You Know How It Is

This week, the Yankees began a stretch of 7 games in 6 days that could end up defining their regular season, all against the 2 teams that have cheated their way into the Yankees' heads, the former since 2015, the latter since 2003: First, 3 against the Houston Astros; then, 4 in 3 days against the Boston Red Sox.

You know how it is: Get enough runs, get bad pitching, and vice versa. Will Warren had a good start on Tuesday night, but Fernando Cruz allowed 6 runs in the 6th inning, and was later found to be injured, possibly needing Tommy John surgery. We probably won't see him for the rest of the season. And Brett Headrick allowed 3 runs in the 8th. So it didn't matter that Luis García Jr. went 4-for-5 with a home run and 3 RBIs, or that Cody Bellinger hit a 3-run homer. Astros 9, Yankees 7.

The Yankees needed at least 9 runs in the 1st 9 innings on Tuesday. They got them on Wednesday. García homered again. So did Ben Rice. García and Jazz Chisholm each had 3 hits. It didn't help Elmer Rodríguez, who pitched 6 strong innings as an emergency starter, because Paul Blackburn blew a 3-2 lead in the top of the 7th. But the Yankees' 4 runs in the bottom of the 7th, including RBI doubles by Bellinger and Chisholm, made Blackburn the winning pitcher. Again: I don't think a pitcher who blows a lead should be credited with the win, even if he is the "pitcher of record" when his team takes a lead it holds for the rest of the game. Anyway, Yankees 9, Astros 3.

There was a nasty storm predicted for yesterday, and it came, resulting in flooding all down the New York-New Jersey-Philadelphia corridor. But either the Yankees got lucky, or the new Yankee Stadium has a great tarp, or it has a great drainage system. Given how much money was spent on it, it better have both. Anyway, the game was played, as scheduled, on time, and to a conclusion.

Did I say the Yankees got lucky? They did not. Certainly, Gerrit Cole deserved a better fate: He went 6 innings, allowing 3 runs on 6 hits and 1 walk, striking out 5. But Yerry de los Santos, who'd been pitching pretty well up until this point, gave up a home run in the 7th.

Justin Topa, a 35-year-old native of Binghamton, New York, and a former mop-up man in Milwaukee, Seattle and Minnesota, made his Yankee debut in the 8th, and was betrayed by his defense: For a Yankee record 6th game in a row, George Lombard Jr. made an error at shortstop. And he was doing so well before that. And he is still hitting. But now, he's fielding like Anthony Volpe was. His error allowed the Astros another run.

Bellinger got a run home on a sacrifice fly in the 6th. Other than that, the Yankee bats were pretty much useless. Astros 5, Yankees 1.

*

There are 29 games to go in the regular season. The Tampa Bay Rays lead the Yankees by 4 games in the American League Eastern Division, and the surging Red Sox by 6. If the current standing hold until the end, the Yankees would have the 4th seed in the AL Playoffs, and the Sox the 5th -- meaning they would face each other in the 1st Round, as they did last year, when the Yankees beat The Scum in the postseason for the 1st time in 22 years.

You know how it is: The Yankees frequently go into a series with the Red Sox -- especially at Fenway, although this series is at home -- scoring a lot of runs, and giving us hope, only to "run out of runs," and come up small. This time, the last game of the Astro series makes it look like we were saving runs up. But the 1st 2 games of the series, which we were only able to split, makes it look like we ran out of runs already.

Here are the projected pitching matchups:

* Tonight, 7:15 PM, on Apple TV: Cam Schlittler vs. Patrick Sandoval.

* Saturday, 1:05, on YES: Carlos Rodón vs. Jake Bennett.

* Saturday, 7:15, on Fox, the makeup of an earlier rainout: Both teams are currently undecided. For the Yankees, the current rumor is that Max Fried will be activated to make this start.

* Sunday, 1:35, on YES: Will Warren vs. Ranger Suarez. Say it with me, Devils fans: Rangers suck!

Come on you Pinstripes! Beat The Scum!