1. The Yankees erased a four-run deficit to beat the Marlins 9-7 on Saturday and then blew a three-run lead to lose to the Marlins 7-6 on Sunday. The Yankees won the series, have won all three series to start the season and are an AL-best 7-2. Their two losses were both one-run losses: one in which they were walked off with their second-to-last reliever on the mound in Seattle and one (on Sunday) in which they had the tying run on second and the winning run on first when the game ended. The Yankees have either won or nearly won all nine games this season. You can’t ask for much more than that.

2. What you can ask for though is for Aaron Boone to not use J.C. Escarra as his pinch-hit option like he did on Sunday with two outs in the ninth inning of a one-run game with the tying run on second and the winning run on first. I don’t care about lefty-righty in that spot. There’s no way Escarra was a better option than Jose Caballero (who he hit for) or Paul Goldschmidt (who hit a three-run home run off one of the best right-handed pitchers in the majors four days earlier) or Randal Grichuk or Amed Rosario. Escarra wasn’t good enough to be a Yankee for a lot of last season when the Yankees sent him down to use Ben Rice as the backup catcher. He’s only on the team now because Rice is the everyday first baseman. He is the last position player on the roster and the worst offensive player on the roster. And yet, Boone decided he was better than the starting shortstop, a borderline Hall of Famer and two other veteran bats because of what hand he hits with. Escarra struck out on three pitches against Anthony Bender and the swinging strike to end the game was a tier below Todd Frazier’s famous swing from the 2017 ALCS.

“Our lefties put some tough at-bats on Bender,” Boone said.

That’s why Boone used Escarra, because he watched other lefties have good at-bats against Bender. Here are the lefties that had good at-bats against him: Cody Bellinger, Ben Rice and Jazz Chisholm. Now which one of these things is unlike the others: Bellinger, Rice, Chisholm, Escarra. Three middle-of-the-order, major-league bats and a guy who is barely on the roster.

3. Chisholm hit a two-run double off Bender for his second hit of the series and his second and third RBIs of the season. Chisholm is now hitting .194/.237/.278 on the year as an impending free agent looking to get paid and someone who claimed he was going for a 50/50 season.

“We don’t think the game is over until the last out,” Jazz Chisholm said. “We always go out there battling until the last minute.”

Odd quote there from Chisholm, who the night before took his sweet time on a ground ball in the ninth inning that led to an infield “single” and nearly cost the Yankees the game. (Also, there are no “minutes” in baseball, Jazz.)

“He just kind of laid back on it,” Boone said of Chisholm’s lackadaisical effort. “When he’s got to close on it, we’ve got to make that one.” (It was about as critical as it gets for Boone, considering he first “credited” the runner for running hard instead of saying anything negative about his second baseman’s effort.

4. The Yankees trailed in the ninth because Max Fried had his worst start of the season following a three-hour-and-35-minute rain delay. He couldn’t throw strikes, walked three and allowed three earned runs in 6 2/3 innings. Following Fried, Fernando Cruz also couldn’t throw strikes and then Jake Bird couldn’t throw the ball anywhere near home plate.

“I gave them freebies,” Jake Bird said. “That’s not big league baseball. It’s not good.”

After the Yankees traded for Bird and he was awful, he was sent to Triple-A for the remainder of last season. After the Yankees traded for Camilo Doval, he was awful and was knocked way down the bullpen pecking order. Both guys went into this season with advanced roles and so far they have both been the same disappointments they were last season. Bird ruined Sunday’s game and Doval has allowed four earned runs on five hits and a walk over his last two outings and one inning total.

5. Since the dominant showing in San Francisco, the Yankees’ Bullpen of Question Marks is starting to show why no Yankees fan had trust in them going into the season. Doval looks like the pitcher the Giants gave up on and Bird looks like the pitcher the Rockies gave up on. David Bednar is being forced to throw 40-pitch saves and then is shut down for multiple days because of it. Cruz looks unhittable one moment and then like the 36-year-old who didn’t break into the league until he was 32 the next. Nothing can be expected from Paul Blackburn and Ryan Yarbrough as veteran innings eaters. The trustworthy names in the bullpen are Bednar (until the World Baseball Classic and early-season workload catch up with him), Brent Headrick (who should be the eighth-inning guy moving forward since Boone needs set innings for his relievers) and Tim Hill. It’s not great.

6. But it could be better. At some point you have to think Carlos Lagrange will be added to the bullpen to solidify this messy corps. And if the starter who loses out on the fifth spot ends up there, then that’s another arm and right now that arm looks like Ryan Weathers.

On Saturday, Weathers showed how you can be a left-handed, 26-year-old, who throws 100 mph and be on your third team in four years. He lasted only 3 2/3 innings against the Marlins, giving up three earned runs and putting nine runners on. He has put 15 runners on in eight innings across two starts, and Brian Cashman’s 0-for-his career in trading for a young, controllable starting pitcher who pitches well will remain an 0-for.

“I was ahead in the counts and just couldn’t put guys away,” Weathers said, summing up his career.

7. Because of Weathers’ short start, the Yankees used six relievers to get them to a win. The Marlins greatly outhit the Yankees 15-6, but the Yankees drew 10 walks, a day after drawing 11 in the home opener. They drew another nine on Sunday for a series total of 30, the franchise’s most ever in a three-game series.

“It’s a scoring competition,” Boone said, “not a hit competition.”

8. The Yankees drew 30 walks and scored 23 runs in the series (and somehow didn’t sweep), but it wasn’t a total team effort offensively. The offense is still limited to the first five hitters in the lineup. Chisholm’s ninth-inning double on Sunday was nice and hopefully the start of him breaking out, but it was pretty much his offense for the season. As for 7 through 9 in the lineup, well, it’s the worst 7 through 9 in the entire majors. That’s not sarcasm. Statistically, it’s the worst bottom-third of any lineup in all of baseball.

Austin Wells has a .452 OPS, Ryan McMahon a .363 and Jose Caballero .335. Boone pretty much said in spring training that even if Caballero hit like Judge while Anthony Volpe was out, Volpe would still be the starting shortstop when he returned. With the offensive output Caballero has provided so far, unfortunately, it will be easy for him to return to the bench once Volpe is ready. Getting pinch hit for by Escarra was as bad as it gets.

As for McMahon, so much for the Yankees fixing his swing in the offseason and unlocking a player who has never finished as even a league-average hitter. It’s great that McMahon is great defensively (and so far he hasn’t even been that with every throw to first in the dirt), but at some point, defense isn’t enough. With each 0-for, “some point” draws closer.

9. I’m not worried about Wells because I don’t have any expectations for him. I figure he’ll end up with 20-ish home runs and will be a just-below-league-average hitter. So be it from your catcher in this era of baseball. But the Yankees can’t have three automatic outs in the lineup every game. At some point the top of the order will go cold and other parts of the lineup will need to carry the team offensively. As of now, no other part of the lineup other than the top half is capable of carrying the team, or even providing a big hit or RBI. McMahon had two RBIs on Opening Day and none since. Caballero drove in the first run of the season and none since. Wells hasn’t driven in a single run.

10. The Yankees won’t need to score more than a few runs if the starting rotation gets back to utterly dominating the opponent like they did in the first two series of the season. Who better to do that than Cam Schlittler? Schlittler will get the ball on Tuesday to open the series against the A’s and as enjoyable as it was watching Fried pitch when he’s at his best, watching Schlittler pitch is another level of enjoyment. The Giants had never seen him and he blew them away on a limited pitch count. The Mariners saw him in his first major-league start and he did the same to them on a limited pitch count. The A’s have never seen him, so I expect another masterpiece from him on what should be an 85-plus pitch limit.

1. I was worried about this home-opening series with the Marlins because everything has been going a little too well for the Yankees and because the Marlins have been as good as any team in the majors since last September. Add in the trauma from last August’s disastrous sweep in Miami and my concern seemed valid. It took a Trent Grisham walk and an Aaron Judge two-run home run to quell those fears. After Will Warren allowed the first home run against Yankees pitching in 2026 with one out in the first, the Yankees answered right back with Judge’s third of the season to take a 2-1 lead and never looked back.

2. The Yankees loaded the bases from walks in the second and scored twice to increase their lead to 4-1 without putting the ball in play as Grisham drew a bases-loaded walk and Judge was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded. The Marlins got a run back in the fifth with another solo home run off Warren, but the Yankees responded with a run on a wild pitch in the sixth, a Ben Rice solo home run in the seventh and a Rice two-run double in the eighth to carry them to an 8-2 win. The Yankees’ cleanup hitter has lived up to expectations through the first week-plus of the season.

3. “Benny can really hit,” Boone said. “I think he’s a middle-of-the-order hitter and is going to be for a long time.”

Well, I’d hope you think he’s a “middle-of-the-order hitter” since you hit him fourth in the lineup.

Rice is hitting .409/500/.864 through six games with four doubles, two home runs and a league-leading eight RBIs. The Yankees went into this season believing he could be the second-best hitter on the team and he has been that. His defense also appears to be much improved from where it was last year. He has already made a handful of plays I was stunned to see him complete after watching his defense in the past.

4. Tim Hill, Jake Bird, Brent Headrick and Ryan Yarbrough closed out the game with 3 1/3 hitless innings as the bullpen full of question marks continues to impress. Hill only threw two pitches to end the sixth in what was still a two-run game at the time. Three games ago, Camilo Doval only threw two pitches in what was a tie game at the time.

5. Grisham drew three walks, Judge had a single, home run and walk, Cody Bellinger had a double, Rice had the big day with the home run and double, Jazz Chisholm had a double and a walk and Austin Wells, Jose Caballero and Ryan McMahon combined for five walks. The only Yankee to not reach base was Giancarlo Stanton, which was inevitable after he was cooled off with a day off on Wednesday in Seattle. The Yankees had only six hits in the game but a ridiculous 11 walks (and a hit by pitch). They went 1-for-13 with runners in scoring position and still managed to score eight runs.

7. The Yankees are now 6-1, and with the Blue Jays losing to the White Sox (they are 1-3 against the Rockies and White Sox), the Yankees have a two-game lead in the division with the best run differential in the AL at plus-24. The next-best run differential in the AL is the Astros at plus-6. I would like for the team to run away and hide with the division and make this summer as easy and enjoyable as possible. (Unlike last summer when they blew an eight-game lead over the Blue Jays.)

“It’s early, but you love the fact that you get off to this kind of start,” Aaron Boone said after another easy day of managing. “Wins are precious. The guys are obviously pitching as well as they are, but I think they’re also playing well, the all-around game.”

8. Warren was pretty good: 5.2 IP, 4 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 0 BB, 6 K, 2 HR. As David Cone said during the broadcast, “You want to have a Catfish Hunter mentality pitching in the Bronx where solo home runs won’t beat you,” and Warren followed that.

“Solo homers aren’t going to beat us,” Warren said.” If we attack early, the odds are in our favor.”

Warren limited the damage to a pair of solo home runs, which wasn’t nearly enough to beat the Yankees. Here is Warren’s line through two starts: 10 IP, 9 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 2 BB, 9 K, 2 HR, 2.70 ERA, 1.100 WHIP.

9. When Carlos Rodon is healthy, someone is coming out of the rotation — if everyone else is also healthy. At the moment that someone is Luis Gil, considering the Yankees didn’t think enough of him to have him in the rotation out of spring training. But when Gerrit Cole returns, someone else will come out of the rotation — if everyone else is also healthy. That someone will be Warren of Weathers.

10. I would think Warren is the front-runner to keep his spot because the Yankees pitched him in the third game of the season ahead of Ryan Weathers. But Brian Cashman has never successfully traded for a young, controllable starting pitcher in his career and desperately wants Weathers to end that narrative instead of being the latest in the long list that includes Jeff Weaver, Javier Vazquez, Michael Pineda, Nathan Eovaldi, Sonny Gray, James Paxton and Jameson Taillon. Weathers will have his second opportunity to showcase his ability on Saturday against his former team in his first start wearing pinstripes.

1. It’s possible the Yankees have four No. 1 starters when healthy in Cam Schlittler, Max Fried, Gerrit Cole and Carlos Rodon. It’s also possible Schlittler — the youngest and least experienced of the group — is the actual No. 1 among them.

Schlittler pitched to a 2.96 ERA with 84 strikeouts in 73 innings in 14 regular-season starts last year. He then went on to have a historical performance in Game 3 of the Wild Card Series to eliminate the Red Sox and proved to be the only Yankees starter capable of handling the Blue Jays in the ALDS. He has returned this year to throw 5 1/3, one-hit, scoreless innings against the Giants on a limited pitch count and then another 6 1/3, two-hit, scoreless innings against the Mariners on a limited pitch count. He doesn’t walk anyone (none in his last four starts spanning 26 innings with two of those coming in the postseason), doesn’t allow hits (three in 11 2/3 innings this season) and averages more than a strikeout per inning. Simply put: He’s the fucking man.

“The biggest thing is just pitching with a lead, making sure I’m taking care of what I need to do, being efficient,” Schlittler said. “Limiting the walks, hits and strikeouts is a good way to put the team in a position to win.”

2. Schlittler allowed a double on the first pitch of the game and then allowed one more hit — a single — on his other 78 pitches. He has been dominant in two starts and given the Yankees as much length as he could while building up his pitch count.

“It’s exciting to see how dominant his stuff is, just filling up the strike zone,” Aaron Boone said. “He got some early outs and that allowed him to get pretty deep into the game with a pitch count. He’s throwing the ball incredibly well. He set the tone for us.”

Schlitter had a one-run lead to work with after the Yankees put together another two-out rally in the first. With two outs, Cody Bellinger worked a six-pitch walk and stole second base before Ben Rice hit his second double down the first-base line in as many games to score Bellinger.

3. The score remained 1-0 with George Kirby pitching nearly as well as Schlittler and then Boone’s odd lineup decision of the day paid off. After giving Giancarlo Stanton — the hottest hitter in the universe — the day off with a day game after a night game leading into a scheduled day off, Boone decided to put Paul Goldschmidt into the lineup at first and make Rice the designated hitter. It was somewhat odd because Goldschmidt didn’t play against Tyler Mahle — a righty he destroys — in the Giants series, but here he was playing against a much better right-hander in Kirby.

4. Goldschmidt looked overmatched and struck out in his first two at-bats against Kirby, but in the fifth, he hunted a fastball, got a 97-mph one slightly elevated and crushed a 406-foot, three-run home run to make it a 4-0 game.

“I love being a Yankee,” Goldschmidt said. “I love to play, but if I’m not in there, I love to root these guys on.”

Who wouldn’t love to root for the Yankees for $4 million with up to another $2 million in incentives? It helps when you can hit 406-foot three-run home runs to break open games. It was Goldschmidt’s first home run against a right-handed pitcher since last June.

5. Leading 4-0 in the seventh, Boone pulled Schlittler at 79 pitches and Fernando Cruz got the last two outs of the inning.

Still leading 4-0 in the eighth, Boone turned to Camilo Doval. Doval was very bad as a Yankee after being traded to them last July, but he improved late in the season. He was good in his first three appearances of the season, but there’s always the threat of the bad version of Doval rearing its ugly head at the worst time and that’s what happened on Wednesday.

Doval loaded the bases with two outs in the eighth and Cal Raleigh coming to the plate, forcing Boone to go to David Bednar for a four-out save. With how bad Raleigh has been in the early season, I figured he would hit a game-tying grand slam to completely erase Schlitt’er great day, but instead, he just lined a single to right to score two. Bednar then battled Julio Rodriguez (Rodriguez fouled off four straight two-strike pitches) and thankfully won the battle to end the inning.

6. Rice came through again in the top of the ninth, hitting his first home run of the season to get one run back. That ru was enormous because it made a two-run game a three-run game and halted the momentum the Mariners had created. The run became crucial when the Mariners scored a run in the ninth and had the tying run at the plate, which would have been the potential winning run if not for Rice’s home run.

7. Bednar ended up throwing 40 pitches in the game, including 10 to get the final out against Cole Young. A scheduled day off for travel is coming at the perfect time. I can’t imagine Bednar is available until Saturday at the earliest considering Boone said it was “an uncomfortable place to be as a manager, especially at this point of the season.”

8. The Yankees finished the season-opening West Coast road trip 5-1 and outscored the Giants and Mariners 24-6. for a plus-18 run differential. The Blue Jays are 4-2 with a minus-1 run differential. Based on run differential, the Yankees should be 6-0 and the Blue Jays 3-3. I hate the Blue Jays, but it was beautiful to see them lose a home series to the Rockies.

9. I used to love late-night West Coast games … before I had kids. Now I dread them. It’s always good to get them out of the way, especially when it includes a 5-1 record. The Yankees won’t go back to the West Coast until the end of May (and then again at the end of August). They don’t have to play the Mariners again until the middle of August.

10. On Friday, the Yankees return home for the first time since Game 4 of the ALDS to play the 5-1 Marlins. The Marlins’ hot start isn’t an anomaly. They finished the season 13-4 last September, including taking two of three from the Mets to keep them out of the postseason in the final weekend. And let’s not forget the Marlins’ three-game sweep of the Yankees from August 1-3 last summer immediately following the trade deadline. The Marlins have great starting pitching and good young hitting and are a pain overall. This weekend will be a very tough home-opening series.

1. Before Max Fried took the mound on Tuesday night in Seattle, Michael Kay mentioned how the Yankees were turning to their ace “at the moment,” insinuating that Fried is just a placeholder ace because of injuries to the rotation. Kay couldn’t be more wrong. Fried is the ace. He was in 2025 and still is in 2026.

After throwing 6 1/3 scoreless innings on Opening Day in San Francisco, Fried threw seven scoreless innings in the middle game of the three-game series in Seattle. His line through two starts this season: 13.1 IP, 5 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 2 BB, 10 K, 0.00 ERA, 0.525 WHIP.

2. “There weren’t times where I was just fighting to throw strikes,” Fried said. “I felt like I was actually able to locate today, which made things a lot easier.”

Fried was referring to his start against the Giants where he struggled at times to find the zone. But, again, in that start he still managed to throw 6 1/3 scoreless innings without a feel for his pitches at times. On Tuesday, he had everything working.

“I can’t go wrong with what I call when he has all these pitches going,” J.C. Escarra said. “It makes it easy for me and easy for him.”

3. Before Fried threw a pitch the Yankees had a 2-0 lead. After Trent Grisham and Aaron Judge were retired and Cody Bellinger quickly fell behind 0-2 to Logan Gilbert, it seemed like the Yankees were destined for an easy 1-2-3 inning. But Bellinger fought back to run the count full and then singled up the middle. Ben Rice followed with a double down the first-base line to score Bellinger and Giancarlo Stanton continued his hot start to the season with a flare to right field to score Rice. What had been a strike away from a quick first for Gilbert turned into a 28-pitch, two-run inning.

4. Gilbert settled down after that to throw a scoreless second, third, fourth and fifth, but the Yankees chased him in the sixth with a three-run outburst made possible by the same trio of Bellinger, Rice and Stanton. Stanton had his fifth straight multi-hit game to open the season, Bellinger, Rice and Grisham all had a pair of hits and Jazz Chisholm added an RBI single. Judge, Escarra, Jose Caballero and Ryan McMahon combined to go 0-for-16 with seven strikeouts.

5. Brent Headrick and Tim Hill combined to throw two scoreless innings in relief of Fried as Paul Blackburn remains the only reliever to allow a run this season. It was a nice, tidy win in a place the Yankees have had trouble scoring runs against a team many feel is one of the few true contenders in the AL this year.

6. Not only is Stanton hitting .500/.500/.750 with 10 hits in five games, but after scoring from second on a base hit to left field on Opening Day and then taking second on a ball that barely got away from Cal Raleigh on Tuesday, he looks like he has turned the clock back. You never know when an extended slump or injured list stint is going to take Stanton down, so for now, I’m enjoying every moment of this vintage showing.

“I’m just staying back, being on time for heaters and keeping my barrel through the zone as much as possible,” Stanton said.

7. The Yankees are 4-1 despite hitting only three home runs (Judge 2, Stanton 1) on the year. They’re 4-1 with Judge having a .190 on-base percentage and essentially no power throughout the lineup. When you get the type of production the Yankees are getting from their pitching staff, you don’t need to do much offensively to stack wins. I will always take a team with a great pitching staff over a team with a great offense.

“Everyone has contributed,” Aaron Boone said. “Max has gone into the seventh or completed the seventh in back-to-back ones. Everyone else from the starting rotation has gone out and held them down, and then the bullpen has been excellent.”

8. The offenses of the Giants and Mariners aren’t exactly the Dodgers or Blue Jays, but there are very few good offenses across the league. Most of the opponents the Yankees will face will have offenses similar to what they have seen in San Francisco and Seattle and that bodes well for the best rotation in the league and what’s emerging to be a strong and exciting bullpen.

9. “We’ve been waiting for this opportunity, to have the season start and go compete,” Fried said. “We want to go win, and we’re leaving everything out there.”

Those words from Fried closely resemble Judge talking about the importance of each game, as if the idea of all 162 games mattering is a new concept to the Yankees. But I’m glad they finally understand it and are playing and acting like it.

10. No matter what happens on Wednesday in the series finale, the season-opening road trip has already been a success as the Yankees have clinched a winning record on it. But there’s something to be said for winning a road series against one of the AL’s best and for boarding the flight back to the East Coast following a win and for going into a day off before the home opener following a win. And with Cam Schlittler on the mound, the Yankees have a very good chance of that happening.