In the non-existent Battle for New York between Judge and Alonso ... Judge takes an early lead.

It's time the U.S. started celebrating Christmas on December 25.

"There was a time with the Mets, briefly, when we talked about 'Harvey Day' when it was Matt Harvey’s turn to pitch."

Matt Harvey.

You're talking about Matt Harvey again.

"But now we have "Jake Day" with the Mets because of Jacob deGrom, who has been the best starting pitcher in baseball the past two years, with back-to-back National League Cy Young Awards to prove it."

Is that right?

Strange.

I'm a baseball fan who lives in the NY metropolitan area, and I have never heard of this ... who was it again? ... Jacob deGrom?

Huh.

"In Gooden’s two magic years when he was a kid, 1984 and ’85, he was 41-13 with that 2.00 ERA and struck out 544 batters in 494 2/3 innings. He was the NL Rookie of the Year in ’84 and the NL Cy Young Award winner in ’85. Seaver in '72 and ’73 had a record of 40-22 to go with a 2.48 ERA and struck out 500 men in 522 innings. He was fifth in the Cy Young voting in ’72, won it in ’73. And deGrom? In addition to the win-loss record, he has struck out 524 batters in 421 innings."

Harvey, Seaver, Gooden, deGrom.

Great stuff.

You should give Evan and Joe a call in the afternoon.

I mean, look, there's not much here to argue with.

Everyone knows deGrom is great and, because he's a Met ... I guess there are parallels between deGrom and other great Met pitchers.

So what?

DeGrom has been great for a lot longer than two years, but if Lupica has never gotten psyched about "Jake Day" until now, that's because of his own ignorance.

DeGrom was Rookie of the Year way back in 2014, and has been various degrees of great ever since.

On the field, deGrom has never been overshadowed by Harvey, Syndergaard, Wheeler ... Jon Niese, Dice-K Matsusaka, Bartolo Colon.

In Lupica's columns, on the other hand, deGrom has been given short shrift.

Not suddenly.

Still hoping for the best, but this season has always had the Sword of Damocles hanging over its head.

The headline reminded me of a talking head who briefly infiltrated my attention span, screaming that the pandemic is unprecedented and unforeseeable.

The details change, but the pandemic is neither of those things.

Seventh of the depth chart? He's better than that.

At some point, the Yankees just need to trade him and get something valuable in return.

Maybe I'm just mellowing in my old age.

"Now, thanks to the coronavirus pandemic, the Astros won't be booed, either. This year's rescheduled Opening Days will be played in front of nobody -- nobody cheering and nobody booing, the only possible way to have baseball in a pandemic. We all have a good sense of what the game misses when there is nobody cheering. But what does the game miss when there's nobody booing? Quite a lot."

LOL.

Core Five

Healthy and empowered, huh?

Britt and Chappy

I had forgotten how much I missed baseball's childish nicknames.

For a long time, I just assumed Whitaker was in the HOF.

Giancarlo Stanton is the DL Midas

Lojack