1. I REALLY LOVE THE KANSAS CITY ROYALS! After sweeping the Royals at Yankee Stadium in April, the Yankees swept them at Kauffman Stadium this week to sweep the six-game season series. The Yankees swept the season series from the Royals last year as well and have now won 14 straight games against them dating back to Game 3 of the 2024 ALDS.

2. The Yankees didn’t just go 6-0 against the Royals this year, they embarrassed them. The Yankees outscored them 50-8. They blew them out multiple times. They beat them in a one-run game. They shut them out twice. They blew two late leads against them only to beat them anyway. If only the Royals were more than a two-bat offense Yankees fans could dream about possibly facing them again in the postseason for an easy path to the pennant, but unfortunately, at 12 games under and in last place in the AL Central, the 2026 Royals aren’t going to the postseason.

3. The Yankees are going to the postseason though and the way I analyze them from Opening Day through Game 162 is with the postseason in mind. How the Yankees get there matters. After last year’s Wild Card Series appearance screwed up their rotation and their lack of home-field advantage screwed up the ALDS, winning the division is imperative. The division race was a in bad place after Friday’s game against the Rays when the Yankees fell seven games back in the loss column, but since then, four straight Yankees wins and four straight Rays losses has them just three games back again. (Thank you to the Orioles for doing to the Rays this week what no other team has been able to do to them this season.)

4. Here is what I wrote about Noah Cameron before Wednesday’s game:

The Yankees faced Cameron back on April 18 at Yankee Stadium in the 13-4 win. In that game, the first time through the order, the Yankees only produced a walk (Aaron Judge). The second time through the order, the Yankees went home run (Rosario), walk (Judge), home run (Cody Bellinger), ground out (Giancarlo Stanton), home run (Rice), double (Randal Grichuk). The Yankees got to Cameron for seven runs between the third and fourth innings.

Cameron had nearly an identical performance in this one. He went nine up, nine down through three innings and then the Yankees went single, triple, sacrifice fly off of him the second time through the order to take a 2-0 lead. While Cameron was better in this start against the Yankees, they made him work, drove up his pitch count and he only lasted five innings.

5. The Yankees got to the Royals’ bullpen for five runs over four innings. The 3-through-6 hitters (Aaron Judge, Cody Bellinger, Amed Rosario and Anthony Volpe) went 0-for-12 with two walks and three strikeouts, but the Yankees got enough out of Goldschmidt (two hits, walk, RBI), Rice (two hits, walk, three RBIs) and Ryan McMahon (two hits, including a two-run home run). Austin Wells once again provided nothing offensively, going 0-for-4 with two strikeouts. In the seventh inning, the Yankees led just 2-0 and had the bases loaded with one out and Wells up. Wells struck out on three pitches and immediately jumped to the top of the list for the least competitive at-bat of the season with his pathetic approach. I don’t think he will be unseated from the top spot after his embarrassing strikeout.

6. The Yankees provided seven runs of offense, but they didn’t need that many as Gerrit Cole was dominant in his second start of the season. After throwing six scoreless innings against the Rays on Friday, Cole threw 6 2/3 scoreless against the Royals with 10 strikeouts. The dream of Cole, Cam Schlittler and Max Fried going 1-2-3 in a postseason series needs to be realized. Fried needs to get healthy and return to create the new Big Three in the league. The Yankees had the best rotation in the league with Fried and without Cole and still do with Cole and without Fried. But if the Yankees could ever just have them at the same time with Schlittler, lengthy winning streaks will become a normal thing.

7. The Yankees have Thursday off before a weekend series in Sacramento against the Athletics. The Yankees lost two of three to the A’s back in early April and could have been swept if not for the meltdown from old friend Mark Leiter Jr. The A’s are 27-29 with a minus-25 run differential and in the middle of a three-game losing streak. They aren’t good, but they are better than they have been in recent years and the series in early April showed that.

8. Carlos Rodon gets the ball in the series opener for his fourth start of the season and will be going on extra rest. I have zero expectations for Rodon whenever he pitches. It wouldn’t surprise me if he went out and pitched six scoreless innings with 10 strikeouts and it wouldn’t surprise me if he’s out of the game in the fourth after allowing five runs. The left-handed A.J. Burnett couldn’t get through four innings against the Brewers or five innings against the Mets and then allowed one run in five innings against the Blue Jays. Rodon has yet to give up a home run in three starts, but he has walked 11 in 13 innings. When Rodon pitches, the best strategy is to score runs and a lot of them. And with Luis Severino starting for the A’s, there’s a good possibility of that.

9. Severino got rocked in two starts against the Yankees last year and looked like he was going to in his start against them on April 8 this season at the Stadium. The Yankees had the bases loaded with no outs in the first inning and Ben Rice and Giancarlo Stanton due up, but only managed to score two runs in the inning. Rice and Stanton struck out before Jazz Chisholm and J.C. Escarra drew bases-loaded walks for two runs. Those two runs were the only runs the Yankees scored against Severino in the game. They were the only runs they scored for the remaining 17 1/3 innings in the series. There will be an opportunity for the Yankees to break the game open on Friday against Severino, and when it does come, they better break it open to negate the unpredictable Rodon.

10. With Severino being a righty, we all know Aaron Boone is going to hit Trent Grisham in the leadoff spot and inexplicably move Judge to third to have two lefties at the top of the order. The Yankees don’t have a leadoff hitter. Grisham certainly isn’t one. And because of that I would bat Chisholm leadoff on Friday because of his ridiculous success against Severino: 5-for-11, a double, two home runs, five RBIs, three walks and a .455/.571/1.091 slash line. The goal should be to get Chisholm as many plate appearances as possible against Severino and batting him first would get him at least two. I would go with this lineup:

Jazz Chisholm, 2B
Aaron Judge, RF
Cody Bellinger, LF
Paul Goldchmidt, 1B (2-for-5 with a double and home run against Severino)
Ben Rice, DH
Anthony Volpe, SS (2-for-5 against Severino)
Trent Grisham, CF
Jose Caballero, 3B
Who cares, C

That lineup puts the hitter with the most career success at the top. It puts Judge second, where the best hitter on the team should hit. It gets Goldschmidt in the lineup. It provides lefty-righty alternation throughout. I would be fine with Rice playing first instead of designated hitter since his numbers when playing first are so much better. I would also be fine with Rosario being in the lineup because he’s 3-for-13 with a home run against Severino. But to get Rosario in there, you have to sit Volpe or Caballero, and I don’t want Caballero to sit, and I know one week of above-average play from Volpe is enough for him to never be benched or sent down again. I also know the lineup won’t look anything like this.

1. I love the Kansas City Royals. The Yankees demolished the Royals 15-1 on Tuesday for their 13th straight win against them, dating back to Game 3 of the 2024 ALDS, including a 5-0 record against them this year.

The Yankees overcame a late-game blown lead by Camilo Doval (shocker) to beat the Royals 4-2 on April 17.

The Yankees pummeled the Royals with four home runs in a 13-4 win on April 18.

The Yankees hit three more home runs against the Royals on April 19 in a 7-0 win.

The Yankees overcame a late-game blown lead with a two-run, ninth-inning rally to beat the Royals 4-3 on Monday and then they blew them out once again on Tuesday.

2. The win was the Yankees’ third straight, and combined with three straight Rays losses, the Yankees are now four back in the loss column in the AL East. Saturday’s rainout may have been a division-changing postponement.

3. Cam Schlittler was awesome once again (6 IP, 4 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 0 BB, 6 K, 1 HR) and made one mistake all night to the one player on the Royals you can’t make a mistake against: Bobby Witt Jr.

“Not the best,” Schlittler said. “My stuff wasn’t as sharp, but I was able to put the team in position to win. That’s all you can ask for.

“Not the best” when you allow one earned run on one pitch over six innings is a 1.50 ERA, which is what Schlittler’s ERA is for the season. He’s averaging six innings and one earned run through 12 starts and didn’t think he was “sharp” in the game. Remember the days of Sonny Gray and Jameson Taillon telling us they had “good stuff” after allowing five earned runs without getting through five innings?

4. Schlittler didn’t need to be as dominant as he was because he had a 4-0 lead to work with before he took the mound, a 5-0 lead after the second and a 9-0 lead after the third. The Yankees pounded opener Bailey Falter for seven runs on nine hits and three home runs in just 2 1/3 innings. I thought the purpose of the opener was to pit an elite reliever against the top of the order to get through the first inning. Apparently, the Royals have a different interpretation of who should open as Falter entered the game with a 9.82 ERA and left with a 13.97 ERA.

5. The game changed in the first inning after Ben Rice’s inning-ending lineout was overturned to a run-scoring single. Without the overturn, the Yankees would have had a 1-0 lead. Following the overturn, Paul Goldschmidt was allowed to score and then Amed Rosario hit a two-run home run to make it 4-0. A 4-0 lead with Schlittler on the mound is game over, as the Cy Young favorite has only allowed four earned runs in two of his 28 career starts, including the postseason. He has only allowed three earned runs in two of 12 starts this season.

6. “Credit to the offense with the performance they put up today,” Schlittler said. “That was awesome to watch.”

Every Yankees starter had multiple hits in the game, including Austin Wells, who followed J.C. Escarra’s three-hit game with one of his own. It was Wells’ first multi-hit game in May. It was the first time in franchise history that nine players recorded at least two hits in a game.

7. The Yankees needed a win like that. Their last win by more than four runs came back on May 7 against the Rangers before their bad run against the Brewers, Orioles, Mets and Blue Jays began. They needed a laugher, mainly to give the bullpen a rest. Leave it to the Royals and the good old AL Central to get everyone feeling good about the Yankees again.

9. Noah Cameron will get the ball for the Royals in the series and season finale between the two teams on Wednesday. The Yankees faced Cameron back on April 18 at Yankee Stadium in the 13-4 win. In that game, the first time through the order, the Yankees only produced a walk (Aaron Judge). The second time through the order, the Yankees went home run (Rosario), walk (Judge), home run (Cody Bellinger), ground out (Giancarlo Stanton), home run (Rice), double (Randal Grichuk). The Yankees got to Cameron for seven runs between the third and fourth innings.

10. Gerrit Cole will make his second start to close out the series. He will be going on normal rest in a spot that lined up for Carlos Rodon, who I’m guessing will go on extra rest in Sacramento on Friday. Cole was great in his season debut on Friday against the Royals, and if he pitches like that again, the Yankees’ winning streak against the Royals will improve to 14.

1. The Yankees went into Memorial Day weekend six games back of the Rays in the loss column and finished the weekend five games back. After losing to the Rays on Friday, the Yankees beat them on Sunday and then beat the Royals on Monday, while the Rays lost to the Orioles. Even with the frustrating 4-2 loss to the Rays on Friday, the holiday weekend was still a positive for the Yankees.

2. It was a positive because they made up two games in the loss column on the Rays. After losing Friday’s series opener (despite Gerrit Cole throwing six scoreless innings in his season debut), it seemed like the weekend could get away from the Yankees, and therefore the division. But after blowing another late lead on Friday, Saturday’s game was postponed, Aaron Judge provided a two-run, walk-off home run on Sunday — his first home run in two weeks — and the team put together a ninth-inning rally on Monday to extend their winning streak to 12 straight against the Royals.

3. It was a positive because Cole looked like his old self in his first start since Game 5 of the 2024 World Series. The last time Cole was on the mound in a meaningful game, he blew a no-hitter and a five-run lead in a single inning thanks to his own pitching and defense and the defense behind him. After missing all of last season and the first third of this season, Cole returned and didn’t look like someone who hadn’t pitched on a major-league mound in 19 months. Cole talked his way into starting on Friday at Yankee Stadium (instead of another rehab start in the minors) against the team the Yankees are chasing in what was as big of a regular-season game as the Yankees will play this season, and he passed every test. There are no excuses if you’re playing or pitching and it would have been understandable if Cole looked like Carlos Rodon has to this point, but the criticism would have been fair. Instead, Cole shut down an offense that very few have this season.

4. It was a positive because Saturday’s game was rained out. The team has been bad for more than two weeks, the offense is strictly three bats and the bullpen sucks. The Yankees were fortunate to get Saturday’s game moved to September when they could have Giancarlo Stanton back and a more consistent offense and likely a revamped and new-look bullpen. The Rays have been hotter than hot through two months and getting a game against them moved to four months from now is very welcome.

5. It was a positive because Ryan Weathers bounced back from a letdown start against the Blue Jays to shut out the Rays for seven innings on Sunday. Cole and Weathers combined to throw 13 scoreless innings against the Rays in the two games as the starting pitching continues to carry the team.

It was a positive because Will Warren had another strong start on Monday. Warren lost his control in the second inning and walked the bases loaded before bouncing back in the third and finding his command. The numbers for Warren and Weathers are nearly identical on the season, but I still prefer Weathers to Warren because he has the ability to go out and really dominate in a way Warren can’t.

6. It was a positive because the Yankees won a game in which Anthony Volpe started at shortstop — and provided the go-ahead hit in the ninth inning — and J.C. Escarra started behind the plate and Ryan McMahon and Austin Wells sat. Volpe reached base twice and had the big hit in the ninth, while Escarra had three hits in the game. Entering Monday, there was a better chance a Yankees pitcher would throw a perfect game this season before one of their catchers would record three hits in a game. I would sit McMahon and Wells until the Yankees lose a game.

7. It was a positive because the Yankees are now five games back of the Rays in the loss column instead of the six they were before Friday’s game and the seven they were before Sunday’s game. It’s still a lot of games to be back before the end of May, but it’s better than it was a few days ago.

8. Yes, the weekend overall finished as a positive, but it wasn’t all positive. The offense continues to have too many automatic outs in it. The Yankees scored two runs on Wednesday, no runs on Thursday, two runs on Friday, two runs on Sunday and had two runs on Monday until the ninth inning. That’s not going to cut it. They are wasting so many excellent starts from their rotation by failing to score. The Yankees’ win percentage when they score at least four runs in a game is .824. EIGHT TWENTY-FOUR! Score four runs and have an 82.4 percent chance of winning. Just four runs. That’s 648 runs over 162 games. Only one team in the AL didn’t score 648 runs last season and that was the White Sox and they scored 647. So if the offense could just be as bad as the 102-loss 2025 White Sox every game, they would have an .824 winning percentage. It shouldn’t be hard to score four runs a game when you have Judge, Ben Rice and Cody Bellinger, but rarely does anyone drive those three in unless they drive themselves in, and if they don’t hit, the Yankees don’t score. How many times over the last week did the Yankees fail to score a leadoff double? How many times did they strand a runner on third with less than two outs?

9. Then there’s Aaron Boone. I understand Boone didn’t construct this bullpen, but it’s on him to utilize it as best as possible and put his relievers in the best possible position to succeed. Boone decided not to use David Bednar in the eighth inning with a 1-0 lead on Friday and the top of the Rays’ order due up because it was the eighth inning. Boone loves having set innings for relievers and because of that his decisions of late have cost the Yankees multiple games. It helped cost them the game on Friday. Instead of using Bednar with a one-run lead in the eighth, he used him in a two-run deficit in the ninth. How are we on Year 9 of watching these decisions?

Boone did it again on Monday. Jake Bird wasn’t good enough to be a Yankee after being traded to them last season and wasn’t good enough to be one earlier this season after being sent down again. But a handful of recent appearances in low-leverage situations apparently was good enough for him to pitch multiple innings on Monday in Kansas City and good enough to let him face Bobby Witt Jr. in the eighth inning a 2-2 game. Bird promptly allowed a go-ahead home run to the one feared hitter in the Royals lineup. This decision came a day after the Yankees were postponed when every reliever had Saturday off. Thankfully, the bottom of the order rallied the team to win in the ninth or it would have been another disappointing loss.

10. Tuesday presents an opportunity for the Yankees to win a series for the first time since May 5-7 against the Rangers. Since then the Yankees were swept by the Blue Jays, lost two of three to the Orioles,. lost two of three to the Mets, split with the Blue Jays and split with the Rays. Cam Schlittler gets the ball to try to improve on his league-best WAR, ERA, FIP and WHIP. The Royals will use the left-handed Bailey Falter and his 9.82 ERA to open the game. It’s as big of a pitching mismatch as you can have in the majors with the Royals looking for their first win against the Yankees since Game 2 of the 2024 ALDS. If the Yankees can score four runs, the Royals will still be looking for it, and with Schlittler on the mound they may not even need half of that.

1. I thought the Yankees would win Game 4 of the ALDS last October and send the series back to Toronto for a winner-take-all Game 5. They had the dramatic five-run comeback in Game 3, had Cam Schlittler starting on an extra day of rest and Toronto was going with a bullpen game with a bullpen that had to get 16 outs in Game 3. The Yankees had the momentum and they had a distinct pitching advantage.

Unfortunately, it didn’t work out that way. The tired and fatigued Toronto bullpen shut the Yankees down. Eight Blue Jays relievers pieced together 27 outs and the Yankees were eliminated after going 6-for-32 with 10 strikeouts. The Yankees’ defense gave the Blue Jays two unearned runs and the always amazing Camilo Doval allowed a tack-on run in the eighth.

I felt like I was watching that same game on Thursday night (complete with the Doval tack-on run) as the Blue Jays went with a bullpen game and stifled the Yankees, shutting them out 2-0 for their ninth loss in their last 13 games. Five Blue Jays relievers pitched in the shutout as the Yankees went 3-for-29 with a disturbing 14 strikeouts. The Yankees struck out 37 times over the final three games of the series. They struck out 33 times in the three games against the Mets and 39 times in the three games against the Brewers. Yeah, this team is different! They definitely won’t do the same thing in the postseason again against only elite starters and relievers every game!

2. “We didn’t muster much,” Aaron Boone said. “The last two nights we’ve been quieted quite a bit.”

Don’t let Boone fool you into thinking it was just the last two nights. The Yankees now have four games this season with three or fewer hits and no runs scored, which is the second most behind the Giants. (Stat from Katie Sharp.) The Giants have the second-worst record in the NL and are trying to figure out how to unload big contracts. Anytime you’re mentioned in the same conversation with the 2026 Giants, you’re doing something wrong.

3. The Yankees’ offense remains three hitters and when those three hitters don’t hit, you guessed it, they lose. Ben Rice hasn’t hit since his wrist injury (.652 OPS since returning), Aaron Judge hasn’t hit for two weeks now (.600 OPS since May 7) and Cody Bellinger doesn’t have enough power to compensate for the other two (Bellinger has six home runs in 50 games this season, but he has two two-home run games, so he has homered in four of 50 games this season). Rice has still hit a few home runs since his return and Bellinger has been hitting overall, but Judge has done nothing of late. Judge has one home run since May 6 and no RBIs in the last 10 games. At one point during the Blue Jays series, Judge struck out in seven straight at-bats.

4. I understand that Judge is immune to criticism from most, but on a team built around his bat that only has two other consistent, productive bats, he can’t be. He can’t be good to great, he has to be otherworldly and generational. He has to be because you have to make up for the automatic outs from the other six spots in the lineup. You have to make up for Jazz Chisholm being the worst situational hitter and worst hitter with runners on in the league. You have to make up for Paul Goldschmidt eventually being exposed now that his playing time has increased. You have to make up for Trent Grisham reverting back to the player he has always been before 2025. You have to make up for Ryan McMahon swinging through every middle-middle fastball he sees. You have to make up for Anthony Volpe undeservedly being an everyday player for the last week-plus. You have to make up for the unmitigated disaster and embarrassment that is the catching tandem of Austin Wells and J.C. Escarra offensively. You have to make up for the injuries to Giancarlo Stanton and Jose Caballero.

5. Two weeks ago today, the Yankees were tied in the loss column with the Rays and a half-game ahead of them overall. Now they are six games back in the loss column with a three-game series against the Rays this weekend. If Judge has another series like these last four, the division could be over before actual Memorial Day. The worst-case scenario is the Yankees are nine back in the loss column after this weekend. The best-case scenario is they are three back. To be three back they are going to need a lot of things to happen to beat a team that never seems to lose.

6. The Yankees need Judge to be himself. Whatever these last four series have been have made Judge look like the right-handed McMahon or a giant version of Volpe. If Judge doesn’t hit, the Yankees’ only chance offensively is if Rice does. If Rice continues the way he has since his wrist injury combined with Judge being lost, well, the Yankees don’t have a chance. No one is going to help Bellinger with any consistency to score runs.

7. The Yankees need length from their starting pitching. I’m talking at least six innings in every game this weekend and even that may not be enough. The bullpen can barely be trusted to get three outs, let alone nine, so asking them to get double-digit outs against this pesky, annoying Rays lineup is a recipe for disaster. The Rays scored six runs against the Yankees’ bullpen in the April series in Tampa. If the bullpen is in the game in the sixth inning or earlier all weekend, it could get ugly.

8. They need Gerrit Cole to be himself. The Yankees can’t afford to have Cole look like Carlos Rodon did in his first two starts coming back from injury. Friday’s game is one of the most important games the Yankees will play this regular season and Cole can’t pitch like someone who hasn’t pitched in a meaningful game since Game 5 of the 2024 World Series. It’s not unfair to Cole because he talked his way into having his next start (this start) be in the majors. As Derek Jeter used to say, if you’re out there playing, there’s no excuses.

9. They need Jose Caballero to be the starting shortstop. I don’t want to see Caballero being used at short one game then third another game then somewhere else. He’s the best shortstop on the team, so he should play shortstop. Volpe undeservedly got called up and did nothing to deserve to be kept up. But because Volpe needs to play (he doesn’t but that’s what the Yankees think), he will play shortstop because he has idiotically never been asked to play another position for the Yankees. (The Yankees not sending Volpe down means he’s going to play with some regularity in the majors.) Volpe’s continued issues at shortstop like his error upon getting called up or his messy footwork (like when he went down to his knees to field a ball and prevented a double play on Thursday) or his lack of arm strength all remains problems.

10. If Judge and Rice show up, the starting pitching gives the Yankees length, Cole doesn’t have a Rodon-like return and Caballero plays, the Yankees should have a good weekend. (There’s always the Boone variable in that he will ruin a winnable game with his in-game decisions, but I think that’s a given and to be expected at this point, so there’s no point in writing or worrying about it.) If one or more of these things doesn’t happen for the Yankees this weekend, they will spend the summer trying to climb out of an enormous hole.

1. I can confirm Trey Yesavage is a problem. I thought maybe there was this small chance his performance in Game 2 of the ALDS last October was just a pitcher having the best game possible against the Yankees at the worst time possible and that it wouldn’t equate to future performance. Unfortunately, that’s not the case.

2. Yesavage dominated the Yankees on Wednesday in the same way he did seven months ago. He shut them out for six innings, allowing just two hits with one of those two hits being the result of a miscommunication from the Blue Jays defense when they let a routine out fall in for a fake double. Yesavage didn’t walk a batter and struck out eight

“More of the same,” Aaron Boone said. “He was, for the most part, filling up the strike zone tonight.”

To make matters worse, he outpitched Cam Schlittler. Schlittler was very good once again, but allowed two earned runs in the seventh inning after walking in the game’s first run with the bases loaded.

3. I think we can safely assume any game the Yankees play against the Blue Jays with Yesavage starting will be a loss. The Yankees have beaten Kevin Gausman before, they got to Dylan Cease on Tuesday and it’s been seven years since Patrick Corbin was a name worth worrying about, but Yesavage has now thoroughly dominated them twice. The Yankees had their best on the mound against Yesavage and they still lost. That doesn’t give me a lot of confidence with three more series between the teams in the regular season and the possibility of a postseason matchup. Yesavage is my most feared pitcher in the league.

4. Again, Schlittler was very good. He had a shutout going into the seventh before an infield single, walk and misplayed bunt loaded the bases with no outs. Schlittler walked in a run with the bases loaded and then was pulled for Jake Bird, who did a nice job limiting the damage to just one more run. Without the infield single and the misplayed bunt, at worst the Blue Jays would have had a runner on second with two outs. Instead they had the bases loaded with no outs.

“Just unacceptable,” Schlittler said of his performance in the seventh inning. “I walked two guys … You can’t walk the bottom of the order. Just unfortunate I couldn’t close that out.”

5. The misplayed bunt is what changed the inning. The Blue Jays were willing to give up an out to move the runners into scoring position. Prior to the misplayed bunt, the Yankees had a mound meeting, led by Paul Goldschmidt, who likely said he was going to come in and be the one to field the bunt. But when the play unfolded, Austin Wells also tried to field the bunt and no outs were recorded. At some point Wells is going to add positive value to the team, right?

6. Trailing 2-0 in the ninth, the Yankees nearly pulled off an unexpected comeback, but left the tying tun on second in the 2-1 loss. The loss dropped the Yankees to 5-11 in one-run games this season. The offense produced one non-defense-aided hit in the first eight innings. Ben Rice went 0-for-4 and has a .654 OPS since hurting his wrist on May 3. Aaron Judge went 0-for-4 with four strikeouts and has a .646 OPS since May 7. Ryan McMahon, Anthony Volpe and Wells combined to go 0-for-9 with four strikeouts. Volpe wrongly challenged a strike call that showed the entire ball inside the strike zone. If you challenge a pitch that shows the ball in the zone, you should automatically be out regardless of the count.

7. Yovanny Cruz made his major-league debut and was electric. Cruz went six-up, six-down with three strikeouts against the Blue Jays’ 4-through-9 hitters. He reached triple digits several times. Is it too early to make Cruz the closer? In that one outing he showed more ability than just about every reliever on the team.

“It was a long road to get here,” Cruz said. “A lot of injuries, a lot of things that I had to overcome.”

8. The Blue Jays will use Braydon Fisher as an opener in the series finale on Thursday. Carlos Rodon goes for the Yankees. Rodon was dreadful in his first two starts and I have zero expectations for him in this one. I don’t trust Rodon. Never have, never will, and after what he showed in Milwaukee and Queens, it’s hard to envision him pitching well against a team that lit him up in three starts last season, including the postseason: 12.1 IP, 17 H, 12 R, 10 ER, 10 BB, 10 K, 1 HR.

9. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. has done nothing in this series. Guerrero Jr. remains at three home runs, which is how many home runs Wells has this year. But Guerrero Jr. has hit .588 with a 1.608 OPS against Rodon in his 21 regular-season plate appearances and hit a two-run home run and walked against him in the postseason. I can’t believe there’s a chance Guerrero Jr. could come to the Bronx for a four-game series and not hit a home run, and it’s going to take a lot from Rodon to that make that scenario come true.

10. Judge hasn’t done much of late. He’s 2-for-11 with seven strikeouts in this series and has one home run and two doubles since May 6. The Yankees are 5-9 since May 6. I find it hard to believe Thursday’s game is anything like the low-scoring pitcher’s duel from Wednesday, and because of that, it would be nice if the Yankees’ biggest bat returned.