New York Yankees: Baseball's 'Walking Dead'

Recently, I have gotten hooked on the cable TV series 'The Walking Dead.' Which, as it related to the American League Championship Series, is entirely appropriate. The New York Yankees are currently baseball's version of 'The Walking Dead.'

Down 2-0 to the Detroit Tigers in the best-of-seven ALCS the Yankees are alive. They still have have a chance to come back, reach the World Series and win the 28th World Series title in franchise history. Technically.

Does anyone really believe the Yankees have prayer of coming back and winning four of the next five games against the Detroit Tigers? If so, you're likely as deluded as Herschel, the country veterinarian who thought his walker wife could be cured and brought back to life.

The Yankees, for all intents and purposes, are already dead.

- Yankees' fans were so disgusted with the anemic effort they saw in the first two games of the ALCS that they booed loud and long. At least those who bothered to show up, or stick around. There were plenty of empty seats in the house that Steinbrenner greed built.

- The Yankees are batting .192 in the ALCs thus far and .205 overall. In seven games they have scored 20 runs, seven of those in one game.

- Alex Rodriguez has been pinch-hit for a couple of times and benched. He is 3-for-23 (.130) with 12 strikeouts overall in the postseason.

- Robinson Cano is 2-for-32 (.063) and hasn't had a hit in the last five games.

- Nick Swisher is 4-for-26 (.154) and crying because the Yankee Stadium fans are being mean to him.

- Curtis Granderson is 3-for-26 (.115) with 14 strikeouts.

The Yankees, seriously, might as well walk up to home plate with toothpicks in their hands. They stagger to the plate like zombies who don't know how they got there or what to do since they are there, flail weakly at a couple of pitches, then stagger back to the dugout and sit down.

Add in the fact that Derek Jeter is on crutches with a broken ankle and if the Yankees have a heartbeat it is an incredibly faint one. Only the heroics of Raul Ibanez have kept them alive to this point.

Oh, one more thing. Detroit ace Justin Verlander, quite possibly the best pitcher in baseball, toes the rubber at Comerica Park for the Tigers Tuesday night. Does anyone really think the Yankees are going to break out of this hitting malaise against Verlander?

Like I said, the Yankees already appear to be baseball's 'Walking Dead.'

Verlander and the Tigers can put another nail in their coffin Tuesday night. And at the rate things are going when the Tigers finally finish off the Yankees it might just be considered a mercy killing.