Hahahahaha who’s that knucklehead? What a ridiculous, ill-informed thing to do, resting the weight of your prediction on a team’s bullpen, full of guys who are literally there because they are inconsistent, so much it’s accepted that you just don’t sign bullpen guys to long-term deals so you can build a team around them, because then you end up with a Ryan Madson or Jonathan Papelbon or whatever. Look at Fernando Rodney! In 2012, he had one of the greatest seasons in the history of pitching, and now his ERA is over 15, just because.

Oh. Uh, whoops. Last night’s 7-5 Yankees loss to the Orioles was the fault of relievers David Carpenter, Justin Wilson and Chris Martin. Their collective five-run meltdown in the sixth inning was a sharp heel turn for a staff that had ranked third in bullpen ERA before Wednesday.

Bullpen meltdowns happen. But the prospect and occurrence of them is particularly concerning for the Yankees, because their starting pitching hasn’t shown the skill or longevity that led PECOTA to project it for the top cumulative WARP in the A.L. East. The Yankees, before Wednesday, had received 36.1 innings from their bullpen, which was the most of any team in the majors. Then they got three tonight, so that ranking probably won’t drop significantly.

This was a particularly bad meltdown, of five runs in an inning, blowing a lead and ultimately leading to the team’s loss. What is the precedent for this happening to teams like the Yankees, who, if they are to make the playoffs, will have to outshoot their projections on the strength of their position, particularly the bullpen? (Because from the looks of it now, the offense sure isn’t going to pull the weight.)

The 2014 Royals are the ideal for this model for success. So, I did my own little Play Index segment (minus the Play Index, which was of no use to me for my specific query) and looked for games in which their bullpen, whether it be the fault of an individual pitcher of a combined effort, gave up more than five runs in an inning.

I found three instances: Aaron Brooks gave up six runs in the ninth against the Tigers on May 3; the Royals were already losing that game. Donnie Joseph and Michael Mariot gave up six runs in the ninth on June 16; the Royals were winning 11-2 before that inning, and the pitching debacle didn’t affect the final result. Finally, Bruce Chen gave up six runs against the Twins in the top of the 10th inning on Aug. 28…and I don’t think anything needs to be said there.

That was it. Three instances, and none of them involving guys who were actually a significant part of that bullpen. No Kelvin Herrera, Wade Davis, Greg Holland, Jason Frasor, Aaron Crow; you know, guys who were actually a significant part of that staff, in the same way Carpenter and Martin are for the Yankees right now.

I’m not saying that the Yankees blowing a game like this is a sign of impending doom. They’ve still got Andrew Miller and Dellin Betances to hold down the back end. Betances threw a scoreless inning tonight, and while his fastball was still in the mid, rather than upper, 90s, and he was missing badly on some pitches, he got strikeouts of Chris Davis (big whoop, I know) and Manny Machado.

But, at this point, things aren’t looking peachy, either.

Photo: Getty

Friday: Nothing’s ever beautiful, and everything hurts — Red Sox 6, Yankees 5 (19 innings)

19-inning games establish a dichotomy with their participants: The winning team wants to savor and relive every moment, and the loser just wants to forget everything and make a cup of warm milk (plus a little bourbon, maybe) and go to bed. There were a few things worth remembering for the Yankees this game, though.

Like Nathan Eovaldi, for example. The line was okay: three runs on eight hits on 5 1/3 innings. The stuff, however, showed moments of pure explosiveness.

Ignore the result: Check the velocity bug. Yeah, I know. Eovaldi’s always been a guy who’s gotten by on his stuff, in lieu of command. But better stuff gives you more room for error, and hitting 101 mph in a start, well, you can’t ask for much more than that. Oddly enough, Eovaldi only had one strikeout in Friday’s start, which was mainly a function of him just not getting into great counts on guys, and when he did, mainly going to the fastball, rather than a putaway breaking ball or offspeed pitch. And for all its heat, it’s also a bit straight, as you can see on Pedroia’s hit.

Apart from Esmil Rogers, which I think we can mostly forgive, because, like, it was super late and stuff and he was tagged as The Guy To Finish It, this was a pretty great game for the bullpen. The combination of Chris Martin, Justin Wilson, Dellin Betances, Andrew Miller, David Carpenter and Chasen Shreve allowed four hits in the nine innings that weren’t thrown by either Eovaldi or Rogers.

Saturday: Uh, we slept through this one… — Red Sox 8, Yankees 4

Three errors, leading to four unearned runs; a mere three chances with runners in scoring position; 11 strikeouts and two walks. Uh-huh.

The Yankees’ team batting average sat at .193 after this game. Pretty much the only offensive spark came from Chris Young’s three-run bomb in the eighth inning, which was off Alexi Ogando, which I’m pretty sure it only counts for half, or something like that.

Matt Tracy threw the last two innings, giving up three runs on two hits while walking two. He was promptly DFA’d after the game to be replaced by Kyle Davies, setting the not-too-young-but-also-not-too-old-white-dude-reliever carousel in motion again. Did you know Davies’ first name is actually Hiram?

Sunday: Time is a flat circle, and Clay Buchholz’s is a flat fastball — Yankees 14, Red Sox 4

I suppose there was some catharsis in this one. A-Rod cleared the bases with a double to make it 4-0 in the first inning. Then Chase Headley clobbered a Buchholz curveball to score Rodriguez and make it 6-0. Then Stephen Drew hit a solo shot. (#ThatsWhenYouKnow)

Buchholz actually managed to work his way through the second and third innings without the deficit worsening, an absolute necessity for a team whose bullpen had been reduced to scraps, but after Brett Gardner’s two-RBI single and Mark Teixeira’s sacrifice fly in the fourth, Buchholz was done, his post-CID Rust Cohle resemblance having seeped into his performance on the mound.

A particularly pressing issue for the Yankees was the continued assessment of the new junkballing version of Masahiro Tanaka. The verdict Sunday night was…eh. Five innings, four runs, four hits, four strikeouts, three walks. He didn’t allow a hit the first time through the order, but started to scuffle a bit in the fourth. He walked David Ortiz to lead off the inning, then threw two wild pitches to allow Ortiz to advance to third. Hanley Ramirez drove Ortiz in on a sacrifice fly, and Mike Napoli and Pablo Sandoval later scored on Xander Bogaerts’ double.

Tanaka’s wobbly command so far doesn’t jive with his history as a pitcher. He has five walks in nine innings this year, but he averaged just 1.4 per nine in 2014. It remains to be seen whether this is a sign of physical troubles or just a random blip.

As for Tanaka’s approach, he wasn’t quite the fastball-phobic type we saw in his first start. Seven of his nine pitches in the first inning, including all three 0-0 pitches, were four-seamers, cutters or sinkers. He didn’t start a batter off with an off-speed pitch until going first-pitch slider on Shane Victorino in the second, an at-bat Tanaka proceeded to finish off with five straight four-seamers.

Tanaka started to mix more breaking stuff in the second time through the order, which was also when his command started to waver. Both of the wild pitches he threw with Ortiz on base were splitters, and he threw two splitters in the dirt to wind up walking Mike Napoli.

If Tanaka is going to make pitches like those a more prominent part of his repertoire, either to save his elbow or just as part of his evolution as a pitcher, it’s clear that he’s going to have to command them better. He looked solid working off his fastball, but with the decreased velocity on that pitch, and with that the decreased utility the more batters he faces in a game, it’s simply not going to be a pitch he can consistently use to set up guys, lest they start teeing off early in at-bats.

We know Tanaka is a polished pitcher — you can’t put up numbers like last years’ without being so. But will he be able to up his craftiness and deception to the degree needed to offset the loss of velocity he’s experienced? The Yankees’ playoff hopes might ride on the outcome.

Rate the dingers!

It’s clutch, dramatic and was an absolute bomb. The standard to which all home runs should aspire. 10.5/10

This one didn’t have the two-out thrills of Headley’s, but it had the extra novelty bonus of coming in the early morning hours of Teixeira’s birthday. Plus, there’s always an extra nostalgia bonus for home runs hit to left field in Yankee Stadium(s) off knuckleballers. 8.768/10

MLB.com didn’t provide an embed code for this one, so that’s a five-point penalty right there. Sorry, Chris. Not your fault, but it also kinda is. Nice shot, though. 3.2/10

I had to make .gifs of these, too! Gah! Oh well, I’ve already used up my one five-point penalty for the segment. This was a good home run! Good job, Chase! Also, what an awful pitch that was by Buchholz. Pretty much exemplified the night for him right there. 8.5/10

Stephen Drew’s brother, J.D., was known for hitting some absolutely massive home runs, such as this one while he was at Florida State (caveat: it was with a juiced-up aluminum bat) that was estimated to have had the capability to travel 550 feet, and a 500 foot bomb at Fenway Park. This home run is the opposite of those. 5.2342/10

John Kruk said something on the broadcast about this ball being a foot away from being a single. I mean, he’s not wrong. 3.22/10

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