Tues AM BRB (6-1-21)
This Day in Music (6-1-1969)
John Lennon and Yoko Ono close out their Bed-In for peace by recording “Give Peace a Chance,” accompanied by Tommy Somthers, Timothy Leary, Petula Clark, and Allen Ginsberg, among others.
Photo Credit: Bob DeChiara/USA Today Sports
The Island rose to its feat Monday night when Islanders center Casey Cizikas found himself facing down Bruins goaltender Tuuka Rask all alone after forcing a turnover with just under five minutes gone in the first overtime of a hellacious, 3-3 deadlock. Islanders fans across New York erupted when Cizikas converted the opportunity blocker side to give the Islanders a hard-earned 4-3 victory drawing them even with Boston in the best-of-seven series. This was a cathartic win for a team that could have easily rolled over and died like the Toronto Maple Leafs when the Islanders saw their three-goal hurricane erased by wily veterans Patrice Bergeron and Brad Marchand in the third period. Yet, the Islanders showed poise amidst a rocking TD Garden thanks to the sound brand of straight-ahead team hockey that powered them through the regular season and the Pittsburgh Penguins. Despite having more skill than often given credit for, it was a shock to no one to see the Islanders fourth line create the decisive goal, with the engine of Cizikas, Matt Martin and Cal Clutterbuck driving the Islanders in every and all occasion. There are few lines in the game that can stand up to the “perfection” line of Boston’s Bergeron, Marchand and Pasternak, but the Islanders trio of grit and brute force is finding a way to contain and frustrate, if not stop. Though the Islanders will be hard-pressed to have more perfect periods than they did in last night’s second frame, but the three goal outburst by Josh Bailey, Kyle Palmieri and Jean-Gabriel Pageau exemplified not only a team that can beat you in almost every facet of the game, but a team with a backbone to come out trailing a goal in front of a hot crowd only to play like the better team all period long. After reaching game six of the Eastern Conference Finals a year ago, this Islanders team shouldn’t have to prove the weight of their balls to any fanbase or hockey club, but last night’s victory shows the capability of this team at full-force. As the series now shifts to Long Island, the Bruins will have their work cut out for them to stand up to the biggest mental-test they’ve faced all season. Most reasonable hockey minds wouldn’t bet against them, but one has to admit, there’s something happening on Long Island, and the Islanders seem to know what it is.
Nice to know we can’t take a weekend off without the Yankees offense turning to shit again. Leave the fellas alone for four days and this is how we’re repaid, an utter embarrassment at the hands of a three-game sweep by the lowly Detroit Tigers before coming back home to be slapped upside the head by Tampa Bay. Despite clinging to a tenuous position four games above .500, the Yankees are imploding thanks to the same tired narrative. The offense, once again, has gone completely and utterly stale, passing through at-bats in a way that would cause even the most affable T-Ball coach to start chucking bats and balls into the parking lot. The problem isn’t that players like Aaron Judge, Giancarlo Stanton, Gio Urshela and Gleyber Torres are going through a bit of a slump, that’s baseball Suzyn. The issue has become the fact that, more often than not, those players are the one’s who are doing the things the Yankees ask them to do. Judge has performed like an MVP candidate for the Yankees for much of this year. Urshela has picked up right where he left off in October as one of the team’s most-clutch performers both in the batters box and at the hot corner. When Giancarlo Stanton has found his rhythm, he’s displayed streaks of power Yankees fans have not yet seen out of his mighty bat. Gleyber Torres seems to be finding his form both at the plate and in the field, but as this weekend painfully pointed out, he’s still liable to slipping to some seriously ugly lows. Players like DJ LeMahieu and the catching duo of Gary Sanchez and Kyle Higashioka are giving the Yankees better than league-average production for their positions, but it’s simply not enough. Given this team’s proclivity towards long, mind-numbing slumps and extended trips on the I.L., the time has long since passed to make legitimate and major additions to this once-vaunted Yankees lineup. Even when things are going well for the majority of all the aforementioned players, this lineup is barely hanging on. The Yankees are currently able to sustain this beating due to the fact that they tore through the month of May largely carried by incredible starting pitching performances on what seemed like a nightly basis. Now, Corey Kluber is spending time on the injured list and the the rest outside of Gerrit Cole have largely crashed back down to the land of the living, with Domingo German, Jordan Montgomery and Jameson Taillon providing some good, but not enough great to drag this lifeless lineup over the line. Over the past few years, Brian Cashman has generally taken a hands-off approach at the trading deadline, but this year that strategy simply won’t be good enough. There’s no doubt in the mind of any reasonable fan that the Yankees have the right man in charge to make these moves, Cashman’s track record speaks for itself. The issue that fans are beginning to charge their long-time general manager with is two years of frustrating inaction amidst total and utter stagnation. We were told that all this team needed to accomplish in the offseason to improve their offense was bring back DJ LeMahieu. Clearly, that was a severe and egregious miscalculation by the Yankees front office. If they intend to make a serious evaluation about their team and their manager, not to mention their viability in October, they’ll have to look to their highest watermark of success and realize their could-have-been run of 2017 was powered by culture-shifting additions of Sonny Gray, Todd Frazier, David Robertson and Tommy Kahnle. If the Yankees are to seriously and appropriately diagnose this issue, that type of paradigm-shifting summer is not only craved by fans, it’s needed for this team to survive.