Judge has hit .212 over the past 30 games. I love the fans and writers who already think Judge is old news.

If I wanted to, I could do this analysis for any Championship team ever.

I could also do this analysis for every current MLB team.

"Sure, [team] has won [xyz] games, but their team has a flaw that has not been adequately addressed. They recently lost badly to [team] because [player] played poorly. They are relying on [star player] who is in a slump. What will happen in October? Fans of [team] should be worried."

"This was going to be about the Yankees and their starting pitching, and whether they could get their starters through the other team’s batting order at least twice in the postseason before turning the game over to their bullpen."

Twice through the lineup?

Probably.

Not three times through the lineup.


The Yankees want a tie game after five innings, with the presumption that they can win a battle of the bullpens.


"Then the Yankees went with one of those relievers, Chad Green, as an opener in Thursday night’s game against the Indians. Green didn’t make it through the Indians’ order once before giving up a grand slam to Jose Ramirez. The game ended up a 19-5 win for the Indians."

Everything changed because the Yankees lost a game by 14 runs.


"If the Yankees face the Indians in October, whether the Indians are the American League Central champs or an AL Wild Card, they won’t be throwing Green at them in Game 1."

Well, okay.

I can easily think of a scenario where Chad Green starts Game One of a playoff series.

But, whatever.

"Won't" means "probably won't" and I can move on.

I don't know what this is leading to.

I just think Lupica wanted to point out that the Yankees lost a game by 14 runs.


"Now, no one is still quite sure who the Game 1 starter for the Yankees, whether it will be Domingo Germán, this year’s young ace, or the rehabbing Luis Severino, last year’s young ace. Or Masahiro Tanaka. Or James Paxton."

If you're talking about the playoff rotation pecking order, it's Tanaka in Game One and German in Game Two.

Barring injuries and other unforeseen circumstances.


"But what we do know is that starting pitching is going to be an issue for the Yankees come October, even though they are likely going to be coming off a regular season in which they win even more than the 100 games they won last year, and still might end up with the best record in their league, maybe even in the whole sport."

Completely backwards.

It's as if Lupica doesn't actually know that English words have specific meanings.


What we know with reasonable certainty is the starters the Yankees will use in the playoffs.

What we don't know with reasonable certainty is how effective they will be. Or what team(s) they will play.

About the only thing I'd bank on is Paxton giving up runs in the first inning. What a tool that guy is.


"The Yankees didn’t make a deal for a starter at the July 31 Trade Deadline. Rather than make what he considered a bad deal, general manager Brian Cashman made no deal at all. Here is something Cashman said after the Trade Deadline:

'This is a damn good roster and it can compete, we feel, with anybody in the game.’' "

Eh, forget it.

Too much wasted energy discussing the pitchers the Yankees were going to acquire at the trading deadline.


It's as if nobody has noticed that every AL playoff game is going to have double-digit scores and lots of home runs and no starting pitcher can stop it.

Certainly no starting pitcher that was available at the trading deadline.


"The questions about the Yankees’ starting pitching -- especially if they end up against the Astros in the AL Championship Series the way they did two years ago -- will stick to them like a tick until one of their starters throws a gem in October."



The Yankees are going to rely on their bullpen, their fielding, hitting with runner in scoring position.

The same way they got to 100 wins.
 
Of course it will be harder in the playoffs. It's the playoffs.

It's going to be harder for their opponent, too.

Get used to it.

Every rookie is the best rookie ever?

It's getting hard to understand the numbers.

Is 30 HRs and 100 RBIs just mediocre?

Ruth and Gehrig alright.

An extreme example.

John and Suzyn lose their minds when a batter fouls off a lot of pitches:

"We all wish he could have hit one out of the park or something like that, but there are so many positives in that at-bat," McGuire said. "All three of those at-bats were, I guarantee, a lot tougher than Chapman was probably expecting.”

He fouled off a bunch of pitches and then grounded into a double play.

... and he won't be the last.

Q:	Aristides Aquino became the second player in MLB history to record a three-homer game in his first 10 career games. Who was the other player to achieve this feat?
A:	The Phillies' Bobby Estalella (1997)

A record that will probably last until Thursday.

A convoluted partial defense of J.A. Happ.

“Right now it seems like if it can go wrong, it will,” Happ said. “It's frustrating. I'm certainly not feeling sorry for myself, I've got to find a way out of it. I felt like I made a pitch to get out of that fourth, and it didn't happen. Then I didn't make a pitch, and we got hurt there. Every out is huge, and I just wasn't able to close it down.”

No need to highlight your teammate's error, but have any pitchers pointed out what is going on with the ball?

Happ has allowed 29 HRs this season, 3 more last night.

Has any pitcher, in a postgame interview, finally snapped and called BS on this?

Gregorius hit one onto Eutaw Street.

Romine hit one out of Fenway Park.

I heard someone say Alonso is a "low ball hitter" after he golfed a ball 450 feet on an off-balance swing.

Frazier's game-tying HR was legit ... but the upper deck at Citi Field?

It wasn't long ago that distance like that was reserved for Jose Canseco and Mark McGwire.

The ball is juiced. 

They took the game away from pitchers like Happ.

Bo Bichette is the next Ted Williams.

"If that sounds impressive for a rookie, it’s because it is.  Bichette is the first freshman to pick up 12 or more extra-base hits in his first 11 games and the first rookie since Ted Williams in 1939 to collect an extra-base hit in nine straight. He’s also the first player in MLB history—not just rookies, but everyone—with a doubles streak of nine or more games."

Home runs are cheap.

Nothing against Alonso, but something about the WOW coverage of HRs is bugging me.

As every HR record falls, can we please stop being faux-impressed with HR totals? 

Put them in context.

Chop 30% off the inflated number.

Alonso's 36 HRs in 2019 are really 25 HRs. Still a lot for early August, but he's not Darryl Strawberry.

While the profile of Alonso’s high school coach is one of the most edge-of-your-seat fascinating profiles of a high school baseball coach I’ve ever read in my entire life, and Alonso is doing quite well compared with his peers ... Alonso is going to strike out 180 times and is batting .208 with RISP.

He is not in the NL MVP conversation.

At first, it sure seems odd that the Yankees don't call up Frazier.

But Tauchman and Maybin aren't exactly playing like chopped liver, Suzyn.

NOW can Frazier get promoted? For a couple of weeks?

The Eye Test

Something is up.

It's not just the volume of HRs, it's when the backup catcher hits an opposite field 450-foot fly ball.

Bright side; It really frees up October. Maybe I'll learn a new language or something.

You know what the Yankees should have done?

They should have traded Frazier and Bird to the Dodgers for Kershaw, the skinny guy Ferris Buehler or whatever his name is, and the fat Asian guy with the good ERA.

The Dodgers probably need a young outfielder, am I right?

Good career record.

I had been dismissive of Strasburg, maybe because  of all the early hype.

This joke is already tired.

NFL scores occur in MLB every day.

But I thought the other 29 teams were farm teams for the Yankees.

As long as the playoff games aren't in London, you go with what you've got and hope to turn it over to the bullpen in the sixth inning with a lead.

Maybe the fifth inning.

Heck, maybe the fourth inning.

That's the direction baseball is heading, anyway.


Bumgarner is the best SP who the Yankees could conceivably acquire.

Game Three of the ALCS? He won't last 5 innings at Target Field.

The strategy for beating the Twins is simple: Score 15 runs.

44-49 career record.

Kind of makes you appreciate the boring player who's slightly above average for a long time.

Red Sox fan writes about the Red Sox

Lupica writes to the non-existent audience of baseball fans who are counting out the Red Sox:

"The Yankees are playing this season the way the Red Sox played last season. Maybe better, considering what they’ve had to overcome with injuries. They might not win as many games as the Red Sox did last season. But they might come close. Injuries haven’t stopped them, because nothing has."

What?

What are we talking about?

The Yankees have to win 108 games in 2019 because the Red Sox won 108 games in 2018?


"The Red Sox aren’t going to catch the Yankees this season. But they do have a chance to catch the teams ahead of them in the AL Wild Card race -- the Indians, A’s, Rays -- and get another shot at their top rival the way the Yankees got their shot at the Red Sox last October. The team that won everything in 2018 now just looks to win that."

The Red Sox can still win the AL East.

As for "having a chance" to get the second Wild Card ... they're two games out.

With 65 games to go.

So, yeah. It's in the realm of possibility.


" 'You only get only so many chances to win in this game,' Frank Cashen said about his Mets back in 1987, when they were trying to repeat as World Series champs and then didn’t even make the playoffs that year."

The '87 Mets, huh?

Dwight Gooden, Darryl Strawberry, Mookie Wilson, Buck Showalter, Bobby Grich, and Wee Willie Keeler.

"The key to winning baseball games is having a team with good baseball players," Lee Elia once told me in a postgame steam bath on Chicago's south side in 1982.


"There was no Wild Card for the Mets back then, no one-game playoff lifeline. But there is for the Red Sox. Now their fans and everybody else must ask themselves -- after what has so often been a mediocre and disappointing regular season despite the life they’ve shown lately -- if the Sox can get good enough, starting now, to secure the AL Wild Card Game at Fenway."


I believe.

Ya gotta believe.

You convinced me.

Also, if I didn't believe, it would be at my own risk.

Not sure what I'd be risking, but I'd rather not take any chances.


"Can this year’s Red Sox look like last year’s Red Sox two months from now? We’re going to find out. They are four behind the Indians in the loss column, two behind the A’s, one behind the Rays. What feels like a 65-game pennant race for the defending champs starts now. You only get so many chances, Frank Cashen said. The Red Sox still have this chance: Proving that they got counted out too soon."

Nobody counted them out.

Maybe a few drunks dialing WEEI.

Yeah, why is Harold Baines in the Hall of Fame?

"Under the Baines standard, Larry Walker, Fred McGriff, and others would stroll into Cooperstown. There are even more unlikely names that have to be looked at in a new light now. Forget even about never-Hallers like Bobby Abreu (60 rWAR to Baines’ 38), Brett Gardner (40), or Placido Polanco (41.5). And forget about clearly better steroid-era candidates swept up in writers’ desire to pretend performance-enhancing drugs don’t exist — even if players from that era were never tied to PEDs. Andruw Jones, Jeff Kent, Scott Rolen, Lance Berkman, and dozens of others are more deserving."

First guy I thought of was Willie Wilson ... just in terms of the worst player who conceivably had a better career than Baines.

Wilson got 2% of the HOF vote and then instantly fell off the ballot.

Baines never got more than 6.1% of the vote.

Hard to imagine Frazier doing worse ...

Legendary