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Author: Neil Keefe

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Yankees Thoughts: ‘We Think We’re Really Good’

The Yankees lost for the 13th time in 19 games and are no longer in first place in the AL East. Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

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.

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Yankees Believe Anthony Volpe Is Something He’s Not

Aaron Boone was asked about Anthony Volpe’s performance.

Before the Yankees lost another game and their division lead fell to one game on Tuesday, Aaron Boone sat in the visitors’ dugout at Rogers Centre fielding questions from the media. Meredith Markaovits asked him about the performance of Anthony Volpe and Boone went into an extended spiel full of inaccuracies, misinformation and general bullshit about his shortstop, who he has defended unlike any other player on the roster since the start of 2023. Let’s go through each part of it.

“Now we’re talking offensive side of the ball? I think he can be a really good player in this league. I think that’s what he’s been so far.”

Boone says he thinks Volpe can be a really good player in this league. Then he says that’s what Volpe has been. So if he has already been a really good player then there’s no need for Boone to think he can be one?

“His third year in, it hasn’t been the ascension some people want.”

It’s not uncommon for Boone to use words he clearly doesn’t know the meaning of. “Ascension” means “rising or increasing to higher levels” or “mounting or sloping upward.” Boone used the word to describe Volpe’s development as a player. The problem is Volpe hasn’t “risen to a higher level” and he’s certainly not “sloping upward.” At best, he’s the same player in 2025 that he was in 2023 and 2024, but someone saying he’s been worse is also an acceptable answer.

In 2025, Volpe is on pace to score more runs than he scored in 2023, but less than he scored in 2024. He’s on pace to record more hits than he did in 2023, but less than he did in 2024. He’s on pace to hit more home runs than he hit in 2024, but less than he hit in 2023. He’s on pace to steal less bases than he did in 2023 and 2024. He has already been caught stealing more times than he was in 2023 and as many times as he was in 2024. He leads the league in errors (11) and is going to shatter his 2023 (17) and 2024 (16) totals. He’s going to set a new career high for doubles and may strike out less times than he did in the last two seasons (it’s going to be close compared to last year), but other than that, he’s been mostly the same or worse.

“I get that. But the reality is he’s 24 and a really productive player and been a really productive player this year. Like that’s important to know while everyone loses their mind about things. He’s like a really good, productive player.”

Yes, everyone is losing their mind about Volpe, and everyone is wrong. The Yankees aren’t wrong. The front office isn’t wrong. Boone isn’t wrong. Everyone else who has watched Volpe play baseball every day for two-and-a-half seasons is wrong.

The Volpe Fan Club will use his WAR to argue how valuable he has been. But they won’t tell you how much of his WAR is from defense. If you play every day and you play shortstop every day, you’re going to accumulate defensive WAR. Volpe is a defensive WAR compiler. And because defensive metrics are all over the place in terms of determining actual value, it really can’t be trusted.

Defensive shortstops grow on trees. The Yankees’ best defensive shortstop is Oswald Peraza. Peraza doesn’t play because he can’t hit. But he’s never been given consistent at-bats in the majors to prove if he can hit. Maybe if he had been given 1,631 consistent plate appearances like Volpe has been given, we would know. But we’ll never know. And yes, I would rather have Peraza play over Volpe knowing that every ball hit to short will result in an out, and not a bobble, boot or errant throw. Peraza may not be able to hit, but Volpe can’t either, but at least the defense would be reliable.

“Even offensively, through some of his struggles this year he’s been a better-than-league-average performer at any position let alone the shortstop position.”

My favorite part of it at all. Last year, Boone provided a similar monologue in defense of Volpe and mentioned how he was better than league average. It was a lie then (Volpe was 14 percent worse than league average in 2024), and it’s a lie now as Volpe has been one percent worse than league average in 2025.

Volpe is hitting .225/.306/.406 on the season. He is hitting .215/.299/.362 since April 6. His entire slash line is being propped up by the first eight games of the season when he went 10-for-33 with three doubles and four home runs. He did the same thing last year when he went 15-for-36 with three doubles and two home runs in the first 10 games of 2024 and then sucked for 150 games.

First 10 games of 2024: .417/.488/.667 (1.154 OPS)
Next 150 games of 2024: .233/.281/.346 (.627 OPS)

First eight games of 2025: .303/.361/.758 (1.119 OPS)
Next 76 games of 2025: .215/.299/.362 (.662 OPS)

It took a while for Volpe’s overall OPS+ to fall below league average where it is now because of the first week of the season when he fooled everyone into thinking he figured out the majors for the second straight season, but he’s been below league average for nearly three months.

Here are Volpe’s ranks among shortstops:

Plate Appearances: 13th
Batting Average: 23rd
On-Base Percentage: 19th
Slugging Percentage: 14th
OPS: 17th
Runs: 20th
Hits: 22nd
Doubles: 2nd
Home Runs: 14th
Walks: 6th
Strikeouts: 6th
Stolen Bases: 17th
Caught Stealing: 1st

“So we’re fortunate to have a really good one in Anthony Volpe. That doesn’t mean we don’t expect and want him to continue to get better and better and he’s 24.”

Are the Yankees really fortunate to have Volpe? At the start of 2023, he was the Yankees’ top prospect and the fifth-ranked prospect in all of baseball. The Yankees passed on the deepest shortstop free-agent class in history because they had evaluated him to be a franchise player and their shortstop for the next decade-plus. He’s still likely to be their shortstop for a decade because we have seen how long Brian Cashman and Boone have remained in their positions and how long players the front office loved a lot less than Volpe kept their roster spots. Because of the prospect pedigree Volpe came with and the subsequent roster decisions made to cater to him because of the belief in him, him ending up being what he is now or having a ceiling of being league average is a disaster.

“Everyone’s trajectory is a little bit different. You see late bloomers sometimes offensively. Sometimes you see a steady ascent.”

Yes, every player’s trajectory is different. There has been no steady ascent because there has been no ascent. Volpe is the same player he was two years ago with less power and less speed. And if he ends up being a late bloomer, I’m sure the Yankees will find out since they have no immediate contingency plan for him to be replaced. They made sure to not create any potential competition for the role, so that it could be his. Peraza barely gets to play, and when he does play, he plays second base or third base, so the inferior defender and arm of Volpe can remain at short. They have kept Peraza in the majors playing infrequently and his bat remains unused and untested. If he were playing every day in Triple-A this season and hitting well, the calls for him to become the everyday shortstop would be extremely loud and the Yankees can’t have that. So he’s stuck on the bench, wasting away and waiting for his inevitable release from the team like every “top” prospect before him not named Volpe that was too good for the Yankees to include in a trade, but not good enough to play for the Yankees.

“I think he’s a better offensive player now than he was last year and the year before and hopefully that plays itself out the rest of the way.”

Sorry, Boone, he’s not. He’s no better in 2025 than he was in 2024 or 2023. The rest of the way I don’t expect him to be anything more than a below-league-average hitter, which is what he has been through 1,631 career plate appearances. And I don’t expect him to ever losing playing time for it.

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Yankees Thoughts: Free Fallin’

The Yankees lost to the Blue Jays 12-5 and their division lead is down to one game. Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

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.

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Yankees Thoughts: No Accountability for Anthony Volpe

The Yankees lost 5-4 to the Blue Jays thanks to some more sloppy defense. Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. The Yankees played a good team on Monday, so you can guess how it went. They lost 5-4 to the Blue Jays.

It’s understandable the Yankees lost. When you go 6-10 against the Red Sox, Angels, Orioles, Reds and A’s over your last 16 games, it’s easy to see how you would lose to a Blue Jays team that is now eight games above .500. A Blue Jays team that is now just two games behind in the AL East.

2. Through four-and-a-half innings on Monday, the Yankees led 2-0 and it looked like they may finish June with a winning record despite the last few weeks. It still looked that way when they led 3-1 going into the bottom of the sixth. But then it all fell apart as a result of poor defense and poor decision making. The Blue Jays scored four runs in the sixth with just one ball reaching the outfield grass in the air.

The inning started with Carlos Rodon still on the mound. Rodon had put eight baserunners on in five innings, but had limited the damage to one run. Aaron Boone sent Rodon back out to for the sixth even though a right-handed batter in Davis Schneider was due up. Rodon asked out of the Yankees’ frustrating loss last week in Cincinnati after 88 pitches due to the heat and here he was at 90 pitches and drenched in sweat in the climate-controlled Rogers Centre being asked to pitch another inning. Rodon couldn’t put Schneider away and gave up a leadoff double. Boone promptly removed Rodon after the double. Boone’s plan to steal outs with his laboring starter despite having a well-rested bullpen backfired the way it always does.

3. Boone’s plan after the fifth inning was clearly to try to steal outs in the sixth with Rodon and if he couldn’t steal them he would get the final 12 outs by getting one inning each from Mark Leiter Jr., Jonathan Loaisiga, Luke Weaver and Devin Williams. Except the plan never got that far. Rather than give Leiter Jr. a clean inning to work with and back-to-back right-handed batters to face, Boone brought in Leiter Jr. with the tying run at the plate.

Leiter Jr. got Myles Straw — the first batter he faced — to hit a ground ball to short. Anthony Volpe fielded the ball and then threw it wildly to third base, a play he has consistently failed to make (and no instances more memorable than Game 5 of the World Series). The errant throw allowed Schneider to score and Straw to move to second. The Yankees’ lead was now 3-2 with the tying run on second and no outs. Nathan Lukes followed with a single on the ground to left field to put runners on the corners with no outs. Leiter Jr. bounced back to strike out Will Wagner, but a wild pitch moved Lukes to second.

With second and third and one out, the speedy Ernie Clement hit a ground ball to Volpe. The ball would score Straw to tie the game. With no play to get Clement at first, Volpe decided to hold on to the ball to keep Lukes from advancing to third with only one out.

Just kidding!

In an attempt to be a hero like he always tries to be on defense, Volpe threw the ball to first with his below-league-average arm for a shortstop even though Clement was about to reach the base before Volpe let go of the ball. Once Volpe threw the ball, Lukes took off for third. Volpe’s decision to inexplicably throw across the diamond put runners on the corners again with one out.

Loaisiga then came in to relieve Leiter Jr. He got ahead of George Springer 0-2, but J.C. Escarra committed catcher’s interference to put Springer on and load the bases with one out. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. then singled in Lukes to give the Blue Jays a lead they wouldn’t relinquish.

4. If the ball is hit to Volpe in a big spot, you can be sure it won’t end well. I have never seen someone make so many defensive mistakes in crucial situations. If he’s not bobbling the ball, he’s throwing it away. If he’s not throwing it away, he’s making a low Baseball IQ decision on what to do with it. He’s the last person I want the ball hit to on the field on a team that is playing a middle infielder at third base, two of the oldest players in the league at first base and second base and a left fielder the team didn’t trust to play all nine innings of games defensively for the first month of the season.

It’s not just that Volpe sucks at hitting (13 percent worse than league average in 1,626 career plate appearances), is a horrific base stealer (caught in seven of 16 attempts this season) and has ruined countless close games late with his fielding, but his postgame interviews when he screws up are infuriating. (Who can forget his postgame last season when he walked home from third and didn’t score before the third out of the inning was made on the bases?)

After the loss, the media was at Volpe’s locker to ask him about his sixth-inning throws and choices.

“How frustrating was the sixth inning?” Volpe was asked.

“That’s baseball. It happens,” Volpe answered. “That’s baseball. It happens,” he repeated.

“That’s baseball” is the favorite go-to phrase of Volpe’s manager. It’s the easiest excuse for anyone in baseball to use and because Boone has needed to make a lot of excuses in his seven-and-a-half disappointing seasons as Yankees manager, it’s the one he has used most. So why wouldn’t the Golden Boy not use it? He hears his manger who has created a comfortable-with-losing culture say it nearly every time the Yankees lose. The team’s captain said it just last week when asked about the Yankees’ June swoon. Boone and Aaron Judge are the faces of this era of Yankees disappointment in which accountability is optional at best and Volpe was raised in this environment by those two. It makes sense he sounds just like them.

“Do you second-guess at all trying to make a play at first?” Volpe was asked.

“No,” Volpe said. “Not at all.”

“You thought you had a chance at Clement?” was the follow-up question.

“Yeah, I mean you gotta make that play,” Volpe said. “You gotta make a play on that ball.”

Umm, no you don’t? When Boone was asked if he thought Volpe had a play on Clement, the manager said, “No … From my vantage point I felt like he wasn’t going to have a play.”

“How would you sum up your first half?” Volpe was asked.

“I feel like I put myself in a lot of good positions to make a lot of plays,” Volpe said, “There’s obviously a lot of plays you want to have back.”

So he puts himself in position to make a lot of plays, but doesn’t make a lot of the plays? Got it.

“The error today, I’m going to go for that play every single time,” Volpe said.

It’s good to know that every single time a ball is hit in the hole with a runner already sliding into third base that Volpe is going to try to throw an already-safe runner out with his below league-average arm. Remember that quote the next time that same play happens because it’s going to happen again. Volpe told everyone he’s going to make the wrong choice the next time it happens because he said he’s going to make the wrong choice “every single time” that play occurs.

“The play at first base, you thought you had a shot on that play?” was asked one last time to try to get Volpe to save himself and admit wrongdoing.

“Yeah,” Volpe answered, avoiding admitting any wrongdoing.

5. Volpe could have said he needs to make a better throw to third base. He didn’t. He could have said he should have better understood the situations of both throws and should have put both throws in his pocket. He didn’t. He said he would do the same thing every single time in the future. He could have said he messed up and needs to be better, taken the blame and been accountable and no one would be talking about his apparently low Baseball IQ or his delusional self assessment.

Maybe it’s not Volpe’s fault he has no self awareness for his play. He was a first-round pick out of high school by the Yankees. He performed well in the minors. He was given the everyday job out of spring training two years ago and has never been threatened for even a second with being benched let alone sent down. He has been told his whole life how great he is, including by the Yankees. Now for the first time his ability is constantly and rightfully being questioned by the media and fans and he doesn’t know how to handle it or answer for it.

The Golden Boy never struggled in his baseball career before reaching the majors, and since reaching them, he has never for a second had to worry about losing playing time or his starting role. His name is on the lineup card every day and his manager defends him against any criticism like he’s his son. So why wouldn’t he be delusional about his performance?

6. I’m over Volpe. He does nothing well other than commit game-ruining errors, get caught stealing and hit weak ground balls to the left side. It’s gotten to the point that I’m checking in daily on George Lombard Jr.’s performance at Double-A since he’s the only way out of this mess. I could see the Yankees trading Lombard Jr. before he ever reaches the majors just so Volpe has no competition and can continue to be the team’s everyday shortstop. That’s how stubborn the organization is when it comes to trying to prove they weren’t wrong in their evaluation of a player who hasn’t improved offensively after more than two years and whose defense and baserunning has regressed.

7. Trent Grisham was 1-for-2 before leaving the game with a hamstring injury. Jasson Dominguez took over for him and picked up a pair of hits. It looks like Dominguez will finally get to play every day with Grisham likely to go on the injured list. Dominguez has hit .275 over his last 30 games, .341 over his last 15 games and .409 over his last seven games. He has a .338 on-base percentage and is 12-for-13 stealing bases. If only he was born in New York City and grew up in New Jersey maybe he wouldn’t need another player to go on the IL to become an everyday player.

8. Jazz Chisholm hit a two-run home run and Cody Bellinger added a solo home run. Judge went 0-for-2 with two intentional walks. Giancarlo Stanton had an RBI single. The 6-through-9 hitters of Ben Rice, Volpe, Escarra and DJ LeMahieu went 1-for-15 with four strikeouts.

9. Before the series started, I wrote:

I trust the Yankees’ starting pitching. I expect strong starts from everyone in the rotation, so I’m not worried about the pitching not showing up this week in Toronto. I’m only really worried about the offense.

The starting pitching was good enough and the offense provided enough runs to win, but the managing (not giving Leiter Jr. a clean sixth inning) was poor and the defense was sloppy, the way it has always been and always will be under Boone. Thankfully, the Rays lost so the Yankees’ lead in the division remains two games. Except it’s now two games over both the Rays and Blue Jays.

10. The Yankees will turn to Max Fried tomorrow who only seems to pitch after Yankees losses. The Yankees are 13-4 when Fried starts and 35-32 when he doesn’t. Kevin Gausman gets the ball for the Blue Jays. The Yankees chased him in the third inning back on April 27 in an 11-2 win, a game in which Fried didn’t allow an earned run over six innings. Let’s do that again: Score 11 runs, take Boone and the bullpen and the possibility of a defensive disaster out of the equation and prevent any more ground from being made up in the division.

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Yankees Thoughts: Jazz Chisholm Saves June

The Yankees took two of three from the A’s over the weekend. Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. On Thursday, I wrote the following:

This weekend will show us a lot of about what to think of the Yankees. If their June swoon has ended and their annual midsummer poor play is done, they will take care of the A’s. If the Yankees can’t beat up on the AL West’s worst at home in the middle of the A’s nine game road trip then we will know this recent two-and-a-half-week slide is much more than the “That’s baseball” the Yankees tell us it is.

The Yankees beat the A’s 3-0 on Friday, were routed 7-0 on Saturday and did the routing on Sunday with a 12-5 win to win the series. I’m much closer to believing the last few weeks were “That’s baseball” than thinking the summer the rest of the season is going to be what we have seen in June, but we will really know after the next week-plus against the Blue Jays, Mets and Cubs.

2. The Yankees did just enough to get to reliever-turned-starter Mitch Spence on Friday with three runs in five innings before being shut out for the final three innings by journeyman (and a not very good journeyman at that) Sean Newcomb. But three runs was enough because Will Warren went five scoreless and Tim Hill, Fernando Cruz, Luke Weaver and Devin Williams all pitched scoreless innings as well.

“A baseball season is full of ups and downs,” Cody Bellinger said after the win. “But we’ve handled both well. I really like where we’re at.”

3. Aaron Boone was asked how we would grade the first half of the season and he said, “Incomplete,” but also said the Yankees “are a team to be reckoned with.” Nothing like talking about how great you are after beating the last-place A’s and winning for just the eighth time in 17 games. Then again, this is a man who said the “the league has closed the gap” on the Yankees after losing the 2021 one-game playoff despite having never won a championship prior to or since that loss.

4. On Saturday, Clarke Schmidt’s scoreless inning streak came to an end as the A’s got to him for four runs with a pair of home runs over six innings. Allan Winans gave up a couple of more in relief, though it didn’t matter since the Yankees couldn’t score. The offense was stifled by former Yankee JP Sears (5.2 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 3 BB, 4 K) again as he allowed one earned run in 11 1/3 innings against his former team this season. Sears has a 0.79 ERA against the Yankees in two starts this season and a 5.74 ERA in his other 15 starts. The Law of Ex-Yankees playing against the Yankees never fails.

5. With one day left in June, here is the OPS for each Yankee in what has been an abysmal offensive month:

Jazz Chisholm: .979
Aaron Judge: .975
J.C. Escarra: .867
Cody Bellinger: .845
DJ LeMahieu: .742
Trent Grisham: .683
Ben Rice: .671
Anthony Volpe: .661
Austin Wells: .647
Jasson Dominguez: .627
Giancarlo Stanton: .580
Paul Goldschmidt: .464
Oswald Peraza: .387

(Judge’s OPS looks much better than it has been after his two home runs on Sunday with the Yankees leading by five runs both times he went deep.)

6. Chisholm has been the Yankees’ best hitter since coming off the injured list on June 3. It was his solo home run that got the Yankees on the board on Friday and his bases-clearing triple that opened up Sunday’s game. When Chisholm went on the injured list on April 29, he was hitting .181/.304/.410. Since coming off the IL, he’s hitting .318/.379/.600.

7. After getting rocked by the Yankees in May (4 IP, 9 H, 8 R, 8 ER, 2 BB, 2 K), Luis Severino was lit up by his former team once again on Sunday: 3.2 IP, 5 H, 7 R, 6 ER, 3 BB, 3 K, 2 HR. Severino had issues with pitch tipping with the Yankees, and with the Yankees aware of them, they had to have been on something or some things to get to him for 14 earned runs in 7 2/3 innings over two starts.

8. When Marcus Stroman went on the IL in April, I figured we wouldn’t see him throw another pitcher as a Yankee. I prayed we wouldn’t see him throw another pitch for the Yankees. On Friday, Boone said the Yankees wanted to see Stroman throw his latest bullpen session before deciding on if he would start Sunday, since a bullpen session is more than important than the actual on-field results Stroman has provided for the last calendar year. Sure enough, Stroman got the start on Sunday. Not because of his bullpen, but because the Yankees are paying him $18 million and it will be impossible at this point for him to reach his innings clause to guarantee his 2026 salary.

Stroman only allowed one earned run over five innings, which was better than Schmidt provided on Saturday, even if it was only against the A’s, who went 13-31 between Yankees series. The Yankees are going to keep Stroman in the rotation because of the money owed, though with days off and the All-Star break soon, they won’t need to use him that often if they don’t want to. (They shouldn’t want to.) As of now, Stroman is scheduled to pitch on Friday at Citi Field. That’s about as guaranteed as a loss gets in the majors even with how bad the Mets have been for weeks now. If Stroman does start that game, it will likely be the last big game of his career. Maybe he goes out and gives it all he has one last time and surprises everyone.

9. Before the Yankees get to the second half of the 2025 Subway Series they have an enormous four-game series in Toronto with the Blue Jays, who are only three games behind the Yankees. I’m much less worried about the Blue Jays than I am the Rays, but as long as they are this close, I’m worried. If the standings were based on expected wins and losses from run differential, the Yankees would have a 12-game lead on the Blue Jays. But in reality, the Yankees have played five games worse than their expected record suggests and the Blue Jays have played four games better.

10. There isn’t a Blue Jays starter that should scare me (the Yankees will see Max Scherzer, Kevin Gausman, Jose Berrios and Chris Bassitt), but with the inconsistent offense the Yankees have provided throughout the season, everyone scares me right now. If Sears can shut down the Yankees like he did on Saturday, any of those four names could duplicate that type of performance and all four have much more talent and ability than Sears to do so.

I trust the Yankees’ starting pitching. I expect strong starts from everyone in the rotation, so I’m not worried about the pitching not showing up this week in Toronto. I’m only really worried about the offense. Will we get the offense that blasted Gausman in April or that the offense couldn’t hit Kyle Hendricks at home two weeks ago? It better be the former.

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