I have always supported and even defended Michael Pineda. I was going to say minus a few “Ladies and gentlemens” along the way, but in searching, I only found one “Ladies and gentlemen, Michael Pineda!”, which came on April 6 in the second inning of the second game of the season. It came when Pineda allowed a two-out grand slam to George Springer immediately after the Yankees had scored six runs in the bottom of the first inning to take a 6-1 lead. That’s where my past criticism of Pineda starts and ends.

I should have criticized Pineda a lot more in the nearly three years he has pitched for the team and the five years he has been with the team. But I have always believed that the 22-year-old rookie All-Star for the Mariners in 2011 or the 25-year-old with a 1.89 ERA in 13 starts for the 2014 Yankees or the 26-year-old who was 5-0 with a 2.72 ERA on May 10, 2015 after striking out 16 Orioles will show up and actually stay. I have denied that Pineda is actually the pitcher who missed 2012 and 2013 due to injuries from overthrowing because Yankees beat writers questioned his spring training velocity or the pitcher that got suspended for being unable to hide his pine tar and then got hurt while suspended or the pitcher who pitched to a 5.22 ERA over his last 14 starts in 2015 and has a 5.12 ERA through 26 starts this season. I believe Pineda is the pitcher who put up this line in six June starts: 36 IP, 27 H, 12 R, 11 ER, 8 BB, 49 K, 2.75 ERA, 0.972 WHIP. And not the pitcher who put up this line in five May starts: 26.1 IP, 38 H, 22 R, 22 ER, 7 BB, 29 K, 7.52 ERA, 1.709 WHIP. Maybe it’s time I change my stance.

Michael Pineda is essentially A.J. Burnett. For some reason though, I have let Pineda go unscathed over his Yankees tenure, and more importantly, those last 40 starts, while I probably have written more words about Burnett since 2010 than anyone and he hasn’t been on the team for five seasons now. But like Burnett supporters (if there really were any) did for him, I have done for Pineda by letting the bad days, two-strike daggers and two-out rallies go because of what happens when he isn’t being the most frustrating and inconsistent pitcher in the league. Monday night in Kansas City was the latest example.

An odd-hit ball with a lot of backspin to second base put Jarrod Dyson on first to start the bottom of the first. A wild pitch moved Dyson to second though he probably would have gotten there on his own with a stolen base against Pineda. Pineda struck out Cheslor Cuthbert for the first out and then Dyson stole third on the first pitch to Lorenzo Cain. Cain singled and Dyson scored. Cain then stole second on the second pitch to Eric Hosmer before Pineda retired Hosmer on a fly ball. Two outs, runner on third and one run in. Nothing terrible, but then again, two outs is usually when it starts against Pineda. Kendry Morales singled home Cain and then Salvador Perez singled to move Morales to second. Alex Gordon singled home Morales with Perez moving to third. And then, thankfully, Gordon was caught stealing second base to end the inning. Three runs on five hits and two stolen bases against Pineda (neither of the steals were on Gary Sanchez). Here’s what happened over the next five innings:

Strikeout swinging
Strikeout swinging
Flyout
Strikeout swinging
Groundout
Flyout
Groundout
Groundout
Strikeout swinging
Flyout
Strikeout swinging
Lineout
Strikeout swinging
Groundout
Strikeout swinging

Pineda retired the next 15 batters he faced from the second inning through the sixth inning, striking out seven, all swinging. Why isn’t that the guy who shows up in the first inning of every game? And I’m not asking for Pineda to be perfect like he was, I’m just asking him to not pitch to a 7.62 first-inning ERA where batters are hitting .369/.400/.640 against him. Maybe he needs to throw a simulated inning in the bullpen before the game. Maybe the Yankee Stadium scoreboard operator needs to change the inning to “2” on all the boards or turn the inning off on all the boards completely, so there’s nothing visible to remind Pineda what inning it is (though this doesn’t take care of the problem on the road). Or right before Pineda takes the mound before his first inning of work, everyone in the dugout congratulates him on his quick 1-2-3 first inning that didn’t happen to make him think he’s going out for his second inning of work the way Jim tricked Dwight into thinking it was Friday when it was Thursday, so he wouldn’t show up to work on Friday in The Office. Pineda’s first-inning struggles are a big enough deal that it’s time to get creative and do something about them.

There were times in 2012 and 2013 when I thought he would never actually pitch for the Yankees. There were times in 2014 when I thought he was the Yankees’ ace. There were times in 2015 when I thought he should start the one-game playoff if the Yankees had to play in one (which they did). There have been times in 2016 where I wondered if he would just be a near-5.00 ERA pitcher forever and there have been times where I have thought maybe it would be better if the Yankees traded him and moved on despite the lack of starting pitching in the league and in free agency. There was a time on Monday night in the first inning when I was finally ready to give up on Pineda and put an end to believing he could ever put together a good, consistent, healthy full season rather than a guy with all the talent in the world who could never put it all together. But like Burnett, he put together those five innings to pull me back in and make me believe once again in his ability.

Joe Girardi and the Yankees broadcasters would always talk about A.J. Burnett’s “great stuff” and I always laughed at that phrase. How could a pitcher who went 13-9 with a 4.04 ERA on a 103-win team, 10-15 with a 5.26 ERA on a 95-win team and 11-11 with a 5.15 ERA on a 97-team win and who won two of his seven postseason starts in three years and only pitched in Game 4 of the 2010 ALCS (and lost) out of necessity and pitched in Game 4 of the 2011 ALDS (and won thanks to an amazing Curtis Granderson catch) out of necessity have “great stuff”? Pitchers who have “great stuff” win and are consistently good. Clayton Kershaw has “great stuff”. Jake Arrieta has “great stuff”. Roy Halladay had “great stuff”. A.J. Burnett had “inconsistent stuff” and Michael Pineda has the same. But whenever I would argue about Burnett and cite his shortcomings (and it was easy to do so), his supporters would say, “Game 2 of the 2009 World Series.” Yes, he’ll always have that Game 2 performance (7 IP, 4 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 2 BB, 9 K) to fall back on as an example of his contribution to the championship and as an example of his so-called “great stuff”.

Pineda doesn’t have a dominant World Series performance or even a single postseason start as an example of his “great stuff”, and he’s nearing the point where he might never get that chance as a Yankee if his last two starts are how he finishes this season. All he has are a few good regular-season stretches, a couple double-digit strikeout games and innings like Monday’s second through sixth scattered throughout his Yankees tenure. The rest is a lot of disappointment much like Burnett gave Yankees fans, and the last former Yankees pitcher Pineda should want to be compared to is Burnett when it comes to having the ability, but not being able to put it together.

When the Yankees signed Brian McCann for five years and $85 million on Dec. 2, 2013, it was expected. Like the CC Sabathia signing in 2008 and the Jason Giambi signing in 2001, everyone knew it was going to happen. The Yankees had played with a revolving door at catcher since Jorge Posada’s retirement and after grinding through a year with Francisco Cervelli, Chris Stewart and Austin Romine, the they weren’t going to do that again. Add in that the Yankees had missed the playoffs for the first time since 2008 and the Red Sox had won the World Series and it made it even more of a sure-thing.

The Yankees didn’t need the career .277/.350/.473 hitting 30-year-old McCann at the time. But there have been a lot of times when the Yankees didn’t need a a free-agent star and got him anyway. They had a 28-year-old Cervelli, 25-year-old Romine, 22-year-old John Ryan Murphy and 21-year-old Gary Sanchez. McCann would just block their paths to the majors and be another high-paid player nearing the wrong side of 30 in the long list of high-paid players on the wrong side of 30 that have defined the Yankees over the last decade-plus. The Yankees didn’t need Brian McCann and the $85 million would be better spent elsewhere (ROBINSON CANO, cough, cough), but they signed him anyway.

When rumors surfaced leading up to the trade deadline that the Yankees could move McCann back to his former team in the Braves and all it would take is eating a combined $10 million of his remaining $34 million over the next two years, I may or may not have danced around the room, and I don’t dance. Unfortunately, it didn’t happen though I’m holding out hope it still might this season or in the offseason. Fortunately, McCann’s presence and contract didn’t stop Brian Cashman from calling up Gary Sanchez for good.

Sanchez was hitting .282/.339/.468 with 10 home runs and 50 RBIs in Triple-A at the time of his call-up and he had been a .275/.339.460 hitter in seven minor league seasons. He had gone hitless in two at-bats for the Yankees in 2015 and went 0-for-4 in the only game he had played in this season back on May 13. He went 1-for-4 with two strikeout and a run in his return on Aug. 3. He got hit first career extra-base hit and multi-hit game the next night against the Mets going 2-for-4. The following night he picked up his first career RBI with a pair against the Indians. But after the next two games, he was hitting a typical rookie-struggling-in-the-majors .217/.250/.348 after his first game in Boston. The next game, well, that’s when everything changed.

Sanchez went 4-for-5 with a home run, which was longest home run I have ever seen hit to straightaway center at Fenway as it hit the backwall of the park and might have hit Jillian’s if the wall hadn’t been there. Since that Aug. 10 game when Sanchez hit the mammoth home run, he’s hitting .469/.536/1.082 with nine home runs and 17 RBIs. He’s become a combination of 1998 Shane Spencer and 2007 Shelley Duncan except he’s 23, a catcher and the face of the franchise and not a career minor leaguer catching lightning in a bottle for a month.

This 13-game run has become laughable from an “I can’t believe he hit another one” standpoint. Every at-bat of his has been must-watch since his Aug. 3 call-up, but now they have become must-watch in a much different sense. That different sense is Spencer in September 1998 or Tino Martinez in May 2005 (10 home runs in 11 games as a 37-year-old) or Jason Giambi from July 4, 2005 to Aug. 4, 2005 (16 home runs in 26 games a few months after being asked to go to the minors by the Yankees) or A-Rod for all of 2007 (54 home runs) or Duncan from late July on in 2007 (seven home runs as a 27-year-old rookie). Sanchez made straightaway center at Fenway seem as close as the Pesky Pole. He made the seemingly-impossible-to-hit second deck in left field at Yankee Stadium look like the short porch in right, and over the last three days, he turned Safeco Field into Camden Yards with three home runs in 11 at-bats in Seattle.

I keep thinking about how this season could have gone if Sanchez had been here all along (or possibly in earlier seasons) along with other pieces of the future (Luis Severino, Chad Green, Luis Cessa, Aaron Judge and Tyler Austin). Maybe if the Yankees hadn’t wasted four of the six months of the season giving at-bats to dead-weight contracts and sub-.200 hitters they would be closer than five games back for the second wild card. I guess there’s no sense in looking back and wondering “what could have been” with yet another Yankees team, but instead it’s time to look ahead at the future and the future looks as beautiful as Sanchez’s first-inning home run barrage.

Earlier this week, Sanchez tweeted the following:

"Experts" say we @Yankees have no chance to make the playoffs…well we may just be young and naive enough to disagree. #NotGivingUp

— Gary Sanchez (@ElGarySanchez) August 20, 2016

Now it’s wishful thinking like Go West to think the Yankees are going to make the playoffs. Maybe if Joe Girardi hadn’t used Anthony Swarzak in two big spots over the last week and the team were now three games back instead of five heading into a three-game weekend series with the Orioles then we could get excited about a playoff berth. I don’t expect Sanchez to continue to put the Yankees on his back and save the season in terms of reaching the postseason.  He has already saved the season in terms of giving Yankees fans a reason to watch a current fourth-place team.

Over the last 22 days, Sanchez has become the starting catcher with Brian McCann still on the roster. He has become the Yankees’ No. 3 hitter with Carlos Beltran traded, A-Rod released and Mark Teixeira barely hanging on to his career. He has become a reason to watch the Yankees in a season in which they are going to miss the playoffs for the third time in four years. He has become the face of the franchise for a franchise that has always had one. He has become everything every Yankees fan hoped he would be and more. He has saved the season and the future.

Three days ago, I watched Alex Rodriguez announce his forced retirement from the Yankees. And three days ago, right after he did that and right after Brian Cashman told some lies about the process as if he had no part in it, I watched Joe Girardi tell some more lies. Girardi said A-Rod would play in the final four games if he wanted to and he would even play the field if he wanted to. Girardi was going to allow the player responsible for Girardi still being the Yankees manager and Cashman still being the Yankees general manager decide how to end his Yankees tenure. Joe Girardi was going to do the right thing.

But a funny thing happened on the way to A-Rod having four games left in his Yankees career: Joe Girardi lied as he has so many times as Yankees manager. Girardi posted the lineup on Tuesday night in Boston and left A-Rod out of it. The reason? “We’re trying to win games.” So since Girardi is trying to win games, he left the .204/.252/.356 hitter out of the lineup, but included the following hitters:

1. .261/.350/.376
2. .274/.335/.374
3. .196/.283/.337
4. .231/.330/.413
5. .259/.298/.398
6. .288/.317/.456
7. .251/.325/.379
8. .263/.300/.421
9. .195/.256/.303

The only two hitters in that lineup that deserve at-bats are Didi Gregorius (sixth) and Gary Sanchez (eighth). The rest of the lineup would be better filled in by the Triple-A lineup, and if it were, more fans would go to the Stadium the final seven weeks of the season, and watch the games and pay attention because they might mean something. But to Girardi’s point, A-Rod might be 41 and have no position, but he wasn’t going to lose the game for the Yankees. He certainly couldn’t have done worse than those players that played instead of him.

There was Mark Teixeira striking out looking on a fastball down the middle with the bases loaded to finish 0-for-5 and to end Tuesday night’s 5-3 loss to the Red Sox. There was Aaron Hicks standing on third base as Teixeira struck out in an 0-for-3-with-a-walk night for the first-round bust, who has now wasted 255 plate appearances this season. And there was Alex Rodriguez watching from the dugout as he watched one of the four games remaining in his Yankees and possibly MLB career end without him playing in it.

Teixeira and Hicks aren’t the only Yankees who suck. Most of the time Brett Gardner, Brian McCann, Jacoby Ellsbury, Chase Headley and Starlin Castro do too. But right now at this moment with now just three games in A-Rod’s career left, Teixeira and Hicks are the focal point. Teixeira, because like A-Rod, his career is finished, but since he did the “You can’t break up with me because I’m breaking up with you” or the “You can’t fire me because I quit” in announcing his retirement he has immunity. And Hicks, because, well he sucks and is eating at-bats that could be given to A-Rod or Rob Refsnyder or anyone on the Triple-A roster or any prospect in the Yankees system that might actually have a future because Hicks certainly doesn’t.

A-Rod sarcastically laughed before that game at Joe Girardi because he was under the impression he would play these four games if he wanted to. Instead, Girardi said A-Rod would play on Thursday against a knuckleballer and on Friday against the Rays’ ace. His next at-bat will come nine days after his most recent at-bat and his next start will come 12 days after his most recent start.

Fenway Park started to chant “We want A-Rod” in the ninth inning on Tuesday night for one of just a few chances left to boo the player who was willing to give back $40 million to play for them 12 years ago, but they didn’t get him. Don’t they know the Yankees are trying to win games?