The heart of the Yankees sits at the keystone

Yesterday, in the fifth, with Showalter lackeys on first and second and no outs, Didi Gregorius turned a potential single into a stunning double play - a running, leaping, acrobatic throw that saved Jordan Montgomery's peach-fuzzed, lily-white, 24-year-old butt. This came shortly after Starlin Castro's 13th HR put the Yankees ahead 5-3 - which followed Didi's 20th. The pair hit third and fourth in the Yankee lineup.

Of course, they batted there only because Gary Sanchez is on MLB double-secret probation, and Matt Holliday had blasted two HRs in two games, thereby mandating a day off under the Joe Girardi Optimum Chaos System of Personnel Management, as taught at Trump University.

Here's my best version of reality: Didi and Starlin remain not only the Empire's heart and soul, but its lungs and liver. Though plucky Ronald Torreyes played magnificently in recent weeks, replacing Castro and anybody else with a strained boner, it wasn't the same. Castro can hit fourth. Torreyes bats ninth (unless Austin Romine emerges from cryonic suspension.) With Castro hitting - and, fingers crossed here, Greg Bird carrying his weight at first - the Yankees look like the wet dream we swam through during the season's first half.

They are one of MLB's top slugging keystones. These are HR totals. (I did the math.):  
Houston: Altuve-Correa... 41
Cincinnati: Cozart-Gennett... 40
Baltimore: Beckham-Schoop...39
Minnesota: Polanco-Dozer... 38
Cleveland: Lindor-Kipness.. 37
Texas: Andrus-Ordor... 37
Yankees: Gregorius-Castro... 33.
Cubs: Russell-Baez... 31 
Seattle: Segura-Cano... 29
Washington: Turner-Murphy... 28
Angels: Phillips-Simmons... 28
Dodgers: Seager-Utley... 26

I know what you're thinking: If we cook the books and note how Didi missed April and Castro lost seven weeks with tweaked gonads - we could add 15 HRs and beat our chests. Truth is, other teams have gonads, too. But the days of Chicken Stanley and Steady Eddie Brinkman up the middle are over: To make MLB's post-season, you need mashers. And with Castro and Didi healthy, I'll take comparisons to the Redsock '17 Hall of Fame Superteam of Destiny (TM), even with Little Lord Pedroia twerking his dwarf butt in short right field. 

By Thursday, Gary Sanchez will hit third. As soon as he has suitably cooled off, Holliday will likely hit fourth. That leaves Didi and Castro fifth and sixth, with Judge seventh, Bird - gulp - eighth and Jacoby Ellsbury ninth. Yeah, ninth. (I'm figuring the newly reborn Headley bats second.) Jeez, folks. That's a decent lineup. A little pitching and bullpen and - holy crap! But make no mistake: It's all about the keystone. We can replace almost anybody, but not them.

Labor Day Texts (Updated)

Update:

The Redsock '17 Hall of Fame Superteam of Destiny (TM) has a problem

Scotty said it best, I think, to those pesky Klingons:

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
Hence, as street-savvied students of the Yankee condition, we shalt not jettison our bedrock, hard-earned, core cynicism, and romp through the YES network's imaginary field of blossoming nipples, simply because our team finally won a meaningful home series. Nope. We'd be oafs, clods, Hodors. We're not drinking Hal's Kool-Aid. We're not chasing the AL East. This is a wild card race, nothing more. 

Still, woo-woo, three out of four! Plus, two Taylor Swift-breakup-song level ass-whippings! And write this down, Doris Kearns Goodwin, you stinking NYC turncoat, because one future historical finding is about to come down: The Redsock '17 Hall of Fame Superteam of Destiny (TM) ain't gonna win a shittence of squatoolah. Haha! Misery loves company, and you're our favorite visitors.

Nope, sorry, Ben "I'd rather say I serve Satan than cheer for the Yankees" Affleck. Unless Big Papi leaves his stud pasture and comes out of retirement, Boston still has no Hurricane Harvey in the middle of the lineup, the one guy that scares us shitless every three innings. Here's a stunner: Keith Moreland doesn't do it. And Cy Young Sale, the Yankee killer in Chicago, never beat us once, not once, all season. 

Sorry, you self-righteous, Benintendi-masturbation fantasizing Superteam of Destiny fans. Here's my suggestion: Go to your basement, or that bunker where you keep the sex slaves, and don't come out until Nov. 1. By then, the Yankees will be writing a new marketing plan for 2018 - hint: "The Babied Bombers" - and Belichick will have your team leading the world's worst football division, ever, at any level, including Pop Warner. 

We won the series, 3 to 1. We won the season, 11 to 8. Unless the Astros can't swim, and Cleveland gets attacked by gnats, we're going nowhere. Welcome to our world, Doris and Ben.  

Texts from Today

First place Yanks gain on O's, Rays, Rangers, Royals in race for fourth

Quick, somebody peel me a grape! The big Wild Card '17 Single Game Home Field Advantage Bragging Rights series starts tomorrow, when the first place Wild Card '17 Single Game Home Field Advantage Yanks hit Baltimore, looking to extend their Wild Card '17 Single Game Home Field Advantage Crown lead. Excelsior, dammit! Who stole the channel changer?

Tonight, our prospective Wild Card champions play a non-Wild Card '17 Single Game Home Field Advantage contender in a nothing burger exhibition. The outcome is hardly in doubt: Having won yesterday, the Yankees will honor their '17 traditions by losing, surely via some excruciating, out-of-body meltdown, too painful to be imagined.

Oh, hell - let's try! How can the Yankees lose tonight and outdo their other recent 500-year collapses? Having El Chapo blow the save no longer bothers us; meh, it's a mosquito bite. Just seeing him warm up loosens my bowels with the impact of ten bars of Ex-Lax and a prune Danish. He can shoot bullets into my garage door, but he can no longer hurt me. 

Another Aaron Judge golden sombrero runners-left-on-base fest? Sorry, juju gods. You'll have to do better. I don't care how many times Judge fans - let the big dog run! - he can't fall below .240 on the season, and he'll have 37 HRs - they can't be taken away - and somebody next winter will want him under their tree. (Let's remember that even as we speak, the Marlins are looking to peddle Giancarlo Stanton to anybody with an open checkbook, which rules out us.) Judge is earning rookie wages. In the worst of all scenarios, we can trade him to a small market team desperate for a program cover. Let September be Judgement Month - four weeks to judge Judge. If he goes 0-for-100, no problem. We'll know what we've got, and let's cue up Clint Frazier.    

How about a key defensive lapse? A Gary Sanchez passed ball? Been there, done that. The juju torturers would look lame, eh? I'm thinking pitchers' duel, Yanks take lead in the eighth, lose it with Betances, strand the bases loaded in the ninth, then lose in the 17th with - say - Ronald Torreyes on the mound. Now, that would hurt. 

Listen: I apologize for the negativity here. I'm just trying to get something started with the juju gods, because they have been on our cases all year. In the meantime, I'm looking at the real race.  

Tomorrow could bring Buck Showrunner's last gasp for the Home Field Advantage Wild Card '17 Single Game Berth. If Baltimore cannot take 2 out of 3 against the Yankees, they must focus on the Away Field Wild Card '17 Single Game Berth, which we could also be chasing. There's always excitement in the Wild Card. 

Texts from Alphonso

During the season, if you're lucky enough to have your number in Alphonso's phone, you might see the first of a nightly flurry of texts just as John is starting his vocal warmups in the Sunoco broadcast booth.

An evening's texts provide a steady feed of the wisdom, skepticism, disappointment, boredom, entitlement, disgust, and rage that Alphonso's readers here know well. When the opposition is up by two runs early, he surrenders; one pop-out from a Yankee rookie and he pronounces the death of a young career. When the Yankees have a comfortable lead, there is silence. Absent any reason to scold or complain, Alphonso ceases to exist until the Yankees need him again.

From today:

Yankees going though their fourth "500-year flood" in last decade

Gather 'round, chitlins, and I'll tell you of the greatest sports team on the planet, the franchise with more world championships than anybody else, with the tradition of the Babe, Lou, Joltin' Joe, the Mick, Reggie, Thurm, Jeter, Mariano and now - um - Judge, Jacoby, Headley - humina-humina-humina... I'll get back to you on that.

This team won so many American League pennants that, these days, it prefers epic, otherworldly and excruciating collapses. There's nothing like an incredible, seemingly impossible meltdown, especially when you're chasing the one-game, home-or-away, fake postseason joke wild card! Think of it as playing Division III, except the teams can give scholarships, but only to old guys on the way down. Last night the Yanks lost a tough one, darn it!, but - hey - can't win 'em all, haha. Frankly, they were playing a team way above their level - it's like Syracuse scheduling Clemson - who signed up all these Division I powerhouses, anyway? Either way, last night's drubbing gave Joe Girardi a chance to prepare for the big Division III, do-or-die, wild card rivalries ahead: Baltimore, Tampa and Minnesota! 

Last night, Joe got to see if Aaron Judge is coming out of his slump. (He isn't.) He could evaluate El Chapo's fastball (Still straight) and give Todd Frazier a chance to break out (Nope.) And because the Twins lost, we're still in first place in the battle for fourth! Better to reign in hell than rule in heaven? You betcha!   

Something tells me this wild card race will go down to the wire, deep into September! That will be really exciting, no? Yabadabadoo. And great for ticket sales! So hold onto your special designer weekend clown caps, everybody! The Yankees have their sights set on staying in the wild card race to the very end.  Soon, this crap Yankee team will be playing likewise crap teams, some of which may turn out to be actually crappier! Let's stop thinking about tomorrow. The future is now, here, ahead of us  unimportant. We have eliminated ourselves from Division I. Now, we have something special to watch - a collapse for the ages - a wild card race to fall out of. 

The Yankees = Democratic Party?

In simple terms, should the Dems go with veteran Joe Biden (aka: Jaime Garcia) - or try the real kids from Scranton? Are they Brian "Cooperstown" Cashman, or the latest version of Syd Thrift? 

Well, at least we know what Randy Levine - the original orange-haired clown - would do: He'd sign Nancy Pelosi to an eight-year deal and trade a boatload of prospects for the electrified cadaver of Joe Lieberman. (Of course, Randy works for the YES-sponsoring Koch brothers, who surely root for the Royals.) 

Essay question: Considering their respective "rebuilding plans," will the Yankees win the World Series before the Democrats win the White House?  

Regarding hope: Bird, bunts, Cleveland, Judge's Lou move...

Re: Last night...

1. If you are looking for any non-drug related reason for hope, it is standing before us in the form of Mr. Gregory Paul Bird, age 24, of Aurora, Colorado. Here's the otherworldly, non-drug scenario: Bird plays every day, bats fourth or fifth, goes on a hell-fire tear, and protects whomever is hitting in front of him. No matter what happens in October, we go into the winter secure about first base for the long-term future. Crazy, eh? Wouldn't it be nice?   

2. CC's complaints about Boston's bunting was not only wrong - I mean, everybody can see it - but it was a flat-out stupid idea, from a "cagey" veteran who slipped his cage. At the least, he just slapped a bumper sticker on his forehead that says: I CAN'T FIELD. In the post season, nobody considers bunting to be a craven and cowardly act. (Except maybe the 2004 Yankees, who refused to bunt on old Catsup Foot.)  

3. In 2016, a disastrous three game sweep by Tampa so demoralized the Yankees that they chose to rebuild: Ditching A-Rod, bringing up Sanchez and Judge Judy, trading for Glyber, Clint, Justus, et al. It was the most hopeful move in this wretched decade. Is it possible that we might look back at the recent wipe-out against Cleveland as a good thing? At least, it seems to have kept Brian Cashman from making a disastrous waiver trade - a la Verlander or Upton - thus far. This is the time of year when teams trade Mark Melancons for Lance Berkmans, and the Gammonites shower praise upon the team that obtained the aging slob. 

4. In case you missed it last night, Aaron Judge made one of the coolest RF fake-outs since Lou Piniella deaked Rick Burleson in the Bucky Dent game, long long ago in a universe far far away. Judge pretended he was going to catch a bloop single, freezing baserunner Rafael Devers between first and second. It bounced in front of Judge, who threw a bullet to Didi, forcing Devers. Instead of two on and one out, there were two outs with a man on first. Brilliant play. Key play. For the first time in weeks, I saw Judge beaming a smile. 

Wait a minute: Second non-drug ray of hope? Do we dare?

Yanks gain on O's, Rangers, Seattle in wild Wild Card race

Last night's big Yankee win - (Note: Every Yankee win is a big Yankee win) - keeps the team one game up on wily, low-budget Minnesota in the wild, wild, Wild Card brouhaha scrum.

Are you smelling Wild Card fever, too? 

If the Yankees can, say, somehow win three more this weekend, they'll pad their wild card home field advantage lead and virtually eliminate Seattle and Kansas City from the field of contenders for hosting that one game wild card extravaganza.

Coming up in September, seven games with the Orioles! Let's face it: The road to hosting that one incredible wild card game must go through Baltimore.

Wild Card fever... sense it!

Yankees are lost in the flood, and nobody is coming

There are few things less fulfilling in life than baseball's "race" for the final wild card slot. It's on the same excitement level as hearing that you've won the Publishers Clearinghouse Sweepstakes! and all you must do is, send it in, send it in! The wild card itself is about as joyful as a dry packet of instant oatmeal.

Today, after months of tantalizing their fan base, the Yankees are on the verge of plummeting back into dour mediocrity - flopping back into a pack of forgettable .500 teams, which intermittently grow hot and cold - having ditched the "Baby Bombers" rebuilding program that for the first time in years offered hope.

It's clobbering time. 

I don't know what fans can do to register their anger - legally, physically, verbally, or spiritually - but if the Yankees fall out of this race, we gotta do something. 

There has to be a way to vent our frustration. Last year, this site was the only place in the known Yankiverse to stand up for our debased Yankee values - we led the charge to moon Big Papi,a campaign for which I shall be eternally proud. If this team collapses, after all the self-congratulating, hubris-laden, chest-beating from management... well... we gotta do something.

I am open for suggestions. 

I am not Watching any more Yankee games.!

I turned on the game a bit late today, as we had a fire alarm in our building.  No problem except for the 16 flights down walk.  And the building just can't figure out how to stop the alarms, even though the fire trucks are long gone.  Incompetence here.  Incompetence there.

By the time I got back to the telly, we were down 2 runs.  It was the end of the top of the first. I kept watching long enough to watch Gardy get thrown out trying to steal second.  Then I quit.

I said to Duque and Mustang; " this game is lost because we cannot score more than 2 runs. So even if we tie, we lose, eventually."

So, before the Yankees even logged two at bats, I knew the game was over.  So why watch?

I mean it is predictable.   If we are behind early, we cannot win.

 This is a "second half of the season thing,"  as we did come back in the first half before the all star break.  When Judge and Hicks were both players.  When we were committed to a youth movement, win or lose.

 This utter uselessness is the result of trading for Frazier and that other jerk Kaynle ( or however you spell that old turd's name.)  This garbage excuse for baseball is the result of giving away 6 of our top prospects for dirt, and not holding anyone accountable.

So our pitchers do great, really....holding Cleveland to two runs over nine innings.  But we never had a chance.  We would never get the big hit.  The clutch hit.  There was no prayer of getting a lead.  It just could not happen.

I knew it and you knew it.

There is no point watching when you know the game is over before the Yankees come to bat.  Watching this Yankee line-up is like sticking yourself with a fork all game long.  Poke, bleed, poke, bleed.

So I am done.

We abandoned the youth effort for this?  For predictable futility?

I am out.

By Monday, we will know everything important about the 2017 Yankees

The hottest AL starters over the last month;
we will probably face eight of them. 

Thus far, regarding the '17 Yankees, famed English sportswriter Bobby Blake has said it best:

To see a World in a Grain of Sand, 

And a Heaven in a Wild Flower, 

Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand, 

And Eternity in an hour.

Damn. Wish I said that! (Fun fact: I once said, "I think, therefore I am," not knowing that Rene Descartes had beaten me to the punch by 400 years. At time, I was six years old. I rose out of bed, looked out the window at a brilliant sun staring down at me and said, "Wow. I think, therefore, I am." For this, I received no recognition.) 

The next five days will bring several Yankee eternities.

As psychotic fans, we've all experienced the Yankee eternity. It's the game we're sure is lost, then we miraculously rally, then we seem to lose again, then it looks like an incredible victory, and then - after a billion years of watching the firmament ferment - we win or lose the goddamm thing, fostering an unbearable loneliness. The only respite is to throw yourself from a bridge, but - well - you'd miss tomorrow's game. I believe every reader of this blog instinctively knows what's coming: An infinite number of eternities in just a few hours. The season is reaching that fulcrum point, the bend in the road when the killer is unmasked and the truth about Rooney Mara's dark past is revealed. It's not always pretty, especially if Mickey Rourke is involved. But it's coming. 

Look, I can speculate about how the Yankees will do this weekend - anybody can. Look around the Interweb: Folks are thunderously proclaiming the "keys" to the next five days. But, seriously: Why bother? The First Sterling Law of Time and Space tells us, "You cannot predict baseball." (The Second Law: "Every day shall be different, because of the existence of two entirely new pitchers.") 

Today, we face arguably the best team in the American League - twice. The odds of sweeping them don't look appealing. Boston arrives tomorrow - CC vs. Rodriguez. After that, it's Doug Fister, Drew Pomeranz and Chris Sale. (Our rotation is TBA, due to today's doubleheader.) 

Don't get me wrong: By Monday, the 2017 season could still be just as clouded as it is today. We could split the next six games and still be sitting in the race, dumb as clams as to what's ahead. But this weekend, I believe the answers will be given. 

Is Aaron Judge the next Hank Aaron or the next Aaron Small?

Do we have anyone capable of driving in a runner with the game on the line?

Do we really have a great bullpen, with an actual closer who can close?

Do we have anything at all in Aroldis Chapman and Jacoby Ellsbury - the infinity contracts of the next Yankee eternity?

I can ask questions all day. They don't matter. Today, we'll see the world in a grain of sand. Don't look too closely, or you might see yourself at age six, looking back.

Spahn & Sain....and pray for rain

We got it.

But no one ever wins two anymore.

So we lose the series to Cleveland.

Yuck.

What happened to that emerging future all-star outfield?

Once upon a fortnight, giddy Yank fans foresaw a future outfield of numerological legends: They'd wear numbers 77, 88, and 99, that is, after the Next Big Thing - Blake Rutherford or Dustin Fowler maybe - ascended from the hinterlands. Good grief, we were pissing outfielders, tripping over them in doorways, housing far too many to count, much less trying to feed. Down at Scranton, they were multiplying like rabbits. Nobody likes an outfield hoarder. And so it was ordained that the Empire would mercifully sacrifice Fowler, Rutherford, Tito Polo and the changeling, Jorge Mateo, for the 2017 World Series, division crown wild card. We'd never miss them. Hell, we just had too many damn outfielders.

Well, today's word - maybe the word for all of 2017 - is "hubris:" defined by the Strunk & White needle-pricks as "excessive pride toward or defiance of the gods, leading to Nemesis." Thanks to hubris, today's Yankee outfield is comprised of Gardy, Chief and the Nemesis brothers, Aaron I and II - and good luck looking for the Yankee future.

Our torture chart for the day shows Yankee hitters in the last 28 days, with our once shining OF quarantined in red. Nobody has hit above .250, and three remain 20 miles south of Mendoza. Statistically, our most productive lug nut has been the heavily maligned whipping mule, "Chief" Jacoby Ellsbury - (though to label anybody "productive" is to throw shoes at the gods.) If you've been wondering where the Yankee offense went, let's just say it disappeared at the warning track. 

And here's the real plastic radish in the salad bar: Unless Aaron Judge figures out curve balls in the dirt, next year could be a VHS rerun of Gardy, the Chief and TBA. Judge is heading toward the most Jekyll-Hyde year in history, leaving us wondering what we've got. No matter what happens in September, he'll finish with the all-time HR record for Yankee rookies. But how can we reconcile what our eyes have witnessed: A second-half in which Babe Ruth morphed into Zolio Almonte. Do we just look at the 40 (or so) homers and plug him into right field, as if the last three months of 2017 didn't happen? Do we trade him for whatever we can get, which is shrinking with each golden sombrero day? Listen: We all love Aaron Judge. Not long ago, he was the future face of the Yankees - if not of all baseball. Now... can he bat eighth? 

Likewise, I was distressed last night to see that Aaron Hicks also has tumbled into a .258 mediocrity. We can blame his recent injury, but - hey - we've had him two years, both defined by muscle strains. As for Clint Frazier, after this weekend, where will he rehab? And his numbers we falling like the rain in Houston. What the hell happened to our golden outfield of the future, the one with no room for Bryce Harper? It vanished. Jake Cave, anyone?

Clearly, everything rests on Aaron Judge - and I'm not just talking about the 2017 wild card. We made those deadline trades thinking Judge was the real deal - a future bedrock of the Yankees - and now, we simply no longer can assume that will be the case. Thank god he's finally getting a few days off. This needed to happen two weeks ago. And in the future, next time we have too many outfielders, or shortstops, or left widgets, let's keep our future intact and not summon Mr. Nemesis. 

EXTRA! EXTRA! JUDGE TO SIT!

Both Newsday and Jack Curry have reported on Twitter that Joey Binders has decided to let Judge sit a few, and try to get on track.

WHAT THE FUCK TOOK HIM SO FREAKIN' LONG????????

There are only 18,000 of these. Get to the park early!

In the interest of getting the comments section started, I'll note that this statue seems to have no arm.

Not that it's a bad thing, but the media is about to anoint Houston as America's feel good team

In 2005, after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, it was only a matter of time before the NFL came to the rescue. As everybody knows, it took five years, but the Saints finally won a Super Bowl, healing the city of all its woes. It had to happen. Joe Buck demanded it. An American city had nearly drowned, and the only true CPR was the Lombardi Trophy. The nation rejoiced, with or without a repaired system of levies, and we all moved on, thanks to the spiritual magic of Roger Godell.

Last year, America celebrated the Cubs' long journey, ending the "Curse of the Billy Goat." You know the Curse of the Billy Goat, right? We all received a crash course. It's a curse, involving - well - a billy goat. Everybody cheered when it ended... just as humankind frolicked when plucky, courageous Boston defeated the dreaded "Curse of the Bambino," or, later, when the plucky, courageous Redsocks healed the nation following the bombing of the Boston Marathon.  

The great American media narrative goes this way: When a city or a region endures a catastrophe, its pro sports team becomes a spiritual beacon, leading everybody out of the darkness. 

What drivel. 

Today, we are stunned at the devastation in southeastern Texas. Dear God, it's horrible. Let me be the millionth person to state the obvious: Our nation must pull together to do whatever it takes to save and restore our people. I mean, if we can't help our fellow Americans, what the hell have we become? But... listen... 

It doesn't mean the Houston Astros must win the World Series.

Baseball won't heal the loss of one home. It won't rebuild any factory or fill the absence of a loved one. It won't do a goddamn thing. But mark these words: the media will soon start pushing that insufferable narrative -- the Astros are playing to save the soul of a tortured city, carrying the people of Houston on their backs.

This will come about because, as a marketing campaign, it works - even when it doesn't. Notlong ago, the Tigers were hailed as the psychic savior of economically stricken Detroit, until they were swept in the post-season. Oh, well... if they had won a world series, not one factory job would have been saved, not one uptick in the manufacturing base would have occurred. Nothing would have changed. But by then, the media would have moved on, anyway. 

Brace yourselves: The narrative machine will soon kick in. Houston - a generally loathsome billionaire's toy franchise, which has been built by coming in last for almost a decade, cheaply capturing high draft picks - is about to become Cinderella. The Astros have by far the best lineup in the American League - good grief, they drafted first three years in a row (2012-14) and second in 2015: How can you NOT build a winner? - and now they'll have Fox Sports in their corner.
     
Okay, I realize that this looks cruel. If I sound cynical, maybe it's because the only time in our lives that New York City wore the media's bloody shirt - after 9-11 - we collapsed in that final inning against Arizona and then listened to that creepy sand flea franchise mock us by playing "New York, New York" on its stadium p.a. system. Yes, they did. Yes, we remember.

Boston has lost four in a row. Dare we start believing? Either way, this isn't about destiny, or God's plan, or saving a region's soul. It's about pitching, pitching, pitching. That's all, folks. Two in the loss column. Two. And fuck the billy goats.

Did somebody forget the season ain't ovah 'til it's ovah?

I still hate the knockoff Padres jerseys. I might have warmed up to them if...

1. Instead of "Head," Chase Headley used "Headley Lamar."

2. Instead of a blank, Joe Girardi went with "Cashman."

3. Aroldis Chapman simply printed 'Sorry about that."

One and oh with Greg Bird. Suddenly, no one is injured, and Boston can't beat the O's. Dare we dream? (Andrew Benintendi 1 for last 15; Endy Rodriguez throwing 117 pitches in 7-0 blowout; Rafael Devers 3 for last 24, now hitting .250.)

Warning to all Yankee fans: If you intend to keep watching, make sure you write your social security number onto your arm with a Sharpie, so you can identified later

Didn't some alien voice - from some wormhole-infested galaxy far far away - tell us how Thursday's glorious rumble would galvanize the Yankees, uniting the team for its big stretch run? Because - let's never forget - shortly after defending our manhood with fisticuffs, this team stupidly lost to the Tigers, and last night, inside those embarrassingly loud, ex-Houston Colt 45 jerseys, this team should have been called the "Patsies." 

Seattle looked comfortable in its powder blue underwear, and I guess I'm no longer part of the prized demographic, but I found it insufferable, watching 100 years of Yankee tradition pissed away with soccer jerseys and nicknames like "Head" and "All Starling" where pinstripes should be. MLB claims it's all for charity; let's just say I'm skeptical. My guess is that somehow, Steiner Collectibles will be selling those odious, obnoxious ripoffs for years to come, long after the nonprofits have signed off. If we've learned anything about modern professional sports, it's that everything can and must be monetized, and if a tradition is not pulling its weight - profit-wise - who needs it?   

As for the team, well, where do you start? Wherever we look, another leak springs in the floorboards. First, the bullpen. Then, the batting order. Tomorrow, the rotation. Sunday, the defense. It's always something. In one-run games, the Yankees are 15-21 this season. Essay question: Please, somebody... tell me how this team is going to win anything relevant? 

Last night, it hurt to watch. Sitting there, I was ashamed of myself. It was embarrassing, demeaning. I felt like a recovering alcoholic, pouring shot after shot, squandering months of sobriety by sitting there, inning after inning, drowning in my degradation. Down 1-0 and squandering base runners, inning after inning, I couldn't overcome the sense that this team will be one more lipstick-smudged cigarette butt in the ashtray of Yankee history. There is no longer certainty that Aaron Judge will be a great Yankee, or that any lead is safe, or that the "Baby Bombers" will be anything more than a future punch line for cynical fans. Where do you start?

1. Last night, when news broke that Trump had pardoned "Sheriff Joe," did anybody else immediately think of Sheriff Joe Cowley? My second thought: "Big deal; Hal has pardoned Joe for the last four years." 

2. "The Missile" is now "The Cuban Missile Crisis." Aroldis Chapman's ERA this month is 9.00. Eight innings, eight earned runs, eight hits, three home runs, six walks and a hit-batter. Horrible. Those are overworked-Scott-Proctor-in-free-fall numbers. For the foreseeable future, I cannot imagine how Joe can rationalize using "The Missile" in anything less than a 12-0 blowout. He belongs in Scranton. Worse, considering Foodstamp Hal's unwillingness to open his purse, El Chapo looks like exactly the kind of salary dead weight that can cripple Yankees spending for years. We're finally on the verge of getting out from under A-Rod's contract... now, this. Unbelievable.

3. The YES team no longer blathers hope that "All Rise" is looking better and better with each at bat, and he's ready to break out of his slump any minute now. That broadcasting phase ended a few games ago. Now, they just talk about his timing being off, as if that isn't the problem with every bad hitter in baseball. The back of the jersey should say "All Rise*" and the asterisk should be defined as "All Rise to Go Get Something to Eat, Because Watching Is Just Too Painful." Right now, Judge is the last guy you want at bat with runners on base. And Joe still won't sit him for a few games. Waste deep in the big muddy, and the big fool says to press on... 

4. Today, we have a 3-game lead (loss column) for the one-night wild card. Trouble is, five teams remain within five games of us (losses, that is.) By Monday, Seattle could be raging and restored. If not for that gleeful six-game respite between the Mets and pre-brawl Tigers, we'd already be on the downside, looking up. And when you look at this team, in these ridiculous jerseys, you don't see the lineage of Ruth, Mantle and Jeter anymore. You see A-A Ron and D-Dawg. You Star Wars action figures and Burger King bobbleheads, and you see a team that won't be playing beyond Oct. 1. And if we blow this, good riddance. Where the hell IS Sheriff Cowley, anyway?