As most of you know, SU is all in on the Yankees.  I watch most games when I can and this is my team.  But SU must come clean now: this current edition of the team as of September 12th is not going anywhere in October.  Let’s examine why that is the case:

• First of all, where have all the left-handed hitters gone?  Boone rolled out what might be his Wild Card game line up last night with McCutchen in right field and Stanton in left.  Now, assuming Judge is able to return which is still a big if, Judge will slide into right field or DH.  Gardner will be the odd man out it appears.  That leaves 2 left-handed hitters: Hicks and Didi.  Bird earned his way onto the bench so no argument there as Voit deserves to start.  The problem is that so many of the right-handed hitters are of the swing and miss variety led by the Generational One and Sanchez.
• Question: with RISP, who do you trust to get a hit right now?  For SU, it’s Didi, Andujar and Torres.  Never Sanchez, never Stanton, never McCutchen and maybe Hicks.  This is why the Yankees are not built for the playoffs.  They cannot hit with RISP.  Judge may help if he can play and stay in the line up but you have to figure he will be bailing out from inside fastballs along the lines of what Stanton does.
• I don’t love Gardner and his .237 batting average but he should play over McCutchen.
• Oakland is now 2 games back and with 6 games remaining against the Red Sox, the Yankees could easily be playing the Wild Card game in Oakland.  Not good.  Plus Boone is re-jiggering the rotation to try and have Severino pitch that game.  Say what?  That game is for Happ or Tanaka.  Only.

The trade for Stanton clogged up the line up with another right handed hitter.  SU may be alone in this thinking but I would trade both Sanchez and Stanton in the off-season, eat some salary and get some starting pitching or left-handed hitters who make contact and have some speed.  SU is not a believer that baseball is now just a home run hitting sport.  Not in October.

Good comments from the subscriber base about the Serena incident and long-time SU subscriber J. Levine referred readers to this column by the Hall of Famer Martina Navratilova in the “failing” (not) New York Times:

Clearly, Martina has been following SU as we think alike.  It’s been interesting to see how the initial media reaction which was very pro-Serena has now swung back to a much more balanced view which is correct in SU’s estimation.

No truth to the rumor that Eli Manning is doing wind sprints in practice this week to get ready for this Sunday’s game.  Flowers needs to go on the offensive line.  The Giants have playmakers this year but Manning needs time to throw.  Barkley is the real deal.  Meanwhile, the Jets looked great – especially on defense.  But SU feels week 1 in the NFL is never an indication of what the full season will look like – good or bad.  Make the adjustments, calm down and week 2 will be more telling.