The Yankees will pay in a big way for losing their cool

The New York Yankees will pay dearly for losing their cool yesterday when suspensions are handed down by the Commissioner’s office. It’s a sad commentary on a team that’s in the hunt for their 28th title in 2017.

The New York Yankees will soon have a day in court, and it will not be pleasant. The league is reviewing the tapes, of which there are many from more angles than Kate Upton has, and when that stage is completed, the Yankees will lose some valuable talent from their roster.

And when that day arrives, the Red Sox at least, and possibly the Royals, Twins, and Angels as well, should send a big thank you note to the Detroit Tigers and Miguel Cabrera for provoking a team whose brand is far from what we saw yesterday.

To be sure, the Tigers will get their just desserts as well but what do they care? All it means to them is they’ll have to call up replacements, paying them the major league minimum for a few days, before they send the players back to some God-awful place in their system.

“Boys will be boys” is what Girardi said following the game. Sorry, how about men will be men? I expected much more from you, Joe.

If you haven’t seen the entire unglamorized incident (10:45), you can view it here.

Time to pay the piper

There’s a price on the heads of at least two Yankees, possibly more, who played a vital role in yesterday’s fiasco.

First up is Gary Sanchez, whose testosterone level has been sky high of late anyway with nine home runs in his last eleven games. Sanchez was already fuming at having been hit by a pitch from Michael Fulmer during the at-bat following his 27th home run of the season.

The videotape shows Sanchez charging from the dugout, digging to the bottom of the pile, and taking a couple of sucker punches on two defenseless Tigers. That much is fact.

Second in line is Dellin Betances, who prompted the second of three bench clearing incidents in the game, when he sent a hard high one at 96 mph, striking James McCann on the helmet.

And finally, you have the only other catcher on the Yankees 25 man roster, Austin Romine, the direct engagee with Cabrera. Somehow, Romine was not one of the players ejected from the game, but his complicity in not walking away from Cabrera makes him culpable as well.

Umpires asleep at the wheel

And in a round-about way, you have Joe Girardi, who apparently has a fire-red temper judging by the bulging veins on his neck and face when he went charging out screaming mad, and forgetting his job was to protect his players from injury and from what is about to happen now.

The league should, but probably won’t at least reprimand the umpiring crew for not taking hold of the situation when Sanchez was blasted. Fulmer has a superb command of his pitches and walks a batter only once every five innings (39 BB, 158 innings) he pitches.

The umpires should have known that. It’s part of their job. Just as they should have been aware of the incident that took place between the same teams in July, as reported by the New York Daily News.

"When the Tigers come to Yankee Stadium to start a three-game series on July 31, a game in which the Yankees won, 7-3, Mikie Mahtook is hit by a Luis Severino pitch in the second and then gets beaned by a 98-mph fastball from Tommy Kahnle (more on him later) in the sixth. The impact knocks Mahtook’s helmet off his head and sends him sprawling to the ground, but apparently it is a glancing blow. Mahtook pops right up and yells twice in frustration, then walks to first base and virtually ignores a trainer who came out to check on him."

And Girardi may have been right when he termed the umpires performance as a “poor, poor job.” But the umpires don’t care about winning and losing. The Yankees do.

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Girardi was just trying to win a game when he put Betances in there to face the Tigers. But, he too, should have been aware of Betances involvement in the previous incident and, at least talked to him about keeping his cool before handing him the ball.

Maybe he did, and Betances simply went off the rails. We’ll probably never know. But we’ll darn sure know that Betances will be MIA for a few games, perhaps as soon as the upcoming Cleveland and Boston series.

Ditto Sanchez. And although he and Betances are still growing beards at 24 years of age, their loss will be a significant blow to the team at a time when it can be least afforded.

There are lessons to be learned here and the culprits are many. And sometime in December, the Yankees and their fans could very well look back to August 24 as a turning point in their season for all the wrong reasons.

Next: Who's in line for a call-up on September 1

“Boys will be boys” is what Girardi said following the game. Sorry, how about men will be men?  I expected much more from you, Joe.

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