Double cruds alert!

Or: The yin and yang of summer's dog days.

In this corner we have my Pittsburgh Cruds, who just yesterday (or so it seemed) were almost behaving like an almost real baseball team. Why, they were cruising along a couple of games above .500, and they had the wondrous Paul Skenes, and they were nipping at the heels of the St. Louis Cardinals for -- I can barely type this -- second place in the NL Central. 

Second place! What a magical, mystical rainbow-y land. Root beer rivers and cotton-candy clouds; lollipops and ice cream and summers that stretch on forever. Oh, how we love thee, glorious second pl-

Wait, what?

What do you mean the ancestral home is on the line, wondering where the hell the Cruds are?

Ah, geez. Mid-August now, and I sneak a peek at the MLB standings, and second place is gone. Also third place, and also fourth place.

Now my Cruds, like the swallows of San Juan Capistrano but not really, have returned to the NL Central cellar  -- aka the ancestral home. They've lost eight in a row, they're 1-9 over their last ten games, and Oneal Cruz, their once-marvelous shortstop, is kicking the ball around like Lionel Messi. And the Cincinnati Redlegs are a game-and-a-half clear of them in next-to-last.

But, hey: At least they're not those awful, laughable, lousy-prank Chicago What Sox. 

Who, over in this other corner, continue to slouch toward Birmingham or some other  suitably minor-league locale. As of this morning, the What Sox are 62 games below .500, or 29-91. They're 41 1/2 games out of first in the AL Central and 27 1/2 out of next-to-last. Last week, finally, they fired manager Pedro Grifol and brought in retread Grady Sizemore to skipper the Titanic.

But you know what?

Yesterday, for one day, they were still way better than my Cruds.

That's because, while the Cruds were losing their eighth straight, the What Sox, who had lost 24 of the previous 25 games, hauled off and -- say what? -- beat the New York Yankees. And not just beat them, but beat them.

The final was 12-2. Gavin Sheets had four hits and four RBI for the Palest Of Hose. Korey Lee and Brooks Baldwin went yard. All told they strafed Yankees pitching for 18 hits in battering a team with 41 more victories.

Today, of course, they'll probably lose again. But for one magical, mystical, rainbow-y day, they were better than the lordly Yankees -- and, of course, my distinctly un-lordly Cruds.

No matter what happens from here on out, they'll always have that. They'll always have August 12.

On the other hand, I don't know what my Cruds will have. On"E"al Cruz, I suppose.