What an eventful week for the Yankees

The typical week in Major League Baseball features some drama, some intrigue, some high-quality performances, and some true wackiness.

For the New York Yankees, they managed to do all of those things on their own. It was quite a week for the Bronx Bombers, in ways good, bad, and zany. Let’s take a look at all the drama

Brian Cashman was mistakenly held at gunpoint

Well, hey, this seems like a pretty good place to start, year?

The Yankees General Manager got hit with the ol’ bait and switch, when his car was recently stolen. It was eventually located, and returned to him, but the police apparently forgot to clear it.

So when officers spotted the car out on the road, they did what they do with a stolen car: surrounded it at a gas station by a party of police officers with guns drawn. Check out these wild details, courtesy of the New York Post.

According to Cashman, Darien cops were already “responding to someone in a white Jeep that was brandishing a gun in a local doctor’s office.”

To make matters worse, when Darien police ran Cashman’s license plates, the vehicle came up stolen because “the NYPD never took me off the stolen car list,” he said.

As Cashman pulled out of the gas station as many as five patrol cars zoned in on him and between six to nine officers got out of their cars with their “guns drawn,” he said.

“They executed a very tactful interception,” Cashman said.

“They’re clearly very professional and trained and they asked me to turn my car off, exit the vehicle, walk backwards towards them…they were executing their duty.

My goodness.

Brett Gardner was ejected for . . . sitting?

Ahh, this will surely help the thriving relationship between players and umpires.

During the Yankees game on Friday against the Toronto Blue Jays, the team’s coaches were getting a little vocal about the strike zone. That led to a rare and frowned upon move by home plate umpire Chris Segal. He issued an ejection to the dugout, without offering a warning first.

Odd and bad, but not exactly newsworthy. But he ejected outfielder Brett Gardner, who acted out of line by . . . sitting in his dugout waiting for his turn to bat?

Gardner was so innocent in the action that he appeared to ask a teammate who was ejected, only to be utterly shocked when his name was the answer. Not surprisingly, that’s when he finally got in on the action of getting upset at the umpires. It’s rather fascinating to watch:

After the game, Gardner was justifiably livid, saying, “I didn’t even open my mouth, which is unusual for me. He just wanted to assume, or wanted to take a guess, and he was wrong. And then he lied to me about it — which is a huge problem — and that’s what made me a little upset.”

Gary Sanchez returned, and did Gary Sanchez things

The Yankees entered their game on Saturday within a half-game of the best record in baseball, despite a number of injuries. Giancarlo Stanton had only played nine games. Aaron Hicks had only played 59. Aaron Judge had only played 61.

And their leading home run hitter, catcher Gary Sanchez, had only played 77 of the team’s 114 contests, and hadn’t played since July 23.

The Yankees activated him Saturday, and he promptly did those things that make you wonder what this team would look like if fully healthy for a year.

He can hit.

New York stands pat, but runs wild

The Yankees received a fair amount of criticism from their fans for not making bigger moves at the trade deadline. In search of a starting pitcher, fans watched Marcus Stroman get traded to the other New York team, while Zack Greinke was picked up by a different American League powerhouse, the Houston Astros. The Yanks couldn’t convince the New York Mets to part with Noah Syndergaard, the San Francisco Giants to part with Madison Bumgarner, or any other number of big starting pitcher moves.

And then they answered the deadline criticism in the best way possible: By winning on deadline day, to kick off an eight-game winning streak.

That streak has since died, but it sure was an emphatic statement.

All in all: wild times in the Bronx.

[Editor’s note: if you want to follow the Yankees the rest of the season — either to see how they do or how they melt down over the front office doing absolutely nothing at the trade deadline to improve the pitching staff — check out their SB Nation site, Pinstripe Alley.]