What if — now hear me out — what if it’s possible?
It demands either optimism or delusion to think positively about a team that’s in fourth place in the division and fifth place in the wildcard race, but here we are. This modest stretch of success, taking two of three first from the Astros and then from the Red Sox, feels significant, but we’ll have to wait a bit until we know whether we’ve finally found the oasis or been taken in by a mirage.
But what if it’s real?
The lineup posted for Sunday night’s Red Sox game certainly didn’t give much reason for optimism. While the top four (D.J. LeMahieu, Giancarlo Stanton, Gary Sánchez, Gleyber Torres) might’ve made sense back in April, the next five were simply preposterous. Four of the players were guys I hadn’t heard of back in April; three of them I hadn’t heard of two weeks ago.
We were promised an outfield of Clint Frazier, Aaron Hicks, and Aaron Judge, but for various reasons (mysterious dizziness, wrist surgery, and Covid-19, from left to right) Aaron Boone is left with Ryan LaMarre, Greg Allen, and Trey Amburgey. Seriously.
While it’s tempting to be critical of management for not jumping on Joc Pedersen when the Cubs unloaded him to the Atlanta Braves, here’s the counterpoint — no team in my memory has seen such a devastating stretch of injuries and extenuating circumstances impact a single position group like this. Looking at it from an organizational standpoint, the Yankees are currently working with their fifth outfielder (Brett Gardner), a converted utility infielder (Tyler Wade), and the starting outfield of the Scranton-Wilkes Barre Rail Riders. (LaMarre, Allen, and Amberguey).
But here’s the thing. Not only did the Yankees take the series against Boston with a decisive 9-1 win, they looked good on Sunday night. They were having fun.
The names you know were 2 for 15 (a single for LeMahieu and a hope-inducing homer for Torres), but the interlopers carried the day. LaMarre and the stylish Rougned Odor had two-run homers, and LaMarre and Allen each had a stolen base. (I’d look up the last time a Yankee had a home run and a stolen base in the same game, but I fear the answer might be Rickey Henderson, which would make be too sad to finish this post.)
While fans might the lament the lack of star power in the lineup, part of the appeal of what we saw over the weekend came from the joy of the players wearing the uniform, the clear appreciation of these unexpected opportunities.
LaMarre, a thirty-two-year-old journeyman who is hardly a kid, took a tumble that was serious enough to draw his manager all the way out to right field to check on him, but the outfielder stayed in the game. “I told Boonie that I’m not coming out of the game,” he explained. “You don’t get too many chances to wear pinstripes, so I want to take advantage of every inning that I get out there.”
It isn’t reasonable to expect these Bad News Bombers to make a realistic playoff push, but if they can at least keep up the illusion for another week or so until Aaron Judge, Gio Urshella, and maybe Luke Voit can rejoin the team, the playoffs will be a possibility.
Seriously.
Estevan Florial starting in centerfield!
If the SWB guys hit well, does that mean Thames bears some responsibility for a bad offense?
Re: Hank's post header
"Let them play! Let them play! Let them Play!"
I like this guy, Allen.
Never heard of Greg Allen before, but I’ll take it.
That was weird...the bunt attempts.
Amburgey is now on the DL.
Say what you want about Odor, he's always trying to make things happen.
Hooray for speed.
Scrapy runs. I love it.
Hooray for power
I want to see what Allen can do. We know what Brett can do.
[3] Ha! I didn't make this connection when writing this post, but that movie -- Bad News Bears in Breaking Training -- has an interesting connection to the Yankees for me. I was in second grade at the time and living in Michigan as a young Tigers fan. That summer our family took a vacation to New York City, and two things happened. I convinced my parents to take me to Yankee game. The Yankees beat the Royals, 5-3. Catfish started, Sparky got the save, and Chambliss hit a homer. I've been a die hard Yankee fan ever since. And here's the other thing. The next day we visited some family friends, and someone took us kids to see that Bad News Bears movie, the sequel where they ended up playing in the Astrodome and the crowd started chanting, "Let them play!" Good times!
Kraken!
Kracken.
I've been watching for about twenty minutes, and someone named Brantly just doubled. I have no idea who that is. None.
[13]Lovely story. Synchronicity.
I have thousands of lines and lyrics stuck in my head. Bad News Bears always leads me to that one.
I know Michael Kay talks about this a lot, but it's high time that baseball regulate the hand mitts that baserunners are wearing. Realmuto's is absolutely ridiculous. It's four or five inches longer than his hand would be. An obvious advantage.
[18] agree. There has to be an element of danger in sports.
I got some danger for ya. Chapman is going to try and close this game.
Gotta drive mom to the doctors before 8 am. Night.
Woo-hoo. Estevan pops his cherry.
[21] Take care.
"Giving Chapman breathing room" (Kay) is now a thing.
Try to imagine that in other situations. Say a firefighter. Don't let Ed into the building until most of the fire is out. He's not good with flames.
I'm gettin' too old for this shit.
Phew.
Wojciechowski?
No clue who this guy is but at least he's got the best name since Mike Kryzewski.
Hooray LeMachine is back.
I’m surprised Allen didn’t injure his knee there, sliding to avoid Brett.
Gleyber day!
I'll see that base hit RBI and raise you.
The Phillies got roofied.
Britton's turned into Chapman 2.0
I don't like this. Nelson with the bases jacked? How does that make sense?
Grrrrrrr!
OK, had to take the terrorists out for their last walk of the day. Immediate downpour. Wet dog smell.
I'm all alone in the world...
Ha. I posted that last one too soon. This game has gone to hell in a hand basket.
Archie Bradley. Great name. Should be a comic.
[37] yeah, I’m tired, had to drive my mom to a routine doctor’s appointment. I’m shutting down social media for the night.
[40] Take care. All the best to your mom.
Good win. Kind of like bobbling a pop up but finally catching it before it hits the ground.
Hey, no first inning runs for Gumby
Nice catch, Florian
Phew
Rats, rain.
Sal Romano? Sounds like a name from a '70s sit-com.
Well, he got it done.
One run Bombers-Sox game?
Inconceivable!
Fun game. Bunts. Sac Flies. Runs!
Who are these Yankees?
Great to see Stanton come through there. Huge hit.
Ya know it don't come easy.
Can we stop with the Chad Green can close games already? IF Chapman still isn't the closer, I'd rather see almost anyone else in there besides Green.
Suicide squeeze?
GGBG!
Stanton doing his best class A call up impersonation
I guess Brantly just started catching when he got called up?
This is torture. It will not end well.
Maybe just forfeit? Have these guys played ball before?
Brantley making Sanchez look like Johnny Bench
Total meltdown.
What do you expect from a pitcher with a 10 run era? We have like 3 of those guys for some reason
[sigh]
Well, this was Green's game.
If he can't close in the man's game, when we really need him, what good is he?
Another Boone special.
I'm not sure how Boone gets the blame for this one. He managed to get to Green in the ninth. With a two-run lead, that's a game the Yankees have to win. You can argue that he shouldn't be so stubborn with his refusal to use guys three days in a row, but he did what he could with the pitchers at his disposal.
The best idea of the night came from Paul O'Neill. Since the stupid three batter rule meant Kriske had to stay in, they should've intentionally walked Martinez (who struck out) and Renfroe to load the bases and get Kriske out of there.
The worst thing about this is that I've become numb. After the Angels loss and the Mets loss and the Astros loss, this one doesn't feel "devastating" as it's being described. A bad loss? Sure. But I'm getting used to devastation. It's my baseline at this point.
Cleveland Guardians?
[66] I like to imagine that there conversation went like this:
Okay, we want to keep the look of Indians on the jersey, so let's brainstorm...
Thespians?
No, that's silly.
Athenians?
We aren't Greek.
Rastafarians?
Okay, that's good. Really good. But much too long.
What about Guardians?
Bingo.
*their* conversation
A RISP hit!
I’d have gone with Spiders, because, why not.
Sigh.
I got home from a 4 day trip to New Hampshire. I wore my Yankees hat the whole time. People up there were quite friendly. I checked last night's score on Twitter before bottom 9th and thought to turn on tv. I'm glad I didn't. WTF.
I had to get up from the TV to go pick up my son, so I listened to the radio feed while in the car, Ma and Pa Kettle. Here's the thing about John Sterling -- and I think this characteristic has gotten worse over the last few years. There's zero emotion in his play calling. It's like he saves everything up for his "trademark" home run calls and can't give any weight to anything else, specifically anything that goes against the Yankees.
I was listening to the second inning when the Yankees had already scored a run and had runners on second and third with nobody out. As one Yankee hitter after another struck out, he only casually mentioned each one, perhaps because he didn't want to interrupt Suzyn as she gushed over Tampa Bay's acquisition of Nelson Cruz. When LeMahieu struck out to end the inning, Sterling's words got a bit garbled so I couldn't understand him, but nothing about his tone of voice indicated what might've happened. It's completely maddening.
Huh, migraine symptoms.
I'm not sure it made much of a difference on that play, but I've still got an issue with the oven mitts guys are allowed to wear on the bases. If Hernández has a sore left hand, don't you think he might be a little hesitant to slide head first into the plate and reach that left hand to the plate?
Le sigh. Would be nice if the offense could support the pitching.
Boston has professional hitters and we have guys swinging noodles. This team is broken in so many areas. The idea that we would trade for Story, or Rizzo would be pointless since we also need a #2 starter and at the very least a dependable late inning reliever oh and a manager who doesn't throw babies in a pool of sharks hoping it'll learn how to swim on the spot.
[76] Just out of curiosity, whom would you rather have Boone play?
Well Cashman hasn't given Boone many options putting this team together but given the fact that this team should be managed in desperation, given the number of teams ahead of them in the wild card race, I wouldn't be giving Sanchez the day off in game 1. I wouldn't be trying to win games with 6 different pitchers. Cessa, one of the few veterans they have in the pen only throws 5 pitches yesterday leaving him with having to use the rook in the 10th, not 15th inning, tells me how terrible Boone really is as a manager.
I don't know. I just feel like we don't have near the amount of information that the organization has. We have numbers and statistics, but Boone and his staff actually know what's going on. Take Sánchez, for example. First of all, he can't play every night. And maybe he was off yesterday because of the back issues that sprang up tonight. And wouldn't Aaron Judge change how this lineup looks? Or Urshella or Voit or Hicks? And while I wasn't happy to see Kriske in the game last night, that game was lost in the ninth, not the tenth. I'd be happy to give the ball to Chad Green with a two-run lead in the ninth any time.
In general, I think the impact of a baseball manager is wildly overrated. I'd admit that bullpen management is a huge part of the game, but even the importance of those decisions is mitigated if players simply do their jobs. The only reason people are worried about the construction of the offense is that the hitters have been in a collective slump for four months. These are essentially the same players who were part of top five offenses for the last several seasons. But people haven't hit this year. It's a drag, but that's the way it is sometimes.
[72] He should really retire, unless your name is Vin Scully then doing play-by-play in your 80s is really tough. Marv Albert just retired at 80, he's been struggling the last few seasons..
I think the Cleveland Guardians name has some sort of connection to Cleveland history? Anyway, anything better than 'Indians'. Now get rid of the Braves and their horrendous 'tomohawk chop' next!
Yankees: lost season, I am watching more Padres games these days..
[79] Agree and disagree! The lineup is just much too one-dimensional, Stanton should be playing LF, and Boone adds seemingly nothing of value..he should be gone next season.
Kriske and whoever that catcher was..both didn't look like major leaguers, that was ugly baseball for sure.
Here's perhaps the most important stat of the season. As much as we hear that every Gerrit Cole start is a must-win game, the Yankees' record in games that he starts is 10-10. Wouldn't you expect 15-5? Obviously those ten losses aren't all on Cole -- he's only given up four or more runs five times -- but still. The Yankees are actually *better* when Cole isn't on the mound.
If it's any consolidation, deGrom has 33 no decisions since 2018 with a 36-41 record.
[83] Truly ridiculous.
2, maybe 3 mistakes on one play up the middle.
Wow — definitely did NOT see that win coming…
So apparently I’m supposed to ignore these games.
If this game was Karma, she needs to make more deliveries.
Every time I think I'm out they pull me back in.
Something like that.
Oh joy, TBS.
/sarc
Rougie!
It’s something approximating an offense.
Need more runs.
I smell double play
Sigh,
Gary with a triple!
Ah, there’s the great base running again.
For the best, I guess.
Lasagna is over cooked.
I’d like to say this is unbelievable, but I can’t. I mean, Germán carries a no-hitter into the seventh, and five batters later it’s 4-3 with runners on second and third and no outs.
Again, I’m not sure what Boone could’ve done differently here.
Germán pitched the game of his life and now he won’t get the win. The starting pitching was excellent in this series. Excellent. Such a shame.
BOO!
He shouldn’t have taken Germán out. 92 pitches or so, that double is caught by most major league outfielders. Ridiculous. Boone has mismanaged at least 15 games this year. Totally unacceptable.
"Rock bottom" gets a new definition...again.
German was on a pitch count.
Taking Germán out was the easiest decision Boone will ever make. He wasn’t stretched out.
Who have been the best relievers on the roster this year? Chad Green and Jonathan Loaisiga. Each one imploded during this series and cost the Yankees a sure win. I don’t think Boone is immune to criticism, but I don’t think the blame goes to him this weekend. Sometimes the players you expect to come through don’t come through. It’s just unfortunate that there have been so many crushing losses this year, and that the overall performance of the team magnifies these losses.
Three stolen games this series. At least we stole one of them. Any trades the Yankees are discussing? I am assuming they are sellers.
On the good side, I won’t have to stay up late watching the Yankees in the post season.
Well, it's a good thing Boone didn't let German reach 94 pitches so he can be saved for the playoffs... Bot managing at its best.
When Kluber went down and this team had no legit #2 starter and the offense sucking, that was the time for Cashman to make a move, instead he went with the thoughts and prayers strategy. Remeber when they were destroying Boston in London awhile back? It's really amazing how far this team has fallen in just a short time. This team has greatly underperformed from ownership down.
So Cashman acquires a career 5+ ERA reliever which I suppose is an upgrade over one of the several 7+ ERA pitchers we already have. Wild card here we come!
[112] he’s just showing that he did something. Instead of, say, trading a couple of low level prospects for a switch hitting OFer.
Yay, Judge is back
Yay, a run.
A RISP hit!
So now Britton is trying to blow the game?
And insurance is gone.
Ah for the good old days when Mo would be in for a five out save.
So Green is toast.
Britton is toast.
Sigh.
Paul called it. Why wouldn't you stick with Loaisiga?
Phew, double play. Insurance, please.
Stantonian?
Aw crap, no insurance.
Two down.
Hommina hommina hommina.
Jeebus. Chappie has lost the strike zone.
Phew!!!
Sheesh.
RIP Dusty Hill.
Really the only thing that matters right now is Aaron Judge. Can’t imagine why we haven’t heard anything about him yet.
Judge better not be part of the Gallo deal.
I can’t imagine trading Judge for a year and a half of Gallo.
Ok, not so bad. Just need the offense to wake up.
I don’t know. It’s awfully hard for this team to come back from those 1-0 deficits.
Joey Gallo! And Judge just showed up in the dugout and immediately put on a helmet and strapped on an elbow guard. Interesting the players all started greeting him — must’ve been gone.
Here comes da Judge.
Of course
I’ll take a sac fly
Five innings of one run ball from Nestor, I’ll take.
Gee, even some insurance.
Why the hell does Chapman waste his time looking at 2nd base? Is he concerned about his ERA? So of course, he walks the guy at the plate.
I hate Chapman... regardless of the outcome.
I’ll take it.
I could have sworn Cole was pitching today.
No way the team bounces back.
Blow up the Trop
Doesn't Cole know he's supposed to allow negative runs when he starts?
Ooooof. Nice catch, Brett.
I bet Brett retires at the end of the season.
Shit show
So it looks like we may be getting Rizzo as well as Gallo? Where are these guys going to play and can they pitch too?
It's not far fetched to consider releasing Gardy. The party is over.
Don't scream at me. They can honor him later with a Brett Gardner Day at the Stadium.
Anthony Rizzo?
Yeah Anthony Rizzo for some prospects according to the MLB app
I'm guessing there is some interest in Voit?
[152] The nice thing about releasing Gardner is that Boone plays him way too much despite his current skill set (work the pitcher, pretty solid defense, hit < .200). And batting him higher than 7 in the lineup is just irritating.
[156] True. Also he doesn't steal enough for his skillset, although that could be management's fault.
First time Rizzo walks, it's "I'm walkin' heah!"
It still doesn't seem like the Yanks have an answer in CF. I would just let Florial and Allen compete for the job, but I am guessing Gardner will end up getting the most plate appearances because of his veteranness.
LHP Andrew Heaney from the Angles. Mediocre starter. Should fit right in.
So basically they have upgraded the offense while just shuffling the pitching. The Jays getting Berrios probably puts them ahead of us.
Rizzo and Gallo already in the lineup.
And Stanton in LF.
Looks like the team is getting URPed again.
How dare Rizzo hit a home run.
Rizzo has half the Yankee hits. It would be nice to have a few runs for the bullpen.
I hate pitchers hitting.
I hate Wade "hitting."
Whelp. He showed me. My gob is smacked.
Is Urshela and LeMachine hurt?
Yup. Day to day.
I’ll take a passed ball.
Dayum, Rizzo.
Decent win. Should have been German’s. Next CBA, universal DH.
Rizzo batting first. Is this line-up out of a hat day?
Looks like Gallo has the wrong helmet.
I really like the matte black helmets. They should wear them all the time.
Bed time. Go Bombers!
Yankees seem to face Cy Young every day.
Insurance!
Sweep
It's refreshing not to see the automatic blowout loss after a couple of wins.
Stuck with the Os broadcast.
HBP followed by a balk. Haven’t seen that before.
Ugh.
A run, but still no hits.
I guess bad teams beat good teams all the time, but this is still disappointing.
Gardner is a walk machine today.
Well, at least something interesting happened.
Thought the cat might bring them some luck. Remember the rally squirrel?
The Yankeed offense, I mean Rizzo, not getting it done today.
Nothing but bad news from Boone — Cole has a positive Covid test and Urshella is headed to the injured list. Damn us all for hoping.
Well that happens when you needed another quality starter and reliever and got neither.