Time to punch back.

This week has been brutal.  Most of it has stemmed from a cataclysmic meltdown against the Blue Jays last weekend.  Toronto came in here hot as a pistol amidst all the hype from their deadline moves and lived up to every bit of it.  They shut down the Yankee bats, scored runs when they had to and haven't stopped winning since.  As of two nights ago the once comfortable American League East lead that the Yankees had held for weeks has vanished.

During this recent stretch that at a point saw this once potent Yankee offense go ice cold to the tune of nine runs in seven games, the Blue Jays walked into Yankee Stadium and held the Bombers to one single run in three days.  The Yankee pitching held their own, limiting the best offense in baseball to 10 total runs, but that's all the Blue Jays would need to complete the three game series sweep.  Tonight the Yankees go into Canada to face a Blue Jay team that's playing even better than they were a week ago.  They've won 11 straight, 14 of 15 and haven't lost a single game with Troy Tulowitzki in the starting lineup.  After the Blue Jays wrapped up an early win yesterday against Oakland the Yankee bats finally woke up in the series finale against the Indians.  They salvaged that one game in Cleveland but if they're really going to get back on track then it has to start tonight.

Toronto is -230 to win tonight with David Price on the mound.  They're the new odds-on favorite to win the World Series.  Everything is coming up Blue Jays which puts them in a unique position.  Not in a million years has Toronto owned an AL East lead this late into the season.  Never in my life have the Blue Jays had legitimate expectations to win a pennant on August 14th.  The hunters have now become the hunted.  It's one thing to go on a hot streak in August, it's quite another to keep it up down the stretch during the last 50 games of a season and clinch a division crown.  I'm not saying Toronto won't do it.  They're stacked to the brim.  They have a legit ace, maybe the best lineup the league has seen in a decade and all the momentum in the world.  But they've never been here before.  We have.  If the Yanks get pummeled again this weekend I may have to concede the division early and start eying the Angels and the Orioles but I'm not ready to do that yet.  Things don't look great, but that's why you play the games.  We're going to find out a lot about the Yankees this weekend.  Like A-Rod said, we got punched last weekend.  Good teams punch back.

Yankees to honor A-Rod's 3,000th hit

DAILY NEWS - A-Rod, who became the 29th player all-time to reach the 3,000-hit plateau on June 19 with a first-inning solo home run off Detroit's Justin Verlander, will be celebrated in a special pre-game ceremony on Sunday, Sept. 13, the Yankees announced Friday.

The team had previously downplayed Rodriguez’s accomplishments this season, declining to acknowledge his move up the all-time home run list when he tied Willie Mays for fourth place on the list on May 1. The Yankees were then embroiled in a dispute with A-Rod over a marketing agreement they had made with the slugger in 2007 centered around him moving up the list. That dispute has since been settled.


There's probably no greater testament to how this season has gone for A-Rod than this ceremony.  Never in a trillion years would you have guessed that the Yankees would be throwing A-Rod a party to commemorate one of his milestones (I guess even though the bonus money situation for 661 home runs was sorted out it's still to murky a situation to market it).  Yet here it is.  And it makes plenty of sense.  If you call yourself a Yankee fan then you've embraced A-Rod this year.  He's been the key cog in the middle of this order and up until this recent slump has done nothing but help the team win.  When he homered for his 3,000th hit this season the Yankee fan went ape shit, not just out of admiration for the achievement but in recognition of his total offensive renaissance this season.  


The bottom line is that the ceremony makes sense.  They get to reward A-Rod for being a good solider, a great teammate and a top-tier performer.  They also get to sell tickets and t-shirts.  Win-win for everyone. 

PS - Coincidentally this is all going down on the first Sunday of the NFL schedule, same thing they did last year with Jeter.  Toronto is in town that weekend.  The Sunday game is at 1pm, same time as Jets-Browns.  Should be a wild, wild day.

Losing streak over.

The first inning of last night's game had a familiar look to it.  With runners on first and second and nobody out the Yanks were set up to spot Eovaldi a lead with the meat of their order coming up.  A-Rod took an ugly hack at a first pitch fastball and popped up.  1 dead.  Beltran pops up to second.  2 dead.  As McCann steps to the plate I'm getting ready for another wasted opportunity and a deflating start to the game when he drills a three-run homer into the right field seats, his second in as many days.  And just like that, the bats were awoken. 

Last night, for the first time in what feels like forever, it was the lineup that picked up the pitching staff.  Eovaldi was not especially sharp last night.  He left the game with one out in the 6th having allowed 4 runs.  Justin Wilson wasn't great.  Betances didn't look as sharp as usual and Miller gave up a run and put himself in trouble in the 9th.  But ultimately the Yankees got out of Cleveland with a 8-6 win and avoided what would have been a devastating sweep at the hands of the lowly Indians.

Three guys who really needed to get going had huge nights last night.  Ellsbury, Gardner and Drew combined to go 6 for 11, reaching base 9 times and scoring 6 runs between the three of them.  That's the engine of this team right here.  If you're 9-1-2 hitters are going to get on 65% of the time, you're going to score runs.

Ultimately, it's just one game but it would have been an awful feeling heading into Toronto tonight on a six game losing streak having just been swept in consecutive series.  The good news is that the Yankees don't have to do any scoreboard watching this weekend.  They have the enemy right in their sights and can shift the tide of the division on their own with a series win.  It's going to be tough, but Toronto has to lose eventually, right?

Apparently there is a Fresh Prince reboot in development

IGN - A reboot of the popular 90s sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air is reportedly in the works.
According to TVLine, original series' lead Will Smith is spearheading the project, where he will serve as executive producer via his production company, Overbrook Entertainment, alongside James Lassiter, Caleeb Pinkett and Jada Pinkett-Smith.

The show is reportedly in the early stages of development, and will provide a modern-day take on the show that skyrocketed Smith's acting career, but still retain the spirit of the original show.
Overbrook is believed to be finalizing its pitch now, which should begin making the rounds to networks within the next several weeks.

TBH I haven't watched a single episode of Girl Meets World.  I probably won't watch any Fuller House.  I wasn't that into those shows as a kid.  But this I'll be forced to watch.  The Fresh Prince is a top 5 show for me.  Maybe even top 3.  Anything Fresh Prince, I'm in.  But who knows how legit these rumors are.  The only problem here is that if this does go down it looks like Will Smith will be producer and won't be starring in it, which I get.  But you have to understand that Will and Carlton literally made the Fresh Prince of Bel Air.  Uncle Phil was a great character too but the show is not well written.  Most of the jokes are corny and awful.  The premises aren't interesting.  But Will and Carlton are so wildly entertaining and hilarious by themselves that they literally put the show into the pantheon of great 90's sitcoms and pop culture on their own.

So yea, I understand if Will won't be in it, but at least do the right thing and give me Alfonso Ribeiro.  He can carry a show by himself.  Dude is 43 and he's still bringing the heat on DWTS.  I'll sign up right now for a Carlton Banks spinoff where he's like a dorky father and spends entire episodes embarrassing his kids in front of their friends.  Call it "Carlton" and people will show up.







And you have to throw Ashley and Hilary into the mix.  Two of the first loves of my life.

 

Yankees call up Greg Bird

Greg Bird will be joining the Yankees. Will back up Teixeira at first base and ARod at DH. Long stretch of games so Yankees want a back up.

— Jack Curry (@JackCurryYES) August 13, 2015

Bit of a surprise here this afternoon.  Definitely did not think Bird was on the big league radar but it makes sense with Garret Jones no longer here (you could see how especially thin the bench was last night with Chris Young getting the start against a righty).  Cashman touted this guy the best hitter in the system before the season started and that might be hard to argue.  He's coming off a 2014 where he won Arizona Fall League MVP and in 34 games since getting promoted to Scranton the 22-year-old has hit .301/.353/.500 with 6 HR and 23 RBI.  He was also just voted international league player of the week so you know he's swinging the bat well.  He's supposedly no slouch with the glove either.

My guess is he'll play for Tex or A-Rod tonight, both of whom have been struggling along with everybody else.  He may not play everyday and he may not be here for long but the Yankees need to inject something into this listless lineup.

For a more in depth look at Greg Bird I've chosen to share with you a prospect profile courtesy of MLB15 The Show.

Yanks lose fifth straigh, fall out of 1st place

Well this sucks.  Another night, another wasted pitching performance due to a lineup that doesn't look like it plans on waking up any time soon.  Just flat out sucks.  And this is going to keep sucking so long as we can’t hit and the Blue Jays keep scoring a hundred runs a game.  I mean Toronto needs to cut this shit out.  I was feeling really good about tonight too.  McCann hits an absolute bomb in the second to give the Yanks a 1-0 and I’m thinking he just set the tone and the bats are about to wake up.  Then I look down at my phone and the Blue Jays are up like 10-2 in the second inning.  Like what the fuck is going on in Toronto right now?  I remember when that Tulo trade went down and everyone was like “why would they trade for another bat?”  Maybe because it’s going to transform their offense into a fucking irrepressible juggernaut and they’ll never lose a game again.  Maybe that’s why.

Meanwhile in Cleveland, CC’s pitching his heart out with a razor-thin margin for error.  The Indians were threatening all night, putting 11 runners on base in Sabathia’s six innings.  They finally broke through and knotted the game up in the fifth before taking a 2-1 lead in the 6^th.  And wouldn’t you know it, that’s all the all the runs they would need.

There were plenty of chances.  The Yanks had runners on second and third with one out in the 7^th before Didi popped up and Chris Young struck out to end the inning.  Then in the 8^th A-Rod grounded into an inning-ending double play with runners on first and second.  He and Tex combined to go 0-8.  And now after five straight losses the Yankees find themselves looking up at the Blue Jays in the division.

And while I’m still not in panic mode and will refuse to enter that phase until we near closer to the season’s end, I am scared.  There’s a difference.  And the scariest part about the way this team is playing is that they look a lot like the team that they were supposed to be.  A few days ago I chalked this funk up to being a little hiccup, but now I’m worried that this may be your 2015 New York Yankees.  Like Tex and A-Rod were not supposed to be this good this season.  Is it possible that they’re out of gas?  Ellsbury and Gardner played well over their heads for big parts of this season.  Have they both come back down to Earth?  I’m not entirely sure.  But there’s nothing here to analyze.  If these guys don’t get their shit together then we’re all in for a third straight October without baseball in the Bronx.

Trying to get back on track, the Yanks turn to CC

Anytime CC Sabathia does something positive this season it has reverberated through the entire clubhouse.  He's still a leader and is immensely popular with these guys.  Last week's start against the Red Sox got everybody jacked up, myself included.  So if the Yankees are going to break out of this funk tonight, CC has to be the guy who sets the tone.  Of course the offense is what has to get going, but getting behind early tonight would put this lineup in a bad frame of mind.  I'd kill for this lineup to throw it back and put up a crooked number in the first inning like we had grown so accustomed to.

Ellsbury isn't playing tonight and it isn't because he just played 16 innings in center field, it's because he's stifling this lineup right now.  Headley will insert himself into the two-hole and Gardner will slide down a slot to give the offense a different look against Danny Salazar tonight. 

The Yanks are short a bench player after Garret Jones was DFAd for the second time in a couple weeks.  (That was Bryan Mitchell's reward for pitching so well last night.  He's probably earned a spot start at some point in the next week).  Justin Wilson, Adam Warren and Mitchell are all unavailable tonight.

There's really nothing to say at this point.  There's a chance that when we wake up tomorrow the Yankees will no longer be in first place.  I know the loss column would be in their favor but still, that wouldn't be good.  These guys need to start hitting.  There's nothing to analyze.  There's no tips, suggestions or demands from anyone that is going to help anything.  They just need to start hitting again.  That and the Blue Jays need to finally lose a fucking game.