This Week on the Blog

The Yanks lost more players and lost more games, possibly, because of the injury absences and young players like Gleyber Torres and Aaron Judge being "rested." Judge has missed a huge chunk of the season already. The Giants prepared to face the Bills, and maybe play some defense?  The Rangers opened camp.  And the Knicks' Frank Ntilikina scored 11 points, and was +22 as Team France beat Team USA, which is good for Frank, and unacceptable on every other level. Let's take a look at this week.

Yankees: The Yanks are supposed to get Sevy and Staton back. That could and should be huge. A premier pitcher and an NL MVP. So let's hope they play like they can.  Missing Sanchez, again, and Encarnacion, again, is going to be tough. But Stanton can replace a lot of that jolt and EE is thought to have a different kind and less mild form of oblique injury than the one that cost Judge so many games. Now they need to take care of business.

Giants: The Giants were befuddled by Dallas's play calls last week, and probably looked far worse than they really are. Giants had a game like that against the Colts years ago, when the Colts just reversed tendencies and really made the Giants look bad. So that's one possibility. The other is that they're just a bad bunch of player stuck in a bad scheme. We've seen that before, too.  So tomorrow, if if they can get a few stops and not forget they have Saquon Barkley, they could look much better. Sterling Shepard will miss the game with a concussion, so all the more reason to keep going to Saquon.

Rangers: The Rangers opened camp Thursday, and took care of physicals.  Then yesterday they did the skate testing which both Lemieux and Kakko mentioned as "hard." Today they have their first on ice practice.  So its the first time that Panarin, Trouba,  Mika, Kakko, Kravstov and Fox will be out there together. Pretty cool. They're preseason schedule starts Wednesday, which could be our first exposure to Kappo/Hughes -- and that already feels played. Still, nice to have them back.

Knicks: So, outside the aegis of MSG someone found a winning use for Frank. Interesting, You used to hear coaches say their job was to come up with a scheme that works for the players they have.  Not sure if that's a thing anymore - or if coaches ever meant it.  I remember Dan Reeves coming in and cutting Pepper Johnson and others to bring in players he had in Denver. Anyway, Frank really has never gotten a chance with the Knicks and he's still only 21. They need to give him a try.  +22 guarding Kemba is outstanding.

So, there it is, Yanks need to keep on keeping on.  The Giants need to show us something better. The Rangers need to ford a team, and the Knicks need to give Frank a chance.  Have a great one.