as the poor-mouth excuse for not signing Juan Soto. 

I still recall the clutch HR he hit against cheating Houston in the 2019 playoffs, which led to Lil Altuve's walk-off on Aroldis. Damn. Maybe he'll come to Tampa next February, conjuring the usual crapola of spring renewal. I'll try to believe it. But he's in a four-year slump. Generally, careers don't survive them.

2. Was last night the official coming out party for Austin Wells? YES flashed a graphic comparing his 2024 to the rookie seasons of Yogi, Thurman, Bill Dickey and - gulp - Gary Sanchez. He's right up there with the - um, gulp - greats? If Ben Rice can return to catching - he seems the type who can - we could be set at that position for years. 

3. After receiving massive condemnation, the Yankee bullpen has thrown 13 straight zeros. (Four came from converted Nestor Cortez.) It's nice to see zeros. But nobody's kidding ourselves here. No lead is safe. No lead will ever be safe. As currently constructed, this is not a world champion bullpen. 

4. WTF, Baltimore? This was gonna be their year. They had the great young catcher, the game's biggest prospect, the team of ascending stars - and they're following the spiral of Toronto in recent years. Despite our horrible August, they never gained on us. Crazy. Over the last 30 days, Adley Rutschman is hitting .193, and Jackson Holliday, in his second go-around, is .178. Did we overestimate them? (Note: We still face them in three games late this month.) 

5. So, we blew out KC - like old times, right? But if the Yankees have shown anything this season, it's that they can run ice cold at a moment's notice. How can you ever feel confident about this team? 

6. Isn't it fun to see The Martian in CF, flanked by two greats - an OF that could play together for years. Close your eyes and dream. Last night, it worked. 

7. Funny how when a player faces a career threat, his bat perks up. So it is with Alex Verdugo. Fine with me, especially when teams throw RHs against us. But we're at the point of the season where a guy's numbers, flashed on the JumboTron, tell us everything. Verdugo sits at .237, with a lame 12 HRs. I like the guy. I really wanted him to succeed, and maybe he'll whack a few against Boston this weekend. But his time has run out.  

8. Long ago, we'd look at Bobby Witt Jr. and see him someday in pinstripes. But we haven't had those feelings in this decade. Close your eyes, and you see him playing for the Dodgers, or maybe the Mets. 

9. Seth Lugo tonight, v Stroman. We're ripe for a loss, and then a rubber game that sets up another series loss, after we took Game One. I'm sorry, but you can't NOT think of it.

10. Anthony Volpe got in last night as a pinch runner. He's played in 143 games, out of 144. He could use a rest. And it's nice to see Oswaldo out there. The guy seems to have finally figured out MLB pitching. They mustn't let him die on the vine. 

Batting Sixth

 

I don't get it.

 

Another weekend, another failure to score more than 6 total runs in a series or homer even once, playing a mediocre team in a bandbox ballpark.

Another game lost on a silly error by silly Gleyber Torres, well on his way to his second straight year leading all AL second basemen in miscues. He also led all AL shortstops in errors, when he played that position, with 9 in the shortened, 2020 Covid season. He is also on track for his 3rd season in 7 with more errors (17) than home runs (12).

He also looks most games as though he is trying to remember the words to "Wichita Lineman."

Incredibly, Gleyber has only 2 homers and 6 doubles in the 39 games he's played since July 24th. He has driven in only 17 runs in that time, 12 of them coming in just 5 games, meaning that in the other 34 contests, he has just 5 ribbies.

In that same time, Gleyber has also raised his batting average from .232 to .247, so I suppose this might be interpreted as an attempt to rein in his swinging for the fences, particularly once he became our leadoff man, and to concentrate on getting on base. (He also has a relatively constrained 28 strikeouts and what is—for him—an impressive 23 walks in this time.) 

But by no means could Gleyber be considered an on-base machine; indeed, his OBP has increased only from .308 to .325 in this time. So what's the deal?

Turning to The Vertiginous One, Flopsie has hit exactly 1 home run since July 6th. In that same time, he has exactly 9 doubles. In those 49 games, he has 11 RBI.

Nor can this be blamed on more circumspect hitting. Flopsie's BA has dropped from .246 to .235 in that time and his OBP from .300 to just .295, as he has 19 walks and 35 strikeouts. Plus, of course, contributing the most disastrous error of the season thus far.

So is this analytics, or snot?  

Where the hell is the supposed, analytic payoff of swinging for the fences all the time? Half this Yankees team—or more—couldn't find a fence with a radar system, never mind a batted ball. They couldn't reach a fence if they were following Tom Sawyer with a bucket of whitewash. They couldn't find a fence if they were reading the words to "Don't Fence Me In."

(Thank you! And please remember your waitresses—they'll remember you.)

All of this endless malarkey about the Yankees' supersmart, brainiac understanding of the new game, and they have maybe three real power hitters on this team, in Judge, Soto, and Wells. With two of them slumping, they're lost.

Just as the Yanks' "Gas Station" fueled up only broken arms and broken careers, their version of "analytics" churns out player after player, year after year, who can hit for neither average NOR power.

I say it's snot.

An empirical probe into the surgical use of elementary reverse juju in competing NY athletic organizations

 

I apologize in advance, if this gets a bit too technical for some of you. Generally, I strive to "dumb down" the scientific "stuff" that "goes into" each post on IT IS HIGH. For many of you - aka "the general public" - the routine avalanche of "gobbiltygook" is simply "too much."

Of course, regular readers - you know who you are - have no problem leveling the tackling dummy of independent research. Most importantly, you know when I - and others here - purposely say bad things about the Yankees - our heroes - in order to spur action by the juju gods. 

Listen: It is one of the saddest tasks in my life, occasionally having to badmouth the Yankees, and even call them names, such as Clay Pidgeon and Flopsie Verdugo. I take no pleasure in this, but it simply must be done. 

For example, yesterday, I suggested there was no way that the Yankees would sweep the Chicago Cubs, merely based on how the team has folded like a Hershey's wrapper over the last two months in pressure situations. In doing this, I was adhering to the fundamental Rule of Juju: 

Nothing good ever comes from speaking positively about your team. Always stay negative.

Remember: As long as you panned them, if your team loses, at least you were right. And if it wins, you can take rightful credit for compelling the juju gods to take action.

In my daily work this season, whenever I speak ill of the Yankees, there is a purpose behind each carefully chosen verb, adverb and adjective.

Which brings me to the "other" team in New York that has haunted my life. 

I am referring to the NY Football Giants.

Under no circumstances do I want anyone to think that when I criticize the Giants, I am merely working the refs of juju. No sir. 

When I say bad things about the Giants, I am striving to speak the Universal Truth about the most pathetic human organization on this planet. No group, not in the farthest big-footed mountains of New Zealand or the volcanic burn fields of Iceland, is there a grouping of human beings as sordid and pure crapola as the Giants.

Yesterday, I spent 45 minutes trying to tap into a Giants game on TV - (I was in Philadelphia for family shit) - without paying a surcharge because - well, it's the fucking Giants - and when I finally figured it out, they were down by 20 points, and why bother? 

We can rightfully complain about Food Stamps Hal and Cooperstown Cashman, but they do not compare with John Mara and Steve Tisch, the rancid owners of the Giants, who are the arguments for billionaire euthanasia. 

For the record... When I bash the Giants, there is no juju involved. It is an expression of pure, felony-grade bile.

And make no mistake: The Giants flat-out suck.

FINAL NOTE: Whoever signed off on those horrible uniforms should be shot. 

Game Thread ~ Remembering that other "Donnie Baseball"

 

Yank fans wonder: Is this a movement or just a moment?

f

Hot news from the booths: Quarreling John Flaherty and Michael Kay have patched things up. They've reunited and it feels so good. Also, John Sterling is unretiring for the playoffs. That could mean solving the mystery of the long-awaited HR call for Jazz Chisholm, which had been in line for a doc series on the History Channel. 

The end of 2024 is in sight, and however horrific is turns out to be, we will have our beloved sports voices calling plays, as the ship submerges, and the waters converge overhead.

Moral from Saturday's victory over our friends, the Cubs, (who throughout history have never hurt  us): When our pitchers hurl a complete game shutout, we probably will win. 

So, we're back in first, jockeying like pollsters in the Presidential race. Honestly? I dunno what to think. But if Gerrit Cole can't shut down an offense that's clearly in the dumpster, maybe we have no ace, as we have no closer. And if you replace the 9th hitter with Jasson Dominguez, who led Scranton to a 19-0 bombing of the Syracuse Mets last night, you've got at the least  an energy boost.

One thing about this team: When it wins, it looks unstoppable. And when it loses, it looks horrible. Soon, Aaron Judge and Juan Soto will start hitting. That should carry us through the middle of the month, past Boston and into Voldemort. We have three against the O's, in our house. By then, I suspect The Master will be back, and our booths will be harmonious. Or maybe we'll just go on a losing streak and erase whatever hope we foolishly foresaw. I dunno anymore. This team has broken me. 

Well, pop the f'in' cork

 

And so the Yankees clinch about the only thing they are likely too this year: their 32nd consecutive, winning season. Still not at the club record of  39 (1926-1964), but not too shabby—and far better than I thought they would do this year.

What's more, it means that, out of the 122 seasons that your New York Yankees have existed thus far, they have compiled 100 winning seasons, 21 losing seasons, and 1 .500 season. And yet we complain, we rage, we rant, we rend our garments, gnash our teeth, and howl at the moon.

Of course we do. How the hell else can we keep winning?

We give everyone their props—for about 30 seconds. Now get back to work, you bums.

Game Thread ~ Thinking back on better times . . .

 

Yanks win critical game one. Now, they certainly won't lose the next two... right?

 

Congrats to the second place Yankees, current leaders in the AL Wild Card chase, for winning yesterday.

A great start by Luis Gil. A lights out bullpen. A big RBI by Aaron Judge. A fine game, had by all!

Obviously, we're all thinking the exact same thing:

Sweep.

Right?

Actually, no. What I'm thinking is that they will probably lose the next two, because that's what this team does. 

Surely, we won't lose the next two, right? I mean, that just cannot happen in a pennant race, right?'

Last Call for The Judge

 

It is, of course, unfair to blame any part of this dog's breakfast of a season on Aaron Judge. For much of the summer, he was our only hope and sustenance, putting together one of the most marvelous major-league seasons ever—especially considering how little help he had. It goes without saying (but I'll say it anyway): if every Yankee played like Aaron Judge, it wouldn't much matter who was meandering out of the bullpen late in the game.

That said, this is his last chance. 

There are 22 games remaining in the Yankees' season, plus who knows how many (or how few) in the playoffs. For all that he has accomplished, for as great as his career has been, Judge needs to play those games as even he has never played before—or his legacy is likely to be much more one of failure than triumph. 

Is this fair? Of course it isn't. But it's what we can expect to happen.

The feeling was already in the air, even before this season, that—great as he is—Aaron Judge is not "clutch." 

There's that .211 batting average in 44 postseason games, and the lack of some huge, signature, game-winning home runs in the late innings. There are the whispers that too many of his homers come in garbage time. And falling into the worst slump of his career now, as he has, just as the glimmering bauble of a ring seems there for the taking...doesn't help.

This is unfair, too, of course. Judge this year just set a record for first-inning dingers. And considering the Yankees' bullpen can any time really be considered garbage time?

"Clutch," is the most ineffable of qualities in baseball. The Sabremetricious don't believe it exists at all. And certainly, even the very greatest have failed in the clutch. 

Carl Yastrzemski made the last out in the three most important games of his career. Willie Mays never had a good postseason at the plate; Ted Williams hit .200 in his only World Series. Dave Winfield was labeled "Mr. May" for years, until he found redemption in Toronto. Reggie Jackson got fanned by Bob Welch (the first time around).

Ty Cobb, Mickey Mantle, Barry Bonds, and Derek Jeter have all failed—sometimes—in the clutch. Even Babe Ruth and Mariano Rivera have come up small when it counts big. Hey, it happens.

Still. 

The fact is that Aaron Judge—always susceptible to injury—will be 33 at the beginning of next season. The fact is that his window of opportunity with this Yankees team is swiftly closing.

Gerrit Cole may not be on this team next year. It is more and more likely that Juan Soto, his companion in crime, will be gone. Still worse, Gleyber Torres and Alex Verdugo probably won't be.  And who knows what Cashie will do to undermine Jasson Dominguez next? 

For all that Hal & Pal might want to keep the Yankees in a steady state, always contending for a wild-card spot but never quite winning it all, we are getting close to the point where the team will crumble, and the dreaded "rebuild" will be announced—Brian Cashman's last-ditch move to save his job.

Seeing how Cashman has handled draft picks and minor-league development over the last 25 years, the rebuild is likely to take a lot, lot longer than even the eight years that Judge has remaining on his contact. And you can bet dollars to crypto doughnuts that, sooner or later, both the Knights of the Press Box and then the fans—all egged on by the front office—will start blaming Judge's huge, "albatross" of a contract for that.

That won't be fair, either. But it will happen.

What can Judge do to escape all this calumny?

Well, he can play. He can turn in a pennant race and an October like we have rarely if ever seen before. He can play like Yaz down the stretch in 1967, like Jeter in the 2000 Subway Series, like The Babe and Larrupin' Lou Gehrig in the 1928 Fall Classic.  

He can play like there is no tomorrow—because there isn't, not really, not for him. He can play like everything in the world depended on it—because it does, at least in this crazy little corner of the Yankeeverse, where only a grand, glorious, thrilling ride to a ticker tape parade is likely to bring back Soto and Cole, and get Hal & Pal to grudgingly give us maybe the greatest outfield ever assembled. 

He can play like his entire legacy—and all of our future hope and enjoyment in this silly game to which we have already invested so much—are at stake. Because it is.

It's all on him. 

Is that fair? 

Of course not. Who said anything was fair? Now go out and make yourself a legend.

  

 

 

Yank fans experience joyous night with no defeat, no humiliation, no field of screams. Are we in heaven? No, it's the Bronx.

What an enjoyable night! No blown save. No stranded runners. No botched flies. No bases loaded GIDP. No blowout. No lost series. No gut punch, no bellowing at the TV, no YES excuses, no Boone postgame follies... I mean, what a concept! 

A night off from this unfolding Yankee disaster. 

Wait... do I sound brusque? Disagreeable? Cynical? My sincerest apologies. That's the last thing I'd want - unpleasantness. Why, with a mere 22 games left, this Yankee club is a lock for the postseason. Not only that, but John Sterling says he'll return for the playoffs. 

Both games. 

Oops. There I go again. Surely, our heroes will give us three or four games, until the bats go poof and the bullpen implodes. As we've seen for the last two months. 

Since July 2, the Yankees have a sad record of 26-27, a game below .500. Fortunately, this meltdown was masked by a complete collapse of the once-proud AL East. 

Since July 2... here are the records.

Baltimore  27-29
Yankees 26-27
Redsocks 25-30
Blue Jays 24-29
Rays 26-29

Yikes. Turn it off. What a hellscape. Basically, the story of 2024 is that the O's and Yankees got off to torrid starts, and then treaded water, while the AL East went to sleep. This is a pennant race? No. It's My Dinner With Andre. 

But but BUT... last night did bring some fun. I watched the Scranton Railriders clobber the Syracuse Mets, 11-5. The Martian went 3-4 with a HR and 2 RBIs. He's hitting .313 at Triple A. Not that it matters. The Yankees won't promote him until it's absolutely certain that he cannot statistically qualify as a rookie in 2004. That way, they'll squeeze out an extra year of contractual control over him. I guess you could say that's a canny decision, right? I mean, it's a cutthroat biz. Prince Hal can't just give money away, right? He's gotta make ends meet, right? 

So last night, instead of Gerrit Cole, we got Cody Poteet. He pitched into the third inning, gave up 2 runs on 5 hits. Bring him up, Cash! With those kind of numbers, he's ready to close.  

Maybe I'm just still intoxicated by last night's sudden freedom. No bullpen meltdown. No strikeouts. Unfortunately, tonight, everything resumes, and if the Yankees are lucky enough to win Game One, we all know it will simply lead to blowing the next two. 

Seriously, would it be too much to ask that, over the final 22, we do better than 11-11? 

Desire.

 

The day after Don Larsen's perfect game, the Brooklyn Dodgers tied the 1956 World Series at three games apiece when Jackie Robinson stroked his last major-league hit, over the head of Yankees leftfielder Enos "Country" Slaughter, to walk off a 1-0 win in ten innings, at Ebbets Field.

After the game, on the bus back to Yankee Stadium, Billy Martin confronted manager Casey Stengel, and voiced what a lot of the Yankees were thinking:

"If you're going to keep playing that National League bobo out there, we're going to blow this series."

Casey supposedly asked Billy what he would do instead, and was told: 

"You better put Elston out there. And you better put Skowron's ass back on first base."

This was not entirely fair to Country Slaughter—a lifetime .300 hitter and Hall-of-Famer, who had hit .350 in that World Series, with a homer and 4 RBI—or to Casey, who wasn't playing Howard because Ellie had been hospitalized with strep throat through the first six games. 

But Casey listened—and he made his own, bold move for Game Seven, starting Johnny Kucks, a young righty, over Tom Sturdivant and even the great Whitey Ford, who had won his last start against the Dodgers.

Casey knew that Ford often got beat up in cozy Ebbets Field, with its short fences and the Dodgers' largely right-handed lineup. Kucks, on the other hand, was a groundball pitcher who had won 18 games on the season—but none for five weeks.

Need I tell you what happened?

Howard came off his hospital bed and hit a double and a homer. Skowron hit a grand salami to clinch the game. Johnny Kucks pitched a three-hit shutout, collecting 17 groundball outs.

Now that's a Yankees seventh game!

Cut to July 13, 1977, one of the most shameful nights in New York City history, the evening of the blackout riot.

The Yankees didn't care—they were in Milwaukee, scuffling. They'd just lost a hideous game, 9-8, and were in third place in the AL East. 

Lou Piniella and Thurman Munson took it upon themselves to go see George Steinbrenner in his hotel room that night. They were doing this to try to persuade George to make Billy Martin stop harassing Reggie Jackson, and just stick him in right field and the cleanup spot.

Piniella and Munson—obviously—were no fans of Reggie. Neither was Graig Nettles, who backed their move. But they thought something had to be done before the whole season went down the drain.

Hilarity ensued, as Billy Martin, next door to George's room, heard voices and assumed, of course, that people were plotting against him. He banged on the door, and demanded to be let in. George told Lou and Thurman to hide in the bathroom, lest they be discovered. Billy insisted on looking in the bathroom.

The upshot was...they all had a four-hour confab, before Billy said that, okay, he would do what they wanted.

He welched on that promise, of course, for another three weeks, while the Yanks went 11-10 and dropped to five games back, still in third place. Then he gave in, and started playing Reggie in the four-spot and, usually, right field.

The Yanks went 40-13 down the stretch, and the rest is history.

Why do I bring all this up?

Because there was not one leading Yankee player on those teams—or, indeed, on the other 25 world champions or 38 pennant winners in the club's history—who would have sat silently by while their managers, say, brought the same flailing twit out to blow leads in game after game after game. 

Or while he let better players sit on the bench, game after game after game.

Or while their general manager decided to use the stretch pennant run as a time to teach a new acquisition how to play a new position. Or to refuse to bring up the best prospect the team had in its organization, even though he was knocking the cover off the ball in Triple-A.

But not now. 

Now we hear nothin' from nobody, and the thought inevitable arises that this, too, is a key to our dear Yankees' unbearable shittiness of playing...which is that maybe they just don't care all that much. Maybe they are quite content to go along with Hal & Pal's yearly slouch toward a wild card spot, while never putting together a team that could actually win again. 

Maybe they feel a little short, shall we say, in the old desire department?

I dunno. But if I have to watch our own collection of dear old fucking bobos play like this much longer, I'm going to change the channel.

The Yankees' problem? Season after season, they believe their own B.S.

Sherman, set the Wayback to March 4, 2021, in The Athletic...

The Yankees built the Gas Station under the guidance of newly hired director of pitching Sam Briend, who previously worked at Driveline Baseball. The idea was to create a flagship pitching-focused space — essentially a batting cage-like area for throwers — with the expectation that the environment would help pitchers train productively. The goal is to replicate the setup for affiliates throughout the organization — to have a Gas Station for pitchers to pull into whether they’re stopping in Double A or the major leagues.

“If you wanna change behaviors, you change environments,” Briend said...

Yep. The Gas Station. Remember that chestnut? 

What fun it was! The key to baseball is pitching, pitching, pitching, and the Yankees had discovered a secret sauce, a leg-up against the world. 

The Gas Station was their private vein of gold, a limitless supply of young arms that would rise from the farms to build a lockdown staff. 

In 2021, the wave was here: Jordan Montgomery, Nestor Cortez, Domingo German, Jonathan Loaisiga, Albert Abreu, Deivi Garcia, JP Sears, Clarke Schmidt, Greg Weissert, Brooks "The Great" Kriske... the list went on and on. 

The Yankees had hacked the system. They'd find young pitchers who threw 92 mph, and they'd soon have them pushing 98 mph. They had so many pitchers that they needed to siphon off a few, trade them for whatever, assured there would be more. Montgomery looked like a rare jewel, but they dealt him for an injured CF with a suspect bat. No problem. They had plenty like him at The Gas Station.

And here we are, three years later, with a bullpen is such dire shambles that it threatens to derail 2024 and the years ahead. 

The Yankees are in a demoralizing freefall, with no lead safe and nobody to pitch after the starter leaves, usually in the sixth. A 4-2 lead can quickly become a 7-4 loss. They have no middle innings man. They have no set up man. They have no specialist. They have no strike-out man. They have no closer. What they have are fraying elbows and tired shoulders, and a season flying out the window. What system-wide depth they once had has disappeared in a torrent of trades and surgeries.

Last winter, they dealt four pitchers - including Michael King (11-8, 3.17 ERA) and their best prospect, Drew Thorpe (later traded for Dylan Cease) - for one year of Juan Soto. And while Soto is a great talent, there is no certainty he'll stay. They traded three more pitchers for Alex Verdugo. They lost three more in the Rule 5 draft. Yet they passed on Blake Snell, the NL Cy Young winner, who signed late in spring in a haze of ownership collusion, and who only now is throwing well, as evidenced by his a no-hitter last month 

It's now 15 years since the Yankees played in a world series. Increasingly, it looks like this October will be no different. And it's because of the one glaring institutional weakness: Hubris. They think they're fundamentally superior and smarter than other teams. They devour their own bullshit.  

The Yankees intend to scale the Gas Station throughout their organization, and the tools the organization utilizes will inevitably change as technology advances. Aside from its pricey equipment, the Gas Station’s biggest value is in the creation of infrastructure for the Yankees to try to churn out an indefinite wave of hard-throwers with even harder-to-hit secondary pitches.

The Gas Station.  Wasn't it fun to imagine?   

Game Thread ~ "NO ANSWERS - because they're all too raw and emotional"

 

"A lot of the times where we’ve lost it’s been soft contact beating him. Obviously, that wasn't the case tonight."

I think I've done it. I've cracked the code! I've captured the correlation between Aroldis Holmes' epic meltdowns and Aaron Boone's most joyful bursts of postgame blather. 

Something in a Holmes' collapse transforms Skippy into Baghdad Bob, the legendary military flack of the first (and seemingly forgotten) Iraq war. The worse it gets for Holmes, the more Boone praises the greatness of Saddam Cashman. It results in the Three Levels of Boonie Hell.

Defcon 1: Entering with a big lead, Holmes fills the bases and escapes with the tying run at third. Boone is thunderstruck with hope: "It's good to have him back!"

Defcon 2: Entering with a small lead, Holmes gives up the tying run and sends the game to extra innings. Boone is undeterred: "It was just soft-contact."

Defon 3: Whatever the lead, Holmes records maybe one out, losing the game with a walk-off HR or something equally disastrous. Boone brings down the ironclad truth: "We've got to get him straightened out."

Here's the fun part: Beneath each buttery postgame quote is an existential reality: The Yankees have no path to a 2024 championship, not with this bullpen. They have have no innings eater. They have no set-up man. They have no closer. They don't even have a committee of closers. There is only whoever didn't pitch last night, and - basically - that depends on who's up from Scranton.

Last night, it was comical, a Seinfeld routine, hearing Boone philosophize about the Yankee condition. He has no options. We haven't been squirreling away a secret stud reliever at Somerset. No trades are in the works. Last night, as Holmes was disassembling - pitches far out of the strike zone, until the gopher ball arrived - out in the bullpen stood Slenderman Luke Weaver, who the previous night had given up a 2-run HR.  

Nope. Baseball is pitching, pitching, pitching, and Yankees have none, none, none. Gerrit Cole has a phantom tweak, Nasty Nestor is falling apart, and the bullpen is a shambles of lost souls. Add a weak defense - Gleyber botched a DP ball (and was replaced in the ninth by Oswaldo) and LeMahieu somehow managed to lose a bouncer in the lights (Buckner never did that) - and an early October exit looks like a done deal. 

The Yankees prevailed in April, when its bullpen was the best in MLB. 

It's now among the worst, and they are a floundering, .500 tomato can. 

Tonight, expect the usual: We'll get blown out by a young team that has had a revelation: The big bad New York Yankees are full of holes. No game is out of reach. And if you take an early lead, they'll be demoralized. They know the truth, and they've heard all of Boone's excuses. 

An Above Average Haiku Tuesday ~ Bronx Cheer Edition!

OMG! How exciting! The Yankees won the first game of a series!

Rejoice, everybody!

The Death Barge just took the crucial Game One Series Opener against the mighty Texas Rangers of Del Monte, who sit only eight games below .500 on the season. 

Obviously, this ensures a Yankee series victory, if not a visit by Mr. McBroom, himself. Right?

As every 2024 Yank fan knows, taking Game One is a sign that we're turning the corner, shifting gears, getting our bearings, bouncing back, coming around, bonking the new intern, licking the crusty trowel and crapping the "everything "pineapple... am I right?

Of course. Winning Game One is soooo important for this playoffs-bound, organizational, for-profit, corporate enterprise. For example, last week, against the Nats. In Game One, we showed those DC clumps who's boss. A 5-2 victory! Proving again that our bullpen can handle the job! 

Unfortunately, we - ahem - lost the next two. 

We followed it up with a Game One victory over the then-nosediving St. Louis Cardinals, allowing the YES team to conjure memories of Bob Gibson and Stan Musial. We beat their asses 6-3, leaving absolutely NO DOUBT of our superiority - none, whatsoever - until we - ahem - clanged the next two. 

Yep, nothing like winning Game One. It lets you to take off the next two, knowing that after all is done, we'll still make the postseason because of our April and May, and in the end, nobody will care what happened in early September, right?

So, rejoice, everybody. To beat Texas, all the Yankees need do is win one of the next two games! No problem, right? Not with a glorious team of destiny, right? 

" We Almost achieved One of our Goals..."

 It was Boone's prayer to hold the Cardinals under 20 hits for the day.

But that last dinger shut the door on that dream.

Don't look now, but the Yankees may cost Judge the MVP.

 

Ah, what a difference a week makes! 

 

Just a few days ago, we were all oohing and ahhing over the feats of our Rabelaisian slugger, surely en route to one of the greatest seasons in major-league baseball history, approached only in his awesomeness by his fellow caped crusader, Juan Soto. 

(Courting jujusian vengeance, of course, some idiots actually decided to drape Judge in a literal cape, aping the stupid antics of lesser teams in lesser dugouts. I don't think he has homered since.)

But I digress. The heights our superheroes might reach for the season seemed beyond previous imagination. It looked as though Judge could actually break his own (real) major-league record for home runs in a season. He also seemed a lock for 100 extra-base hits on the year, not to mention 140-plus RBI, and, with a little luck, even a Triple Crown.

Soto’s numbers were nearly as stunning, and the fire he brought to the team was even better. With 37 homers under his belt, it seemed possible that he and Judge could be the first Yankee combo to each finish with over 50 home runs since you-know-who and you-know-who, too. (I won't besmirch their names here, as they actually played for an organization interested in winning.)

How different things look now, with both players in a nosedive at the worst possible time. Soto’s game—in the field and on the bases, as well as at bat—seems to have suddenly run ragged. Is he hiding an injury? Who knows. But whatever the reason, a slump down the stretch will give Cashman all the camouflage he needs to let the most dynamic player in pinstripes for years drift over to Flushing—for which we will never, ever forgive the rotten little ---t.

The fact that Aaron Judge seems to be bookending his season with slumps, dissolving again into a welter of double-plays and strikeouts, is doubly sad. 

It seems more likely than ever now that his legacy is going to be that of some of the game’s greatest players—men like Ted Williams, or Ernie Banks, or our own Donnie Baseball—who were known as much for what they missed, as for what they did.

For Judge there has already been the Stolen Pennant (and probably an MVP, too), lost to Yer Cheating Heart Astros in 2017. The 2018 loss to Boston as Stanton swung like a mechanical man and The Gleyber ran a 10.7 to first base. The Repeat Cheat in 2019, the Aroldis Meltdown in 2020, the Cole Collapse in Fenway in 2021; the 2022 Choke at the Trade Deadline…

The list goes on and on, and in the years to come we will imagine them filling out Judgie’s sad but proud plaque at Cooperstown. 

It’s very possible that said plaque won’t even include an MVP for 2024, thanks to the incompetence of his teammates and the selfishness of his management. KC’s Bobby Witt is currently leading the AL in batting at .341, and is on pace to compile a 30-30 season, as well as playing an outstanding shortstop. 

Is it possible that Witt will surpass Judge amongst The Usual Suspects, a.k.a., the MVP voters, should Kansas City surpass the Yankees in the postseason? You bet it is, and that surpassing is highly likely.

The Kansas City Royals are another underfinanced, small-market team. But they are a scrappy bunch, who come to play every day, and are not run by morons, vanity cases, and an owner whose vast, inherited fortune is matched only by his vast indifference to the team he was also bequeathed. 

Meanwhile, even as we enter September, the Yankees insist on perversely playing as if they were still in spring training…while at the same time refusing to give their most talented minor leaguers a shot. 

New acquisition Jazz Chisholm is being forced to learn a new position during a pennant race, while head cases such as Gleyber Torres, Anthony Volpe, and Anthony Verdugo are never so much as questioned, much less benched. 

(And from the department of "It Can Always Get Worse" comes the shuddery opinion of The Venerable Keefe, in his excellent blog, keefetothecity, that the main reason why these flops are handled with such kid gloves is that re-signing Torres and Verdugo, at least, is Cashman's "back-up" plan for when Soto takes the 7 train. Substitute, "real plan" for "back-up plan," and I believe you have the Yankees' strategy for 2025 and years to come. Meet the new team, same as the old team.)

Meanwhile the Yanks' greatest lacks—for pitching, starting and closing—remain completely unaddressed. The Royals have, on the other hand, a neat little starting four that has performed more consistently than the Yankees’ starting staff has, all season long. 

Will they beat the Yanks in an October match-up? I wouldn’t bet against it, though who knows if our boys will even make it to Kansas City. They might take a train, they might take a plane, they might...breakdown on a state highway somewhere outside of Baltimore.

Wherever it begins and ends, I think it is all too easy to picture how our playoffs will go. With Judge, a lifetime, .211 hitter in 44 postseason games, once again flailing and failing as he tries to do too much. The Yankees’ closer failing once again, or maybe one of our sub-standard starters taking us out of a key game right from the outset. 

 

What awaits us is a culmination of failure, weeks of absolute fury over the failure of Brian Cashman and Hal Steinbrenner to provide us with pitching, to bring up Jasson Dominguez for September and October—under the outrageous pretext that this will save his eligibility for the rookie-of-the-year award in 2025—and then the decision to let Juan Soto go start the Metassance, over in Queens.

 

But worst of all will be what we’ve done to Judge, a great player who will be known most for being almost.

The Martian has landed... in Scranton

First off, on this Labor Day, I got nothin' to say about the Yankees. Nothin.' They're dead to me. Can't hold a lead. Can't catch a routine fly. Can't hit when it matters. And they're cheap to the bone.

They won't call up Jasson Dominguez until it's clear that he cannot come to bat enough times to affect his rookie status for 2025. It's a cheap trick, (and I don't mean the band.) By leaving him to fester in Scranton, they'll squeeze an extra year of contractual control over The Martian. They will show him who's boss, and they will give Juan Soto a reminder of how conniving this organization can be, when a season is on the line.  

If the Yankees can't win a regular series - I mean, a home series against a certified tomato can - how can we expect them to win a world series?

Well, the answer is, we shouldn't expect anything. Yes, this team will make the playoffs - because of its opening two months, which were otherworldly. Ever since, Brian Cashman has simply treaded water. They'll play in October, and maybe they'll get lucky. Trouble is, at some point in the playoffs, they'll take a lead into the late innings... and the roof will fall in. 

Seriously, 

we've seen this movie played out for 15 years. We sleep in the house, and it turns out to be really haunted, after all. In the  end, the walls crush us, and Cashman - the real demon - goes back to work, summoning us again for next year.  

Nope, we should be following Scranton. To the right are the team leaders over the last 15 days - a 1B, an OF and a utility infielder. Rumfield, 24, has never made the prospect lists. (Guy is 6'5" though, looks good coming off the bus.) The Martian is stuck in limbo. Durbin is also 24; he's only 5'6",  a scrapper. Any one would help the Yankees... if he could pitch. 

Nope, this is a Labor Day without a lotta hope. If you're talking about the Yankees, I got nothin.'  Wait, no, I take it back: How 'bout that Jorbit Vivas!

Does anybody here wanna win the AL East?

Another day, another opportunity, another tomato can, another chance to pull away... another loss.

Are we sensing a pattern here? 

The Cards come to NYC in a nosedive, mired at .500 and fading from the NL playoff race. We win game one and prepare to take the series, maybe even sweep a decidedly weaker team.

And then we provide answers to these existential questions:

Will Warren?
No, he won't.

Mark Leiter?
I give him a D.

Phil Bickford?
To the rim. 

Ten takeaways from yesterday's farce:

1. When Soto and Judge together go 2-for-9, we lose. Nothing else matters. We simply lose.

2. Will Warren has gone from being walloped in Scranton to being walloped in NYC, a tough year that might lead to better things in 2025. But I sense he's thrown enough pitches this season. 

3. The most important rehabbing Yankee is Clarke Schmidt. The month of September is no time to be using the bullpen option every fifth day.

4. That Alex Verdugo is suddenly playing well begs a question: Is this happening because he is finally being threatened with replacement? If so, maybe Boone's unwavering support might have been better tempered with a jolt of criticism.

5. The Martian homered yesterday for Scranton. He went 2-4. It's time to bring him up. There is no reason to play Verdugo in LF.

6. Holy crap, if he keeps hitting, Austin Wells could be the AL Rookie of the Year. In the last 30 days, he's leads all AL catchers in hitting (.324) and HRs (well, actually, he's tied, with five.) 

7. Lately, our best hitter lately has been - gulp - Anthony Volpe. (.326 over last 15 days.) Our best months came with Volpe leading off. Just sayin...

8. I cannot escape the feeling that  Oswaldo Cabrera, at least from the left side, has finally figured out MLB pitching. It doesn't show in his average. But he's hit a lot of line drives, right at people. I really hope Cashman doesn't trade him next winter.

9. So long, Ben Rice. Go to Scranton and start catching again.

10. Today, it's Nasty Nestor. We could lose another series to a cupcake. But the key to the rotation remains Gerrit Cole. He must  step up.