At least we are not Cleveland.

Yes. So we all needed a good cry/Fiona Apple angst marathon after what can only be called the nauseating icing on a crapcupcake of a game… (Avilles, REALLY???? REALLY???)

But now that we’ve had our moment. Our breath. Our private walk punching session. Now that the Neosporin is starting to cool off our bandaged knuckles… it’s time to put things into perspective.

Sweet, sweet perspective.

And that perspective says:

At least we’re not Cleveland.

Over Labor Day weekend, 10 of the ablest minds at Grantland briefly stopped typing their own names into a Google search bar and devoted themselves to a sad question: Which city’s fan base is enduring the roughest stretch in sports right now? Where should the sympathetic among us direct our pity? Or, for the cruel at heart, our Schadenfreude?

Check it out. It’s how I almost smiled today. Thaanks, JEB.

~L

PS- If I get off work (60 percent chance!), join me at 7 for a live victory blog. <-positivity. Let’s try it.

You know, Wakey, maybe you should stop thinking about 200 as a milestone. Shoot for 500. FIVE HUNDRED. Then, see, you have 301 games that don’t matter, really, in the grand scheme of the milestone. It’s psychological. Write it on your mirror or something. It can only help. FIVE HUNDRED.

.500. Sweet, sweet SWEEPING mediocrity.

.500. On the money.

Was that so hard?

I think it’s poetic, really, that countless teams (well, I s’pose they’re countable), numerous teams (four is numerous) have foiled our chances for sweet .500 mediocrity and we get there by sweeping the Stanks.

20-20. It’s not just good eyesight. It’s good teamwork. Just ask Papi.

“That’s what people expect us to do,” said David Ortiz, who hit a broken-bat homer to Yankee Stadium’s short porch in right and was a triple short of the cycle. “When you combine good hitting with good pitching, that’s what you’re supposed to get, right?”

There were a couple scary things. You know, like Crawford’s mad error that allowed he-whose-name-shall-be-said-with-gritted-teeth (GRANDERSON) a moment. But let’s not concentrate on that. That thought is for losers. We are no longer losers. We are… um… mediocritics. <- Is that a word? What do you call someone who isn’t a loser but isn’t a winner? Anne Hathaway?

We are the Anne Hathaways of baseball.

But we shouldn’t get TOO excited of our Princess Diaries status, says my husband.

“I just got a fastball, inner half, and was fortunate to get a good piece of it,” Youkilis said. “If we pitch the ball, well we’re going to score runs. … We’ve come a long way since 0-6, but we’ve still got a lot of work to do and still got a lot of season to play.”

A lot of work to do.

~L

Orioles. Sigh.

—

More on the Jorge Posada soap opera. You know, the one where he did a hair (um, ear?) toss and said, “I can’t work like this,” before stomping off in his heels…

Jeter is defending Posada, basically saying, if he needs a day, give the poor, neckless has-been a day.

This should surprise NO ONE. As far as has-beens go, Jeter’s about there. Throwing his support to the others in the HB club? Good PR move, Jeter.

Screw Yankees puns, let’s think of more Posada jokes! ASAP. Get on it, SportsAttitudes.

.500. Impossible.

.500. It’s possible.

Just not, apparently, for us.

Hopes dashed, just as we could see the light of mediocrity down that deep, dark, sucky, sucky, sucky tunnel.

See, I don’t think it was a light. It was a flame. A horrible flame from a horrible fire that consumes, consumes, consumes and leaves you as one of those photos on page one, the kid crying with a blanket as his house goes kablooey. We are the kid in the blanket whose house goes kablooey, oh god.

Why yesterday hurt worse than… oh… I don’t know… another day.

1. .500 hopes were kablooied.

2. We didn’t just lose for Boston. We lost for America.

3. We lost to John Farrell.

4. We were so frick-tasting-ly close. (Did it remind anyone else of an old school loss? The kind that doesn’t just split your mind with a bullet but lingers, makes you suffer a little bit… lets you come out of surgery okay and then, WHAM, blindsides you with its painful, heartwrenching conclusion- a mac truck as you’re crossing the street in front of the hospital)

5. It wasn’t a John-Lackey-so-we’re-bracing-for-pain kind of game. It was a Jon Lester game.

6. Tonight’s match up IS a John Lackey-brace-for-the-pain-kind-of-game. So. There’s that.

Feel free to add to this list in the comments.

Speaking of John Slackey…

The last time I blasted him pre-pitch, he turned it around and… was… um… kind of… awesome. Remember that?

So…

John Lackey. You are a monstrous pit of a pitcher. A pit full of mediocrity, saliva and failure. And your lip is ridiculously large and offsets your gigantic head.

That oughtta do it…

See, I hate on my players all the time in anger. But I don’t usually mean it. Ask K-Youk. What is it about Lackey that makes me mean it? Because I do. I do mean it. I really, really, really want to send him back to Anaheim.

I really do think it has something to do with my hate-issue with the Angels.

I’m working on it. These things take time. And I am not the ONLY ONE who thinks Lackey has a few issues with acknowledging the crap he hurls across the plate.

Speaking of hate issues, still NEED YOUR HELP. Click here ASAP. Only two days ’till the Stankees…

Go Sox! For America, people. For America. Every time you strike out, Youkie-Bear, Canada wins. It’s what they WANT you to do.

Alec Baldwin! No!

~L