The bullpen, which has been the strength of the Yankees all year, took a major hit last night as Michael King apparently fractured his elbow and will be out the rest of the season. Remember, Chad Green is also gone and Chapman is a shell of his former self – which we really haven’t seen for about 2 years now. Loaisiga has struggled to regain his form coming back from his annual injury recently. The reality is that if anything happens to Clay Holmes, well, that is all she wrote.

Boone will have to put Chapman in the game now for more serious innings. No way around that. German could slide into the bullpen rotation although there were thoughts he could be that 6th starter down the stretch. SU is high on the youngster, Sears, and he needs to now become a regular part of the Major League roster.

The Yankees continue to struggle in Houston and the Astros are only a couple of games back now for best record in the AL and home field in the ALCS. Looks like that is going to matter. We know Cashman won’t stand pat at the trade deadline. Unfortunately, Gallo is showing signs of life and that may cause Cashman to keep him for the rest of the season. We know that would be a mistake as he will undoubtedly go into another prolonged slump. Cashman may now have to find a reliever instead of a younger, athletic outfielder and a team that would take on Gallo.

SU must say that when you look at the team batting averages, it’s hard to believe that their record is what it is. Judge aside, their top players like Stanton and Rizzo are below .230. I suppose this is baseball today with shifts, strikeouts and upper cuts. Stanton is truly an enigma and you realize now why he rarely hits higher than .270 in a season. He seems to be either red hot or ice cold for months at a time.

Watch for Boston to become sellers at the trade deadline.

SU watched the 2nd half of episode 1 and all of episode 2 of The Captain last night on ESPN (instead of the Yankee game) and I must say that I enjoyed it. They have been going season by season and have a ton of former teammates being interviewed including A-Rod who opened up about his early relationship with Jeter. If you have followed Jeter over the course of his career, he never lets you in. In this series, he is as open as I have ever heard him and it’s been fun to relive the end of the Mattingly era and the start of the World Series run in the mid-1990s.

Subway series this week at Citi Field. Should be entertaining.