The Yankees brought back the team that failed to meet expectations, and they’re failing to meet expectations again.
The Yankees essentially brought back the same team from last season that failed miserably to meet expectations, and they’re failing to meet expectations again. When you take the 10th-best offense in the American League and only add 36-year-old Josh Donaldson and .670-career-OPS Isiah Kiner-Falefa, you get an offense that just scored six runs in 29 innings at Camden Yards.
It might as well be 2021. The 2022 Yankees are a continuation of the 2021 Yankees and as Brian Cashman said about the 2021 team, the 2022 team is “unwatchable.”
It might as well be 2021. The 2022 Yankees are a continuation of the 2021 Yankees and as Brian Cashman said about the 2021 team, the 2022 team is “unwatchable.”
1. The Yankees ruined Easter. Rather than completely enjoy the day with my wife, 19-month-old and newborn, I let a collection of underachieving players led by an arrogant asshole manager spoil what should have been a celebratory Sunday. There was no celebrating on Sunday for Yankees fans as the Yankees were shut out by the Orioles, losing two of three in Baltimore to a team destined for another triple-digit-loss season.
That’s 30 runs in 10 games. Two of those 30 runs were a product of the automatic runner being placed at second base with no outs in extra innings. (They also failed in both the 10th and 11th innings on Friday to score either automatic runner.) Subtract the two automatic runner runs from Opening Day, and the Yankees have actually scored 28 runs in 10 games for an average of 2.8 runs per game.
But let’s call it 30 runs for the Yankees since that’s what they are being credited with. Only five teams have scored less than 30 runs in the majors: Minnesota (29), Detroit (28), Kansas City (25), Baltimore (21) and Arizona (21). Minnesota, Detroit, Baltimore and Arizona have played one less game than the Yankees and Kansas City has played two less. Minnesota is coming off an 89-loss season, Detroit an 85-loss season, Kansas City an 88-loss season, Baltimore a 110-loss season and Arizona a 110-loss season. The Yankees are coming off a season in which they were the odds-on favorite to win the American League and instead finished fifth in the AL and third in their own division. The five teams with less runs than the Yankees this season include the worst teams in baseball. This season, the day before Opening Day, the Yankees were listed as co-favorites to win the AL with the Blue Jays.
2. The Yankees’ offense is a mess. It’s a combination of poor roster construction (believing in Gleyber Torres, Kyle Higashioka and Isiah Kiner-Falefa as everyday players), unnecessary rest (every position player has gotten at least one day off through 10 games), nonsensical lineups (10 different lineups in 10 games), unexpected underachieving (Aaron Judge, Giancarlo Stanton, Josh Donaldson and Joey Gallo), expected underachieving (Torres, Higashioka and Kiner-Falefa), a lack of power (two combined home runs for Judge, Donaldson and Gallo) and a lack of situational hitting (everyone).
“First off, credit,” Boone said after Sunday’s loss with a straight face, “I thought they pitched us really tough today.”
This wasn’t Alek Manoah and the AL-favorite Blue Jays shutting out the Yankees like it was on Monday night. This was career 5.02 ERA and career 5.34 FIP Bruce Zimmermann stifling the Yankees for five innings, followed by Felix Bautista in his fourth career appearance for an inning, then former Yankee prospect Dillon Tate for an inning, and lastly, career 6.04 ERA and career 5.14 FIP Jorge Lopez in the eighth and ninth innings. Apparently, everyone and anyone can pitch the Yankees tough.
“I thought [Zimmermann] did a good job of changing speeds on us,” Boone said. “It was a little unpredictable.”
Actually, it was very predictable. In 2021, Zimmermann, in the middle of a season in which he would post a 5.04 ERA, 5.38 FIP and put 99 baserunners on in 64 1/3 innings, allowed one earned run over 5 2/3 innings in an Orioles win over the Yankees on May 16. Zimmermann dominating and shutting the Yankees down wasn’t unpredictable. It was as predictable as it gets considering it happened 11 months ago.
3. “Obviously, today didn’t muster a lot,” Boone said of his offense. “A little bit of a cold weekend … These guys will get it rolling, so I’m not too worried about it.”
Boone actually said that on April 18, 2021. A year ago today. The Yankees had just been swept by the Rays in a three-game series at Yankee Stadium, scoring seven runs, and falling to 5-10 on the season.
The Yankees never did “get it rolling.” They finished the season with more runs than only five AL teams: the 110-loss Orioles, 85-loss Tigers, 88-loss Royals, -51 run differential Mariners and 102-loss Rangers. The only reason they reached the “postseason” on the final pitch of their regular season was because of their starting pitching and bullpen.
“It just didn’t happen today,” Boone said. “And we’ve got to turn the page real quick.”
OK, Boone didn’t say that after Sunday’s game either. He actually said that on Sept. 3, 2020. I’m sick and tired of hearing Boone saying the Yankees need to“turn the page” like they’re Bob Seger.
“Just couldn’t get much going today,” Boone said. “We gotta turn the page and start getting it rolling.”
Boone actually did say that after Sunday’s loss to the Orioles. Notice a trend? Boone used the same two lines he used in both 2021 and 2020 to put together an answer. It’s as if he’s an Apple Watch with pre-programmed response options.
4. The Yankees haven’t been able to get much going in each of their 10 games this season. Their game-high run total came on Opening Day when they scored six runs, and again, two of those runs were a product of the automatic runner in the 10th and 11th innings.
“I don’t get too emotional over a few games,” Boone said. “I am confident in this offense that we’ll be what we should be. We gotta get rolling.”
Boone wasn’t worried on April 18, 2021 and he essentially said he’s not worried on April 17, 2022. He should be worried.
The Yankees took the 2021 roster, changed out Gio Urshela for Donaldson, Gary Sanchez for Kyle Higashioka/Jose Trevino and added Isiah Kiner-Falefa. Based on career resumes, the Yankees got better at third base with Donaldson over Urshela, but they created the worst offensive catching situation in the sport with Higashioka and Trevino, passed on the greatest free-agent shortstop class in history in favor of acquiring Kiner-Falefa and forced themselves into a situation where one expected everyday player now sits on the bench, so players like Kiner-Falefa and Torres can play every single day.
Donaldson has been an unmitigated disaster. The 36-year-old is hitting .200/.256/.325 and has struck out 15 times in 43 plate appearances. The Opening Day hitter only 10 days ago, Donaldson has already lost that spot, getting relegated to the middle-third of the lineup. He’s closer to being a sunk cost and playing himself out of the league than he is to replicating his .827 OPS from 2021.
For as bad as the former MVP (seven years ago) Donaldson has been, Higashioka has made Donaldson look like it’s seven years ago. Higashioka is hitting .120/.120/.160 in 25 plate appearances, having reached base just three times, while mostly striking out and hitting the ball on the ground to short. A career .179/.227/.373 hitter, Higashioka’s .600 career OPS made it obvious the Yankees would be taking an enormous step back by trading the second-best power-hitting catcher in the majors, but they would supposedly be improving their defense. Instead, Higashioka’s defense has looked like Sanchez’s at his worst, and yet the “lazy” reputation and tag hasn’t been mentioned with Higashioka, and the YES pregame show, postgame show and broadcast booth have passed on commenting on Higashioka’s defense.
Kiner-Falefa was going to bring Gold Glove-level defense to the Yankees and a high-contact bat to a lineup full of power-hitting, high-strikeout bats. His defense at short has been just as bad as Torres’ was in 2020 and 2021, which led to Kiner-Falefa becoming a Yankee. As for his bat, it’s stunning when he puts the ball in play, and astonishing when a batted ball of his reaches the outfield.
Higashioka’s performance and Kiner-Falefa’s performance aren’t concerning at all. Higashioka’s entire career foreshadowed this kind of season from him. Even if his numbers get better, they’re never going to be Yankees’ starting catcher-worthy.
The same goes for Kiner-Falefa. He’s 27 with a .668 OPS in 1,432 plate appearances. It takes a special kind of Yankees fan — a true homer and a real idiot — to have thought simply putting on the pinstripes was going to transform Kiner-Falefa from below replacement-player level to capable everyday Yankee.
The Yankees believe so little in the players they went into 2022 with as their starting catcher and starting shortstop that they have pinch hit for Higashioka in four of eight games played and have pinch hit for Kiner-Falefa in three of nine games played. With Boone’s history of being over-loyal to his players, it’s more than telling that he has already given up on Higashioka and Kiner-Falefa.
Donaldson’s performance is extremely concerning. At the advanced baseball age of 36, at some point he’s going to lose “it” and it’s possible he’s lost “it” already. Sure, a 10-game, 43-plate appearance sample size isn’t enough to call Donaldson’s career over, but the quality of those 43 plate appearances is more than enough to be concerned. It’s a good thing the Yankees only owe him $48 million between this season and next.
5. Why should anyone think these Yankees are going to suddenly start mashing? We know Higashioka and Kiner-Falefa are below replacement level. We know Torres has been lost since the league unjuiced the baseballs and since he came to Spring Training 2.0 in 2020 out of shape. We know Gallo is what he is in that he will strike out an inordinate amount of times, walk an inordinate amount of times and hit a bunch of home runs as the least aesthically-pleasing player in the majors. We know Stanton will go on his streaky runs where he’ll be impossible to get out for a week and then flailing at pitches that bounce before the plate or are in the other batter’s box for a week. We know Anthony Rizzo is coming off the worst year of his career since 2013 and is a year older and on the wrong side of 30. We know Aaron Judge is feeling the pressure of free agency and the possible regret of the ill-advised decision to turn down $30.5 million per year for seven years as he’s on pace to hit 16 home runs. That leaves DJ LeMahieu and Aaron Hicks who have been the Yankees’ only two consistent hitters this season.
The Yankees’ lack of offense creates an even bigger problem than not scoring enough runs, as their inability to blow open games means Boone has more of an impact on games. Close games need logical decision making with pinch hitters, pinch runners and defensive replacements. They need pitching changes and pitter-hitter matchups. They need every element and aspect of in-game management that Boone is atrocious at, failing to grasp any bit of it despite spending his entire life around Major League Baseball.
His decision to stay with Wandy Peralta for a second inning and waitng for the Yankees’ lead to be blown before going to the ready-to-come-in Jonathan Loaisiga on Friday night, followed by his choice to bring in Aroldis Chapman and his well-known lack of control with the bases loaded in extra innings was excruciating. His inability to recognize Loaisiga’s fatigue on Sunday was unbelievable.
6. A year ago, Boone used Chad Green 12 times in the month of April. Opening Day was on April 1 and by April 11, Green had been used for multiple innings four times. By midsummer and late in the season, Green was ineffective, allowing game-tying and go-ahead home runs seemingly every appearance as he was overworked and tired from his early-season mismanagement with Boone never adjusting. The same thing is happening to Loaisiga this season.
Loaisiga leads the league with six appearances in 10 games. On Sunday, it was more than obvious he needed several days off as he was unable to put away the bottom of the lineup. But rather than go to the deepest bullpen ever constructed, Boone stayed with Loaisiga forcing him to try to get out of the eighth inning with nothing on his pitches.
7. With two on and two out in the eighth, 38-year-old catcher Robinson Chirinos was able to work a 10-pitch walk against Loaisiga.
“It was a great at-bat,” Boone said. “It was. Laid off a lot of tough pitches. That’s one thing Chirinos does, he does a really good job of controlling the zone.”
If I were to play for the Yankees on Monday night in Detroit, Boone would tell the media I control the zone well. It doesn’t matter your actual ability, career track record or performance, Boone will find a way to talk you up.
If the 38-year-old Chirinos controls the zone so well, why isn’t he a Yankee? The Yankees signed him for 2021 and had him in their spring training before he fractured his wrist on a hit by pitch. But if he controls the zone so well, why was he signing a minor-league deal with the Yankees prior to 2021 and not getting a guaranteed major-league deal somewhere? And why didn’t the Yankees sign him for 2022? A catcher who controls the zone well, who can had be inexpensively for a team in need of a good-hitting catcher? Seems like a no-brainer to me.
Instead of realizing Loaisiga wasn’t his normal self following the third batter of the inning reaching base and Chirinos of all hitters working a 10-pitch walk against him, Boone stayed with Loaisiga to face the left-handed -hitting, former Yankee Rougned Odor. Now on paper Loaisiga against Odor is a huge matchup advantage for the Yankees since Loaisiga vs. anyone is a matchup advantage for the Yankees. But that’s in a vacuum with Loaisiga at his best and Odor or any hitter at their best. Loaisiga wasn’t at his best, not close to it and he shouldn’t be expected to be giving his workload in the first 10 days.
8. Left-hander Lucas Luetge was available, warmed up and ready to come in the game to face Odor once Odor was announced as a pinch hitter. But Boone chose to stay with Loaisiga again, and when asked about it, Boone was appalled.
“Nah, that was Lo,” Boone said about the matchup of Loaisiga against Odor. “That was Lo all the way there. It was just Luetge in case it got really heavy on him … That was the matchup I wanted.”
The condescending way Boone said “Nah, that was all Lo” to Meredith Marakovits was cringe-worthy. I felt second-hand embarrassment for Boone. As Yankees manager the team has grown progressively worse each year under his leadership and here he is acting annoyed that his bullpen management could possibly be questioned.
9. Of course it was Odor who delivered the go-ahead two-RBI single. Odor the Yankee in 2021 represented everything wrong with the current state of the team. After being released by the eventual 106-loss Rangers despite being owed $27 million and despite the Rangers knowing they were entering a lost year, they still didn’t want him clogging up a spot on their roster. So the Yankees happily acquired him because their Opening Day left-handed bats were Aaron Hicks, Brett Gardner and Jay Bruce and because they didn’t have a backup infielder other than Tyler Wade. (The Rangers also traded Kiner-Falefa away and spent nearly $500 million on Corey Seager and Marcus Semien rather than roster and play Kiner-Falefa. I wonder why?) The Yankees rostered Odor and played him all season because he only cost the league minimum to them, and the only thing Hal Steinbrenner likes more than players on his roster making the league minimum is passing on free-agent superstar position players in their prime.
What makes the situation even better is that Orioles manager Brandon Hyde used Odor over the right-handed Chris Owings. He purposely chose Odor to bat in that spot and gave Boone the opportunity to counter with the left-handed Luetge against the left-handed Odor, who becomes Kiner-Falefa at the plate when facing lefties. Boone passed and the Yankees lost.
10. The Yankees didn’t lose on Friday and Sunday because of Boone. They lost because of their lack of offense. But Boone played an enormous role in the losses.
The Yankees have grown comfortable and content with losing. Steinbrenner has retained a general manager who has provided one championship despite spending billions of dollars over the last 21 seasons. Cashman retained a manager who made history by keeping his job without overseeing a championship in his first four seasons with the team, and who has led the team to grow progressively worth in each of his seasons. The organization kept together a clubhouse that has listened to their loser manager tell the media and public for years that there’s always tomorrow, and that mindset has now been instilled in them as we have heard it with player responses to media questions and have seen it with player reaction on the field, like Gerrit Cole literally tipping his cap to Vladimir Guerrero Jr. in the middle of a play.
I thought Boone with better players in 2022 than he had in 2021 would mask his abundance of flaws as a manager and that the Yankees could outhit their own manager and take away his impact on games. That plan and wishful thinking went out the window when the Yankees decided to return nearly the same lineup from last season.
The 2022 season has been a continuation of the 2021 season. The Yankees brought back as close to the same roster as possible for a fourth straight season, expecting different results. So far it’s been the same result: a collection of underachieving players in a comfortable-with-losing, no-urgency environment.
The Yankees’ 2-1 loss to the Orioles in 11 innings won’t be topped in 2022 as the worst loss of the season.
There won’t be a Yankees loss this season worse than Friday’s 2-1 walkoff defeat to the Orioles in 11 innings. It was the Mona Lisa of potential 2022 Yankees losses. It was perfect. It had everything in terms of every fear and negative narrative and worry about the Yankees playing out. And as a Yankees fan, it was oddly beautiful, the way a thunderstorm is.
The wheels were in motion for a Yankees loss when the lineup was announced. Missing was Aaron Judge, the Yankees’ best hitter, who the team was willing to commit $30.5 million per year to from 2023 through 2029 a week ago. He had played seven baseball games in seven days and an eighth would simply be too much. So for the eighth time in eight games, the Yankees used a different lineup.
The Yankees’ first two batters of the game — Anthony Rizzo and Giancarlo Stanton — reached base. Neither scored.
In the second inning, Isiah Kiner-Falefa hit into an inning-ending double play.
The Yankees scored a run in the third to take a 1-0 lead. They also stranded two.
In the sixth, leading 1-0 after Jordan Montgomery had pitched five scoreless innings, the Yankees had the bases loaded and one out with Aaron Hicks up. Hicks had failed miserably in the same situation on Sunday Night Baseball against the Red Sox in the Yankees’ one-run loss, hitting into an inning-ending double play. (He also failed to score a runner from third with less than two outs in that game.) YES displayed a graphic showing Hicks’ career .182 batting average with the bases loaded and on the next pitch he banged into his second inning-ending double play with the bases loaded. Nearly every hitter in major-league history has improved numbers with the bases loaded, recognizing the pitcher is the one in trouble, but not Hicks.
After Wandy Peralta pitched a perfect sixth in relief of Montgomery, needing only seven pitches to do so, Boone sent him back out for the seventh. Peralta had only pitched multiple innings in 2021 a few times out of necessity because of the Yankees’ depleted bullpen throughout the season, and even though he had only thrown seven pitches in the sixth, with this bullpen, it was an unnecessary move. It was even further cemented as unnecessary once Peralta allowed a double, Higashioka allowed the runner to advance to third on a passed ball and then ex-Yankee prospect Jorge Mateo, who was traded in the Sonny Gray A’s deal singled in the run. The back-to-back hits weren’t enough for Boone to make a move, and he stayed with Peralta who then walked the next batter.
Peralta had faced three batters in the inning and retired none of them. (Mateo was thrown out by Joey Gallo tying to stretch his single into a double.) In a one-run game and now a tie game, it made no sense to stay with Peralta that long. It made even less sense when Boone brought in Jonathan Loaisiga.
If Loaisiga had been available, why hadn’t he been brought in to start the seventh? Or at the very least been brought in following the leadoff double? Arguably the best reliever in the American League a year ago, Boone was electing to use Loaisiga with a runner on and the score tied at 1 rather than with the bases empty and the Yankees leading 1-0. Loaisiga got out of the inning because he’s really freakin’ good. If he had been available, which he was since he came into the game, he should have started the inning.
The game remained 1-1 entering the 10th, and with the automatic runner now in play, Boone would be needed for even more complex in-game strategy. His understanding of basic logic under normal baseball circumstances is shocking. Asking him to comprehend a runner on second with no outs as the away team is like me dumping a 1,000-piece puzzle on the floor for my 19-month-old to complete.
Kiner-Falefa was due to lead off the 10th until Boone called him back in favor of Judge. Kiner-Falefa has started seven of the Yankees’ eight games. He has been pinch hit for in two of them. The Yankees passed on the greatest free-agent shortstop class in history to acquire a supposed all-glove, high-contact option whose glove is as shaky as Gleyber Torres’ and who struggles to make contact (two more strikeouts on Friday). Anthony Volpe better be Derek Jeter 2.0.
Judge was given the day off and now being used anyway. Because the Yankees feel they have too many capable everyday players for not enough positions (they don’t), they have given someone different the day off in each game. Except each time, the player is needed anyway.
Game 1: Torres doesn’t start, but is used to pinch hit for Higashioka.
Game 2: Hicks doesn’t start, but is used as a defensive replacement for Stanton.
Game 3: DJ LeMahieu doesn’t start, but is used as a pinch hitter for Jose Trevino.
Game 4: Josh Donaldson doesn’t start, but is used as a pinch hitter for Marwin Gonzalez.
Game 5: Gallo doesn’t start, but is used as a defensive replacement for Stanton.
Game 6: Stanton doesn’t start, but is used as a pinch hitter for Kiner-Falefa.
Game 7: Hicks doesn’t start, but is used as a defensive replacement for Stanton.
Game 8: Judge doesn’t start, but is used as a pinch hitter for Kiner-Falefa.
(In comparison, the Blue Jays won again on Friday to improve to 5-2. George Springer, Bo Bichette and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. all played yet again, with none of the three having been given an unnecessary day off in 2022.)
Judge was unable to drive in the automatic runner. He wasn’t even able to move him over, so the Yankees could potentially score the go-ahead run with a productive out.
Boone then called Higashioka back for Gonzalez. I wrote this about Higashioka on Friday:
I didn’t expect anything out of Higashioka this season because I have never expected anything out of him. When a player has a .178/.226/.370 career batting line, there’s no positive expectation that can come with them, only a negative one, and Higashioka has surpassed every negative expectation with flying colors.
Higashioka hasn’t just been bad, he’s made himself unplayable. He hit a 79-hopper on the ground up the middle in his first at-bat of 2022, and since then nothing. He hasn’t had another hit. Not even a walk. In the 17 plate appearances to follow that single, he has made 18 outs (he hit into a 6-4-3 double play), mostly by hitting the ball to the shortstop (his specialty) or by striking out.
I’m not mad at Higashioka. I’m not frustrated or angry. He didn’t tell the Yankees to trade the second-best power-hitting catcher in the majors so the Yankees could inexplicably make Higashioka their starter to improve the team’s framing. He’s starting most games for the Yankees despite his inability to generate offense and his inability to throw out baserunners because who wouldn’t want to play Major League Baseball? It’s like not he’s the one who created this roster issue and he’s not the one who continues to put himself in the lineup.
Higashioka did get his first extra-base hit of the season on Friday (and his second hit of the season). He also allowed two passed balls, both of which would have created three days of pregame and postgame material for John Flaherty and Jack Curry and about eight innings worth of in-game material for Michael Kay if former Yankee Gary Sanchez had allowed them. They were the same kind of passed balls that Sanchez tagged as lazy. For some reason I don’t think Higashioka will acquire the same reputation.
I called for Trevino to play over Higashioka beginning on Friday after Trevino’s two-hit, two-RBI game on Thursday. It was the third time this season Boone had benched a player after providing the team’s best offensive performance. Gallo was on the bench on Tuesday after a two-hit and three-time-on-base night on Monday. Hicks was on the bench on Wednesday after hitting his first home run of the season on Tuesday. And Trevino was on the bench on Friday.
The Yankees failed to move the automatic runner off second in the 10th and again in the 11th. After Clarke Schmidt pitched a scoreless 10th, Boone sent him back out there for the 11th. After a lineout and a pair of walks, with the bases loaded and one out, Boone went to the bullpen to bring in … Aroldis Chapman! About 24 hours earlier, Chapman had been brought in to close out a three-run lead against the Blue Jays and walked the bases loaded on 16 pitches. Only four of the 16 were strikes. Boone was calling on the reliever most likely to walk in a run with the bases loaded in his bullpen. Guess what happened with the bases loaded and two outs?
Chapman got ahead of Ramon Urias 0-2 and then threw four straight balls, none of which were all that close to the zone. For ball 3 and ball 4, Chapman threw sliders. The first bounced for a near wild pitch and the second was high and away. With the game on the line and needing to throw a strike, the pitcher with a flame tattooed on his forearm for his signature fastball threw back-to-back breaking balls. Boone was then ejected from an already completed game for arguing the pitch being called a ball.
Montgomery was really good and so was the bullpen (which comes as no surprise since the rotation is great and the bullpen is amazing) and the Yankees still lost a game in which they allowed one non-automatic runner run at Camden Yards. A seemingly impossible feat. The Yankees and their eight different lineups in eight games have now scored 23 non-automatic runner runs, an average of 2.9 runs per game.
The offense we watched slog their way through 163 games last season is the same offense we’re seeing now. The only difference is Donaldson, whose performance looks more likely to lead to an early forced retirement than it is a renaissance like he had last year. That and the Yankees traded away the second-best power-hitting catcher in the sport so Higashioka could play, and traded for a shortstop who’s Gleyber Torres 2.0 at the position.
The Rays have already played and swept the Orioles in three games. As long as the Rays, Blue Jays and Red Sox are stacking wins against the Orioles, the Yankees need to as well, and the Yankees failed to on Friday.
The Blue Jays are 5-2. The Yankees and Rays are 4-4. The Red Sox are 3-4. The Orioles are 2-5. The wins and losses will change, but the standings will closely resemble that order for the entire season with the Blue Jays, Yankees and Rays all about equal, the Red Sox just behind and the Orioles buried. With the non-Orioles teams in the AL East all beating up on each other and likely all playing close to .500 against one another, the team at the top will be the team that performs best against the Orioles. This weekend isn’t just an early-season, mid-April series against the lowly, last-place Orioles. It could be the difference between getting a bye to the ALDS or having to play a best-of-3 with all games in the series on the road. It could be the difference between playing past Game 162 or going home after Game 162.
The Yankees were shut down by Jordan Lyles on Friday. The same Jordan Lyles who owns a 5.21 career ERA. The same Jordan Lyles who lost to the Rays a week ago, allowing five earned runs and 10 baserunners. The same Jordan Lyles, who as a member of the Rangers, shut down these same Yankees last May with one run over six innings.
We are truly watching a continuation of the 2021 season in 2022. The stars haven’t hit like stars, the underachievers of a year ago are still underachieving and the bounceback candidates are nowhere near bouncing back. The Yankees purposely built their 2022 roster with question marks and set up their season as one prodigious parlay. After what won’t be topped as the worst loss of the season, they’re finding out why parlay bets are for suckers.
The Yankees finished their season-opening, seven-game homestand with a winning record (4-3) against the Red Sox and Blue Jays. I would have signed up for that prior to the first pitch on Opening Day.
The Yankees finished their season-opening, seven-game homestand with a winning record (4-3) against the Red Sox and Blue Jays. I would have signed up for that prior to the first pitch on Opening Day and I’m happy with the result. Again, it could have and should have been more, but to come out of those two series with a winning record is what was needed (even if the Red Sox aren’t very good and nowhere near the level of the Blue Jays).
1. Through seven games, the Yankees’ offense has been a problem. The offense has produced 24 runs this season and two of those were scored by automatic runners, so it’s really 22 runs in seven games. That’s 3.1 runs per game. That’s not going to cut it.
Last season, seemingly every day Yankees fans were told the lineup would eventually hit and they would get on a roll and they would turn it around, only to never to do any of those things. So why should any Yankees fan think the offense that underachieved all of last season won’t do the same this season, if it includes the same players?
It’s not early either. The core of this Yankees lineup has played hundreds of games as a unit, not just seven, and Anthony Rizzo and Joey Gallo have now been Yankees for nearly the equivalent of half of a full season. Don’t let any player, the manager, the front office or media members tell you its early in assessing the Yankees. They brought back the same team plus Josh Donaldson and it’s completely fair to evaluate them on their performance to date in 2022 because it’s been a continuation of 2021.
2. Donaldson has been dreadful in his first week as a Yankee. Sure, he drove in the automatic runner on Opening Day to beat the Red Sox in the 11th inning, but that’s all he has done. He’s hitting .185/.241/.222 with one extra-base hit and has struck out 11 times in 29 plate appearances. He deserves to be the leadoff hitter about as much as Aaron Hicks deserved to the be 3-hitter last season.
There’s always risk when rostering and playing a 36-year-old every day that at any moment he could just be finished. Time is undefeated and when it comes to baseball players in their mid-to-late-30s, it’s usually not forgiving.
Donaldson isn’t having the kind of bad luck Gallo was having in the season’s first weekend when the quality of his at-bats were good and he was hitting the ball hard and not coming out with hits. Donaldson’s at-bats have been painful. He seems to be behind in every count and when he does put the ball in the play, he’s not doing so with authority. I didn’t think the Yankees were getting the 2015-16 version of Donaldson when they acquired him, but I didn’t think they were getting what has been a near-automatic out to this point.
The Yankees will continue to bat Donaldson leadoff because of his name and his career history and hope that they didn’t just trade for a third baseman whose finished who they owe $48 million to over this year and next.
3. The problem with the Yankees’ offense is twofold: their stars haven’t hit (outside of a couple games against the Red Sox) and the bottom of their order can’t get the ball out of the infield, let alone get on base.
Jose Trevino, a career .248/.273/.366 hitter, who the Yankees acquired just before Opening Day is currently the team’s best catcher. It’s scary, but it’s true.
It’s scary because the Yankees chose this catching tandem. It wasn’t created out of necessity because of injury or some other circumstance. The Yankees purposely traded away Gary Sanchez to create the worst catching situation in the majors. Thankfully, Trevino at least had the two-RBI performance he had on Thursday night to make up for Higashioka’s atrocious start.
4. I didn’t expect anything out of Higashioka this season because I have never expected anything out of him. When a player has a .178/.226/.370 career batting line, there’s no positive expectation that can come with them, only a negative one, and Higashioka has surpassed every negative expectation with flying colors.
Higashioka hasn’t just been bad, he’s made himself unplayable. He hit a 79-hopper on the ground up the middle in his first at-bat of 2022, and since then nothing. He hasn’t had another hit. Not even a walk. In the 17 plate appearances to follow that single, he has made 18 outs (he hit into a 6-4-3 double play), mostly by hitting the ball to the shortstop (his specialty) or by striking out.
I’m not mad at Higashioka. I’m not frustrated or angry. He didn’t tell the Yankees to trade the second-best power-hitting catcher in the majors so the Yankees could inexplicably make Higashioka their starter to improve the team’s framing. He’s starting most games for the Yankees despite his inability to generate offense and his inability to throw out baserunners because who wouldn’t want to play Major League Baseball? It’s like not he’s the one who created this roster issue and he’s not the one who continues to put himself in the lineup.
Trevino should be playing over Higashioka. This isn’t a 2022 sample size. This is a career sample size and Higashioka’s career suggests this is who he is. Naming him the starting catcher wasn’t going to magically make him play like someone worthy of being a starting catcher. It didn’t work last season when Boone started giving him the majority of the catching playing time over Sanchez, and it didn’t work the year before either. Higashioka hasn’t been having these kind of offensive results for a week, he’s been having them for a career. Sanchez would unfairly lose his playing time for having a week like Higashioka just did. It should go both ways.
5. It’s hard for me to hold back on Isiah Kiner-Falefa, who like Higashioka didn’t ask to be the Yankees’ starting shortstop. I’m going to do my best to hold on a little longer with him because he’s playing a position in shortstop that hasn’t been his primary position and he’s on a new team trying to prove himself.
It hasn’t been good for the front office to date that their all-glove, high-contact offseason acquisition has been a mess in the field and at the plate through the first two series. Kiner-Falefa needed a 3-for-3 night on Thursday to get his batting average up to .200, and with the way averages jump with so few at-bats this early in the season, that should tell you how bad he was prior to Thursday when he, Trevino and Luis Severino led the Yankees to a win.
6. I love Severino. He has been my favorite Yankee for several years, and it feels good to have him back, healthy and starting games. With his litany of injuries since 2019 spring training hopefully behind him, it’s not surprising he’s having the kind of success he’s had in his first two starts against the Red Sox and Blue Jays (8 IP, 7 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 2 BB, 11 K, 1 HR, 2.25 ERA, 1.125 WHIP).
Severino has been the Yankees’ best pitcher through his first two starts, and no one should be shocked by that. He was a Cy Young contender in his last healthy season (2018), and in his late-September 2019 and 2019 postseason starts, he was really good, and last season when he came back from Tommy John surgery he was great. Severino has been an elite, front-end starter since 2017, and as long as he avoids injury, he will continue to be one. I love having him back and watching him pitch every fifth day.
7. Severino held the Blue Jays scoreless for five innings on Thursday, two nights after Nestor Cortes held them scoreless for 4 1/3 innings. Three years ago, Cortes was used as a piggyback option to the opener for the Yankees (usually Chad Green) and he couldn’t have been less deserving of the role or a spot on a major-league roster. But since changing his style last season, he has become a valuable part of the pitching staff, and a trustworthy part of the staff. (I never thought I would use “trustworthy” as a way to describe Cortes). I look forward to his starts as much as I didn’t look forward to his appearances three years ago, and his style and demeanor continues to be enjoyable.
8. The difference between last season and this season is the Yankees’ rotation is better and their bullpen is the best ever assembled. The Yankees can win games scoring three and four runs like they have in 2022 because their starters will rarely ever take them out of the game and their bullpen will be able to protect nearly every lead and hold nearly every deficit to give the offense countless chances to get back into games.
I can’t say enough about the bullpen construction and how comfortable I feel once the Yankees’ relievers start entering games.
This is what the Yankees’ bullpen did in the Red Sox series: 18.2 IP, 6 H, 3 R, 2 ER, 9 BB, 19 K, 1 HR, 0.96 ERA, 0.803 WHIP
This is what the bullpen did in the Blue Jays series: 16 IP, 13 H, 4 R, 3 ER, 4 BB, 15 K, 1 HR, 1.69 ERA, 1.063 WHIP
This is the bullpen’s line through seven games: 34.2 IP, 19 H, 7 R, 5 ER, 13 BB, 34 K, 2 HR, 1.30 ERA, 0.923 WHIP
Even on nights when Aroldis Chapman tries his best to throw away a game like he did on Thursday, the Yankees aren’t out of options despite having already used Lucas Luetge, Miguel Castro, Clay Holmes and Chad Green, and with Jonathan Loaisiga unavailable after pitching back-to-back games. Boone didn’t have to sit by and watch Chapman single-handedly ruin a game. He was able to go back to a bullpen in which Chapman is no longer the best option and not even a Top 5 option (he’s more like a Bottom 3 option) and bring in Michael King to save the game.
9. After getting shut out on Monday (3-0), the Yankees shut out the Blue Jays on Tuesday (4-0) and Thursday (3-0). Yankees pitching held the Blue Jays to seven runs over the four games after the Blue Jays scored 20 runs in a three-game series against the Rangers to open the season.
The Blue Jays are for real. Of course they are. They are the favorite to win the American League. But I’m not as worried of the Blue Jays as maybe I should be. I’m most worried of the Rays in the AL East because the Kevin Cash Rays have owned the Boone Yankees. I’m less worried about the Red Sox than either of those two teams. I’m not worried about the Orioles at all.
What I am worried about though is the Yankees playing to the Orioles’ level. Something we saw far too often last season which cost the Yankees a chance to win the division and forced them to play the one-game playoff on the road. The Yankees’ inability to beat up on the 110-loss Orioles of 2021 ruined their season because the rest of the division beat up on them.
10. The Rays have already played and swept the Orioles in three games. With the Yankees playing the Orioles this weekend, they need to hold serve. A series win would be acceptable, but a series sweep is what’s really needed. (A series loss or Orioles sweep is an outright disaster.) As long as the Rays, Blue Jays and Red Sox are stacking wins against the Orioles, the Yankees need to as well.
The Yankees, Blue Jays and Rays are all currently 4-3. The Red Sox are 3-3. The Orioles are 1-5. The wins and losses will change, but the standings will closely resemble that order for the entire season with the Yankees, Blue Jays and Rays all about equal, the Red Sox just behind and the Orioles buried. With the non-Orioles teams in the AL East all beating up on each other and likely all playing close to. 500 against one another, the team at the top will be the team that performs best against the Orioles. This weekend isn’t just an early-season, mid-April series against the lowly, last-place Orioles. It could be the difference between getting a bye to the ALDS or having to play a best-of-3 with all games in the series on the road. It could be the difference between playing past Game 162 or not. It should be treated as such.
With the reliever depth the Yankees have, it will be very hard for Aaron Boone to mismanage the bullpen.
A night after getting shut out, the Yankees shut out the Blue Jays 4-0 to even the series at a game apiece. Nestor Cortes provided the Yankees with the best start they have received one turn through the rotation, and the bullpen pitched another 4 2/3 scoreless innings.
With the bullpen depth the Yankees have, there’s never a bad option entering the game. Gone are the days of fringe-to-bad major-league relievers trying to get outs for the Yankees, while praying the line drives hit by opponents would find fielders. The Yankees have constructed the deepest and best bullpen ever.
