April Madness: Where Have You Gone, Bobby Shmagoola?

NEW YORK — So, I picked one heck of a day to come to New York and write about Aaron Judge.

Judge was pulled in the eighth inning with the Yankees down to Minnesota 11-1. He went 0-for-3 with two feeble-looking strikeouts. He lost his 45-game on-base streak. Whew. This game will humble even the immortals among us.

Jhony Brito was the Yankees’ starting pitcher … and before the game began, there was this sort of hopeful buzz about him. He’s 25 years old, has been kicking around the Yankees’ minor league system since 2016 and he only made the team because Luis Severino (not atypically) got hurt. But Brito pitched five scoreless innings in his big-league debut and he gave up three hits and just one run in his second outing, and there was this sense that maybe the Yankees had lucked upon a real third or fourth starter option.

And there might still be that hope … but yeah, after this inning it’s a little fainter.

Edouard Julien led off with a 104-mph line drive single.

Carlos Correa managed an infield single between short and third.

Byron Buxton drew a walk.

After a Trevor Larnach sac fly, Jose Miranda smashed a 99-mph double. Donovan Solano followed a 97-mph double. After a groundout, Christian Vazquez hit a 100-mph double.

I keep mentioning the mph because before we knew the actual numbers, the way to describe these hits was to say that they were rockets or scorching line drives or something like that. We can now offer up a slightly more precise description of the Twins battering Brito’s pitches.

Michael A. Taylor finished the Brito bashing with a 104-mph, 418-foot blast to centerfield. At this point, there was this astonishingly loud Yankees fan — it’s like he had a bullhorn inside his chest — screaming again and again: “Get this $&$*#& guy out of there!” They did get Brito out of there, and Colten Brewer came in and promptly gave up back-to-back homers to Julien and Correa. That made it 9-0 Twins.

But I will say this: