Giancarlo just hit a sacrifice fly.

In a playoff game.

The world doesn't make sense anymore.

Sanchez is playing and he is batting ninth.

It's a compromise.

As long as he plays adequate defense, I don't see the problem.

Roy Campanella isn't sitting on the bench.

Even Giancarlo hit a home run.

 So happy to be wildly wrong about the outcome of a baseball game. Pretty close with my Cole box score prediction.

I think it's fair to judge Cole by today's performance. I just want people to put numbers around it.

I'll make a silly, pointless prediction: 7 IP, 1 or 2 earned runs, several unearned runs due to a deficient defensive baseball team, 5 hits, 2 walks, 9 strikeouts, loss.

Ottavino adds fuel to the fire as Boone chooses to save his reliable bullpen pitchers (Green? Britton?) for the next game.

Yankees get shut out since half their team has sub-.200 batting averages. Then they collectively cross their fingers that Tanaka has another big playoff performance in him.

If you want to blame this loss on Cole ... if you really expect a shutout every time he takes the mound ... then you're just dumb.

Cole is heralded as the final piece of the puzzle, this is true. He isn't the whole puzzle.

Just stop already.

Gary Sanchez is going to talk about working hard to improve his defense until the final day of his career.

He has been a starter in the big leagues since 2016.

He has been the catcher for almost 3,000 innings in the big leagues.

You know how some people devote so much physical and intellectual effort to a chosen field that it seems like they have magical intuition?

Gary Sanchez and catching is the opposite of that.

For the record, the 2020 MLB season exceeded my expectations ... but my expectations were quite pessimistic, based on anticipated pandemic complications and excessive player opt-outs.

The Mets were probably the most disappointing team in the 2020 season.  

Of course, the Nationals went from World Series Champs to last place ... but ... but ... what am I even talking about?

But the Mets are not embarrassed about the 2020 season.

No one gives the 2020 season any validity.

So no one should be embarrassed.

It's just 60 games.

Sorry, it wasn't the exciting turbo race to the finish that optimists envisioned ... it was just a distraction for diehards, more entertaining than another round of pandemic-fueled Law & Order marathons.

I don't know what to make of the Marlins. I'm not surprised that the Orioles and Marlins rebounded from disastrous 2019 seasons.

The Marlins are a whoop-de-doo 2 games over .500 and -39 in run differential.

Do it again next year; you might get dragged into the 162-game deep end of the pool.

Or what?

I don't think the Yankees are going to win the World Series. There, I said it:

"There are no excuses for the Yankees the rest of the way."

No team as any excuses. Only one team will win the World Series. Smart money is clearly on the Dodgers, but who knows?

 

"After all the talk about injuries the past couple of years, about all the stars on the injured list and the Brian Cashman irregulars who have stepped up to replace them, the Yankees will be as healthy as anybody competing for the World Series once the preliminaries are over and we are into the wild card round of the playoffs." 

 

"All the talk."

"This is their team. It means this is the team they all thought they could win with. If they don’t, there might just be a reckoning after the season with the owner, after Year 4 of Cashman’s reimagining of the Yankees after the 2016 season."

A couple of obvious observations:

1. The reckoning should have already happened. This is an overrated all-or-nothing offense which can't beat good pitchers. I denied this for a long time, but now it has completely taken over this team and most of the league.

2. If the Yankees somehow win the World Series ... I guess relying on Cole and a suddenly-effective bullpen? ... there still should be a reckoning:

• Why can't anyone on this team get a sac fly when they need one (other than LeMahieu, Urshela, and maybe Voit)?
• Why hasn't the farm system taught any of the young players how to field or run the bases?
• Why can't they stay healthy?
  

If this fraudulent team somehow wins the World Series, the move is to trade a bunch of players while their value is artificially high, don't you think?

Pull 'em right off the virtual floats on the virtual parade and sent them to Cleveland for some prospects.

 

"The Yankees go into the playoffs without James Paxton."

You forgot Severino. Why would you forget Severino?

  

"But look at all the pitchers who went down for the Rays this season, the first-place Rays, the ones who just waxed the Yankees in the season series between the two teams. There is no point, at this point, in discussing the payroll discrepancy, even in a short season, between the Rays and the Yankees, not after the way Kevin Cash’s team rolled Aaron Boone’s."

There is no point in discussing any of this.

The Rays are smarter and more athletic than the Yankees. The Rays try harder. The Rays play baseball better. The Rays seem to have more depth, but I don't really know because I don't care about the injury report of the Tampa Rays. The standings speak for themselves. The Yankees should be embarrassed and shouldn't be allowed near the bogus playoffs.

 

"Just putting Judge and Stanton and Torres with DJ LeMahieu and Luke Voit ought to give them enough stick to make it from here, and the desultory way they ended their regular season after winning 10 games in a row, to the last week of October, and their first Series in 11 years. Now we’ll see how much game they really have."

I mean, for whatever reasons ... injuries, lack of Spring Training, general over-ratedness ... Judge, Stanton, and Torres are not currently playing like MVP candidates they're presumed to be.

Can they turn it around starting Tuesday?

I doubt it very much.

"The Yankees are all in now, eleven months after Altuve turned them into the heartbreak kids again. They have the ace in Cole who was supposed to make all the difference. They still have some bullpen. They’ve got two guys — Judge, Stanton — finally back on the field three years after they both hit 50-plus home runs in a season. They’ve got a breakout star in Voit."

They have a breakout star in Voit, this is true.

The rest in not true. Lupica knows this team isn't very good. He can't be that dumb.

We know what it is. It's a setup is what it is.

It will provide Lupica with plenty of anti-Yankee material in between anti-ARod musings and joyous memories of the 2004 ALCS.

 

The only hope is to ... how do I phrase this? ... hope that your own disadvantages are less disadvantageous than your opponent's disadvantages. (Nailed it.)

It's like the value of the $US. It's all relative.

Just like the Yankees can't rely solely on Cole, and there isn't much reliable pitching once they get past Cole ... their opponents are in the same situation. 

No days off, no depth in the rotation, an overused bullpen, a juiced up ball, small ballparks ... the precise conditions where the Yankees can hit a lot of home runs and overwhelm their opponent. 

If things work out, the home runs will occur with runners on base.

 

Giancarlo getting ready for the playoffs.

Zero hits in his last ten at-bats, with seven strikeouts.

I wish I could agree with Mike Lupica in this case.

"If Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton are healthy when the first round of the playoffs begin for them next week, it means both of them get a do-over on the short season with an even shorter one. No one will care that through Tuesday's 12-1 win vs. the Blue Jays, the two of them combined had played just 44 of the Yankees’ 55 games. Nobody will care how much time they spent on the injured list last season, when Stanton missed 144 games and Judge missed 60 after missing 50 the year before."

I just think no one cares.

I don't expect much from the Yankees, Judge, Stanton, or MLB.

We'll hopefully get a complete do-over next year.

Lupica is talking about Reggie and Mickey, but 2020 is the year in which legends will not be made. I'm going to watch the playoffs just because it's more interesting than Outer Limits reruns. But no one is giving the champion any legitimacy.

Everybody gets a statue.

I can only say that I'm not really current on the KC Royals zeitgeist:

"When the statue is made of Royals legend Alex Gordon -- and it will be made and placed outside Kauffman Stadium some day -- it no doubt will depict him raising his right arm toward the sky as he rounds first base after hitting a game-tying home run in Game 1 of the 2015 World Series."

He would join George Brett and Frank White as the other KC Royals players with statues.

As the article points out, though Gordon isn't Top Three in most KC offensive categories, he is first in career Hit By Pitch.

I wasn't expecting Happ to suddenly become an ace.

Sixteen years ago.

"Over the last three games of their series against the Nuggets, the Los Angeles Clippers looked like the Yankees did at the end of the Red Sox series in ’04."

Why?

What happened in the Yankees/Red Sox series in 2004?

Do you mean the ALCS?

For those of us not versed in baseball history, can you remind us what happened in 2004 between the Yankee and the Red Sox?

Another Mets pitcher who is a complete bust.

For some reason, it always takes a while for reality to sink in.

Not sure about the Islanders ... you'll have to run it by Mike Lupica.

 Though Lupica has been quixotically giving the Mets the crown for the past 15 years or so.

A lot changes in one week.

The Legend of Bob Kammeyer resurfaces.

My father always told me about the guy who had an ERA of infinity for one season.

Didn't get anybody out, made a ruckus when angrily leaving the mound (if I recall correctly), and never pitched again in the big leagues.

Note to Adam Ottavino: It's not good when you're compared to Bob Kammeyer.

 

I also think it's funny how the oddsmakers and pundits don't seem to get the message. 

I sometimes pay attention to the odds, and this is the first game I can recall the Yankees being labeled as underdogs just about the entire season (correctly, as it turns out). I could have cleaned up picking the Yankee opponents all season.

The Yankees have a .500 record and a .500 "expected" record.

Yet they're still given, like, a 94% chance of making the playoffs.

Nice to see Yankee bullpen rise to the challenge of a high-pressure game.

                 IP   H  R  ER BB  K     

Green      0.1   1   4    3    2    0

Ottavino  0.0   4   6   6    2     0

Ottavino was garbage in the playoffs last year ... and that was before the three-batter minimum rule.

His ERA balloons to 7.82 for the 2020 season.

The Yankees might miss the playoffs.

I'm a numbers guy ultimately, and it's no surprise that the Yankees' wOBA is ranked low, but this is the first time Boone has faced adversity. 

 

he closest he has come to a rah rah speech is this?:

" 'We've got to be in the mindset that tomorrow's an important day. We have a tremendous opportunity in front of us. I do think that's crystal clear, not only with myself but our entire team,' Boone said. 'The opportunity still that lies in front of us, that's very much attainable and very much in our grasp. But we gotta go play well. And if we play well, with our group, I'm confident that we'll get to where we need to be.

'But it starts with playing well [Monday],' Boone said."

I truly wonder, what was the game of the 60-game season that wasn't important?

As a fan, it seems like you're just verifying what I've been accusing you of.

 

I'm a Yankee fan. I root for the Yankees. Everyone else in baseball is rooting against the Yankees.

These young, hungry teams in the AL East are taking it to them, simple as that.

The Blue Jays I haven't really paid attention to, but the Rays are athletic and play smart. They said they were going to be the Yankees head to head and that's what they did.

The Yankee identity in 2020 is fat and lazy.

Miguel Andujar's fielding at third base.

In 2018, Andujar's fielding percentage was .948, with 15 errors in 286 chances.

In 2019, Andujar's fielding percentage was .700, with 3 errors in 10 chances.

In 2020, Andujar's fielding percentage is .750, with 3 errors in 12 chances.

Tim Anderson seems like a player from a different era.

 When people cared about batting average.

Firing Aaron Boone is not a crazy idea.

If the Yankees were in first place with 20 games to play, holding a slim 3-game lead on the second-place Rays, I think it would be a surprisingly uncomfortable position for the supposed juggernaut.

Instead, the Yankees are holding a slim 3-game lead on the fourth-place Orioles.

If the Yankees choose to dismiss 2020 as a pandemic mulligan, that's their prerogative. I'm astonished by the lack of flexibility and urgency. Also, the lack of roster depth.

Also, one of the reasons Girardi supposedly lost his job following the 2017 season is because of his inability to communicate with the young superstars, namely Judge and Sanchez.

 Uh huh.

Is Gary Sanchez trying?

Is he angry at the Yankees?

Going through the motions?

Subconsciously sabotaging his at-bats?

Intentionally sabotaging his at-bats?

Is he just not enjoying himself and ready to quit baseball altogether?

I know strikeouts are more prevalent each year, but Sanchez has 48 strikeouts in 100 at-bats, and he only has 13 hits.

He has struck out 7 times in a row.

By my count, he has started 29 games this season, and he has struck out at least once in 27 of them.

I know he hits a HR every now and again. He has a couple of big HRs, too. The grand slam against the Mets.

But it's not happening this season, and he may never get it back.

Since I'm assuming he's out of options, it's time for a benching. You lost your starting job. It is appropriate when you play this poorly for a long time.

A lot changes in two weeks.

Lupica is right when he says no excuses. Their attitude is downright embarrassing. The Yankees knew it was a sixty-game season. They knew they were susceptible to injuries. Two weeks ago, they were MLB's elite, along with the Dodgers. Now they're relying on an NHL-style playoff format just to make the playoffs:

"The great homegrown nucleus of Aaron Judge, Gary Sanchez and Gleyber Torres that was supposed to sustain them with championships for years to come? Flawed, all of them. Judge will seemingly always be felled by assorted muscle pull injuries and seldom be on the field. Sanchez, for whom the Yankee brass has stubbornly held such high hope, is in the opinion of many scouts now one of the worst players in baseball — a strikeout-prone, defensively-challenged catcher who has also been continuously plagued by groin injuries. And Torres, who is down with a hamstring injury, has proven to be barely adequate at shortstop at the same time he’s mysteriously having problems finding his way with the bat this year."

Torres is probably going to rebound. May be headed for MVP candidacies in the future.

But the fielding problems for Torres, Andujar, and Sanchez are inexcusable. It's just a matter of practicing.

Sanchez doesn't look like he's going to rebound. He's one of the worst players in MLB at a time in his career when he should be peaking. This year, he has 44 strikeouts and 13 hits in 96 at-bats.

Judge is always injured.

Flawed, all of them.

This should be an interesting explanation.

Nobody is saying that Garcia should have kept pitching. But this is a failure no matter how you look at it:

"The Yankees couldn’t go to Zack Britton, Aroldis Chapman or Chad Green. Each of them had pitched in the earlier game. For Britton and Chapman, it was their second straight day of work. For Green, it was his third. If Boone turned to Adam Ottavino, it would have been his third straight day. The Yankees rarely use a reliever three days in a row during the regular season."

Yes, I expected Ottavino to pitch three days in a row. If he was successful, he would have only had to pitch to one batter to close out the inning.

Two innings to go.

Green for the second time in one day, then Chapman for the second time in one day.

I'd skip Britton because he has walked 7 batters in 12 innings and this annoys me.

Put on your big boy pants and play major league baseball.

It might not have worked out. Nobody in the bullpen has been reliable lately.

But maybe the Yankees should start trying. Get a professional roster and try to win the games. You've only got 22 games left. Stop whining about the schedule and the circumstances.

 

 

Most Yankee fans don't see it ...

Depends a little on which website you look at, but the Yankees are still given about a 98% chance of making the playoffs.

Even John and Suzyn were noticeably disgusted.

Look at this box score and ponder what the heck has happened to baseball. 

Walks, strikeouts, errors, baserunning blunders.

It's just three hours of waiting to see who hits the most homers with a juiced up ball.

The Rays are better than the Yankees.

 Can't say I saw this coming, 60-game season or 162-game season.