Let's ignore what happened in the game and just blame the bullpen.

"Masahiro Tanaka scuffles in two straight starts and you know the reaction, the sky is already falling on the Yankees’ sketchy starting rotation, even before the bullpen blows two straight leads in Baltimore."

The sky is not falling on the Yankees' sketchy starting rotation because it has already fallen ... just got your verb tense wrong. The AL hitters are waiting in anticipation as decision day approaches: Will the Yankees name Chad Green or that AAA Lefty Guy as the #5 pitcher in their rotation?

The Yankee bullpen is not going to have a 0.00 ERA. The bullpen gave up 3 earned runs in Baltimore over the course of 8 innings. I think it's the only runs the bullpen has allowed this season.

The starting pitching, the typical 19 runners left on base, the garbage fielding: those are your problems.


"The other night I watched Chris Sale make his first start for the Red Sox at Fenway, a start even more anticipated than Harvey’s would be for the Mets on Thursday. Sale threw his first pitch of the night at 97 and then spent most of the game against the Pirates in the low and middle 90s. Sale was still brilliant. He is smart, he works both sides of the plate, he mixes sliders with his fastball, he so clearly has an ace’s makeup and mentality. You don’t have to have the biggest fastball in the world to be that kind of ace. You just have to have attitude, and big stuff."

Lupica watched a baseball game, everybody.

What is Lupica doing? Explaining how pitching works?



"There was the Saturday afternoon in a Subway Series game against the Yankees at Yankee Stadium, two years ago, when Harvey seemed almost happy that the Mets had lost on Friday night, so the next day’s game put even more pressure on him, and was all about him. He threw fastballs past Alex Rodriguez that day that made Rodriguez look as if he were ready for the assisted hitting home."

Oh, yeah, doesn't everybody remember the time ARod struck out two years ago? I still think about it often.

Harvey struck out 80-year-old ARod, a man who only struck out only 2,287 times in his career.


Yeah, we get it. You lose velocity and you have to change your pitching strategy. Suzyn Waldman has been trying to explain this to CC Sabathia for 5 years.



"Wait a second, I thought the game was supposed to be over when the Yankees took a lead into the late innings."

Nope, the game isn't over just because the Yankees take a lead ... and the fifth inning doesn't qualify as "late." Blaming the bullpen is very lazy.

Wait a second, I thought Aaron Judge was supposed to hit over .200 and have a higher career OPS than Ronald Torreyes.

Wait a second, I thought the Baby Bombers were supposed to stay healthy just because they're young.

Wait a second, I thought Michael Pineda had plus-plus stuff.

Wait a second, I thought starting pitchers were supposed to occasionally pitch more than 4 2/3 innings and keep their ERAs under 9.00.