1. A day after doing the improbable by scoring four runs in an inning, the Yankees’ offense achieved what was thought to be impossible and scored 10 runs in a game in their 10-5 win over the Mariners. It was the first time since July 9 that the Yankees scored double-digit runs in a game, and the second time since June 17.

2. Trent Grisham went 3-for-5 with a double and two home runs. Grisham struck out to begin the game and has now made an out as the leadoff hitter in the first inning in 52 of 67 games. None of his three hits came as the leadoff hitter in any inning on Wednesday.

3. Ben Rice and Ryan McMahon each went 2-for-4 with a double, Spencer Jones went 2-for-4 with two doubles and George Lombard Jr. also went 2-for-4. Jazz Chisholm and Austin Wells both had hits. The only two starters to not get hits were … you guessed it … the two deadline acquisitions in Luis Garcia and Heliot Ramos. Garcia is hitting .222/.276/.407 as a Yankee and Ramos is hitting .083/.241/.167. The Yankees went 13-for-35 with eight extra-base hits, three walks and eight strikeouts.

4. The Yankees needed a big, unexpected night from their offense because Will Warren was awful once again: 4 IP, 6 H, 5 R, 5 ER, 4 BB, 3 K, 3 HR. The Mariners had scored nine runs over their last seven games and Warren allowed five runs, 10 baserunners and three home runs in just four innings. 

5. Warren put the Yankees in a 3-0 hole before they had an opportunity to bat and when they got one of the runs back in the second, Warren gave up another run in the third. After Warren threw a scoreless fourth, the offense pulled the Yankees to within 4-3 in the bottom of the fourth. Aaron Boone figured he would give Warren a fifth inning to figure it out even though it was evident he wasn’t going to figure it out and Warren walked the leadoff hitter in the fifth. That was enough for Boone as he put an end to trying to steal another inning from Warren. At least Boone didn’t mess around by going to Ryan Yarbrough to eat some middle innings and immediately went to his real relievers.

6. Fernando Cruz, Tim Hill, Paul Blackburn and Brent Headrick combined for four scoreless innings and by the time the ninth inning came, the Yankees had a five-run lead and could give David Bednar the night off. Yerry De los Santos nearly forced Bednar into the game when he put two on in the ninth, but worked around the jam to end the game.

7. The win was the Yankees’ fourth in their last five games and fifth in their last seven. The problem is that going 5-2 in their last seven has lost them two games in the standings to the Rays, who won their ninth straight game on Wednesday. As I have written the last few days, the division race is over unless the Rays suddenly play something like .333 baseball. Because right now, if the Rays play just .500 baseball for the rest of the season, they win 95 games, and the Yankees would have to go 28-14 to win the division.

8. The first wild card is where the focus is now and the Red Sox lost their fifth straight game on Wednesday, so the Yankees’ lead on the first wild card is back up to four games. If we use the same .500 projection from above for the Yankees, they will finish with 89 wins if they play .500 baseball for the rest of the season. The Red Sox would have to go 25-17 to tie them. I don’t see the Yankees playing just .500 for the remainder of the season even if they have been close to a .500 team for three months now. With the schedule softening up and reinforcements on the way, the Yankees should be able to stack wins more easily, especially in September.

9. But first they have to get to September. And between now and the all-important four-game series against the Red Sox in the final weekend of August, the Yankees have one more game with the Mariners, six with the Blue Jays, three with the Orioles and three with the Astros. It would be great if the Yankees had at least a three-game lead over the Red Sox going into that series, so that winning just one game would ensure they leave that weekend with the first wild card spot.

10. On Wednesday, the Yankees have the opportunity to do something they haven’t done since July 10-12 in the final games before the All-Star break: sweep a series. That sweep of the Nationals is the Yankees’ only sweep since June 8-10 (against the Guardians). Max Fried gets the ball, which is an important ingredient in attempting a sweep, but the offense will need to show up and give him some semblance of support.

1. I wasn’t surprised that Tuesday’s Yankees-Mariners game was 0-0 through five innings. I wasn’t surprised when the Mariners took a 1-0 lead on a solo home run in the sixth, and I wasn’t surprised when the Yankees trailed 1-0 in the seventh. I was surprised when the Yankees rallied to tie the game and then take the lead in the seventh en route to a 4-1 win.

2. The four runs the Yankees scored in the seventh inning were more runs than they had scored in 10 of their previous 13 games. It was just the third time since July 27 that the Yankees scored four runs in an inning. To add to the unbelievability of the four-run outburst, the Yankees did it all without the long ball.

3. Luis Garcia doubled to lead off the seventh and Jazz Chisholm followed with a single to put runners on the corners with no outs. George Lombard Jr. — batting sixth for the second time as a major leaguer in his sixth career game — struck out for the first out. Spencer Jones walked to load the bases and Ryan McMahon singled in Garcia and Chisholm with a ground ball through the infield. Austin Wells followed with a bloop single to reload the bases, and Trent Grisham singled in Jones and McMahon with another ground ball through the infield. It’s crazy what can happen when the ball is put in play!

4. Ryan Weathers was very good again (5.2 IP, 2 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 3 BB, 4 K, 1 HR). It was Weathers’ fourth straight strong start and in those four starts, he has this line: 24.1 IP, 15 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 8 BB, 21 K, 1 HR, 0.74 ERA, 0.945 WHIP. Someone is going to have to come out of the rotation when Carlos Rodon is activated and that someone shouldn’t be Weathers.

5. Tim Hill rediscovered his ability to induce ground balls instead of allow home runs and retired all four batters he faced with grounders. Brent Headrick added to his major-league-leading scoreless appearance total with his 51st such appearance (stat from Katie Sharp), and David Bednar closed the door by working around an infield single that should have been ruled an error on Chisholm.

6. Grisham went 2-for-4, but led off the game with an out for the 51st time in 66 games. Rice went 0-for-3 with a walk and three strikeouts, as he’s down to .121/.237/.242 over the last three weeks. Heliot Ramos put up another 0-for, as he’s 2-for-21 with nine strikeouts as a Yankee. (Good thing two prospects got traded and Jasson Dominguez got sent down for Ramos!) Garcia went 2-for-4 and Chisholm went 1-for-3 with a walk. Lombard Jr. singled the other way in his first at-bat, grounded out in his second at-bat, struck out in this third at-bat and grounded out on the 12th pitch of his fourth at-bat, as the quality of his at-bats remains impressive. Jones went 0-for-2 with a walk, McMahon went 1-for-3 and Wells went 1-for-3. It was the most positive all-around offensive performance in weeks.

7. “Been a struggle several weeks now where it’s been difficult for us scoring runs,” Aaron Boone said. “We’ve had to play in a lot of really close games … and don’t do a good job against a lot of good teams winning those games.”

It hasn’t been a struggle to score runs for several weeks, it’s been several months now. And who exactly are the “good” teams the Yankees are beating in close games? The Braves? OK. The Mariners? They are eight games under .500. The Cardinals? They are .500 and sold at the deadline. The Cubs? OK. The White Sox? No. The Phillies? They are currently out of the playoff picture.

“I hope it serves us well in the end,” Boone said about playing close games every day. “I think that there’s value in playing these games and proving we can win in these games.”

I agree there is value in playing in and winning these games, however, it won’t serve them well when Headrick and Bednar have nothing left at the end of the season. If the Yankees as an organization care about whether or not they host the Wild Card series they will inevitably be playing in, then they are going to be playing with a purpose up until the final days of the season. There’s going to be no early clinch and treating the last weeks of the season like the end of spring training. The Yankees are going to be in a battle with the Red Sox for where the Wild Card series takes place up until the end.

8. Fortunately, there is once again some separation between the two teams as the Red Sox lost their fourth straight game on Tuesday. If the regression train and Baseball Gods are coming for the Red Sox’ insane run since the Yankees saved their season at the end of June, then they are due for many more losses. The Yankees once again have a three-game lead over the Red Sox. The head-to-head tiebreaker is going to be crucial in this matchup and the Red Sox currently have a 5-4 edge with a four-game series remaining between the two at the end of August.

Here are the schedules for both teams between now and their four-games-in-three-day series to close out the month:

Yankees: Mariners (2), Blue Jays (3), Orioles (3), Blue Jays (3), Astros (3)

Red Sox: Blue Jays (2), Pirates (3), Diamondbacks (3), Giants (3), Marlins (3)

9. As I wrote last week when the Red Sox tied the Yankees in the loss column, not allowing the Red Sox to officially pass the Yankees in the standings was important. There’s something to be said for the Red Sox having been as hot as they were only to tie the Yankees in the loss column. All of that work never got them past the Yankees. Had the Red Sox gotten past them, I think it would have been the end for the Yankees getting the first wild card.

And getting the first wild card is what it’s all about now. As I laid out yesterday, the math for the division just isn’t there unless the Rays have a monumental collapse, and all the Rays did last night was take an early 6-0 lead and go on to win their eighth straight game. Sadly, the division is theirs.

10. But that’s what happens when you fuck around for the middle two months of the season, like the Yankees do every year and then try to make it all up in the final two months. The math wasn’t in the Yankees’ favor at this time last year, but their easy schedule and the Blue Jays’ late-season slump led the Yankees to tie them with 94 wins, but the Blue Jays held the head-to-head tiebreaker and it changed the course of the postseason. The Yankees are the same six games back on August 12 that they were last August 12, but like last year, they are unlikely to hold the tiebreaker (the Rays need to win one of four against the Yankees to get it) even if everything unfolds their way.

1. The Yankees continue to do the bare minimum. After going 6-4 on a road trip in which they blew three late leads, the Yankees went 3-3 this past week at home against the crappy Cardinals and the very good Braves. Since Saturday’s Thoughts, the Yankees won a game started by Chris Sale before losing yet another extra-inning game.

Over the last five games, the Yankees scored 12 runs or 2.4 runs per game. What I wrote in Friday’s Thoughts (The Yankees have one way to win at the moment: get an outstanding pitching performance and score two runs. That’s it. A quality start isn’t good enough to give them a chance to win. They need near perfection. They need something like six scoreless innings to have a chance.) remains true. Only once over the last five games would a quality start have been good enough to win. Only twice in the the last 10 games would a quality start have been good enough to win.

2. The Yankees’ ways of scoring runs has become a modified version of the trivia question ‘What are the different ways to reach first base?’ The Yankees only seem to score runs if there is an error, balk, wild pitch, passed ball or a random home run. On Saturday against Sale, they took advantage of a Sale balk and a couple of late solo home runs to win. On Sunday, their only run was a solo home run. It’s hard to hit multi-run home runs when there’s no one on base. I would have liked to see Jacob Misiorowski against this version of the Yankees offense, considering they have made Colin Rea, Andre Pallante, Tyler Mahle and Grant Holmes look like Misiorowski recently. Over the weekend, the Yankees went 12-for-62 with seven walks and 22 strikeouts. But yes, keep on waiting for all of the dead wood in the lineup to “get it going” and “turn the corner.” I’m sure it will happen any day now, 118 games into the season.

3. It’s amazing how Luis Garcia and Heliot Ramos joined the Yankees and were immediately infected by the offense’s inability to do anything. Garcia joined the Yankees as the league leader in slugging, hit a home run in his first game with the team and is 2-for-15 with two singles since. Ramos came over as the third-best hitter in recent years against lefties not named Aaron Judge or Yordan Alvarez, and at 2-for-17 with seven strikeouts as a Yankee, the Yankees could have just kept the prospects they traded for him and kept playing Jasson Dominguez. When these two are your 3-4 hitters, following a 1-2 duo of Trent Grisham and Ben Rice, who are also slumping to no end, you get an offense whose ceiling remains three runs.

4. Grisham was back in the leadoff spot on Sunday and back making an out to lead off the game. Grisham has now started 50 of 65 games as the leadoff hitter with an out. But then in the eighth inning, Grisham did what he always does, which is hit a random solo home run from time to time. Here is what I wrote about Grisham back in May during the Subway Series:

Grisham always seems to do just enough to reset his place atop the order. After a bad week, he’ll hit a ball out or pick up a pair of doubles to maintain his place in the lineup and then suck for the next week and then do something positive, over and over.

Well, that solo home run was his positive impact for the week or maybe two or maybe three. Grisham will likely disappear now for a few series and just when you think, maybe just maybe he will finally be moved down in the order, he will pop another one out, and then the process starts over again.

5. It’s no different for Jazz Chisholm, who provides infrequent positive production. I hate to say it, but I don’t think Chisholm is going to hit 50 home runs this season like he said he would back in February.

“I just can’t help, but get that gut feeling — it’s going to be an amazing year,” Chisholm said at the beginning of spring training.

Chisholm has never made a proclamation that has come true. He said the 2024 Yankees would win the World Series. They did not. During the pennant-winning celebration in Cleveland, he told the Yankees to “pay Juan Soto.” They did not. Last year, he said the Yankees would win the division. They did not. He also said the Yankees would win the World Series. They did not. This year he said he would hit 50 home runs and steal 50 bases. He needs to hit 33 home runs in 44 games. He also said his teammates told him he’s “the greatest player in the world.” Here I was thinking Shohei Ohtani was the greatest player in the world when the actual greatest player in the world has been right in front of me all along with his .216 batting average, .295 on-base percentage and .690 OPS as a hitter who is 8 percent worse than league average. Chisholm isn’t even an average hitter, let alone THE GREATEST PLAYER IN THE WORLD.

Chisholm sat against Sale and went 2-for-15 with six strikeouts in the other five games against the Cardinals and Braves, contributing one of the worst throwing errors you’ll ever see on Sunday.

6. It wasn’t all bad. Everything about George Lombard Jr.’s game continues to mirror Derek Jeter and Spencer Jones seems to slowly be figuring out major-league pitching. But that’s where the good ends. Grisham and Rice continue to struggle, Garcia and Ramos are lost, Chisholm’s season is unsalvageable, Ryan McMahon is unplayable and Austin Wells is an atrocity. When Judge comes back, the Yankees need 2022-25 Judge. When Cody Bellinger comes back, the Yankees need 2025 Bellinger. If Giancarlo Stanton comes back, the Yankees need 2017 Stanton.

7. The Yankees continue to give injury updates on Stanton like he’s recovering from a life-threatening event. There are people who suffer traumatic brain injuries who learn to walk again faster than Stanton heals from a calf injury.

On Saturday, Boone said Stanton has “started the introduction to some bases.” What does that mean? “Giancarlo, meet first base. First base, meet Giancarlo.” Why do the Yankees try to sound so smart and bolster words and phrases that don’t need bolstering. Brian Cashman is the worst at it. It’s like the Yankees are using a thesaurus in every press conference too. Just talk normal. “He has started to run the bases.”

Boone also said, “He’ll be in there when the time’s right.”

The Yankees are petrified to give injury return timetables. They keep Judge injury information sealed like it’s plans for a military attack. They have been so bad and so wrong at diagnosing and treating injuries dating back to Judge’s wrist injury nine years ago that now they have decided to just share nothing. And then when Judge gets asked if he’s coming back, he acts surprised that would even be a question. Well, considering you haven’t played in more than two months, it’s a fair question. It will be absurd if Judge returns with what was deemed to be a potential season-ending injury before Stanton returns from a calf injury the Yankees initially said may not require an injured list stint.

8. On Sunday, Cam Schlittler pitched seven innings, allowed one run on a solo home run and struck out 11 and the Yankees lost. Schlittler is the favorite to win the AL Cy Young, leads the league in ERA, starts and innings pitched, and yet, the Yankees are only 15-10 in his starts.

These are Schlittler starts the Yankees have lost.

6 IP, 0 ER
6 IP, 2 ER
5 IP, 0 ER
6.1 IP, 1 ER
7 IP, 1 ER

There’s the division race summed up.

9. The Rays have 45 games remaining. If they go 22-23, they will finish at 93-69. The Yankees need to go 27-17 to finish with 93 wins. If the Rays win one of the four remaining games against the Yankees, they win the division tiebreaker, and because of that the Yankees would have to finish with one more win than the Rays. So if the Rays go 22-23, the Yankees have to go 28-16. A team with a .607 winning percentage playing under .500 the rest of the season is just as unlikely as a team with a .559 winning percentage playing .667 baseball for the rest of the season. Barring an unforeseen Rays collapse and Yankees surge, the division is over.

If you think the Yankees can win the division, then you must think the Yankees can miss the playoffs because the Yankees are six games back in the loss column from the Rays and seven games up in the loss column on a playoff spot. I’m not one of those people since I don’t think the Yankees can win the division, but know they won’t miss the playoffs. What does that mean? That means back to the best-of-3 Wild Card round for a second straight season. That means playing the Red Sox in a best-of-3. The only thing on the table now is if those three games will be at Yankee Stadium or Fenway Park. Given how this team has handled playing at Fenway Park this year and last, a Wild Card series there means elimination.

10. The Rays and Red Sox seem to do what the Yankees can’t. The Yankees couldn’t beat the Dodgers and struggled with the White Sox. The Red Sox swept both teams. The Rays just swept the Mariners in Seattle. The Mariners show up in the Bronx on Tuesday. Let’s see if the Yankees can take care of business like the Rays did and beat a fraudulent Mariners team that is seven games under .500. Beat the Mariners like the Rays did and finally get some help from whomever is playing the Rays and Red Sox, since neither of those teams seems to lose and neither rarely lose two games in a row.

1. For most of Friday’s game against the Braves, it felt like an inevitable loss. The Yankees once again couldn’t score and could barely “muster” (an Aaron Boone buzzword) any offense. It felt like only a matter of time until the Braves broke through with a home run and they eventually did in the eighth and again in the ninth. Trailing 2-0, when Raisel Iglesias struck out Spencer Jones to begin the ninth, another Yankees loss was on its way.

Not just any loss either. With the Red Sox having won already, a Yankees loss would mean the Red Sox would pass the Yankees in the standings, a feat that seemed impossible when they trailed by 15 games at the end of June. Not only that, but the Rays were working on closing out the Mariners in the ninth in Seattle. The Yankees were going to fall farther behind the Rays, get passed by the Red Sox and finish the night in third place in the AL East.

2. George Lombard Jr. was able to beat out a slow roller in the infield that Iglesias picked up and launched well past first base, allowing Lombard Jr. to move to third. The tying run was on base with two cracks at potentially tying the game, the only problem was that the two cracks belonged to Ryan McMahon and Austin Wells.

Having yet to strike out in the game, McMahon made sure to do so in the ninth for the second out of the inning, leaving the final out of the game in the hands of Wells — the worst offensive player in all of baseball. Somehow, Wells managed to double to right field to score Lombard Jr. and extend the game. The only problem was that the game was being extended for Amed Rosario.

The improbability of the inning continued when Rosario worked an eight-pitch walk against Iglesias. Now the Yankees really had something with Ben Rice coming to the plate. Rice came through with the biggest hit of the season to date, drilling the ball off the base of the wall in right field to score Wells and tie the game. Because nothing has been going the Yankees’ way the past two months, the ball couldn’t have gone over the wall to end the game or bounced away from Ronald Acuna to end the game. Instead, the ball stayed in and Acuna played it perfectly to hold Rosario at third, and eventually the game moved to extra innings.

3. The Yankees are the worst road extra-inning team since the implementation of the automatic runner, but they’re also the best home team during the same time. David Bednar pitched around the automatic runner in the 10th to set up a scenario in which the Yankees could walk off the Braves without recording a hit.

Easier said than done for the clown show that is the Yankees when it comes to baseball fundamentals. With Luis Garcia serving as the automatic runner, Jose Caballero stepped up to the plate with a myriad of options available to him to handle his at-bat. Caballero attempted to bunt the first pitch of the at-bat in what was one of the worst bunt attempts anyone has ever seen. Behind 0-1 in the count, Caballero then decided to swing away at the next pitch, a pitch that was at least a foot off the plate and he swung through it wildly to push the count to 0-2. Prior to the third pitch of the bat, Caballero showed bunt, but it was obviously only going to be for show to try to throw off Braves relier Tyler Kinley. Or not. Caballero did indeed try to bunt with two strikes and fouled the pitch away for an out. With the strikeout on a foul bunt, given the process of the at-bat, the situation and the magnitude of the game, Caballero officially clinched worst plate appearance of the season for the Yankees. It won’t be topped. It can’t be topped.

4. The Braves then did the Yankees a favor by walking Jones to put runners on first and second with one out. No, Jones’ run didn’t mean anything other than to set up a potentially double play and let Kinley face the right-handed rookie Lombard Jr. But if Kinley was going to strike anyone out in the inning, it was going to be Jones, and the Braves foolishly put him on. Lombard Jr. followed with a walk to load the bases and McMahon followed with a walk-off sacrifice fly for a 3-2 win.

5. Rice’s game-tying hit was the biggest moment of the game, until Luis Garcia made an over-the-shoulder-catch in right field with his back to the infield to keep the game tied at 2 in the 10th. Without that play, the Braves take a lead in extra innings and who knows how the bottom of the inning plays out. Actually, I think we all know how it plays out if the Yankees fall behind.

6. “It’s good to come out on top,” McMahon said. “We’ve got to get going a little more. It’s not from a lack of work or effort.”

No, it’s not from a lack of work or effort. It’s from a lack of talent. The Yankees have a lack of offensive talent, but they knew that last season and ran it back with the same offense this season. The below-league-average hitters like McMahon (and Wells and Caballero) are living up to their career track records. Goldschmidt was always going to fade as the season wore on, just like he did last year. Grisham was never going to replicate his 2025 season, and Chisholm being the head case he is, was always going to crumble under the pressure of being an impending free agent, just like he has crumbled in his two postseasons as a Yankee. Every offensive problem the Yankees have isn’t a surprise. It was to be expected. Add in injuries and you get the kind of disgraceful offensive performances the team provides on a daily basis.

7. It was another hitless game for leadoff-hitter-no-matter-what Trent Grisham. Grisham is down to 6-for-55 with nine walks leading off a game. I don’t see a need for a lineup change. Having a leadoff hitter who has started 40 of 55 games with an out is exactly what you want.

Rice was only 1-for-5 with three strikeouts, but the one was enormous. Jazz Chisholm went 0-for-3 with two strikeouts before he was pulled for a pinch hitter and then showed up back in the dugout in a T-shirt, as did Grisham. Paul O’Neill was quick to call them out for it. It wouldn’t surprise me if O’Neill is suddenly not on the broadcast this weekend. When Michael Kay said he had people in the Yankees tell him Anthony Volpe refused to play second base in the minors back in May, Kay did an about-face a day later and said it was not true. How dare O’Neill question how Boone manages his team, clubhouse and dugout. If Chisholm wants to pout after being removed from a game and wear a T-shirt in the dugout, so be it. When you’re nine percent worse than league average, you can do whatever you want: suck on lollipops in the field or in the batter’s box, make unhinged and emotional challenges on called strikes, get ejected from games, get tagged up on infield pop-ups, say your teammates told you you’re the greatest player in the world. Do whatever you want!

8. Fernando Cruz and Tim Hill both gave up solo home runs in the game as both have fallen far in terms of trustworthiness in recent weeks. Cruz has allowed 16 baserunners and three home runs in his last nine innings over the last three weeks. Hill has allowed six home runs and has a 5.84 ERA over the last month (12 1/3 innings).

Here is my current order of trust in the bullpen with gaps in between:

David Bednar
…
Brent Headrick
…
…
…
Paul Blackburn
…
…
…
…
…
Fernando Cruz
…
Tim Hill (much higher on the list if he’s entering with two outs in an inning and a lefty up)
…
…
…
Ryan Yarbrough

That’s not great for a team that didn’t trade for a single reliever at the deadline.

9. Max Fried was really good (6.1 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 2 BB, 7 K) because Max Fried is really good. I expect greatness out of him every time he takes the ball. And for the most part, as a Yankee, he has delivered. (Outside of the biggest start of his Yankees career in Game 2 of the ALDS.)

10. Not allowing the Red Sox to officially pass the Yankees in the standings is important. There’s something to be said for the Red Sox going 32-5 in their last 37 games only to tie the Yankees in the loss column. All of that work hasn’t even gotten them past the Yankees. Maybe that happens on Saturday. The Red Sox are paying the embarrassing Athletics, while the Yankees are facing Chris Sale. But at least there’s still the possibility now that it doesn’t happen and never happens.

If the Red Sox do end up passing the Yankees, I think the Yankees won’t recover in the standings and will end up as the second wild card. That can’t happen. It’s Gerrit Cole’s job to make sure it doesn’t happen on Saturday. He’s going to need some help from an offense that hasn’t been able to hit Colin Rea or Andre Pallante or Tyler Mahle of late, so I don’t know how they plan on scoring against the future Hall of Famer in Sale ,who is experiencing the highest average fastball velocity of his career at age 37.