1. The Yankees have started to do what they spent nearly a month undoing. After losing 16 of 22, the Yankees have won four straight games. They salvaged the final game of the Citi Field portion of the Subway Series, chased the league leader in strikeout percentage, beat the crap out of a rookie starter and overcame a five-run deficit in a game they were no-hit into the eighth inning in to win four straight.

“It just shows the versatility that we have,” Austin Wells said. “We’ve shown that we can go big early in the games, and we can come back late.”

2. Prior to Thursdays game, I wrote: The best anyone can ask for from Stroman against a solid team like the Mariners is three earned runs over five innings and even that is likely asking for too much. Here’s to him surprising everyone and extending the winning streak to four straight.

Stroman did even better than I asked, allowing only two earned runs over five innings. If the Yankees were going to lose, it wasn’t going to be because of him. And for the majority of the game, it looked like the Yankees were going to lose. Bryan Woo was dominant for seven innings, no-hitting the Yankees until Jazz Chisholm led off the eighth with a single.

“It felt like we were getting dominated,” Boone said. Yeah, I would say getting no-hit into the eighth inning is getting dominated.

3. Boone decided a two-run deficit was too much to overcome, so he went to his last man in the bullpen for two innings with the Yankees trailing 2-0. The decision to go to Clayton Beeter was because of Boone’s decision-making the night before. After Wednesday’s game, I wrote about how unnecessarily using Jonathan Loaisiga and Luke Weaver for multiple innings in a game in which the Yankees had a comfortable lead and had Cam Schilittler pitching well with a low pitch count could come back to screw the Yankees in the series finale. It nearly did when Beeter let the Mariners’ lead go from 2-0 to 5-0.

Giancarlo Stanton hit a pinch-hit, two-run home run to make it a 5-3 game in the bottom of the eighth and Boone’s latest bullpen mismanagement looked like it would cost the Yankees a real opportunity to win the game. But in the ninth, the Yankees saved Boone from any hard postgame questions when they got to Andres Munoz for two runs to tie the game.

4. Trent Grisham led off the ninth with a single. Aaron Judge flew out for the first out, but Cody Bellinger singled to put two on with one out. Chisholm just missed a walk-off home run on a hanging slider, and instead, flew out for the second out. Down to their last out and eventually their last strike as Ben Rice fell behind 0-2, Rice battled back to draw a walk to load the bases. Wells followed with a two-run single to right to tie the game.

5. When Bellinger was on second base in the ninth, I noticed he was waving his arms wildly and visibly. Then I noticed each time he did it Munoz would throw a slider. Then I went back and saw Grisham was doing the same thing when he was on second, just not as noticeably as Bellinger. It was clear the Yankees had something on Munoz, whether it was a tell with his glove position or the runner on second being able to see his grip as he began his delivery because the arm waving would start as soon as Munoz began his motion. Whatever it was it worked and led to the two-run, ninth-inning comeback against a closer that entered the game having allowed 15 hits in 34 innings.

6. Devin Williams did his job in the 10th, stranding the automatic runner. I still don’t trust Williams. I don’t know that I ever will. But with the state of the bullpen he may very well be the most trustworthy at the moment given the home run issue with Luke Weaver recently. Williams has allowed 12 hits and five earned runs in 22 2/3 innings with 31 strikeouts and 1.99 ERA since May 7. He’s been awesome I just can’t erase the first month of the season from my memory.

7. With Volpe serving as the automatic runner in the bottom of the 10th, I was waiting for him to try to steal third with no outs in extras like he unsuccessfully did against the Red Sox last month. Thankfully, he didn’t. Oswald Peraza was asked to bunt Volpe over to third and took a first-pitch fastball at the bottom of the strike zone and then tried to bunt a a elevated second pitch and popped it up to third for the first out. With a lefty on the mound, Boone removed Jasson Dominguez from the game for Paul Goldschmidt and the Mariners immediately walked Goldschmidt. If you’re wondering why the Yankees are so bad in extra innings, the lack of fundamentals and situational hitting coupled with Boone’s brain demonstrated in the first two batters of Thursday’s 10th inning is why.

8. Grisham drew a walk to load the bases to bring up Judge who never gets to hit in extra innings. Judge hit a medium-depth fly ball to center field that Julio Rodriguez made a perfect throw home on, but Volpe made a nifty move to slide around the tag and win the game. Volpe finished the game with another 0-for-4 and his OPS+ is down 88 on the season (it was 81 in 2023 and 86 in 2024, but his slide helped win the game as he would have been out with any other slide. The Yankees wouldn’t have won on the play if anyone other than Volpe, Dominguez or Chisholm had been on third. It was the Yankees’ first win when trailing after eight innings this season.

9. The Yankees’ four-game winning streak will be put to a real test this weekend in the Cubs. The Cubs lead the majors in runs scored per game and the Yankees will try to combat that with Carlos Rodon on Friday, Max Fried on Saturday and Will Warren on Sunday.

With three games to go until the All-Star break, the season will be 59 percent over when the break hits. The Yankees head into the weekend trailing the Blue Jays by two games in the East, trailing the Astros by three games for a bye and have a four-game lead on a wild-card berth. They are in an OK spot. They were in a much better spot a month ago, but they are in a much better spot than they were on Saturday afternoon in Queens.

10. If a midsummer swoon under Boone is tradition then a disastrous weekend heading into the All-Star break under Boone is one as well. In 2021, they led the Astros 7-2 in the ninth, but gave up six runs, including a three-run, walk-off home run to Jose Altuve to lose 8-7. In 2023, they held a 4-1 lead over the Cubs in the seventh, but allowed six runs over the final three innings to lose. Last year, the Yankees had the humiliating loss in Baltimore to end the first “half” when Volpe and Alex Verdugo misplayed balls that would have ended the game. Let’s not do that again. How about a nice series win to go into the break? How about a sweep to keep the winning streak going? Let’s do that.

1. Goodbye to DJ LeMahieu. I always liked LeMahieu and was an advocate for him to be re-signed during the 2020-21 offseason. Did I think giving him a six-year deal to spread out the $90 million the Yankees gave him was the right decision? No. But when you’re worried about the luxury tax that’s what you do and Hal Steinbrenner is worried about the luxury tax more than you’re worried about anything in your life.

The Yankees signed LeMahieu as a free agent prior to 2019 despite coming off back-to-back below-league-average seasons in 2017 (93 OPS+) and 2018 (88 OPS+) while playing half of his games at Coors Field. If you remember, LeMahieu wasn’t even part of the Yankees’ expected everyday lineup in 2019 and didn’t even play on Opening Day. He quickly forced himself into the lineup and hit .327/.375/.518 with a career-high 26 home runs and 102 RBIs. (Let’s forget about the juiced ball that season that saw Brett Gardner hit 28 home runs and Gleyber Torres 34.)

LeMahieu was every bit as good in the postseason that year as well, posting a .976 OPS in the three-game sweep over the Twins and a 1.029 OPS in the ALCS loss to the Astros. He was the Yankees’ best hitter in the six games against the Astros and his ninth-inning home run to tie Game 6 would have been an all-time moment in the team’s history if they had gone on to win the game and the series. Instead, it will be mostly forgotten like Alfonso Soriano’s go-ahead home run in Game 7 of the 2001 World Series.

After finishing second for the batting title in 2019, LeMahieu won it with a .364 average in the shortened 2020 season. He hit .364/.421/.590 and led the league in WAR despite missing 17 percent of the 60-game season. He also led the league in on-base percentage, OPS and OPS+.

The Yankees had to sign LeMahieu after 2020. He had become the second-most important piece of their offense and on defense he was a versatile Gold Glove winner. At the time, no one knew Torres would play his way off of shortstop and force LeMahieu to play third and first. No one knew LeMahieu was about to break down.

2. The Yankees spread out the $90 million over 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025 and 2026, hoping the first half of the six years would be the same old LeMahieu and they would deal with the second half of the six years. But after being designated for assignment on Wednesday, LeMahieu only lasted for four-and-a-half years of the deal, and for those four-and-a-half years, he wasn’t himself, plagued by a multitude of injuries, which turned him into a seeing-eye-singles hitter at the plate and an immobile defender in the field.

LeMahieu played in 150 games in the first year of the deal in 2021 (and was two percent worse than league average), but was shut down prior to the postseason — a postseason that lasted only one game for the Yankees.

He began to return to form in 2022, posting a 118 OPS+, but again missed time and was shut down for the postseason.

His 2023 season looked a lot like his 2021 season and he managed to play in 84 percent of the team’s games, but was four percent worse than league average in those games.

His 2024 season was the worst of his career as he hit .204/.269/.259 in 67 games and was on the injured list to end the season for the third time in four years.

He got hurt again in spring training in 2025 and missed the beginning of the year. When he returned, I wrote: LeMahieu has become the Yankees’ family dog who wanders around aimlessly and goes to the bathroom all over the place and lies around and sleeps all day. You try to pretend like the end isn’t near and you try to remember the good times to get through the bad times. Once in a while the dog will do something to remind you of what it used to be, but it’s just a momentary tease. The moments were too far and few between at the plate, and in the field, he was a liability at second base, unable to get to balls within reach. And so on Wednesday he became a former Yankee.

3. It was the right move, though at the wrong time. It was a move that should have been made either during last season or prior to this season. Aaron Boone spent the winter telling everyone how LeMahieu would return to his old self in 2025, the same way he told everyone they were crazy to not believe in Josh Donaldson in 2023 before his eventual release. The same way he tells everyone how good Anthony Volpe is despite every stat and metric suggesting he’s not and anyone with eyesight knowing he’s not.

4. It happened quickly for LeMahieu. He went from starting on Sunday to being told he was going to be a bench player on Tuesday to being designated for assignment on Wednesday. He was a good Yankee and I’m sure some other team will sign him even though he seems as washed as it gets. The Yankees gave late-career Kendrys Morales and Jay Bruce a chance. The Brewers signed Donaldson after he left the Yankees. The Orioles and Angels gave Aaron Hicks a chance. Some team is always willing to give some washed-up player a chance. I know how these things work out and I can already see LeMahieu coming to the plate with runners on second and third and two outs against Jonathan Loaisiga in the playoffs and LeMahieu hitting a 37-hopper up the middle to score two.

5. After the news of LeMahieu’s designation tapered off, the Yankees won their first game since Game 2 of the 2018 ALDS without LeMahieu in the organization. For the second straight night they beat the crap out of a Mariners starter and this time it was Logan Evans allowing 11 baserunners and six earned runs in 4 2/3 innings to the Yankees. The offense has come alive in July with at least five runs in all eight games this month.

6. But the story wasn’t the bats it was Cam Schlittler making his major-league debut. Schlittler looked great in his 5 1/3 innings of work, frequently throwing 100-mph fastballs by Mariners hitters. It was refreshing to see a Yankees pitcher not trying to fool everyone and just throwing the ball right by them instead.

7. Schlittler’s final line of three earned runs in 5 1/3 innings may not look great, but I blame the solo home run on Austin Wells for calling for back-to-back breaking balls to Jorge Polanco, and when they both missed and the count was 2-0, Polanco knew the rookie would come with a fastball and he destroyed it.

I blame the third earned run on Boone. Schlittler allowed a leadoff bloop double to begin the sixth to Julio Rodriguez. He then got to face Cal Raleigh a third time and blew Raleigh away with a high fastball at 98 mph. Schlittlter was only at 75 pitches after striking out Raleigh, but Boone went to Loaisiga, who has been dreadful, to face Randy Arozarena. Arozarena promptly hit a two-run home run to right field and Schlittler was charged with an earned run.

8. There is a lot behind this horrible decision. Schlittler was allowed to face the major-league leader in home runs a third time, but not Arozarena? With Marcus Stroman starting on Thursday, the most innings the Yankees could expect is five, which means the bullpen would be leaned on for four innings. Knowing that, why would you remove a starter pitching well with a four-run lead at 75 pitches?

For all of the talk recently about how Boone shouldn’t be Yankees manager because he won’t tell it like it is, no, that decision right there summarizes why Boone shouldn’t be the manager. He has no idea what he’s doing in terms of in-game management in Year 8 in the position. He had Loaisiga pitched multiple innings and Luke Weaver pitch multiple innings when he didn’t need to. So now both will be unavailable on Thursday when they are more likely to be needed. Boone’s decision-making on Wednesday nearly blew the game before the offense tacked on additional runs and those decisions could lead to a loss on Thursday. Boone, himself, is a bigger problem than the Yankees’ pitching staff depth or their lack of a third baseman.

9. Jasson Dominguez was back in the leadoff spot where he went 3-for-4 with a walk. I’m sure he will either be moved down on Thursday or benched so Trent Grisham can play. Aaron Judge went 1-for-3 with two walks, Cody Bellinger went 2-for-4, Giancarlo Stanton and Paul Goldschmidt picked up singles, Jazz Chisholm homered twice and Austin Wells had a pair of hits. Volpe hit a ball off the right-field wall and was thrown out trying to stretch his hit into a double. Oswald Peraza went 0-for-4, but his four balls were hit 99, 109, 99 and 92 mph, which was a welcome sight. Maybe with consistent playing time he will prove he can hit in the majors.

10. Unfortunately, the three-game winning streak and the mood around the team that seems to be changing for the better is likely to come to an end on Thursday with Stroman pitching. I can’t envision him pitching well or giving the Yankees enough innings to not ask what is a shaky-at-best bullpen to get at least 12 outs. The best anyone can ask for from Stroman against a solid team like the Mariners is three earned runs over five innings and even that is likely asking for too much. Here’s to him surprising everyone and extending the winning streak to four straight.

1. The Yankees won on Sunday. They had Monday off. They won on Tuesday. That means the Yankees won two games in a row. It was the first time since June 25 and June 27 they had won back-to-back games and just the third time since June 12. For a team whose manager calls them “the best in baseball” despite having the ninth-best record and despite having lost 11 1/2 games of ground to the Blue Jays, you would think the “best team in baseball” would win back-to-back games more than three times in a month.

2. If you were wondering how long the Yankees would be comfortable with Jazz Chisholm playing a shaky third base and DJ LeMahieu being unable to get to balls within reach of him at second base, well, we received out answer on Tuesday. The answer is going from an eight-game lead over the Blue Jays to trailing the Blue Jays by 3 1/2 games.

The best part of the Yankees staying with Chisholm at third as long as the Yankees did is that he was given the day off on Sunday because of a shoulder issue that was affecting his throwing. Aaron Boone said it had been going on a for a while. So for a while, Boone knowingly was starting Chisholm at third base every day even though he had an issue throwing. Chisholm said he didn’t want to use it as an excuse for his poor throws across the diamond (of which there was at least one a game for an extended period), but by saying he didn’t want to use it as an excuse, he was using it as an excuse.

3. I don’t fault Chisholm for playing a bad third base, considering he has never been a third baseman in his career outside of his time with the Yankees — the only team in the majors that takes pride in playing multiple players out of position on a daily basis. But with Oswald Peraza at third base on Tuesday, you could see the glaring difference between having an elite left-side infielder on the field compared to a player being asked to do something he wasn’t asked to do with his previous organization and to do something he wasn’t even told to prepare for in spring training. Peraza made roughly four plays on Tuesday that Chisholm wouldn’t have made.

4. It turns out when you play a clean game defensively it makes it easier to win. It also helps when you get a strong starting effort like the Yankees got from Will Warren (5.2 IP, 4 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 2 BB, 4 K) and when you hit with runners in scoring position, which the Yankees did going 5-for-7 (I don’t think they had five hits with runners in scoring position over the last five weeks). The Yankees got to Logan Gilbert — the league leader in strikeout percentage — for five runs in 5 1/3 innings and then torched Casey Legumina for five runs in an inning of work. The 10-3 rout was a big win for the “Lookout the Yankees’ run differential!” crowd.

5. I like LeMahieu. I was all for re-signing him after 2020 before he started to break down. He should be happy every day he wakes up and is still in the majors at this point. Boone said LeMahieu took the news of going to the bench, “Not great, necessarily.” LeMahieu can’t be even a little upset he’s not going to be anything more than a bench player for the time being. He should be grateful he’s still on the team.

6. Aside from Chisholm back at second, Peraza at third and LeMahieu on the bench, Jasson Dominguez was batting leadoff. Dominguez had a big game out of the leadoff spot on Saturday and then was batting sixth on Sunday. He should be the leadoff hitter moving forward, though, unfortunately, because Boone is trying to overcorrect for not playing Trent Grisham over Alex Verdugo last year, and in doing so is doing everything he can to stunt Dominguez’s development by playing Grisham as much as possible. I’m sure Dominguez will sit on Wednesday so Grisham can play.

7. Tim Hill, Ian Hamilton and Scott Effross combined to throw three scoreless innings of relief and Geoff Hartlieb gave up three runs while recording just one out. Hartlieb couldn’t have done less with his two appearances this season (1.1 IP, 5 H, 6 R, 6 ER, 4 BB, 4 K, 1 HR).

8. Aaron Judge went 2-for-5 with a solo home run with the Yankees up 6-0 in the seventh. Cody Bellinger went 3-for-4, Giancarlo Stanton hit the game-opening three-run home run, Jazz Chisholm had a double, Paul Goldschmidt had three hits, Austin Wells homered and Peraza singled in the first run of the game. Anthony Volpe — as expected — went 0-for-4. The “really good” and “productive” offensive player Boone spoke about last week is down to .217/.293/.393 on the season. The “above league average” offensive player Boone talked about is now nine percent worse than league average.

9. Because the Yankees blew a sizable division lead and because they have lost 16 of their last 24 game, there has been the annual midsummer call for Boone to be fired. (It’s as expected each summer as the Fourth of July is at this point.) As a leader of the movement in recent years, I wish I could take part in this year’s edition, but it’s a waste of energy. Boone survived finishing third in the division and fifth in the AL in 2021 when his team was the favorite to win the AL. He survived missing the postseason completely in 2023 when 40 percent of the league gets in. There is nothing he could do to get fired this season, especially off a World Series appearance, even if that appearance was embarrassing, humiliating and disturbing.

Because of the annual midsummer call for Boone to lose his job, there has been this narrative — led by Michael Kay — that Boone shouldn’t be fired because he doesn’t tell it like it is. That’s not the reason Boone should be removed. It’s one of the reasons, but it’s second at best to his in-game strategy and decision-making. Boone shouldn’t be the manager of the Yankees because he routinely fails to put his players in the best possible position to succeed (like playing Chisholm at third base every day or having Jayvien Sandridge make his major-league debut against Juan Soto and Pete Alonso) and because he’s incapable of making consistent logical in-game decisions. His lack of urgency, misevaluation of performance, defense of underperformance and telling everyone how good the Yankees are when they aren’t is second to all of that.

One day Boone will no longer be the Yankees’ manager. That day is not any time soon. He will never be fired. Hal Steinbrenner would rather have the team finish in last place for a decade than pay two people at the same time for one job. One day Boone’s contract will end and the Yankees won’t offer him a new one. That’s the only way he will no longer be the Yankees’ manger. (This doesn’t mean I won’t take every opportunity I get to criticize him. I just know it won’t lead to anything until his contract expires.)

10. Cam Schlittler gets the ball on Wednesday in his major-league debut. With Luis Gil and Ryan Yarbrough on the injured list and Clarke Schmidt out for this season and next, Schlittler has an opportunity to be a part of the rotation for the long haul if he pitches well. Right now, the Yankees’ No. 3 starter is Warren and the No. 4 is Marcus Stroman, so yeah, Schlittler has an amazing opportunity here and the bar is just be better than Stroman.

Can the Yankees win a third straight game on Wednesday? If they do, it will be the first time since June 10-12.

1. The Yankees held an eight-game lead over the Blue Jays on May 28. That lead is now gone. That lead is now a deficit. Because of the head-to-head tiebreaker, the Yankees are in second place in the AL East. They are a wild-card team.

2. It took a lot of losing to get to this point. It took a 13-14 June into an 0-3 July. It took going 6-10 against five teams outside of the playoff picture (Red Sox, Angels, Orioles, Reds and A’s). It took blowing a two-run lead to the Blue Jays on Monday and blowing another two-run lead to them on Tuesday. It took giving up five runs before recording an out on Wednesday and facing an 8-0 hole in the fifth, only to come back and tie the game at 9 to then lose anyway, 11-9.

3. Wednesday’s game was much of the same from the Yankees. Will Warren laid another first-inning egg and the offense took the first four innings off. The offense woke up and made one of their rare appearances just in time for the bullpen to implode. The Yankees wasted an amazing three-week run of starts from their rotation with embarrassing offensive efforts. Now that the starting pitching has regressed, the offense has reappeared, but so have the early-season bullpen meltdowns. Mark Leiter Jr. ruined Monday’s game (with help from the left side of the infield). Luke Weaver ruined Tuesday’s game (with help from his catcher). Devin Williams ruined Wednesday’s game (with help from his catcher).

4. The Yankees are a collection of pieces that don’t fit and it’s by design. After years of being too right-handed heavy, they overcorrected to become too left-handed. They have multiple players without positions, so they have some of those players play out of position. Then for players that do have positions, they play them out of position as well.

Their best second baseman plays third base every game to accommodate an immobile statue who will turn 37 next week because he’s still owed $22 million between this season and next. Their best defensive shortstop sits on the bench every day, but when he does get the rare chance to play, he plays second base or third base to cater to the 24-year-old Golden Boy of the organization — the only player who gets to play as much as Aaron Judge. Their starting left fielder is a center fielder who they have forced to play left field, so that their supposed fourth outfielder (who wasn’t good enough to play over Alex Verdugo last season) can play center field. On Wednesday, their starting catcher was making his fourth career start behind the plate because he’s really only been a first baseman in the majors. Two weeks ago the Yankees weren’t convinced he could start a game at catcher in the majors and now he has started four of the team’s last 14 games there, starting over the actual backup catcher, who the Yankees believed in more than the right-handed-hitting Carlos Narvaez, so they gave away Narvaez to the Red Sox where he is a middle-of-the-order bat with an .800 OPS. Now the Yankees have three left-handed-hitting catchers on the roster. All of these players playing out of position has led to game-changing errors and mistakes throughout the season.

5. When the Yankees lose (which they have nearly every day for the last three weeks), well, “That’s baseball.” When they win, they act as though they will never lose again. They have the swagger of Yankees teams that won without ever having won. This has been going on throughout the Boone era.

They carried themselves like defending champions in 2018 when Judge carried a boom box blasting “New York, New York” while walking out of Fenway Park following a Game 2 win in the ALDS. The Red Sox responded by blasting the Yankees for 16 runs in the worst home postseason loss in franchise history the next game and eliminated them in four games. After winning Game 1 of the 2019 ALCS, they lost four of the next five games to end their season. They thought they could outsmart the Rays with their series-changing opener strategy with Deivi Garcia and J.A. Happ in Game 2 of the 2020 ALDS. After being the odds-on favorite to win the AL in 2021, they finished fifth in the AL, went on the road for the one-game, wild-card game and were laughed off the field in the first inning. After that loss, Boone said, “The league has closed the gap on us,” as if the team was coming off a run of four championships in five seasons.

That level of arrogance continued in 2022 when they were pantsed by the Astros in the ALCS, culminating in Boone using video of the darkest moment in Yankees history as a motivational tactic that resulted in no motivation. It continued in the summer of 2023 when Boone kept saying the team would turn a corner they never turned missed the playoffs despite 40 percent of the league getting into October. Last season, seven years of no accountability and a lack of fundamentals came to a head in the World Series and they were humiliated on the game’s biggest stage.

6. Boone has learned nothing from seven seasons at the helm. He makes the same lineup mistakes, presses the wrong bullpen buttons and lies to the media and fanbase in 2025 as if it’s 2018.

Judge — the captain — has learned nothing with Boone at the helm. Judge was likely one of the driving forces in Joe Girardi being replaced and he has spent the last seven seasons recycling Boone-isms about how “They’ll get ‘em tomorrow” until they run out of tomorrows, and they have always run out of tomorrows during this era.

Young Yankees like Anthony Volpe don’t know what accountability is because they have never seen or needed to experience it. That’s why you get postgame answers like Volpe gave on Monday, when instead of owning up to his two-game changing fielding decisions, he doubled down and said he would do the same thing “every single time.”

New(ish) Yankees like Jazz Chisholm talk shit they can’t back up. Chisholm called the Royals’ Game 2 win in last year’s ALDS “lucky” even though he hit .133 in that series. He hit .182/.250/.309 in the postseason. After salvaging the third game in Cincinnati last week, Chisholm participated in the postgame, on-field interview and said, “I feel like we got a great team and I feel like we’re going to make the World Series again,” even though it was June 25, the Yankees had lost eight of 12 and their lead in the loss column had dropped from seven to one.

On Friday, after beating the second-worst team in the AL, Boone called the Yankees “a team to be reckoned with.” They had lost nine of 14 at the time and have lost three of four since. They are being reckoned with and are being wrecked in the process.

7. Now that they’re out of first place for the first time since April 13, you would think maybe, just maybe they would be humbled by the last four weeks. Not only are they not humbled, they are every bit as cocky and delusional as they have ever been.

“We think we’re really good,” Boone said after Wednesday’s crushing loss.

If the players on the team take on the personality of their manager in Boone then Boone has taken on the personality of his manager in Brian Cashman. It was Cashman who told reporters after the 2023 season in which the team missed the postseason, “I think we’re pretty fucking good.” If Cashman could think a roster that went 82-80 and missed the playoffs is good then of course Boone thinks a team that blew an eight-game division lead in just a month is good.

8. Boone was asked, “Is it jarring when you’ve been in first place for two months and then somebody ties you?”

“No,” Boone quickly answered.

Of course it’s not jarring. This type of thing happens every year under Boone, He’s used to it. Three years ago, the Yankees had a 15 1/2-game lead in the division that got cut by 15 games. You think blowing an eight-game lead is a big deal?

9. Asked if he thinks it’s going to be a tight race all season now, Boone replied, “I hope not.”

It didn’t have to be. You had an eight-game lead over the team that has now passed you. (Spoiler: It’s going to be a tight race.) And it’s not just about winning the division. It’s about winning the division and getting a bye. If you win your division, but finish as the third division winner and end up in a best-of-3 series anyway, who cares.

10. After Tuesday’s loss Boone said, “We gotta play better overall and hopefully get it going tomorrow.”

Surprisingly, hoping for a win didn’t work.

After Wednesday’s loss Boone said, “We’ll come ready to go tomorrow, hopefully Clarke will get us off to a good start.”

That’s the Yankees’ plan to get out of this mess: hoping. Not benching underperformers. Not putting players at their best positions. Not putting the worst hitters at the bottom of the lineup no matter what hand they hit with. Not shoring up the defense. Not playing a full, clean game. Hoping. A team with a $300 payroll and World Series aspirations is hoping to win games.

1. I cringed when I heard it. I was hoping I wouldn’t hear it this season, but after hearing it in 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024, I should have known better.

“We obviously gotta play a little better,” Aaron Boone said after Tuesday’s 12-5 loss, “and we have the people capable of doing that.”

You know it’s summer for the Yankees when Boone starts telling you about how the players the Yankees have are “capable” of turning the season around. He said it in 2021 when the team had a .500 record for the season in July. He said it in 2022 when was slamming press conference tables as the Yankees went 15-27 in July and August and watched their 15 1/2-game lead dwindle to one game. He said it in 2023 went the Yankees went 14-30 in July and August on their way to missing the postseason despite 40 percent of the league getting in. He said it in 2024 when the Yankees went 11-24 from mid-June to late July. And now he has said it in 2025 with the Yankees having lost 12 of 18 and their division lead down to one game.

2. You know what’s next, right? “It’s right in front of us.” Phase 1 of a Yankees midseason meltdown is losing to bad teams and the Yankees just went 6-10 against five teams not holding a playoff spot in the Red Sox, Angels, Orioles, Reds and A’s. Phase 2 is the division lead falling to one game. Phase 3 is Boone saying how “capable” his roster is. Phase 4 — the final phase — is him saying, “It’s right in front of us.” If the Yankees lose on Wednesday, it will be the first time since March 29 they aren’t alone in first place in the AL East. “It’s right in front of us” is imminent.

3. In 2022, Boone said, “It’s right in front of us,” on August 20. In 2023, he said, “It’s all there right in front of us,” on July 15. Last year, he said, “It’s all right in front of us,” on July 7. Each year it’s come a little earlier, but it always comes.

If the Yankees continue to play the way they have played over the last three weeks it will come in Toronto. After ending June with a 5-4 loss, the Yankees opened July with 12-5 disaster.

4. The Yankees scored two runs in the first to take an early 2-0 lead on a two-out, two-run single from Jasson Dominguez. (Dominguez drove in three of the Yankees’ five runs in the game. I bet Boone is upset he can’t bench Dominguez on Wednesday in favor of Trent Grisham, who has a hamstring injury.)

The Yankees still led 2-0 in the bottom of the fourth when Max Fried allowed a solo home run to George Springer. Fried bounced back to retire Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Alejandro Kirk. He thought he was out of the inning when he got Davis Schneider to hit a ground ball to Jazz Chisholm, but Chisholm threw it away to extend the inning. Then Myles Straw drew a walk and Andres Gimenez crushed a three-run home run to straightaway center. The fourth inning should have ended with the Yankees leading 2-1. Instead, they trailed 4-2 because they continue to play a second baseman at third base, so that they can play an immobile 36-year-old at second because they owe him $22.5 million between this season and next. Boone is usually quick to shut down any suggestion of personnel changes, but even he said, “We’ll talk through that stuff,” when asked if continuing to play Chisholm at third and LeMahieu at second was the best alignment.

5. The Yankees tied the game at 4 in the seventh when the Blue Jays did their best Yankees impersonation by booting the ball all around the infield to allow two runs to score. The idea the Yankees would repay the Blue Jays for their error-fueled win the night before with one of their own was short-lived as the Yankees’ bullpen crumbled in the bottom of the seventh and allowed five runs and then allowed three more in the eighth for some icing on the cake.

Mark Leiter Jr. was the first reliever to be used in the game. He entered in the seventh with the score tied at 4. He faced three batters and retired one. Leiter Jr.’s WHIP this season is now 1.592. That ranks 150th out of 157 AL pitchers with at least 30 innings pitched (stat from Katie Sharp).

Luke Weaver relieved Leiter Jr. and he faced four batters and retired one and allowed a grand slam to put the game out of reach.

6. The Yankees scored two non-defensive-aided errors in the game and they both came in the first inning. Their ace allowed four runs in six innings. Their bullpen allowed eight runs in two innings. Their third baseman made a game-changing throw for the worse because he’s not a third baseman. Their catcher committed catcher’s interference for the second straight game and leads the league in that stat despite being 44th in games played for catchers.

7. “I didn’t help my team win today or yesterday,” J.C. Escarra said. “It shouldn’t have happened, but it’s something I can control.”

At least Escarra was accountable for his error. Anthony Volpe would have said he will do the same thing every single time like he said about his wild play the day before.

Weaver defended his catcher — the worst catcher at interfering with swings in the majors.

“I feel like that’s a really unfortunate part of our game,” Weaver said. “I don’t think, personally, that belongs in our game.”

Let’s change the rule for Escarra. Rather than have him not hit the batter’s bat mid-swing, let’s just have the rule removed from the game!

8. The Yankees were 2-for-17 with runners in scoring position, a day after they went 1-for-7. So they’re 3-for-24 in the first two games of the series with runners in scoring position.

“I will say the last two nights we’ve stung a number of balls with runners in scoring position,” Boone said. The New York Yankees: where process is more important than results. That’s what Brian Cashman told everyone at the 2022 end-of-the-season press conference.

9. “We’re going to have this conversation next year and the next year and the next year with what’s going on with runners in scoring position,” Boone said.

So Boone not only knows his job is safe for at least three more years through 2028, but he knows those Yankees teams will also suck at driving in runners in scoring position.

10. “That is baseball,” Boone said.

Nothing like a “That’s baseball” from a Yankee to evaluate their latest loss. Volpe used the same phrase on Monday. Aaron Judge said it last week. Boone says it all the time. If they lose again on Wednesday, someone else will say it. Or Boone will resort to telling us it’s right in front of them.