Stanton Leads Gutless Wonders In Yankees' Choke

Yesterday's game at Yankee Stadium II was an absolute debacle. It may have been the single most angering regular-season game I have ever seen.

It's a good thing there isn't -- yet -- a Yankees equivalent of Arsenal Fan TV. I would have been like Troopz: "Cashman out, fam. 'e's lost the plot, blud." Or even Claude, the man who apparently gargles with battery acid: "Sack him now! It's time to go!"

I waited until today to write about this game, because, for most of yesterday, I was in a fury, writing much of the following on Facebook and Twitter:

Fire Brian Cashman, @Yankees. For gross incompetence for assembling this bunch of gutless wonders.

Do it now. Do not even let that worthless wretch get on the plane to Boston.

(Different tweet) If only somebody had warned us that keeping Starlin Castro and Todd Frazier would have been a good idea. If only somebody had warned us that Giancarlo Stanton could have become Chris Carter 2.0. If only...

(On Facebook) I want every Yankee fan who defended Brian Cashman after all the stupid transactions he's made to remember this game.

He assembled this bunch of gutless wonders, none more gutless than his shiny new toy Giancarlo Stanton. I warned you all that trading Starlin Castro for him was a stupid idea. I warned you all that Stanton could be Chris Carter 2.0.

Just like I warned you all that getting Adam Warren back was a stupid idea. Just like I warned you all that trading away Aroldis Chapman, Andrew Miller, Carlos Beltran and Ivan Nova, and getting nothing but Warren and a bunch of teenagers in return was a stupid idea.

Meanwhile, Castro is batting .314. And, thanks to Cashman's moves, the Chicago Cubs, the Cleveland Indians and the Houston Astros all have Pennants since October 2016. You know who DOESN'T have a Pennant since October 2009? The team Brian Cashman actually (allegedly) works for, the New York Yankees.

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Anyway... Here's what brought it all on:

Bottom of the 1st: Brett Gardner leads off with a single. Aaron Judge follows with another. Giancarlo Stanton... strikes out. Neil Walker grounds into an error. 1-0 Yankees. Tyler Austin draws a walk to load the bases. Miguel Andujar singles. 3-0 Yankees. Jacen Peterson pops up. Austin Romine singles. 4-0 Yankees. Ronald Torreyes hits a double. 5-0 Yankees.

A 5-0 lead in the 1st inning. With that, you should win. But, as they would say in English soccer, "Five-nil, and we fucked it up!"

Jordan Montgomery allowed a run in the 2nd inning, and another in the 3rd, but 5-2 is no big deal. Then he allowed 2 more in the top of the 5th. Aaron Boone had seen enough, and brought in Domingo German, who kept it at 5-4. The Yankees made it 6-4 in the bottom of the 5th. But in the top of the 6th, it became 6-5 thanks to a throwing error by... Stanton.

In the top of the 7th, German allowed another home run , and this made it 7-6 Orioles. The choke --or, to use the English soccer term, the bottlejob -- was complete.

If that had been how it ended, that would have been bad enough. But the Yankees tied the game in the bottom of the 7th. Once they failed to take the lead, you could feel in your stomach what was going to happen: An extra-inning loss.

With 1 out in the bottom of the 8th, Judge singled. Stanton came up. Clutch situation. He had already struck out 3 times and grounded into a double play. He struck out again, killing that chance to win the game. We wanted him to be 2009 Alex Rodriguez, and, instead, he's been October 2007 A-Rod. Andujar reached on an infield single with 2 out in the 9th, but could get no closer. As was easily predicted, extra innings.

Didi Gregorius doubled with 1 out in the 10th. Golden opportunity. Gardner flew out. Judge up. Well, this is how far Stanton has fallen so fast: The Orioles chose to pitch to him, walking Judge intentionally. It's not like the runs that Judge and Stanton represented meant anything: Gregorius was the only run that mattered. Buck Showalter was saying, "We want to pitch to you, because we know we can get you out. You were the National League's Most Valuable Player last season? Welcome to the American League, rookie!"

Stanton grounded to 3rd, fielder's choice, inning over.

Tyler Austin doubled with 1 out in the 11th, but could get no closer. Then, in the top of the 12th, manager Aaron Boone brought in Adam Warren, whose previous failure with the Yankees did not deter Cashman from asking for him, along with 3 "prospects," from the Chicago Cubs in the idiotic deal that sent Aroldis Chapman there.

Cliche alert: Walks can kill you. Warren struck out 2 of the 1st 3 batters he faced, but mixed a walk in between them. Then a pair of singles gave Baltimore the lead. The few fans remaining in Yankee Stadium seemed to leave, all but a few who stayed, and a "Yankees suck!" chant could be heard. Were these visiting Oriole fans? Or... Yankee Fans, angry at Cashman and his, as I put it earlier, bunch of gutless wonders?

But there was still a chance to win. Brad Brach came on to close it out, and the Yankees had him right where they wanted him. Romine drew a walk. So did Gregorius. Gardner tried to bunt them over, and Brach mishandled it.

Now, consider the situation. The Yankees need 1 run to at least send the game to a 13th inning, and 2 runs to win it right here. The next 2 batters are Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton. Between them, they had 246 RBIs last season. You gotta like your chances, right?

Judge grounded back to Brach, who threw home to catcher Caleb Joseph for the 1st out, and he threw to 3rd baseman Tim Beckham for a force and a double play.

Then Stanton struck out. Ballgame over. Orioles 8, Yankees 7. WP: Richard Bleier (2-0). SV: Brach (2). LP: Warren (0-1).

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Giancarlo Stanton, who was supposed to be the next great Yankee slugger, went 0-for-7: 5 strikeouts (the 2nd time in a week he's had the platinum sombrero), a double play, a rally-killing fielder's choice, and a run-allowing error. It might be the single worst game I've ever seen a Yankee have, and I've been watching them for 41 years. He's batting .167, with an on-base percentage of .271.

Meanwhile, Starlin Castro, who we traded away to get him, is batting .314 for the Florida Marlins.

The Yankees are 5-5. They are only 3-3 at home. They are already 3 1/2 games, 4 in the all-important loss column, behind the Boston Red Sox in the American League Eastern Division.

And now, we have to go to the little green pinball machine in the Back Bay. With our team reeling and the Red Sox rolling.

That team, against our gutless wonders.

Fans of the 28 teams not involved have offered their thoughts and prayers.

Yes, In Didi! Gregorius Powers Win In Home Opener

After a snowout, the Yankees had to be concerned that their home opener might get rained out. And it did rain through much of the game at Yankee Stadium yesterday afternoon, but they got all 9 innings in.

The pregame ceremonies were cut out, except for the ceremonial first ball, thrown out by 1978 World Champion Yankee heroes John Milton "Mickey" Rivers and Russell Earl "Bucky" Dent, in honor of the 40th Anniversary of their title. Then, it was play ball.

Jordan Montgomery started, and gave the Yankees 5 solid innings, allowing 1 run on 2 hits and 4 walks, with 4 strikeouts. Alas, manager Aaron Boone, under a lot of criticism for his pitching changes in the last 2 games, took him out after 5 innings, only 80 pitches.

This would prove to be a mistake. Boone brought Jonathan Holder in. Although he threw 11 of his 13 pitches for strikes, they got hit: Strikeout, but then double, single, RBI single, single. Boone pulled Holder for Tommy Kahnle, who'd helped to blow the Sunday game, and he inserted a game-tying 2-RBI double between a strikeout and a groundout.

It doesn't seem fair that a guy who blew a save should be credited as the winning pitcher, does it? Yet that's how things worked out, mainly because Didi Gregorius became the 1st Yankee ever to have 8 RBIs in a home opener.

The Yankees took a 1-0 lead in the 2nd inning, let the Rays tie it 1-1 in the top of the 3rd, and then Brett Gardner and Aaron Judge singled to lead off the bottom of the 3rd. A situation tailor-made for new, super-hyped slugger Giancarlo Stanton. But he struck out looking. His 2nd strikeout of the game. Then Gregorius came up and hit a short-porch homer to the right field corner. 4-1 Yankees.

And so it remained until Holder's game-tying meltdown in the 6th. Tyler Austin doubled to lead off the bottom of the 7th. Now, Boone came up with the right strategy: He had Brett Gardner bunt. The bunt was mishandled and thrown away, and Austin scored the go-ahead run. 5-4.

Judge singled. 1st & 3rd, nobody out, Stanton up. Stanton struck out. For the 4th time in the game.

Going 0-for-4 is known as "taking the collar," or "wearing the collar," because a collar resembles a zero, and also has the implication of "choking." Striking out 3 times in 1 game is, like scoring 3 goals in a hockey or soccer game, is a "hat trick," which came from the early hockey instance of fans throwing their hats onto the ice when a player scored 3. Striking out 4 times in 1 game is known as "the golden sombrero," because it requires a bigger hat.

But this was the dawning of the Age of Gregorius. He came up against Austin Pruitt, and cranked one down the right-field line, into the 2nd deck. While his 1st homer was a short-porcher, his 2nd was a no-doubt-abouter. As the great W.C. Fields might have said, "Yes, in Didi!" 8-4 Yanks.

Although he spent much of his youth in his parents' native Curaçao, an island off the coast of South America that is part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, Mariekson Julius Gregorius was born in the Netherlands' capital. This home run led me to say, "Amster... damn, son!"

With 1 out in the bottom of the 8th, Pruitt, with nothing left to lose, lost his control. He walked the Two Tylers, Wade and Austin. Rays manager Kevin Cash mercifully pulled him, and brought in Sergio Romo, who gave up an infield single to Gardner. Judge drew a walk to force home a run.

Bases loaded, only 1 out, and, with a 4-run lead, absolutely no pressure. A few years ago, this would have been the time for an Alex Rodriguez home run.

The batter was Giancarlo Stanton. At least this time, he took the damn bat off his shoulder. Nevertheless, he persisted -- in striking out. His 5th strikeout of the game. What's more expensive than gold? Platinum. Striking out 5 times in one game is "the platinum sombrero."

(Six times is "the titanium sombrero," or a "horn," after Sam Horn did it once, for the 1991 Baltimore Orioles. That's happened 8 times in baseball history, most recently by Geoff Jenkins of the 2004 Milwaukee Brewers, although it's never happened in less than 13 innings. But 5 in 9 innings has happened many times.)

For the 1st time, Giancarlo Stanton was playing a home game at Yankee Stadium. His Pinstriped debut was considerably less satisfying than that of Hideki Matsui (a grand slam helping to beat the Minnesota Twins in 2003). Stanton heard boos. If he were a soccer player putting on a corresponding display in England, certain chants would have gone up, among the more printable being, "What a waste of money!"

But the Mighty Curaçaoan was not done yet. Didi singled home Austin and Gardner, to make the score 11-4. Kahnle (1-0) got through the 7th, David Robertson pitched a perfect 8th, and Chasen Shreve pitched a perfect 9th. There was no save opportunity. Pruitt was the losing pitcher (0-1).

The series with the Rays continues this afternoon. Luis Severino starts for us, Blake Snell for them.

I would be just fine if Didi continues the hellacious hitting he's already done in this season's 1st 5 games. As for Stanton, well, "Welcome to New York." Now, produce.