Let's face it: The Orioles are tied for first place with the Yankees, and the Tampa Bay Rays are less than two games behind them. Pennant races are fun (when your team is in them) but there's a fly in the ointment of this one:
Both those teams are, right now, better than the Yankees.
A team that was chugging along with the now-famous 10-game lead and looked to be leaving the rest of the league in their dust now can't--with all their money--buy a base hit in a crucial situation. The pitching staff is at best questionable. The manager appears just a hair (if he'd let it grow) short of deranged.
The whole lead is gone now, folks, with a grand total of 27 games left on the schedule, and the two clubs in their division playing better baseball than the Pinstripes.
Time to panic? Yeah, probably. Because this team looks so dispirited, so frustrated, so the-opposite-of-intense that a decent outing from Joba Chamberlain in a losing effort looked like a real high spot for a few minutes there. Then Raul Ibanez struck out again and we remembered what the actual state of the union is right now.
What is there to hang hope on? A couple of things. Mark Teixeira should be back within a few days, perhaps this weekend in Baltimore, where the hate coming out of the stands at him seems to be a good motivator. Curtis (swing and a miss) Granderson is back. Mr. Rod has returned, but his power stroke seems to have remained on the DL.
They say Andy Pettitte might actually make it to a major league mound by the time the Yankees are four or five games out and fighting for a one-game playoff wild card spot.
Okay, maybe not that much hope.
Is this an epic collapse in the style of the fried-chicken-and-beer Red Sox or will the Yankees wake up one day (tomorrow would be good) and remember who they were in June? I was in the Stadium the day Pettitte's ankle took its shot, and believe I can trace this fade back to that date. Will a possible return of Pettitte or Ivan Nova (if he's the 2011 Ivan Nova) spark a comeback?
Or will we be talking about how Cashman can possibly blow up this team in the off season and make next year more exciting?
There are 27 games left, friends. Let's hope at the very least that they're not all so dreary to watch.
I am in super duper panic mode. I told my husband last night, thats it, they are not making it to the playoffs and we'll be talking about their downward spiral in the offseason as heads roll. I can barely watch b/c I feel like we are going to lose no matter what now. I guess its time to look forward to the NY Giants.
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