The Yankees have lost four straight and 10 of 13. They are in fourth place in the AL East, 2 1/2 games out of a wild-card spot, have the second-worst offense in the AL and just got swept at home by the Red Sox. They suck.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. The first question to Aaron Boone at the next postgame press conference (though it should have already been asked) should be: Why do you think you should keep your job as manager of the Yankees?

What would Boone say? I really need to know. I need to know why he thinks he should continue in his current role. Because there’s no one outside of his immediate family who can possibly think he deserves to be Yankees manager.

2. He does nothing well, whether it’s speaking with the media, creating the best possible lineup or managing his bullpen. The one thing he was heralded for when hired was his communication skills, and it’s clear he lacks whatever communication skills the front office thought he had. Just look at Luis Severino not knowing the start time of Game 3 of the 2018 ALDS or the disconnect with Gary Sanchez last season or his inability to understand the severity of inserting Scumbag Domingo German into the clubhouse without addressing his suspension.

3. My breaking point with Boone was the 2018 ALDS. It was clear for nearly all of the 2018 regular season that he was in over his head as Yankees manager with zero managerial or coaching experience. But in the 2018 ALDS it was obvious when his pitching decisions ended the Yankees’ season.

This past weekend seems like it was the breaking point for a lot of Yankees fans who were indifferent to Boone before. Watching him sit in the dugout while his coaches went wild on the incorrect strike call to Rougned Odor was too much for some Yankees fans. Those fans who now want the Yankees to have a new manager are three years late to the movement, but hey, better late than never.  

4. A few weeks ago, I wrote (mostly in jest) that I would sign up for the second wild-card spot right now for the Yankees. Well, there’s no more sarcasm in that declaration, and it’s certainly no longer a joke. A wild-card berth is the Yankees’ only way into the postseason.

Can a 6 1/2-game deficit in the division be erased over 102 games? Sure. The problem is the team that holds the 6 1/2-game lead (the Rays) has too good of a pitching staff to experience an extended losing streak, or to play even close to .500 baseball. And it’s not like the Yankees are only competing with the Rays for the division, they would have to pass both the Blue Jays and Red Sox as well. What exactly have they done over 60 games and 37 percent of the season that would make anyone think they are capable of doing so?

5. If the Rays were to play essentially .500 baseball over their remaining 101 games (51-50), the Yankees would have to go 58-44 (.569) to tie them, and hope it’s enough to be better than both the Blue Jays and Red Sox. There’s no way the Rays are playing .500 baseball for 101 games. They are a .623 team in 2021. They were a .667 in 2020. They were a .636 team in 2019 and a .556 team in 2018. If the Rays were to continue to play .623 baseball for the rest of this season, they would finish 101-61, and the Yankees would have to go 70-32 (.686) to tie them. So yeah, the division is lost.

6. When the Yankees were 12-14 at the end of April, the Rays gave them a second life by going 13-14 in the first month. I said on the Keefe To The City Podcast that the Yankees wouldn’t get a third opportunity if they were to continue to play poorly, and that’s exactly what they have done. Since May 1, the Yankees have gone 19-15, while the Rays have gone 25-9. The Yankees pissed away April and now they have pissed away the AL East.

It’s not like obtaining a wild-card berth is going to be easy either. The Yankees are currently 2 1/2 games out of the second wild-card spot being held by the Astros. (The Red Sox have the first wild-card spot.) The Yankees would need to jump the Blue Jays and Indians before getting to the Astros, and then outlast either the Astros or Red Sox.

7. If the Yankees were to earn a wild-card berth, it would be their fourth in seven seasons, and fourth in the last six full seasons. (They wouldn’t have earned any postseason berth if the standard format was used in 2020.) Since their last World Series win and appearance, the Yankees have gone 28-30 in the postseason, losing one wild-card game (2015), three ALDS (2011, 2018, 2020), four ALCS (2010, 2012, 2017, 2019) and have missed the postseason three times (2013, 2014, 2016). I don’t see how their championship drought ends if they are forced to use Gerrit Cole in a one-game playoff and then be without him for the first two or three games of the division series.

8. The Yankees’ schedule between now and July 4 is:

@ MIN (3)
@ PHI (2)
@ TOR (3)
vs. OAK (3)
vs. KC (3)
@ BOS (3)
vs. LAA (4)
vs. NYM (3)

After these 24 games the Yankees’ season will be 52 percent over. In order for me to change my opinion on the team, they will need to go at least 16-8 over these 24 games, which would have them at 47-37 going into the July 5 day off. That’s a lofty goal for a team that has a minus-4 run differential and the only team they have scored more runs than in the AL is the Tigers, but for the Yankees to turn their season around they are going to have to start achieving lofty goals and stacking wins.

9. Here is an update on how Giancarlo Stanton’s days have gone since coming off the injured list on May 28:

May 28: 0-for-5, 4 K
May 29: Personal day off
May 30: 0-for-3, 2 BB, 2 K
May 31: 0-for-4, 2 K
June 1: Personal day off (0-for-1 as pinch hitter)
June 2: 1-for-3, BB, K
June 3: Personal day off
June 4: 1-for-3, BB
June 5: 0-for-4, 2 K
June 6: Personal day off (0-for-1 with a strikeout as a pinch hitter)

10. I remember when the season got off to a bad start and the comparisons to the 1998 Yankees started. “Well, the ’98 Yankees started out 1-4” is what idiots said. The 1998 Yankees won 114 games. The 2021 Yankees would have to go 83-19 to accomplish that feat.

Anyone still think a slow start for the 2021 Yankees should be compared to the greatest team in baseball history?

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The Yankees aren’t very good right now. The last time I felt really good about the Yankees was right before Adam Ottavino’s first pitch in Game 2 of the 2019 ALCS. The Yankees had a 1-0 series and had a 2-1 lead in Game 2 over Justin Verlander, but Ottavino gave up a home run to George Springer, and since then, the Yankees have been a disappointment.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. At his end-of-the-season press conference last October following the Yankees’ ALDS elimination, Brian Cashman said the following about the Rays: “They are a better franchise right now than we are.”

Since then, the Rays have gone 8-5 against the Yankees outscoring them 64-37, and have a 4 1/2-game lead over the Yankees in the AL East, so they are clearly still better.

Cashman did nothing to close the gap between the teams in the offseason, either because he didn’t feel the need to or because ownership wouldn’t let him. Either way, the Yankees failed to get any better or change in any way.

Cashman turned Masahiro Tanaka into Corey Kluber (injured) and Jameson Taillon (ineffective), turned Adam Ottavino into Darren O’Day (injured) and Justin Wilson (ineffective) and brought back the same exact lineup that failed to hit in the postseason. And when you bring back the same team, you get the same results.

The Yankees team that went 33-27 in the shortened 2020 season is now 31-26  in 2021. The offense is the second-worst in the AL, having only scored more runs than the lowly Tigers, who just swept the Yankees. On days when the starting pitching isn’t lights out, and I mean lights out as in pitch black and complete darkness, the Yankees lose.

2. The Yankees celebrated Memorial Day Weekend by getting swept by the Tigers and then scored one run in the first game of the four-game series against the Rays. Here are the Yankees’ runs scored by series over their last seven series with the average per game for the series in parentheses:

Tampa Bay: 12 (3.0)
Detroit: 5 (1.7)
Toronto: 7 (2.3)
Chicago: 14 (4.7)
Texas: 13 (3.3)
Baltimore: 19 (6.3)
Tampa Bay: 5 (1.7)

3. The Yankees managed to win a game started by Tyler Glasnow because Glasnow momentarily lost control and walked in a run and then threw a wild pitch to score a second run on back-to-back batters. Without Glasnow handing the Yankees a pair of runs in the second game in the series, things might be even worse than they currently are for the Yankees.

The Yankees’ bullpen helped the Yankees with two games in the series. In the second and third games of the series, the bullpen combined to pitch to this line: 8.1 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 9 BB, 11 K, 0.00 ERA, 1.205 WHIP. Even Luis Cessa pitched one of those 8 1/3 innings with a pair of strikeouts.

After the Yankees won the second and third games of the four-game series, I foolishly thought ‘Maybe this is when they turn their season around.’ Once again, the Yankees made a mockery of wishful thinking.

4. Gerrit Cole turned in his second clunker in four starts, and even if he had been great, he would have had to be dominant because the Yankees only “mounted” (to use one of Aaron Boone’s favorite words) two runs in the game, both on solo home runs, and because you better believe Boone wasn’t going to use Jonathan Loaisiga, Chad Green or Aroldis Chapman in the game.

During the first inning on Thursday, Michael Kay and John Flaherty wondered on the broadcast who would be available for the Yankees out of the bullpen. It would seem impossible everyone wouldn’t be available for a game against the Rays with the Yankees trailing them by 3 1/2 games in the standings, but it was a very logical question to ask with Boone as manager.

Yes, Loaisiga, Green and Chapman had all pitched on Tuesday and Wednesday, but over the last 10 days they had each only pitched three times. None of them pitched from May 24 through May 26, all three pitched on May 27, and then none of them pitched from May 28 through May 31. Isn’t the idea of not pitching them in games the Yankees are losing, so they can pitch in games the Yankees are winning, regardless of whether or not they pitched two days in a row?

5. Two runs against Ryan Yarbrough, the average left-hander, who was supposed to be an opener and ended up throwing a complete game. Yarbrough has now shut the Yankees down in three appearances this season, while being awful against every other team.

Against the Yankees:
17.1 IP, 10 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 2 BB, 14 K, 2 HR, 1.56 ERA, 0.694 WHIP

Against all other teams:
48.2 IP, 53 H, 32 R, 26 ER, 10 BB, 39 K, 8 HR, 4.81 ERA, 1.294 WHIP

6. The next time Cole starts, Gary Sanchez needs to catch. The personal catcher experiment is over. When Cole is allowing five earned runs in two of four starts, to the last-place Rangers and the team that strikes out more than any other team in the Rays, it’s over. Higashioka isn’t hitting even close to enough to get as much playing time as he has been this season, and now the magic of he and Cole has worn out (because there never was any magic).

7. Miguel Andujar hit three home runs in the four-game series against the Rays. So why does he keep batting at the bottom of the order? How are Odor and Brett Gardner not the 8-9 hitters whenever they play? It shouldn’t be hard to fill out the lineup card, yet somehow it is every day.

8. Between Opening Day and May 13, Giancarlo Stanton had four personal days off for extra rest to prevent injury. He got injured anyway because there’s no way to prevent injury other than to not play. So apparently that’s what the Yankees are going to do: not play their highest-paid position player, who is making $179,012.35 per game this season. (Wait until his 2023, 2024 and 2025 when he’s 33, 34 and 35 years old and making $197,530.86 per game).

Since coming off the injured list on May 28, here is how Stanton’s days have gone:

May 28: 0-for-5, 4 K
May 29: Personal day off
May 30: 0-for-3, 2 BB, 2 K
May 31: 0-for-4, 2 K
June 1: Personal day off (0-for-1 as pinch hitter)
June 2: 1-for-3, BB, K
June 3: Personal day off

Stanton is only ever the designated hitter, yet somehow he gets injured more than players who actually play in the field. Considering he has struck out in nine of 19 plate appearances, he has walked to the plate and back to the dugout to sit and wait for his next at-bat 47 percent of the time since returning from the IL. He hasn’t scored a run since coming off the IL, so he has yet to actually round the bases or truly run or run hard.

Stanton doesn’t look like a player who needs to rest, he looks like a player who needs at-bats, having gone 1-for-16 with three walks and nine strikeouts since returning from the IL.

Stanton is having another underwhelming season, hitting .259/.331/.814 and has missed a combined 17 games due to injury and personal days off.

9. Mike Ford is no longer a Yankee … again. Well, he’s still with the Yankees, just not a Yankee in terms of being a major leaguer.

On his last day as his most recent stint in the majors, at 3:45 p.m. the Yankees posted their lineup with Ford batting fifth. Ford entered the game 18-for-131 dating back to the beginning of 2020, but that didn’t stop Boone from batting him in the exact middle of the lineup and ahead of Gary Sanchez, Clint Frazier and Miguel Andujar. Ford went 0-for-3 with three strikeouts in the game, and at 11:55 p.m., the Yankees announced he had been sent down to Triple-A. Good enough to bat fifth for the Yankees at 3:45 p.m., not good enough to be a Yankee at 11:55 p.m.

This isn’t the first time the Yankees have done something like this. Last season, they did it all the time. In a game against the Rays last year, Andujar was used as a pinch hitter for Mike Tauchman with two outs in the bottom of the ninth. Andujar didn’t get on base, and after the game he was sent to the alternate site. Good enough to pinch hit in the ninth, not good enough to be on the team after pinch hitting.

It happened with Ford as well. Ford was sent down at the beginning of September last year, deemed not good enough to be a Yankee for the last month of the regular season. But there was Ford on the postseason roster, and there he was pinch hitting with the season on the line over both Sanchez and Frazier in Game 5. Not good enough to be a Yankee in September, good enough to pinch hit in October.

10. This weekend, the Yankees need to get back on track and need to continue to send the Red Sox where they belong and that’s one place above the Orioles in the AL East standings. The Red Sox have a very challenging schedule coming up, having just played the Astros, they play the Yankees, a make-up game against the Marlins, then the Astros again, the Blue Jays and Braves.

It’s time the Red Sox leave the AL East race and the AL East becomes the three-team race I expected it to be in 2021. The Yankees have the opportunity to do that this weekend.

Do I expect the Yankees to suddenly start hitting and scoring runs at even a mediocre rate? No. But I have no choice other than to think it might happen at some point.

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My book The Next Yankees Era: My Transition from the Core Four to the Baby Bombers is now available as an ebook!