MARWIN GONZALEZ COMPARISON OF THE YANKEES & ASTROS RUBS ME THE WRONG WAY

I will be fully transparent here... I am still having a hard time embracing Marwin Gonzalez in a Yankee uniform. I don't have to like this reality and I also don't have to accept his comparison between the Yankees and the 2017 ASSTROS. In his mind it is a compliment but I'm not buying it.

The Yankees 11 game win streak just came to an end, and his base running miracle on Tuesday may have impressed Aaron Boone and Aaron Judge, but I am not ready to sing his praises. Judge and Boone can continue to do that, and you can catch that HERE if you missed it. Judge may want Gonzalez to teach him a few things, but I don't. Gonzalez caught a lucky break, it played in the Yankees favor and I will agree with Gonzalez when he called that kind of outcome in the situation as "rare" but there isn't much more that we will agree on.

The other part of his assessment is what I will never agree with. Gonzalez was asked to compare the talent of the 2017 Astros and the 2022 Yankees. Do the Yankees compare? "It’s a really good team," Gonzalez said. "I would say yes." Too bad he's wrong....

Gonzalez can keep telling himself that these two teams and rosters compare. I'm sure he's brainwashed and actually believes it to be true and that makes him look even dumber than I thought he was. The ASSTROS were only as "good" as they were on paper because they cheated and compromised the game. Gonzalez benefitted the most out of anyone on that cheating squad. If he didn't have a trash can signal to tell him a fastball was coming that .303 BA doesn't exist. The cheating scandal of 2017 inflates his stats and is the only reason he has a career average of .256 BA. So he's a lying, cheating fool. No trash cans or buzzers needed here.

He's right about one other thing....this Yankee team has been 'a really good team' so far. It's only May and there is a lot of baseball left but so far this team is living up to expectations. There is a lot of talent on this team, but this is a BETTER team than the 2017 ASSTROS. They can do everything the ASSTROS did without stealing signs, using trash cans and cheating. Their tainted championship is something the ASSTROS felt they couldn't achieve without cheating. If they believed they had the talent and could win it all they wouldn't have had to cheat to give them a competitive edge. It's plain and simple and he's WRONG.

At the end of the day I want to see Gonzalez do well because he wears our uniform. He needs to be a smarter player for us then he ever was as an Astro. Even if I forgive what he did before he was one of us that doesn't mean I forgive or accept his comparison. We are better than the 2017 ASSTROS could have ever hoped to be. 

--Jeana Bellezza-Ochoa

BYB Senior Managing Editor

Twitter: @nyprincessj