As the Yankees limp home to face Shohei Ohtani from Fenway, if your mouth isn’t open, mine is. Is this team playing possum, or is this it?
No Yankees fan, even one like myself whose allegiance stretches back to more than a half-century, want to wave the white flag on a season.
Not only would it be against the tradition behind baseball’s most storied franchise, but it would cast a spell on a season only half over.
And yet, how is a Yankees fan supposed to find the glass half full when their best pitcher, Gerrit Cole, fails to deliver a “must-win” on a day that only be said to be embarrassing, as the Red Sox make it look easy in sweeping the series at Fenway, leaving them undefeated in six games against the Bombers.”
Oh yes, I know there are still fourteen games remaining with Boston, but as John Sterling said today to open the Yankees radio broadcast, “If the Yankees can’t beat the Red Sox (add the Rays), what are their chances of winning the AL East”?
Touche, John, and good for you in calling it “as you see them.”
Yankees And The Silver Lining
Go ahead and try to find the silver lining in the Box Score as I write this in the seventh inning.
You can’t, nor can I; no one can. All we can do is prepare ourselves for the inevitable post-game press conference, with Aaron Boone reminding us, “It was a tough day, but we’ll be there tomorrow.”
Comments from readers keep telling me I’m too negative, and no (real) Yankees fan ever gives up on the team.
I say, show me something to write and feel otherwise.
Sandy Koufax did not pitch for the Red Sox. It was Eduardo Rodriguez, who after arm surgery is down to two pitches and a fastball that reaches only 93mph – and yet he records seven strikeouts – and counting against the Yankees?
It’s happening, so don’t blame me.
Yankees: Tear The Team Apart
So, what’s the alternative? I’m going back to an earlier article I published today.
Burn the team and start all over.
Cut the deadwood, as good as some of them are, in return for nothing but top-level prospects who are no more than a year away from contributing to the Yankees – and don’t look back.
Clint Frazier, Jameson Taillon, Gary Sanchez, Luke Voit, Brett Gardner, Rougned Odor, Aroldis Chapman, and possibly more (Stanton if a team will take him for a bag of peanuts), would all be gone.
What, the Yankees in a rebuild? You betcha, because this is getting us nowhere.
That’s not naysaying, my friends. That’s writing a new script for a team that is badly in need of a makeover.
A script that turns the page to write a new chapter in the Yankees legacy and one that lives up to a winning tradition we will not see this year.
Like you, I will always root and follow the Yankees, but I’ve seen enough this season to know this is not a team that is made to compete with the Red Sox and Rays, let alone the White Sox, Dodgers, Giants, or whoever they meet should they make the playoffs as a Wild Card.
Just sayin’…
Here’s What Readers Are Saying…
Greg Mandigo Let the bat boy and the interpreter play can’t be any worse
Elisa Granata- Poitras Hope is fading.
Mac MacFarlane Cashman must go. He has no clue on how to build a ball club. Here are three hints.
Closing Of Comments And Final Thoughts
It’s unanimous. Yankee fans are in a state of shock and the “team” is mortally wounded.
Baseball, it is said, is only a game. True. And the Grand Canyon is only a hole in Arizona. Not all holes, or games, are created equal.
