1. I ended Thursday’s Thoughts with this:

The Yankees have an opportunity to sweep a series for the first time since the last series before the All-Star break and for just the second time since June 8-10. I expect Cole will do his part in giving the Yankees a chance to pull off the sweep. It’s the offense I don’t trust. But if the offense can “just suck” and score four runs on Thursday, I like the Yankees’ chances at the sweeping their third series since the end of May.

Gerrit Cole did his part and the offense put together their second straight five-plus-run game and the Yankees won 6-1 to pull off their first sweep in more than a month. It was the first time the Yankees scored at least five runs in back-to-back games since June 16-17.

2. Not only did the Yankees score at least five runs for a second straight game, but Trent Grisham led off the game with a base hit for the second straight day. It was the first time Grisham had reached base safely to begin a game in back-to-back games since September 24 and 25 of last season.

3. The Yankees scored three runs in the third inning on Thursday thanks to a fielder’s choice error, Ben Rice RBI single with two outs and Heliot Ramos RBI double with two outs. It was Ramos’ first RBI in 16 games as a Yankee. The Yankees added two more runs in the sixth with solo home runs from Luis Garcia and Spencer Jones and added a run in the eighth on a Jazz Chisholm RBI triple. The only two Yankees to not get hits in the game were George Lombard Jr. and Jose Caballero.

4. Cole was excellent with six innings and just one earned run allowed on a Dylan Beavers solo home run. Cole struck out eight and the combination of his length and the offense “exploding” for six runs made it possible for Ryan Yarbrough to eat up the final three innings, of which he did perfectly.

5. The Red Sox were off and the Rays lost, so the Yankees maintained their four-game lead in the loss column over the Red Sox and have now brought their deficit in the loss column to the Rays down to four games. The math is still heavily in the Rays’ favor for the division, but their 2-5 slide over the last week has opened the door slightly for the Yankees. Sweeping the Orioles instead of simply just winning the series and finishing the road trip at 4-2 instead of 3-3 made a huge impact on the path to winning the division I laid out yesterday.

6. Here is an updated version:

The Yankees are 72-55.
The Rays are 76-51.

The Yankees go 2-1 against the Blue Jays. 74-56.
The Rays go 1-2 against the and Orioles. 77-53.
Three games back.

The Yankees go 4-3 against the Astros and Red Sox. 78-59.
The Rays go 3-3 against the Tigers and Padres. 80-56.
2 1/2 games back.

The Yankees go 4-2 against the Angels and Padres. 82-61.
The Rays go 3-4 against the Mets and Rangers. 83-60.
One game back.

The Yankees go 4-2 against the Rockies and Mets. 86-63.
The Rays go 3-3 against the Braves and Astros. 86-63.
Tied.

The Yankees go 4-2 against the Twins and Diamondbacks. 90-65.
The Rays go 4-2 against the Athletics and Red Sox. 90-65.
Tied.

The Yankees go 2-2 against the Rays. 92-67.
The Rays go 2-2 against the Yankees. 92-67.
One game back due to the Rays winning the head-to-head tiebreaker.

The Yankees go 2-1 against the Orioles. 94-68.
The Rays go 1-2 against the Phillies. 93-69.
The Yankees win the division by one game.

7. The Yankees failed to score a first-inning run again, having last done so on July 29. The streak is up to 19 games. The franchise record is 24 games from July 8, 2021 to August 6, 2021. and very much in reach. It would be nice to end the streak as early as Friday against the Blue Jays’ bullpen game, considering the Blue Jays have already shut the Yankees down in two bullpen games this season and beat them in Game 4 of the ALDS with a bullpen game as well.

8. The Yankees will face the bullpen on Friday, Dylan Cease on Saturday and Jose Soriano on Sunday. It’s a worst-case three starters for the Yankees to have to see when playing the Blue Jays because of their lack of success against Blue Jays bullpen games, Cease being the second-best pitcher in the American League and Soriano being very good. It would have been nice to get Shane Bieber and Max Scherzer.

10. The Yankees have Cam Schlittler, Ryan Weathers and Carlos Rodon lined up for the weekend. If the Yankees were to stay in rotation and not adjust anything with Monday’s day off, the Red Sox would miss both Schlittler and Cole next weekend. This can’t happen:

Friday (Blue Jays): Schlittler
Saturday (Blue Jays): Weathers
Sunday (Blue Jays): Rodon
Monday: OFF
Tuesday (Astros): Warren
Wednesday (Astros): Cole
Thursday (Astros): Schlittler
Friday (Red Sox): Weathers
Saturday (Red Sox): Rodon
Saturday (Red Sox): Spot starter
Sunday (Red Sox): Warren

Something like this needs to happen:

Friday (Blue Jays): Schlittler
Saturday (Blue Jays): Weathers
Sunday (Blue Jays): Rodon
Monday: OFF
Tuesday (Astros): Cole
Wednesday (Astros): Warren
Thursday (Astros): Spot starter
Friday (Red Sox): Schlittler
Saturday (Red Sox): Rodon
Saturday (Red Sox): Weathers
Sunday (Red Sox): Cole

After the Red Sox series, the Yankees have three games in Anaheim, a day off, three games in San Diego and another day off. They can sort out the rotation that week with the two days off, but again, it’s imperative both Schlittler and Cole face the Red Sox.

1. I couldn’t believe Wednesday’s Yankees-Orioles game wasn’t stopped after Trent Grisham’s leadoff single in the first inning. How could the moment not be celebrated and commemorated? No in-game speech and award presentation? It was the first time since July 3 that Grisham led off a game with a hit and it should have been recognized.

Not only did Grisham lead off the game with a hit, but Ben Rice followed with a single as well. The Yankees had runners on first and second and no outs and a chance to score a first-inning run for the first time since July 29. But they did not. Luis Garcia grounded into a double play and Heliot Ramos grounded out to end the inning.

2. The Orioles did score a first-inning run though and didn’t even need a hit to do so. Will Warren, who was removed from the rotation for a few minutes on Monday, allowed a pair of walks and eventually the Orioles pulled off a double steal of second and home to take an early lead. Austin Wells’ decision to throw down to second with a runner on third wasn’t as inexplicable as Ali Sanchez’s decision to attempt a pickoff at third against the White Sox at the end of July, but it was up there in terms of low Baseball IQ plays.

The Yankees answered back in the second with a Jazz Chisholm walk, Spencer Jones single, Ryan McMahon single and George Lombard Jr. sacrifice fly to take a 2-1 lead. McMahon was injured on his single, while idiotically trying to stretch it into a double. He jammed his hand on second base and was eventually removed from the game because of the injury.

3. The Yankees added a third run in the third inning when Ben Rice hit a 447-foot home run to make it 3-1, but Pete Alonso cut the Yankees’ lead in half in the second with a solo home run of his own. (Alonso would later hit what appeared to be a go-ahead home run off Brent Headrick, but it was called foul on the field and the call stood after review despite replay angles showing it looked fair. I guess it evens out the call against Judge at Steinbrenner Field last year.) The game remained 3-2 Yankees until the sixth when Fernando Cruz allowed a game-tying solo home run to Dylan Beavers.

Tied at 3 in the eighth, the Yankees loaded the bases with two outs for Lombard Jr. The rookie put the ball in play with a slow roller to third for an infield single to give the Yankees a 4-3 lead. Following a Yennier Cano wild pitch, the Yankees lead increased to 5-3. Paul Blackburn pitched around a couple of baserunners in the eighth and David Bednar pitched a 1-2-3 ninth to close out a 5-3 win.

4. All I asked of the Yankees on Wednesday was for them to “just suck” and score four runs per game. Doing that would allow them to win enough to get the first wild card and possibly even win the division. Four runs would have been enough on Wednesday, but they provided five, which was more than enough. The Yankees are now 55-16 when scoring four runs.

5. The Yankees went 10-for-33 with three walks and 10 strikeouts against six Orioles pitchers. Grisham went 1-for-4 with a walk and a strikeout. Rice went 2-for-5 with a home run and two strikeouts. Garcia went 1-for-5 with a strikeout. Ramos went 1-for-3 with a strikeout. Chisholm went 1-for-2 with two walks. Jones went 1-for-4 with three strikeouts. McMahon went 1-for-3 with a strikeout. Lombard Jr. went 2-for-3 with a sacrifice fly and strikeout. Austin Wells went 0-for-4.

6. Warren was bad yet again. He needed 90 pitches to get through four innings and allowed two earned runs. The Yankees’ rotation currently lines up in a way that is not great for the four-game series against the Red Sox next weekend. If the Yankees keep the rotation in its current order, the Red Sox will miss Cam Schlittler. That can’t happen. The Yankees will need to keep Warren in the rotation for now and I would even use a spot starter against the Blue Jays or Astros to ensure the best possible rotation against the Red Sox. Something like this:

Thursday: Cole
Friday: Schlittler
Saturday: Weathers
Sunday: Rodon
Monday OFF
Tuesday: Cole
Wednesday: Warren
Thursday: Spot starter
Friday: Schlittler
Saturday: Weathers
Saturday: Rodon
Sunday: Cole

7. A schedule like that gives Schlittler, Carlos Rodon and Ryan Weathers each two extra days of rest before the Red Sox series, and with Schlittler and Weathers having set new single-season highs for innings and Rodon having just returned from the injured list, they could all use the extra rest. When the Red Sox series ends, there will be 25 games left. That series is going to decide where the Wild Card Series is played and having the best four available starters all pitch in it is imperative.

8. The win was the Yankees’ third straight and combined with a Red Sox loss, they are up four games in the loss column again on the first wild card. The Rays also won though, so the division deficit remains five games.

In order to defy the math and win the the division, the Yankees will need something like this to happen:

The Yankees are 71-55.
The Rays are 76-50.

The Yankees go 2-2 against the Orioles and Blue Jays. 73-57.
The Rays go 1-3 against the Blue Jays and Orioles. 77-53.
Four games back.

The Yankees go 4-3 against the Astros and Red Sox. 77-60.
The Rays go 3-3 against the Tigers and Padres. 80-56.
3 1/2 games back.

The Yankees go 4-2 against the Angels and Padres. 81-62.
The Rays go 3-4 against the Mets and Rangers. 83-60.
Two games back.

The Yankees go 4-2 against the Rockies and Mets. 85-64.
The Rays go 3-3 against the Braves and Astros. 86-63.
One game back.

The Yankees go 4-2 against the Twins and Diamondbacks. 89-66.
The Rays go 3-3 against the Athletics and Red Sox. 89-66.
Tied.

The Yankees go 2-2 against the Rays. 91-68.
The Rays go 2-2 against the Yankees. 91-66.
One game back due to the Rays winning the head-to-head tiebreaker.

The Yankees go 2-1 against the Orioles. 93-69.
The Rays go 1-2 against the Phillies. 92-70.
The Yankees win the division by one game.

It’s crazy, but not impossible. That path is asking the Yankees to go 22-14 and the Rays to go 16-20. The Yankees missed a massive opportunity since Friday with the Rays losing four of their last six and the Yankees only going 3-2 during that time.

9. The Rays had a 7-13 stretch from June 1 to June 23 and another bad stretch from July 4 through July 19 when they went 4-9. From June 1 through July 19, the Rays went 20-22, but the problem is the Yankees actually lost a half-game to the Rays during that time. That was the time for the Yankees to pass the Rays and create separation and they failed to do so. The Yankees haven’t led the division since June 26.

The Rays have had two different runs where they were several games under .500 and the last six days suggest they may be experiencing that again after a nine-game winning streak. The Yankees started the season 25-11 and are currently on a 21-13 run, so they have had similar records to the 22-14 run needed above, but given the state of their offense where three-run performances feel like outbursts, I don’t know if the pitching staff can continue to perform this well or if the offense can hit enough.

10. It will be Cole against Kyle Bradish in the series finale. The Yankees struggled against Shane Baz and left a lot of men on against Chris Bassitt, which doesn’t bode well against Bradish, who is the Orioles’ best starter. The Yankees have an opportunity to sweep a series for the first time since the last series before the All-Star break and for just the second time since June 8-10. I expect Cole will do his part in giving the Yankees a chance to pull off the sweep. It’s the offense I don’t trust. But if the offense can “just suck” and score four runs on Thursday, I like the Yankees’ chances at the sweeping their third series since the end of May.

1. I have heavily criticized Trent Grisham continuing to bat leadoff in the Yankees lineup, and rightfully so. Grisham is a really bad leadoff hitter. He’s hitting .098/.225/.180 in 72 games as the first batter of the game, and he’s hitting .165/.289/.281 when leading off any inning. He hasn’t led off a game with a hit since July 3 and has led off one game since then with a walk (July 22). There is no metric to support Grisham batting first.

2. On Tuesday, Grisham led off the game with a strikeout. Orioles starter Shane Baz struck out the side in the first and picked up two more Ks in the second. This is what I wrote about Baz before the game:

Baz is as average as it gets as a major-league starter. He’s also the exact pitcher who will hold the Yankees scoreless for six innings because many pitchers like him have done just that this summer.

Baz didn’t hold the Yankees scoreless for six innings, but he did pitch into the seventh and did rack up a season-high 10 strikeouts, the most he’s ever had as an Oriole. But the reason he didn’t throw six scoreless innings is Grisham.

Grisham homered in the third inning as the third batter of the inning and hit a two-run single in the seventh inning as the sixth batter of the inning. Grisham finished the game 2-for-4 and drove in all three Yankees runs.

3. I get that Grisham is batting first in the order right now because he and George Lombard Jr. (and Ben Rice at times) are the only hitters capable of hitting on the team at the moment. But as I have written many times, I analyze the Yankees with the big picture in mind, with the postseason being the big picture . And we all know Grisham will be leading off in the postseason even if the Yankees are at full strength because he did so last postseason and the only thing Aaron Boone hates more than change is change backed by data.

4. Grisham went 2-for-4 with a strikeout on Monday and the rest of the Yankees went 3-for-28 with 13 strikeouts. Rice’s 10th-inning home run on Sunday did nothing to get him going as he went 0-for-3 with a strikeout. Heliot Ramos inexplicably batted third again and went 0-for again, this time going 0-for-3 with a walk and two strikeouts. I was skeptical of the trade for Luis Garcia because while he led the NL in slugging at the time of the deal with an .843 OPS, he had a .709 OPS in his first six seasons in the majors. He has a .608 OPS as a Yankee. Spencer Jones went 1-for-4 with two strikeouts. Boone stayed true to his word that no matter how well Jose Caballero played on Sunday (and he single-handedly allowed the Yankees to avoid a sweep on Sunday), Jazz Chisholm would return as the starting second baseman on Tuesday. Chisholm went 0-for-4 with two strikeouts and added an error in the field because he didn’t know to communicate to the umpire where he was positioned. I can’t believe not playing baseball for two days didn’t magically make him good at baseball. Chisholm is down to an 88 OPS+ on the season. Lombard Jr. went 2-for-4 with a strikeout and continues to turn in the most consistent plate appearances on the team despite having played 12 major-league games. Ryan McMahon went 0-for-1 with a walk and a strikeout before being removed from the game and Austin Wells went 0-for-2 before being removed from the game.

5. If a major-league team scores four runs a game for an entire season, they will score 648 runs for the season. Only one American League team fell short of that mark last year: the 102-loss White Sox who finished one run shy at 647. The other 14 AL teams all finished with more than 648. The 92-loss Twins? Yes. The 90-loss Angels? Yes. The 87-loss Orioles? The 86-loss Athletics? Yes and yes. Why did every AL team other than the White Sox average four or more runs per game? Because it’s easy to score four runs per game in the major leagues.

6. The 2026 Yankees are 54-16 when they score at least four runs in a game. That’s a .771 winning percentage. That’s a 125-win pace in the regular season. Do you know how absurd that is? If you gave the Yankees four runs in all 55 of their losses this season, they would have 14 more wins. Fourteen! So if the 2026 Yankees played with the 2025 White Sox offense in their 55 losses this season, they would have a nine-game lead in the AL East. If the Yankees scored just four runs per game since the All-Star break, they would have six more wins and would have a one-game lead in the AL East. I’m not asking this Yankees offense to be great or good or average or slightly below average or moderately below average or severely below average. I’m asking this Yankees offense to just suck and not be historically inept. Just suck and with this pitching staff you’re guaranteed the first wild card and may even prove the division math wrong and pass the Rays. JUST SUCK!

7. But the Yankees’ offense doesn’t just suck and is in fact historically inept. On Tuesday against the Orioles, they failed to score a first-inning run for the 17th straight game. As Katie Sharp let me know, the Yankees’ franchise record is 24 games. So we are a week of first-inning zeros away from another new negative franchise record being set during the Boone era. (Funny enough, the current record is already from the Boone era from July 8, 2021 to August 6, 2021.)

8. The first inning presents the best chance for an offense to score. It’s the only guaranteed inning in a game in which your (supposed) three best hitters will bat in the same inning. But when your three “best” hitters are the worst leadoff hitter in the league in Grisham, swing-at-anything Rice and Jasson Dominguez’s replacement who is much worse than Jasson Dominguez, you get the kind of first-inning scoreless drought the Yankees are experiencing.

9. If the Yankees are going to end the drought on Wednesday, it’s going to come against Chris Bassitt. Bassitt has had a miserable season, and so, he’s the exact starting pitcher the opposition wants to pitch against this Yankees lineup. Would Bassitt pitching into the seventh inning with a lead on Wednesday surprise any Yankees fan? Not this one.

10. Will Warren was removed from the rotation for Carlos Rodon and then immediately added back because of Max Fried landing on the injured list. You would think that would be a wake-up call for the extremely mediocre Warren to turn in his best possible outing of the season against the Orioles. The problem is Warren isn’t very good. There’s a better chance he will ruin the bullpen for the next day than there is that he will shut down the Orioles, but there’s no other option to start. The only option the Yankees have is for their offense to go out and just suck and put up four runs and maybe it will be enough to outdo whatever Warren allows.

1. Ever since Aaron Judge played his last game of the season to date on May 31, this season has been weird. Because when Judge went down, Giancarlo Stanton had already been down for more than a month, Max Fried had been on the injured list for two weeks and Gerrit Cole had yet to come back from Tommy John surgery. Yankees fans knew the Yankees without those four weren’t the real Yankees and couldn’t be properly evaluated until they were all active at the same time (if they would ever all be active at the same time), but there was a season to be played whether or not Max Schuemann was leading off.

2. Judge has remained out and so has Stanton, but Cole returned and so did Fried, only for Carlos Rodon to get hurt along with Cody Bellinger. Each positive Yankees injury update has been met with a negative announcement about a different Yankee. Judge playing catch and running in Toronto on Sunday provided Yankees fans with the realization he would return within the next month, but on Monday — on a day off nonetheless — the Yankees announced Fried was going back on the IL with the same injury he landed on the IL with in May: a bone bruise.

The Fried news means the best rotation in baseball won’t exist for the rest of the season. Fried started on May 13 and then was out until July 22 with his last bone bruise. If a similar timeline follows this IL stint, his season is over. So instead of a 1-2-3 of Cam Schlittler, Fried and Cole in some order in October, it will now be Schlittler, Cole and either Ryan Weathers or Carlos Rodon in some order. For an offense that is putrid, losing Fried is a season-changing injury because of its postseason implications.

2. No, the offense won’t remain this putrid if and when Judge returns from his rib injury and Bellinger returns from his hamstring injury and Stanton returns from his traumatic brain injury calf injury, but even if all three return, six other bats from the weakest lineup in baseball will still be present. Yankees fans waiting for the offense to get reinforcements from those three are also banking on all three coming back and producing at a high level. Last October, all three were healthy, and only Judge produced and the Yankees’ postseason ended in the division series.

There’s nothing Yankees fans can do other than to wait for the closest thing to the Yankees’ expected roster to be available. But while we wait for whatever that roster looks like to be available, the Yankees are trying to overcome a six-game division deficit with 38 to play, while also trying to hold off a Red Sox team that is just three games back in the loss column. This past weekend in Toronto, the Yankees did a poor job of trying to catch the Rays and hold off the Red Sox as they scored four non-extra-inning runs in three games and lost two of three.

3. The play that ruined Friday’s game was so spectacularly bad, and yet, it’s likely not even the Top 10 sloppiest defensive sequences in the Aaron Boone era. Ryan McMahon’s inability to throw the ball form third to first in the air on what should have been an inning-ending double play led to Luis Garcia trying to pick a short hop (which he was unable to do) and losing his glove in the process. Seeing a runner head for third after the dropped pick, Garcia picked up the ball and launched it toward third wildly with no one covering the base. George Lombard Jr. tried to get over to third to get his glove on the ball, and in the process, collided with Vladimir Guerrero Jr. The ball went down the left-field line, and Guerrero Jr. ran home to score the Blue Jays’ second run on the play. Instead of an inning-ending double play to preserve a 1-0 lead, the Blue Jays scored twice and went on to win. Garcia’s ill-advised throw nearly ended Lombard Jr.’s career and did send Guerrero Jr. to the seven-day IL for a concussion.

4. On Saturday, the Yankees scored one run again and lost, wasting yet another strong start from Cam Schlittler. These are games the Yankees have lost since the All-Star break:

6 IP, 2 ER
7 IP, 3 ER
6.1 IP, 1 ER
7 IP, 0 ER
5.1 IP, 1 ER
7 IP, 1 ER
5 IP, 1 ER
6 IP, 1 ER
5.1 IP, 1 ER

Inexplicable. If the Yankees had won four of those nine, they would be two games out in the division. If they had won six of the nine, they would be tied for the division.

5. The Yankees entered Sunday’s series finale having gone 44-44 since May 4. So if you think Judge and Bellinger are going to save the offense, just remember that Judge played all of May and Bellinger played all of May, June and most of July and the Yankees were still a .500 team during that time.

The Yankees couldn’t score again on Sunday, putting up just two runs in nine innings. And because of their lack of offense, the Blue Jays were able to tie the game in the ninth following an error, walk, wild pitch and sacrifice fly. The Yankees were about to achieve a new worst loss of the season before Ben Rice hit a two-run home run in the 10th to make up for committing the leadoff error in the ninth. The Yankees miraculously held on for a 4-3 win.

6. It’s possible Brian Cashman has found his white whale in Ryan Weathers. After nearly three decades unsuccessfully trading for young, controllable starting pitchers (Jeff Weaver, Javier Vazquez, Michael Pineda, Nathan Eovaldi, Sonny Gray, Jameson Taillon, etc.), Weathers may have ended Cashman’s search. Weathers has a 0.85 ERA over his last five starts, a 1.94 ERA over his last seven starts and a 2.56 ERA over his last 11 starts. After allowing 16 home runs in his first 14 starts this season, he has allowed just two over his last 10, following an adjustment in his pitch usage. With Fried out, Weathers gets my vote for a postseason start (if the Yankees’ postseason lasts more than two games). I find it hard to believe anyone would feel better with Rodon on the mound than Weathers, but there are still Boone supporters and Volpe fans out there, so there are likely Rodon backers as well.

7. Boone finally decided to shake up the lineup on Sunday after weeks of having Trent Grisham lead off proved ineffective. (The Yankees last scored a first-inning run on July 29.) Boone sat Jazz Chisholm and his .471 OPS since July 22 and played Jose Caballero. Boone made it clear Chisholm would return to second base on Tuesday no matter how well Caballero played. Caballero went 1-for-2 with a run, an RBI, a walk and a stolen base in just his third start since August 3. Caballero has a 1.033 OPS and more extra-base hits, RBIs, steals and walks than Chisholm since July 28. Without Caballero in the lineup on Sunday, the Yankees would have gotten swept by the Blue Jays.

8. While Chisholm has been so bad he got benched, Heliot Ramos has been so bad that Boone decided to bat him third on Sunday. Ramos went 1-for-4, picking up his first hit since August 7. He’s 3-for-36 as a Yankee. I always thought Austin Kearns in 2020 would go down as the worst trade deadline acquisition, but then Joey Gallo came along in 2021 and then Ramos. Ramos has made the deadline trade for Gallo look like the deadline trade for David Justice.

9. The Blue Jays aren’t any good. They’re four games under .500 and had to rip off a 13-7 run in recent weeks just to get to that poor record. They sold at the deadline and in a normal season would be buried in the standings. But because this isn’t a normal season and because the Yankees failed to end their season this past weekend, the Blue Jays are very much alive and a half-game back for the final playoff spot. It’s a disgrace that a team with an under-.500 record may get into the postseason this year, and right now that team is the three-games-under-.500 Orioles, who the Yankees will play for the next three days.

The Orioles have allowed the most runs in the AL East and the fifth most in the AL. Their pitching staff blew leads of 3-1 and 6-4 on Monday against the Rays. If there was ever a team for the Yankees’ offense to come to life against, the Orioles would be it. The problem is the Yankees were stifled by a crappy version of Shane Bieber on Friday and seven different Blue Jays on Saturday. They have spent more than two months making fringe major leaguers look like Cy Young candidates. I don’t know that there is any pitcher in the league who wouldn’t feel good getting the ball against these Yankees at the moment.

10. Shane Baz gets it on Tuesday in the series opener. Baz is as average as it gets as a major-league starter. He’s also the exact pitcher who will hold the Yankees scoreless for six innings because many like him have done just that this summer.

Rodon will make his first start since June 28 in what was supposed to be him replacing Will Warren in the rotation, but because Fried is now down again, Warren will continue to throw less than five innings and allow five earned runs every fifth day indefinitely. The only way for the Yankees to leave Baltimore with a series win is to score runs. And while “runs” technically means two or more, it’s going to need to be more like four or more for them to have a chance this week.

1. If you thought a four-run inning on Tuesday and a 10-run outburst on Wednesday was the Yankees’ offense finally getting going after 121 games, you must be new around here. The Yankees followed up back-to-back wins against the Mariners by getting shut out in a 1-0 loss in the series finale. As Katie Sharp pointed out, it was the Yankees’ fourth 1-0 loss at Yankee Stadium since 2025 after having zero 1-0 losses at Yankee Stadium in the previous 10 seasons.

2. Max Fried was good (5 IP, 5, 1 R, 1 ER, 2 BB, 4 K, 1 HR) and allowed just a solo home run over five innings, but that solo home run was too much for the Yankees to overcome. The Yankees went 4-for-30 with three walks and 10 strikeouts on Thursday.

3. Trent Grisham was back in the leadoff spot on Thursday after his big game on Wednesday, but even without a big game on Wednesday, he still would have been in the leadoff spot on Thursday. None of his production on Wednesday came leading off an inning, and on Thursday, he led off a game with an out for the 53rd time in 68 games. Since July 3, Grisham hasn’t led off a game with a hit and has led off one game with a walk (July 22). None of his production has come from leading off other innings either. Stop giving him the most possible plate appearances on the team. (Grisham was also called out on Thursday following what should have been a double when he came off the base after his slide.)

4. Ben Rice went 0-for-3 with a walk and another strikeout as his OPS plummets from his mission to swing at every pitch ever thrown to him. Spencer Jones went 0-for-3 with two strikeouts before eventually being removed for pinch-hitter Heliot Ramos, who is making 2010 deadline acquisition Austin Kearns’ post-deadline Yankees tenure (80 OPS+) look like David Justice. Ramos is 2-for-25 with 10 strikeouts as a Yankee. He’s hitless against left-handed pitching, which is a little bit of an issue since he was acquired specifically to hit left-handed pitching.

5. Luis Garcia had half of the Yankees’ hits, and even led off the second inning with a double, but was of course left stranded. George Lombard Jr. had just his second 0-for as a major leaguer and gets a pass with 32 career plate appearances. (I love how Lombard Jr. is already up to batting fifth in the lineup and can’t be eased into his career at the bottom of the order because the roster construction is so poor.)

6. Jazz Chisholm went 0-for-4 with three strikeouts. It was Chisholm’s third strikeout hat trick in the last 15 games, which also includes one Golden Sombrero. He has struck out in every game but one since July 25, and in the one game he didn’t strike out in, he went 0-for-4. He has struck out in every game but one in August. Chisholm is 9-for-60 with 27 strikeouts since saying “basically everybody” on the Yankees has told him he’s “the best in the world.”

7. Jose Caballero got his first start in five days and his second start in 10 days and went 0-for-2 with a walk, and Ryan McMahon also went 0-for-2 with a walk. Ali Sanchez, starting for the first time since August 1 went 1-for-2 before being removed for pinch-hitter Amed Rosario, who struck out.

8. With the loss, the Yankees failed to pull off their first series sweep since the last series before the All-Star break (July 10-12). They have swept two series since the start of June.

The Rays had the day off, so the loss dropped the Yankees to seven games back in the loss column in the AL East, further cementing my recent points and math about the division race being over. The Red Sox ended their five-game losing streak, so the Yankees’ lead over the Red Sox is back down to three games.

9. Up next is a trip to Toronto. The Yankees will play the Blue Jays six times in the next 10 days. Despite being five games under .500, the Blue Jays are only two games out of the third wild-card spot in the putrid AL. The Blue Jays traded away Kevin Gausman, Daulton Varsho and Jeff Hoffman at the deadline, but have managed to go 7-4 since to stay alive in the postseason picture. The Yankees have the opportunity to not only help their own bid for the first wild card during these six games with the Blue Jays, but they can also end the Blue Jays’ season. Burying the Blue Jays and keeping them out of October would be a nice way to avenge the Blue Jays ending the Yankees’ season last October in the ALDS.

10. Gerrit Cole gets the ball to set the tone in the series opener, while the offense will try to get to Shane Bieber, who seemingly everyone has gotten to. Bieber has allowed 71 baserunners and nine home runs in 42 2/3 innings. I won’t be surprised if the offense is unable to hit Bieber since there should be no expectation for this offense to hit anyone, but at the same time, if they can’t be relied on to hit this version of Bieber, who can they be relied on to hit?