The Yankees got back on track with a series win over the Rays to finish their homestand at 5-2. With wins in six of their last eight, the Yankees’ division lead is still intact.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. The Yankees are safe … for now. They are safe for the moment from completing the worst and most embarrassing game-lead collapse in baseball history. After winning on Saturday and Sunday (and somehow scoring 20 runs in the process), the Yankees have no remaining games left with the Rays. The Rays’ AL East chances are finished. But the Rays are no longer the issue, the Blue Jays are.

The Blue Jays have won eight of 10, including beating the Rays on Monday, and while they are the same five games back in the loss column of the Yankees as the Rays, the Blue Jays still have three games left against the Yankees. The Yankees hold a 9-7 lead in the season series, but a Blue Jays sweep would get the Blue Jays three games closer to the Yankees and clinch the head-to-head tiebreaker, which will be used to determine the division winner.

The Blue Jays and Rays began a five-game series yesterday, and Yankees fans should be pulling for one team winning three of the five. Can’t have a Blue Jays sweep (since they won the first game) or even a 4-1 series from the Blue Jays.

2. Well, the Yankees could afford to have the Blue Jays win four or five from the Rays if the Yankees take care of their own business, but if you trust the Yankees to take care of their business then you haven’t watched this team since June 19 (in which they are 36-40 since).

The Yankees will see the Red Sox for a two-game series at Fenway sandwiched around two days off, and while the Yankees have been the only team to have trouble beating the Red Sox this year, they need to do so over the next two days. The last-place Red Sox have given up on 2022 after regressing to become the team they should have been in 2021, and have been losing nearly every day, and the Yankees can’t let up just because of one good week since mid-June.

3. Saturday’s first inning was bizarre with the Yankees starting the game with seven straight singles. Some were hard-hit line drives, but there were a bunch of ground balls that found holes, as well as a ground ball that hit Corey Kluber and turned into a base hit. I like to think that was Kluber’s way of giving back to Yankees fans after all of his bad starts and missed time in his one season as a Yankee in 2021.

Sunday was also bizarre. Luis Patino typically dominates the Yankees, and he got lit up. Maybe the Yankees had something on Patino, or maybe it was just a bad start. It’s truly hard to believe the Yankees went from being unable to score three runs per game to flipping a switch and now being capable of putting up double-digit totals without DJ LeMahieu, Matt Carpenter and Anthony Rizzo.

4. Gleyber Torres went 5-for-14 against the Rays with two home runs and five RBIs. His OPS is back over .700 at .719 and he has 21 home runs on the year now. I don’t think Torres is “back” to the player he was in 2018 or 2019 based on one three-game series. That player is gone and never coming back. This is what Torres does and has done for the last three seasons. He sucks for an extended period of time, has a few good games to make you think he might have found or unlocked something from his first two years only for him to go back into another extended period of time sucking. Torres always does just enough to momentarily save his lineup spot or to make Aaron Boone think he’s right by batting Torres first, second or third. Torres isn’t good. He hasn’t been in four years. Don’t believe otherwise.

5. New-father Josh Donaldson returned from paternity leave, bat flipped a ball off the right-field wall and jogged himself into a single. It was more of the same from the asshole of the team immediately after missing three games. Donaldson had himself a nice two games against the Rays and has a four-game hit streak (yes, getting excited about a four-game hit streak from a $24 million per year player and former AL MVP is something), but like Torres, don’t buy into it. Donaldson’s season OPS still sits below .700 at .697, and he has been an utter disappointment and outright embarrassment. That’s not going to stop Boone from playing him every day at third base and batting him in the middle of the Yankees’ lineup.

6. Apparently, nothing is going to stop the Yankees from playing Isiah Kiner-Falefa every day. Both Hal Steinbrenner and Brian Cashman said publicly prior to Opening Day that the team didn’t sign a big-name free agent because they had Oswald Peraza and Anthony Volpe in the minors and wanted to give them a chance. Well, Peraza earned his way to the majors, and all he has done since arriving is play out of position and sit on the bench. The Yankees are now stunting his growth and development in favor of Kiner-Falefa, who they admitted was a pure stopgap until one or both of Peraza/Volpe were ready. I know Kiner-Falefa has no say in the matter, and he’s not the one playing himself over Peraza, but it’s making me despise Kiner-Falefa because of what his presence on the team and in the lineup represents.

7. Remember when the Yankees’ plan was to go into 2022 with the catching tandem of Kyle Higashioka and Ben Rortvedt? If Rortvedt doesn’t get hurt in spring training, the Yankees likely don’t trade for Jose Trevino, and we are stuck watching Higashioka be the near-everyday catcher all season, and Rortvedt being the backup. Rortvedt was up with the Yankees this past week with Trevino on paternity leave, and he didn’t see the field once. Rortvedt was also part of the trade that brought over Donaldson and Kiner-Falefa in what continues to be a disastrous deal for the Yankees.

8. Back on August 9, I wrote Yankees Have Finally Given Up on Aaron Hicks. At the time, Hicks hadn’t had an extra-base hit in a month and was 3-for-38 over the previous two weeks. The Yankees had traded for Andrew Benintendi and Harrison Bader and made it clear Hicks was no longer an everyday player for the team despite having three more years left on his contract (and a fourth year that will be bought out for $1 million).

After Hicks went 0-for-3 and grounded out into yet another play with the bases loaded on August 15, he didn’t start another game for six days, going 0-for-3 with a strikeout in that one. Then he didn’t start for a week and then another three days after that start. When Benintendi injured his wrist on a swing on September 2, it forced Hicks into more playing time. Following his unbenching, Hicks went 2-for-21 with strikeouts and no walks. No walks from the guy his supporters (or former supporters since I can’t imagine there are any left) will tell you he does well.

On Friday night against the Rays, Hicks went 0-for-2 with two strikeouts. In the top of the fourth, Hicks misplayed a ball off his glove, and then stood and stared at the wall while two Rays runs scored and the ball sat on the ground. The very next batter hit a line drive at Hicks, and Hicks twisted and turned his way into letting the ball go over his head. After the inning ended, Boone removed Hicks from the game for Estevan Florial. The same Florial that Boone told the media was called up to play, and yet he was sitting once again for Hicks.

After the game, Boone tried to explain that Hicks wasn’t pulled for the misplay, acting once again as though every media member and Yankees fan is an absolute moron, incapable of having their own thought. Boone said he “just needed to get Hicks out of there.” What a coincidence Boone happened to pull a healthy Hicks from a game at the same time he had struck out twice, misplayed two balls in the outfield and had the left-field bleachers treating him like he was Manny Ramirez.

Hicks said the opposite. He said he was benched, completely negating the most ridiculous lie Boone has ever told as Yankees manager.

I wish I could say Hicks won’t be on the postseason roster this October or off the Yankees completely in 2023, but I can’t. Hicks is owed more than $30 million, and Steinbrenner would rather try to salvage even a penny of that money than release Hicks and open up the roster spot to someone deserving of being a major leaguer and a New York Yankee.

Hicks has now been demoted and benched from his everyday role for the second time in a month. This coming after Higashioka became the backup catcher, Joey Gallo was traded, the Yankees called up Peraza because of Kiner-Falefa’s play and pray daily LeMahieu comes back as his normal self so that they can play him over Torres or Donaldson (the duo the Yankees tried to trade at the deadline). All of those players were supposed to be everyday players for the 2022 Yankees. Nearly half the expected lineup for the 2022 Yankees in spring training is gone, traded, benched or actively being replaced. That’s some impressive roster construction and management from Cashman.

9. Last week, I wrote two blogs titled Giancarlo Stanton and Josh Donaldson Can’t Be Automatic Outs and Giancarlo Stanton Needs to Start Hitting. Donaldson had a good few games and so did Giancarlo Stanton after finally being able to provide more than one plate appearance per game. Stanton homered in back-to-back games against the Rays (though one came against a position player, and if I’m not going to count it for Hicks and Higashioka from earlier in the season then I’m not going to count it for Stanton). But overall, Stanton looked better at the plate and was actually making contact with middle-middle fastballs rather than missing them completely or fouling them back to the screen. When Stanton’s timing is down, he tends to go off on a home run barrage (until the inevitable next time his timing is off and he looks like he’s blindfolded at the plate), and syncing up this potential hot streak with a trip to Fenway Park is exactly what the Yankees need to get closer to clinching the division.

10. I don’t think the Yankees are suddenly some juggernaut or contender because they won a couple of games against the Rays and beat up on the Twins. Winning six of their last eight isn’t impressive, it was a necessity after they couldn’t beat the Angels or A’s or Cardinals or Red Sox or Pirates or Reds and after they nearly pissed away a 15 1/2-game lead.

After the Yankees had accumulated that 15 1/2-game lead, they were managed and played as if they had clinched a postseason berth, giving even more unnecessary rest than usual to everyday players and managing the rotation and bullpen as if every pitcher on the roster was returning from from Tommy John surgery.

The Yankees have had to mange and play with urgency these past few weeks because of everything they undid over the last nearly three months. They can’t stop with that urgency until the AL East magic number is 0, and it’s currently at 17 with 21 to play. Once the division is clinched, the Yankees can manage, play and act like they won the division. Until then, The Yankees need to manage and play as if they haven’t accomplished anything yet because they haven’t.

Subscribe to the Keefe To The City Podcast.

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

The Yankees four-game winning streak came to an end on Thursday with a disappointing one-run loss to the Twins. After an abysmal August, the Yankees needed to see the Twins on the schedule.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. Following Sunday’s series finale against the Rays, if the Yankees had any other team on the schedule other than the Twins for a four-game series, it’s likely the Yankees’ 15 1/2-game collapse complete. Because while the Yankees were winning three of four against the Twins, the Rays were sweeping the last-place Red Sox. The Yankees needed a big week to pause their free fall, and a big week is what they got against the team they have owned for the last 20 years.

It should have been bigger and needed to be bigger. No, you can’t expect to sweep a four-game series, let alone one against a good team like the Twins. But when you spend an entire month playing .357 baseball, you need to sweep a four-game home series against the Twins, even if they are good. The Yankees put themselves in the situation of now needing to do unexpected.

2. Aaron Boone did his best to put together early-March spring training lineups over the four games, and also did his best to manage his team to losses. But thankfully, not even Boone’s inept in-game managing could lead the Twins to overcoming their issues with beating the Yankees.

3. I truly enjoy Isiah Kiner-Falefa supporters saying “See!” after Kiner-Falefa hit two home runs in the series, including a grand slam. Please. He now has three home runs in 123 games, a .653 OPS and kicks around the ball at short. One or two games isn’t going to erase the disastrous decision to trade for him, take on Josh Donaldson’s salary to acquire him, not sign either Carlos Correa or Corey Seager because of him and then play him every day over Oswald Peraza and Anthony Volpe. Kiner-Falefa’s Baseball Savant page is still full of blue as 99 percent of the league has a better barrel rate than him, 94 percent of the league hits the ball harder than him and 90 percentage of the league has a better average exit velocity than him. Kiner-Falefa does one thing well: he makes contact. However, when he makes contact, it’s weak contact, so it cancels out the fact that he makes contact. Play any borderline major leaguer every single day for a full season like the Yankees have with him and he will run into a few long balls along the way. (Just ask Aaron Hicks.)

4. Kiner-Falefa’s big series against the team that fleeced the Yankees to move him came while he was playing third base. I would welcome Kiner-Falefa at third if meant Donaldson not playing, but we all know that’s not going to happen. Once Donaldson is back, Kiner-Falefa will go back to short and Peraza will go to the bench. You know, the player Hal Steinbrenner and Brian Cashman cited as the reason for not signing a big-name free-agent shortstop. The player Kiner-Falefa was supposed to be a stopgap for until ready. Well, he’s ready, he’s playing an awesome shortstop and hitting major-league pitching, and yet, no one can expect him to play once Donaldson returns from paternity leave. Yankees baseball!

5. It took one good day for Kiner-Falefa to find himself batting cleanup the next day, and it took one double for Aaron Hicks to go from being benched to batting leadoff the next day. When you’re a Boone favorite and front office favorite (like those two are), it doesn’t take much to be rewarded. Don’t be surprised if you see equally crazy shit like Hicks leading off and Kiner-Falefa batting cleanup this weekend against the Rays in what is the biggest series of the season … again.

6. The Yankees’ cleanup hitter should be Giancarlo Stanton, but apparently, he’s unable to play with any regularity … again. Stanton was unavailable to pinch hit for Ronald Guzman (who I hope to never see play a game for the Yankees again), but was able to pinch hit in the ninth inning one day later. I guess one day magically healed him.

Of course Stanton could have pinch hit on Wednesday. It was absurd he didn’t. Not as absurd as the Yankees waiting an extended amount of unnecessary time to play shorthanded before putting Anthony Rizzo and DJ LeMahieu on the injured list, but absurd nonetheless.

The Yankees got a good-but-not-great age 28 season out of Stanton in 2018, in which he played a solid portion of the season with a hamstring issue. They got 18 games from his age 29 season, and 23 of 60 games in the shortened 2020 season when he was 30. Last year, they were able to get 137 games out of him at age 31, but this year, at age 32, he has missed 34 percent of the season. As a Yankee, he has missed 37 percent of the team’s regular-season games, covering his age 28 through 32 seasons. His contract runs through his age 37 season and then he will be bought out for $10 million for his age 38 season. He’s a problem now at age 32. I wonder how the next five years will go.

Stanton returned from his Achilles injury on August 25 and drove in three runs in 13-4 win over the A’s. Since then, he’s 3-for-35 (I don’t even remember the three hits), hitting .086/.180/.086. Just three singles in 39 plate appearances.

Since Monday when I wrote a Yankees Thoughts blog titled Yankees Thoughts: Giancarlo Stanton and Josh Donaldson Can’t Be Automatic Outs, Stanton has been a combination of hitless and injured.

7. The Yankees are without LeMahieu, Rizzo, Matt Carpenter, Andrew Benintendi (and to a much lesser extent, Harrison Bader). It seems like LeMahieu will have to play through his toe injury for the rest of the season. I don’t have great confidence in Rizzo coming back and being a middle-of-the-order threat even though Boone will bat him in the middle of the order. Carpenter is still being held back from baseball activities for two more weeks, and Benintendi’s chances of coming back seem to be closer to a prayer than likely. The Yankees can’t have Stanton being an automatic out. They can’t have him being even 80 percent of his abilities. They need him to be the guy who won the All-Star Game MVP and who’s the highest-paid position player on the team. And they need it now. Not next week or the week after when the collapse could be complete. Now.

8. Anyone who thinks Shohei Ohtani should be the AL MVP over Aaron Judge shouldn’t be allowed to vote in elections, obtain a driver’s license, own property or have children. Judge isn’t just the only choice for MVP, he’s possibly the most deserving of the MVP award in the history of baseball. Without him, the Yankees aren’t a postseason team. He’s the most valuable, most important, best player in the majors this season. It’s not debatable.

9. With 24 games left, the Rays’ elimination number is way too high at 22. (Any combination of Yankees wins and Rays losses equaling 22 will eliminate the Rays from the division.) The Yankees can lower that number to 16 by Sunday afternoon, and if they do so, the Rays’ recent attempt to overtake the Yankees will be over.

I don’t think that will happen. I would like it to happen, but if you think this version of the Yankees in which Hicks could bat leadoff and Kiner-Falefa cleanup this weekend is going to sweep the Rays, you likely think Cashman has done a good job in recent years as general manager and that the Steinbrenner family cares about winning like their father did.

I can’t say Just don’t get swept because I think losing two of three this weekend will put the Yankees in a horrendous spot, even if the Rays have 16 games left against the Blue Jays and Astros. I don’t think the Blue Jays are that good, and the Astros will have the AL West clinched soon and the AL 1-seed shortly after that. Who knows what their lineup or level of care will be when they face the Rays from September 19-21 and again from September 30-October 2.

10. A series win this weekend would get the elimination number down to 18 with 21 to play. (Still too high for my liking, but that’s what you get when you piss away two-and-a-half months of the season.) The Yankees can’t lose the series. (I mean, sure, they can, and odds are they will, but they can’t.) And they certainly can’t get swept. (Again, sure, they can, but they can’t.)

Right now, I’m moderately worried about the Yankees’ completing the single biggest game-lead collapse in baseball history. I’m a 6.7 out of 10 worried. Five days ago, I was a 9.1. If the loss column lead is zero on Sunday afternoon, I will be a 10, and a 10 is stock-up-on-bottled-water-and-batteries-to-go-into-hiding-level bad. So if the Yankees get swept, and you don’t hear from me with Thoughts about the series by Monday morning, just know I’m safe.

Subscribe to the Keefe To The City Podcast.

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

Losers of three straight and six of seven, the Yankees managed to win the series finale against the Rays on Sunday and salvage a game from the most important series of the season.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. I don’t care how the Yankees won on Sunday, barely eeking out a 2-1 victory over the Rays, all that matters is they won. They won for the first time in four games and the second time in eight games. They momentarily stopped their free fall that led to them entering the series finale against the Rays with a four-game lead in the division, and just three games in the loss column. For at least one night, Yankees fans can sleep well knowing the magic number finally moved off 27 for the first time since Tuesday. Unfortunately, the momentary relief of Sunday’s win is just that: momentary. The Yankees play at 1:05 on Monday, and if they don’t build on Sunday’s win, it won’t have mattered.

2. Sunday’s win was as painful as any win can be. Right up until the final pitch, a called third strike to end the game that wasn’t a strike. It involved Aaron Judge producing the game’s first run on the second pitch of the game (this is why I have been advocating for him to leadoff) and the Yankees only managing to score once more for the rest game on an Oswaldo Cabrera sacrifice fly in the seventh inning. The Yankees left the leadoff man on in the second, left two on in the fourth, left the bases loaded in the fifth, left two on in the sixth, left a runner on in the seventh and couldn’t score with first and third and no outs in the eighth. It was yet another game in which the Yankees scored three runs or less.

3. Since August 3, the Yankees have played 29 games. They have scored three runs or less in 21 of those 29 games. In 72 percent of their last 29 games, the Yankees have scored three runs or less. But Aaron Boone was quick to twice say, “We have the Number 1 offense in the league,” on Saturday. What Boone failed to mention about that “achievement” is that of the Yankees’ 655 runs scored this season, 36 percent of them have come in just 15 percent of the season. The Yankees scored 237 runs in 20 games against the Guardians, Orioles, Royals, White Sox, Tigers, Twins, Cubs, A’s, Pirates and Red Sox. Guess how many of those teams currently hold a playoff berth? One. The Guardians. They lead the atrocious AL Central by a half-game, and if they don’t win their division, they will miss the postseason, since they lead their division, but would currently be 4 1/2 games out of the final wild-card spot.

4. The Yankees’ offense isn’t good. It never has been. In those 20 games, they averaged 11.9 runs per game. In the other 114 games, they have averaged 3.7 runs per game. That’s the true Yankees offense, and we saw it again this weekend.

In what was the biggest series of the season to date, the Yankees scored three runs total in the three games. I would sign up for the Yankees scoring three runs per game for the rest of the season because one run feels like a burden and scoring two runs feels like a miracle. Scoring three runs?! Well, that might as well be 23 right now. And if Judge doesn’t hit a home run, it’s hard to envision the Yankees manufacturing a run any other way.

5. The Yankees rely on the home run for more than half of their runs, which is the most in the majors. Starting with the first game of the second half of the Subway Series back on August 22, here are the Yankees’ home runs by game:

vs. Mets: Judge
vs. Mets: Judge
at A’s: None
at A’s: Judge
at A’s: None
at A’s: None
at Angels: Anthony Rizzo, Judge
at Angels: Andrew Benintendi, Rizzo, Judge
at Angels: None
at Rays: None
at Rays: Judge
at Rays: Judge

6. In the Yankees’ last 12 games, they have hit 10 home runs, and Judge has hit seven of them. No other Yankees has homered in the last four games, and just two other Yankees have homered in the last 12. One of them is missing games for the third time in a month due to back issues and the other needs surgery on his wrist and may not play for the Yankees again.

7. If you’re expecting other players to step up and start banging some out, don’t waste your time.

DJ LeMahieu (who is playing through a foot injury that the Yankees have admitted won’t heal until the offseason) hasn’t homered since August 7.

Gleyber Torres (who will likely be traded this offseason after the Yankees chose not to trade him last offseason and had a deal with the Marlins at the deadline to trade him fall through) has two home runs since July 27.

Aaron Hicks (who was outright benched, but has somehow found his way back into the lineup every day again) last homered on July 9.

Isiah Kiner-Falefa (who is somehow still playing baseball in the majors) has one home run in 439 plate appearances.

Cabrera has 60 career plate appearances and Oswald Peraza has seven.

With Anthony Rizzo in and out of the lineup for back issues and Matt Carpenter not expected back for a few weeks at best, there only two other sources of potential power.

8. The first is Josh Donaldson. He’s being paid like the MVP he was and not the player he is, which is as washed up as it gets, and he continues to be treated as though he’s the Blue Jay version of himself, batting in the middle of the Yankees’ lineup every game.

I don’t believe in Donaldson and recognize if he weren’t owed $24 million next season, he would no longer be a Yankee. But I can’t lump him in with Hicks and Kiner-Falefa and Torres and the rookies since he does have a long history of being a power bat, with or without the juiced baseball (which is the only time Hicks or Torres had power).

Donaldson is an asshole. That’s been evident since he was an opponent of the Yankees and continues to be more evident with each game he’s a Yankee. He’s done a lot of idiotic things this season, but none bigger than chirping Jeffrey Springs on Saturday to throw him fastballs, which Springs did and struck Donaldson out on (including one at 91 mph down the middle with two on in the first inning).

Donaldson’s batting average is 46 points below his career average. His on-base percentage is 57 points below his career average, his slugging percentage is 120 points below his career average, and his OPS is 177 points below his career average. He has 12 home runs and is on pace for 15 if he plays in all of the Yankees remaining 28 games. It would be the lowest single-season home run total of his career and 12 less than his current season-low of 24 from 2013. Anyone who cites his great defense this season as a reason to justify his miserable offensive production is as big of an asshole as he is.

I don’t expect Donaldson to contribute or become his former self. But when Boone mentions the “need to get a couple guys going,” like he did most recently after Saturday’s loss, and has for months now, he’s reffering to Donaldson. He’s also referring to Giancarlo Stanton.

9. Stanton last homered on July 15. Since then he was on the injured list for more than a month, having missed 35 percent of the season (once again), and has a sub-.400 OPS in his last 14 games and 55 plate appearances with 17 strikeouts. Since coming off the IL on August 25, he’s 4-for-35 with five walks and nine strikeouts. Stanton’s horrific season between injuries and underperformance (his season OPS is 136 points below his career average) is as big a problem as any the Yankees have offensively. Stanton’s inability to stay healthy (again), and his inability to perform to his career averages might be the biggest problem.

It’s hard to remember that six weeks ago Stanton was an All-Star, winning the MVP of the game at Dodger Stadium. Because now all he’s doing is flailing at sliders in the other batter’s box and popping up middle-middle straight fastballs.

I understand this is who Stanton is. When he’s going right, he’s as feared as any hitter in the league, but when he’s off, he looks like he’s picking up a bat for the first time. Just because I know this is who he is doesn’t make his own personal free fall since the start of July (.149/.231/.319 and a month-long IL stint) any easier to stomach.

If Stanton is going to continue to be as automatic of an out as Donaldson is, then the Yankees aren’t going anywhere. Opponents are already pitching around Judge every chance they get, and that will only be heightened in the postseason.

10. The Yankees need a lot to go right over the next month to avoid the biggest game-lead collapse in history. And then after that, they will need even more to go right over the following month to accomplish the organization’s supposed goal of winning the World Series.

They don’t just need a couple of guys to get going like Boone suggests, they need an entire lineup aside from Judge to start contributing, and on top of that, they need nearly half of their expected everyday lineup to get healthy. It’s a lot to ask for and a lot to expect. Likely too much to ask for and too much to expect. But for at least one night, the collapse has been paused. Momentarily.

Subscribe to the Keefe To The City Podcast.

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