1. There was a time when Tuesday’s Yankees-Rangers game would have been over before the Yankees even came to bat. A three-run deficit with Jacob deGrom on the mound used to mean the rest of the game would be a formality. It used to mean game over.

It didn’t on Tuesday. The Yankees erased the three-run deficit, hit two home runs off him and got to him for six earned runs over 6 1/3 innings in a 7-4 win. It was their second win over the former Mets ace in a week.

2. In the series opener, Elmer Rodriguez, making his second major-league start, looked both like a rookie and also a starting pitching facing a lineup for the second time in a week. Known for his control, Rodriguez walked the first two hitters of the game. He then allowed a single on a 1-2 pitch, a sacrifice fly and another single. The Rangers had a 3-0 lead with still two on and just one out. Rodriguez would go on to hit a batter and throw a wild pitch, but managed to get out of the inning with just three runs allowed, despite facing eight batters and throwing 37 pitches.

3. A week ago, the Yankees scored one run in six innings against deGrom and that was good enough in a 3-2 win because Cam Schlittler was dominant. On Tuesday, they got to deGrom right away with back-to-back doubles from Aaron Judge and Cody Bellinger. Bellinger’s double hit the top of the right-field wall, his third such kind of hit in the last week. In the second inning, the Yankees tied the game at 3 after Ryan McMahon hit a game-tying two-run home run. If there was ever a sign that this year may be different for the Yankees it’s McMahon hitting a game-tying, two-run home run off deGrom.

4. Rodriguez settled in and deGrom reverted back to his normal self, and the game remained tied at 3 into the sixth. Jazz Chisholm broke the tie with a solo home run to right. In the seventh, the Yankees scored two more runs (which were charged to deGrom) to take a 6-3 lead. Paul Goldschmidt hit a solo home run in the eighth to make it 7-3 and the Rangers picked up a meaningless run in the ninth.

“We went up against one of the best pitchers in the game and got down early,” Goldschmidt said, “but we found a way to chip away.”

5. Rodriguez threw 3 1/3 scoreless innings after the messy first, Brent Headrick followed with 1 1/3 scoreless, Tim Hill recorded an out, Fernando Cruz got three outs and Boone went to David Bednar for a five-out save. Rodriguez was optioned back to Triple-A after the game with Carlos Rodon expected to take that spot in the rotation the next time through, so it didn’t matter if Rodriguez threw a perfect game or the game he actually threw. The next time he’s needed he should be in a better place now that the major-league debut and Yankee Stadium debut are out of the way.

6. Trent Grisham (please stop giving the most plate appearances on the team to a career .320 on-base percentage), Jasson Dominguez and Austin Wells combined to go 0-for-11 with a walk, but the rest of the Yankees lineup went 9-for-22 with six extra-base hits and three walks. It was the Yankees’ fifth win a row and 15th in their last 17 games.

7. Jose Caballero went 1-for-4 with a run scored and some nice plays in the field, which is important to keep track of because the better Caballero plays, the longer Anthony Volpe remains in Triple-A. Volpe went 2-for-4 with a double on Tuesday in Worcester and George Lombard Jr. went 0-for-3 with two walks. A so-so night in the quest to keep Volpe in Triple-A and eventually get Lombard Jr. to the majors. (Volpe played shortstop and Lombard Jr. played second base.)

8. The Rays won’t go away. They trailed the Blue Jays 2-0 on Tuesday and tied it 2-2. They trailed again 3-2 late in the game and then took the lead in the bottom of the eighth in a 4-2 win. The Yankees are 10-2 in their last 12 games and have lost a game in the standings because the Rays have gone 11-1. The two teams will see each other on Memorial Day Weekend in the Bronx.

9. The Yankees beat deGrom twice in a week and now they will try to beat Nathan Eovaldi who shut them down (again) a week ago. Eovaldi has allowed nine home runs in 30 2/3 innings this year after allowing 10 in 130 innings last year. He shut out the Yankees for seven innings in Arlington, but I think the Yankees’ power and Eovaldi being due for regression could lead to a different result this time.

10. Will Warren gets the ball for the Yankees. The Rangers missed him in last week’s series, so they have yet to face the newest and best version to date of Warren. Warren is still (supposedly) competing for a rotation spot against Ryan Weathers, and with Rodon about to be back, it’s only a matter of time until Gerrit Cole is back too. Warren going out and pitching well again and outperforming Eovaldi will keep him ahead Weathers on the depth chart.

1. Remember that brief moment when it looked like the Orioles may be the team to beat in the AL East for the foreseeable future? That was back in 2023 when the Orioles won 101 games and the division before getting swept in the ALDS. They followed that up with their win total dropping by 10 games to 91 in 2024 and were swept by the Royals in the Wild Card Series. Last season they won 75 games and right now they are on a 69-win pace for 2026.

2. The Yankees didn’t just sweep the Orioles over the last four days, they embarrassed them. The Yankees won 7-2 on Friday, 9-4 on Saturday, 11-3 on Sunday and 12-1 on Monday. It was the type of series the Yankees had against the Orioles in the early Aaron Boone era days when the Orioles were tanking and the only feared hitter in their lineup was Manny Machado. On paper, the Orioles aren’t a bad team, but the Yankees certainly made them look like one this weekend.

3. The Thoughts on Saturday covered Friday’s win, but since then, Ryan Weathers picked up another win, Max Fried had to grind through a start with nearly nothing and Cam Schlittler allowed just one earned run (a surprising bases-loaded walk) as the rotation continues to be far and away the best in the majors. I have come to expect a stellar performance out of the Yankees’ starter every single game. It’s a place the rotation hasn’t been a long, long time.

4. The bullpen has been able to get a lot of rest of late and it was most noticeable in David Bednar’s only appearance against the Orioles. Bednar pitched on Sunday in an 11-3 game just to get some work in after having five days off and was throwing the hardest he has this season. He was forced in to high-leverage situations as a member of Team USA in the World Baseball Classic and then was seemingly pitching in one-run games every night for the Yankees in the first few weeks of the season, and was getting hit like someone running on fumes. With the five days off, Bednar looked as good as he has a Yankee. Here’s to the bats giving him more days off and more appearances where he just needs to get work in.

4. Offensively, the Yankees got everyone to contribute in the four-game series, it wasn’t just Ben Rice and Aaron Judge outscoring the Orioles 39-10. Trent Grisham’s OPS is up to .696, Cody Bellinger up to .859 and Jasson Dominguez is at .833 after a big series from the right side. Jazz Chisholm, Austin aWells and Ryan McMahon even chipped in to the offensive outbursts and Jose Caballero continued his extra-base barrage and defensive gems to send Anthony Volpe to the minors for the first time in his career.

5. Volpe is where he belongs: playing in Triple-A. It’s a move that is three years to late, but I guess better late than never, even if being late in this instance cost the Yankees over the last three seasons. The idea that the Yankees or anyone has to justify why Volpe is in the minors is rather annoying. Of the 103 hitters with at least 1,500 plate appearances since the start of 2023, Volpe ranks last, second-to-last and third-to-last in every major offensive statistic. He’s not a major-league bat and after last year it’s hard to say he’s even a major-league glove. The videos of his defense on his “rehab” stint were alarming and he should have to earn his way back up like every other Yankee has ever had to do. Keep on hitting, Caballero.

6. Can the Rays chill out? The Yankees would have a 6 1/2-game lead in the Central and a 5 1/2-game lead in the West, but in the East they only have a 1 1/2-game lead because the Ryas won’t lose. The Yankees are 8-2 in their last 10 games and have lost a game in the standings because the Rays have gone 9-1. The Yankees have played one game worse than their expected record, while the Rays have played four games better. (That’s the difference between Boone and Kevin Cash.)

7. The AL as a whole is bad. There are three teams over .500. The Yankees, Rays and Athletics. (Let’s forget the Yankees are 1-5 against those two teams and 23-6 against everyone else.) The Yankees have a plus-76 run differential, the Rays are plus-11 and the Athletics are minus-10. If you believe in math, the Yankees should run away and hide with the division at some point. It doesn’t mean it will happen, but it should. After playing the Royals and Guardians in the 2024 AL playoffs, I didn’t think the Yankees could ever have an easier path to the pennant, but this year is shaping up to possibly be that. The best teams seem to be in the NL and if the Yankees win the pennant, they will only have to face one of them.

8. We’re a long way from that, of course. Yes, things have been great the last two weeks, but we’re only three weeks removed from a disastrous week against the Athletics, Rays and Angels. We’re a long way from June and July when the Boone Yankees tend to go on summer vacation. Maybe this team is immune to that because of the starting pitching. If the starting pitching is going to pitch like it has without Carlos Rodon and Gerrit Cole then it’s possible they are.

9. Elmer Rodriguez wasn’t very good in his major-league debut last week in Texas, and now he will face the Rangers for a second time in less than a week, which isn’t ideal. It’s also not ideal his counterpart will be Jacob deGrom, who the Yankees were able to beat last week thanks to a superb effort from Schlittler. Rodriguez vs. deGrom seems like a mismatch, but if I have learned anything as a Yankees fan, it’s you can’t predict baseball …

10. When I stopped writing for WFAN and CBS New York and took Keefe To The City out on its own back in 2012, the first post I wrote was A Sunday with John and Suzyn, a live blog recapping the two calling a game against the Tigers. The first blog on keefetothecity.com wasn’t as much about the Yankees as it was the voice of the Yankees.

John Sterling was the man. A character, an original, a legend. I have missed his voice since he left following the 2024 World Series (after leaving initially earlier that season) and long for him calling games. I miss his stories, his exuberance and his creativity. Who cares if he called a fair ball foul or a flyout a home run every once in a while? It’s baseball. It’s entertainment and he was as entertaining as any voice that ever has or ever will call a baseball game.

1. There’s a pretty simply flowchart you can use to determine if the Yankees won or lost on a given night.

Did Ben Rice or Aaron Judge hit a home run?

If yes, the Yankees won. If no, continue.

Did the starting pitcher pitch into the seventh inning and allow two runs or fewer?

If yes, the Yankees won. If no, the Yankees lost.

That’s it. That’s all you need to determine if the Yankees won. On Friday against the Orioles, Rice hit a three-run home run in the second inning and Will Warren gave them 6 1/3 innings of one-run ball. So yes, the Yankees won, beating the Orioles 7-2.

2. “The stuff has been excellent,” Aaron Boone said of Warren. “The strike-throwing is there … You see all the swings and misses.”

Warren struck out nine Orioles and walked one. The only run he allowed came on a Pete Alonso solo home run in the second inning. In terms of American League ranks, Warren is now seventh in ERA (2.39), 17th in innings pitched (37.2), 22nd in hits (32), 17th in home runs (4), sixth in walks (8) and fourth in strikeouts (46). Not bad for a “third” starter who is about to become the team’s “fifth” starter and is still battling for that role every time he takes the mound.

3. “I think we are going to have the best staff in all of baseball,” Warren said about the return of Carlos Rodon and Gerrit Cole. “When they come back, the best pitchers are going to pitch the majority of the innings. I have to make sure I can go out there and do my job.”

The Yankees already have the best staff in all of baseball, 1 through 4. Cam Schlittler, Max Fried and Warren are all in the top 7 in the majors in ERA. Schlittler, Warren and Ryan Weathers are all in the top 9 in the majors in strikeouts. The Yankees have the lowest team ERA in the majors.

4. Again, the Yankees continue to stack wins and have an AL-best record of 21-11 because of their starting pitching. The offense remains the Rice and Judge show with some Jose Caballero and Amed Rosario mixed in and moments from Cody Bellinger. On Friday, it was Rice’s latest blast off a lefty that carried the offense, while Judge reached base four times, Caballero had a solo home run, Rosario had an RBI single and Bellinger added a pair of doubles. Paul Goldschmidt, Jazz Chisholm, Austin Wells and Trent Grisham combined to go 3-for-15 with two walks. The evaluation of the offense checks out.

5. There is this narrative that the Yankees are operating with urgency this season compared to past seasons. The examples being used are the quick benching of Ryan McMahon, the increased playing time for Rosario and the recent DFA of Randal Grichuk. I don’t believe any of those moves represent urgency. McMahon looked like a random fan picked out of the stands swinging a bat against major-league pitching in the first two weeks of the season and could no longer be played with regularity. Rosario earned his playing time with timely hits and home runs in place of McMahon. Grichuk was always going to be the odd man out unless he went completely off against lefties and he didn’t. I don’t think this is urgency; it’s more of favoritism. The reason the Yankees delayed a benching of Josh Donaldson a couple years ago and were quick to bench McMahon is because they loved Donaldson and because this time they had a worthy option in Rosario. The reason Grichuk was DFA’d instead of Goldschmidt, who provides no value, is because Goldschmidt was a Yankee last season and despite proving to be washed since the start of May last year through the start of May this year, the Yankees clearly value his veteran presence, and it’s possible he’s a Judge guy the way Anthony Rizzo, Alex Verdugo and DJ LeMahieu were.

6. We’ll find out just how much urgency the Yankees are operating with on Monday when Anthony Volpe’s rehab is over and the Yankees have to choose between bringing him up or sending him now. If the Yankees bring him up, we’ll know there’s no urgency and they’re operating the same as they ever have. If they send him down, we’ll know the Yankees are finally willing to make a decision they failed to make in 2023, 2024 and 2025.

Caballero leads all shortstops in defensive runs saved. He makes throws from the deepest part of the position effortlessly and doesn’t need to put his whole body into every throw just to get it across the infield. He leads the league in steals and has been an above-league-average hitter with a 102 OPS+. If Volpe had the kind of late-March, April and early-May start that Caballero had, we would be hearing about nine-year extension talks.

7. Meanwhile, Volpe has a .733 OPS at Triple-A and a .646 OPS at Double-A during his rehab games. He has one extra-base hit in 40 plate appearances. This isn’t a proven major leaguer working on things to get ready for his activation. This is a failed major leaguer trying to figure things out because he still needs to figure things out. Not only is Volpe not hitting in the minors, but video of his defense is startling and the video of him getting picked off at first base by a catcher is disturbing.

There will be plenty to write about what could be a disastrous and detrimental decision to the 2026 Yankees depending on what is actually decided on Monday. But there’s only two days left between now and then and I’m already preparing myself to accept that nothing has changed with Volpe and how the Yankees treat him compared to every other player in the organization.

8. Jasson Dominguez — who has had to earn every second he has been a part of the major-league roster — appears to have avoided injury after the inconclusive X-rays taken in Texas were followed by a conclusive CT scan in New York. Boone said Dominguez was available off the bench on Friday, so I’m thinking he’s going to start against the right-handed Ryan Bradish on Saturday.

9. Bradish is a good pitcher and has always been tough against the Yankees. Look at last September when the Orioles had nothing to play for and the Yankees were trying to win the division. He threw six scoreless innings with nine strikeouts against them on September 21 and then a week later struck out eight Yankees in four innings with them clearly unable to make an adjustment despite having seen the same pitcher twice in seven days. Bradish has been OK in six starts this season, but he did get roughed up a little by the abysmal Red Sox offense in his last start and allowed 13 baserunners in 5 1/3 innings to the also-abysmal Royals offense in the start before that. (That likely means he’s going seven scoreless against the Yankees on Saturday.)

10. Ryan Weathers gets the ball for the Yankees. Weathers has been very good and is still likely to lose his rotation spot soon, unless someone else gets injured or the Yankees decide to use a six-man rotation to keep everyone as fresh as possible. Weathers’ job on Saturday will be to keep Alonso and Tyler O’Neill in the park, and if he can do that and either Rice or Judge go deep, I like the Yankees’ chances.

1. Nearly a year ago, on May 22, the Yankees won a 1-0 weekday afternoon, getaway day game over the Rangers at Yankee Stadium. The one run in that game was a Jorbit Vivas solo home run — the only home run of his career. It came against Nathan Eovaldi, who otherwise shut the Yankees down for six innings.

Wednesday’s 3-0 loss to the Rangers felt a lot like that game in terms of Eovaldi’s performance and the Yankees’ offense being lifeless against him. The Yankees managed five hits — all singles — in the shutout loss, further proving that if Ben Rice and Aaron Judge don’t hit the ball over the wall, the offense is in a world of shit.

2. Rice had three of the Yankees’ five hits, Cody Bellinger had one and Jose Caballero picked up an infield single. The rest of the Yankees went 0-for-26 with a walk and eight strikeouts. If that sounds familiar it’s because in Tuesday’s game, the Yankees not named Bellinger, Judge and Austin Wells went 0-for-26.

3. Even with the loss, the Yankees finished their nine-game road trip with a 7-2 record, winning all three series against the Red Sox, Astros and Rangers. In seven of the nine games the offense scored four runs or fewer. The wins were stacked because of the starting pitching, not the bats.

4. I thought Wednesday’s game was a good spot for Elmer Rodriguez to make his major-league debut, considering the Rangers’ offense isn’t very good. But it was Rodriguez who wasn’t very good. Not everyone can come up and be Cam Schlittler and it’s not like he was Greg Weissert-debut bad walking and hitting everyone, throwing balls to the backstop and committing balks. The scouting report on Rodriguez was a great fastball and extremely good command. Instead, Rodriguez walked four, hit Alejandro Osuna and nearly hit Osuna twice (the Rangers unsuccessfully challenged the near-hit by pitch). There was traffic on the bases throughout Rodriguez’s four-plus innings and after escaping jams in the first and second innings, he wasn’t able to escape a third jam in the fifth. He left the game with two runs in and two on and no outs in the fifth.

“Obviously, not the results [I wanted],” Rodriguez said. “I feel like I needed to execute a little bit better.”

5. It didn’t matter if Rodriguez recorded just the 12 outs he recorded, or if he pitched into the eighth inning because the offense gave a textbook getaway-day-at-the-end-of-a-nine-game-road-trip effort. Eovaldi got blasted by the Athletics five days earlier and had pitched well in just two of his six starts this season, but that didn’t stop him from mowing down the Yankees like he always has since leaving them.

6. Eovaldi didn’t go to a three-ball count in the game until he faced Trent Grisham with two outs in the fifth. Grisham did nothing with that count on his way to another 0-for-4 day. Grisham finished April with two multi-hit games in the month. His on-base percentage is down to .298, and yet, there’s no end in sight of him batting leadoff ahead of Rice and Judge. Why not just move Rice and Judge each up one place in the lineup? That makes too much sense for someone as dense, stubborn and clueless as Aaron Boone. The idea that the Yankees are giving the most possible plate appearances to Grisham and his .610 OPS is rather ridiculous.

7. With Randal Grichuk getting designated for assignment it seemed like this really may be the chance for Jasson Dominguez to steal playing time from Grisham. Unfortunately, Dominguez got drilled by Eovaldi and had to leave the game. More reason to despise Eovaldi. Dominguez has had some really bad injury luck. If not for tearing his elbow near the end of the 2023 season, he would have gone into 2024 as a starter, and the Yankees don’t idiotically trade for and play Alex Verdugo. Now seemingly about to be a part of the team after spending an unnecessary month in Triple-A, Dominguez gets hit by a pitch that forces him out of a game and who knows the extent of the injury after initial X-rays were “inconclusive.” Who reads the Yankees’ X-rays? A radiologist or Boone?

8. Not only did Grichuk get DFA’d, but George Lombard Jr. was promoted to Triple-A. Lombard hit .312/.400/.571 in 20 games at Double-A this season. The resolution to the failed Anthony Volpe experiment is now one level away from the majors. That’s a good thing because the Yankees need capable bats and Lombard Jr. looks like he could really be one.

9. The Yankees aren’t winning a championship with Grisham reverting back to his pre-2025 self, Jazz Chisholm swinging for the fences with every swing in any count and any situation and Ryan McMahon having a better chance of reaching base if he goes to the plate without a bat. Add in the inevitable benching of Jose Caballero for Volpe and the Yankees will be playing with close to half of the lineup being an automatic each game. Rice and Judge will have to really replicate the Juan Soto-Judge combination of two years ago to make up for all of the dead wood in the lineup.

10. I don’t expect anything to change with the lineup this weekend against the Orioles because Boone makes the lineup and he likely sees a 20-11 record and thinks nothing needs to change. He doesn’t see that record for what it is, which is the Yankees boasting the best 1-2 rotation punch in the league with Schlittler and Max Fried and the best 1-2 lineup punch in the league with Rice and Judge. Will Warren and Ryan Weathers have been good, Caballero (who again is about to be benched) is playing above his career slash line and Tim Hill and Brent Headrick have been reliable, but that’s about it in terms of secondary contributions throughout the roster.

1. Jacob deGrom had to be feeling like he was still a Met on Tuesday night against the Yankees. The soon-to-be 37-year-old righty went six innings, allowed three baserunners and one earned run and took the loss in a 3-2 Yankees win. He took the loss because Cam Schlittler was better than deGrom, as he continues to have the type of early-career success deGrom once had.

“He embraces every opportunity,” Aaron Judge said of Schlittler. “He wants to be in the moment. He’s not scared. There’s no fear.”

2. It was Schlittler’s fourth start with no earned runs in seven starts this year. His ERA is down to 1.51 and he leads the league in strikeouts (49) and the majors in FIP (1.52), WHIP (0.744), walks per nine innings (1.3) and strikeouts per walk (8.17).

“He’s a superstar,” Fernando Cruz said. “What he’s doing is really impressive — throwing three pitches at one speed — but they’re going in different directions.”

3. Last week, Michael Kay made a comment about the Yankees’ rotation and how once Carlos Rodon and Gerrit Cole come back that Schlittler will be quite the No. 4 starter. No. 4? He’s the No. 1. He’s the best pitcher on the team. He’s the best pitcher in the league! I don’t care who has more service time or what anyone’s salary is, Schlittler would be my choice to get the ball for Game 1 of the playoffs right now. We saw what he did in the playoffs last year, and we have seen what Max Fried, Rodon and Cole have done in their careers in the playoffs. It’s no contest. To think Schlittler is the team’s No. 4 is simply a joke.

4. The Yankees won for the second straight night against the Rangers the way they always seem to win: dominant starting pitching and the long ball. Schlittler gave them six scoreless innings and the Yankees hit two home runs: one from Austin Wells and one from Judge. Their other run came on a first-inning double from Cody Bellinger that hit the highest part of the wall in right-center. The offense was the double from Bellinger and the home runs from Wells and Judge. The Yankees went 5-for-33 in the game with no walks and those three had all five hits. The other six hitters in the lineup went 0-for-26.

5. Here is how the Yankees have scored their seven runs in Arlington:

Two-run home run
Solo home run
Solo home run
Double off the highest part of the wall
Solo home run
Solo home run

The Yankees lead the American League with 48 home runs (the next closest team is the Angels with 40) and also lead the majors (the next closest team is the Dodgers with 45.) The Bronx Bombers, indeed.

6. The Rangers had their chances to take a lead in the game and win it late. They drew two walks against Schlittler, which is impressive considering he had walked four total in his six other starts, they put two on against Brent Headrick, two more on against Cruz in the eighth and scored a run and had the winning run on base against David Bednar in the ninth. The play Cruz made on the really dumb sacrifice bunt attempt from Joc Pederson was amazing. It wasn’t amazing that he slid during the play, but it was amazing that he was able to make an accurate throw to third in time to get the lead runner for the first out of the inning and likely save the game.

7. As for Bednar, here is what I wrote about him after Monday’s game:

Michael Scott describing Andy Bernard is how I would summarize my confidence level with Bednar: “Pros: I trust him … Cons: I don’t really trust him.”

Bednar delivered nearly the same performance on Tuesday that he produced on Monday, including being hurt by another infield error as well. Instead of having two outs with no one on, Bednar was faced with one out and one on after Ryan McMahon bobbled a ground ball and then made a poor throw. If you’re going to post a .539 OPS, you’re going to need to make every play at third base. Danny Jansen followed with a run-scoring triple because why wouldn’t he as someone who has made a career off of big hits against the Yankees. Bednar then hit Brandon Nimmo with a 1-2 pitch to put the tying run on base. He threw five straight splitters to Josh Jung and Jung hit the fifth one for an RBI single to make it 3-2. With Corey Seager up with one out and the winning run on base I envisioned a double in the right-center gap or a three-run home run for a Rangers walk-off win. Bednar managed to get a ground ball from Seager for a 4-6-3 double play to end the game.

8. Bednar finished the game throwing seven straight splitters and 10 of his final pitches were splitters. Just five of his 22 pitches were fastballs. I hate having a closer whose best pitch isn’t a fastball. We just went through this last season with Devin Williams. The Yankees’ philosophy that if you have an elite non-fastball pitch you should throw it over and over and over is tiresome. We saw what happened with Tommy Kahnle throwing only changeups in the 2024 World Series. We saw Williams lose his closer role because of the same approach and now we’re watching Bednar throw mostly splitters with some curveballs and almost no fastballs. Bednar will undoubtedly be unavailable on Wednesday and with the day off on Thursday he won’t pitch against until the Orioles series if he’s needed. Hopefully he’s not needed because the Yankees have blown out the Orioles, but if he is, hopefully he has better command or is more willing to go to his fastball.

9. Elmer Rodriguez will make his major-league debut on Wednesday against the Rangers. His line in four Triple-A starts this season: 21.1 IP, 12 H, 4 R, 3 ER, 7 BB, 20 K, 1 HR. I’m excited to see what someone from the minors can do that isn’t named Luis Gil. It’s a great spot for the righty to make his debut, coming against a Rangers team with an extremely top-heavy lineup. It’s a good way for him to get his feet and for the rest of the rotation to get an extra day of rest built into this time through.

10. The Yankees will face Nathan Eovaldi who is always the starting pitcher on my annual All-Animosity Team. Here is what I wrote about Eovaldi for last year’s team:

Never trust a pitcher who throws triple-digit fastballs and has trouble striking hitters out, which is what Eovaldi was with the Yankees and has mostly been in his career. The Dodgers gave up on him and then the Marlins gave up on him. The Yankees thought they could be the ones to hone his incredible velocity, but they weren’t.

As a Yankee in 2015, Eovaldi pitched to a 14-3 record, so every idiot who relies on wins and losses to determine a pitcher’s success thought he had a great season. It didn’t matter that he received 5.75 runs of support per start or that he routinely struggled to get through five innings because he needed 20-plus pitches to get through each inning. In 2016, it was more of the same. Eovaldi pitched to a 4.76 ERA over 21 starts and 24 games before being shut down for another Tommy John surgery, ending his time with the Yankees as they let him walk after the season.

Eovaldi returned to the mound in 2018 and pitched well with the Rays and was traded to the Red Sox. He went on to shut out the Yankees in an important August series for the division lead and shut them out again in September. He did it again in October (even if he received more run support than any opposing starter had received in a postseason game at Yankee Stadium in history).

In 2018, Eovaldi beat the Yankees and Astros in the playoffs, mixed in a few relief appearances and then became a hero for his bullpen work in Game 3 of the World Series (even though he took the loss after giving up a walk-off home run). Eovaldi helped the Red Sox win the World Series and five years later helped the Rangers win it all after earning five wins in six starts in the 2023 postseason.

The only thing that could possibly make ending a nine-game road trip on a three-game winning streak and with an 8-1 going into a scheduled day off, even better is if it were to come at the expense of Eovaldi. The Yankees have the chance to board the plane home happy and put a smile on the faces of all of their fans going into the weekend by beating “Nasty Nate” who was never “nasty” as a Yankee.