Sublimely ridiculous

 Aaron Judge sent two more baseballs fleeing Yankee Stadium in terror last night, and now he's in monument territory as far as horsehide abuse is concerned. Which is to say, a couple of days ago he passed Yogi Berra (Yogi Berra!) on the Yankees career home run list, and last night he tied Joe DiMaggio (Joe DiMaggio!).

That means only Babe Ruth, Mickey Mantle and Lou Gehrig are still ahead of him. Each of whom, Joe D included, has his own personal monument in Monument Park out there beyond center field in the Stadium.

So, yeah, Judge is communing with the statuary now. And he's got a lot of tread left on the tires to commune even further with it.

That's your sublime baseball happening for the week, boys and girls.

And the most sublimely ridiculous happening?

Well, that would be what my Pittsburgh Cruds accomplished the other day.

"Ohhhh, no," you're saying now. "Not the stupid Pirates again. Not-"

Ah, dummy up. Here's a hall pass. Go on down to the caf and grab yourself a big ol' plate of Tuna Surprise.

(The surprise: Does not contain tuna.)

Now where were we?

Oh, yeah. My Cruds. Being sublimely ridiculous.

See, while Aaron Judge was hangin' with all those magisterial Yankee ghosts, the Cruds were achieving their own landmark. With a 2-1 loss in extras to the lowly Orioles, they assured themselves of yet another losing season. It will be their seventh in a row and ninth in the last 10 years.

That is some epically chronic cruddiness (or chronically epic cruddiness) right there.

You don't put up that kind of sustained failure without a ton of want-to, and lord knows cheapskate owner Bob Nutting and his guys have want-to to spare. Consider, for instance, that they have the most dominant pitcher in baseball right now (Paul Skenes), and they still manage to keep losing. Right now they're in the middle of a six-game skid  that's left them nineteen games under .500, 25 games out of first in the NL Central and eight games out of next-to-last.

Skenes, on the other hand, is killing it. In 30 starts and 178 innings this season, he has an MLB-leading 1.92 ERA, a National League-leading 203 strikeouts, and just 38 walks. Opposing hitters are batting just .193 against him.

His won-loss record in those 30 starts?

9-9.

How long before he and his agent start lobbying for someone -- anyone -- to get him the hell out of P-town?

It hasn't happened yet because the Cruds actually decided to pay him not long ago, and also because Skenes isn't the complaining type. But metaphorically speaking, Skenes continuing to pitch for the Cruds would be like Sandy Koufax pitching for the early-'60s Cubs or Senators instead of the Dodgers: A waste of genius.

But enough sad tales. There's too much sadness in the land right now as it is.

Let's go watch Aaron Judge chase some more monuments instead.