1. After a wasted week on the West Coast, the Yankees are finally doing what good teams are supposed to do: beat bad teams. It wasn’t easy defeating the Rockies on Tuesday, but it was a little easier on Wednesday in a 6-1 win.

Luis Garcia gave the Yankees a 1-0 lead with a solo home run in the second inning and George Lombard Jr. blew the game open with a grand slam in the third, becoming the youngest Yankee other than Mickey Mantle to hit a grand slam. It was the Yankees’ first grand slam of the season in Game 145.

2. “It was a big swing to put us in front,” Lombard Jr. said, “and give us a good lead so we could win today.”

Cody Bellinger also added a solo home run as the Yankees went 7-for-31 with three walks and six strikeouts. Aaron Judge owns Tomoyuki Sugano, so when he struck out swinging against the Rockies’ right-hander in the first inning, it was as clear a sign as there could be that Judge is rusty. Judge did go on to pick up two hits in the game before being removed for a pinch runner in the eighth inning.

3. Will Warren went six innings and allowed just one earned run. Warren had given the Yankees just one quality start from the end of May through late August and now has given them two in his last two starts in wins over the Red Sox and Rockies. Warren mentioned “when it wasn’t going good there for a minute” when talking about his season, and I’m not sure how long Warren considers a minute to be since he had a 5.92 ERA over a two-month period. John Schreiber (who hasn’t allowed a hit in 4 1/3 innings as a Yankee), Paul Blackburn and Michael Fulmer pitched three scoreless innings in relief.

4. Unfortunately, the fraudulent Braves were beaten handily for a second straight day by the Rays, so the Yankees’ division deficit remains at four games. The Yankees have gone 15-7 over the last three weeks and have picked up 1 1/2 games in the standings. They desperately need to sweep the Rockies and have the Braves salvage the final game of their series against the Rays.

5. The biggest news of the day came when it was announced Jazz Chisholm would go on the injured list with a thumb injury and Anthony Volpe would be recalled. Volpe started to really hit a little over a week ago at Triple-A, while playing second base, so this call-up seems to at least be deserved. But for the fans who think Volpe figured something out in a week after struggling for four years, don’t be fooled. There are 2,080 major-league plate appearances of data to Volpe’s name. A hot week in the final week of the Triple-A season doesn’t erase four years of being the worst everyday player in Major League Baseball.

6. Would it be great if Volpe did figure something out, mashed in the majors, took playing time away from Chisholm and became the Yankees’ second baseman of the future? Yes, it would be amazing. But I’m going to need to see more than the limited schedule remaining this season to believe Volpe has figured anything out other than owning the sixth tool: having the front office believe in you to no end.

7. It will be interesting to see how the Yankees construct their postseason roster. These names are givens:

1. Aaron Judge
2. Ben Rice
3. Luis Garcia
4. Cody Bellinger
5. Spencer Jones
6. Ryan McMahon
7. Paul Goldschmidt
8. Heliot Ramos
9. Jazz Chisholm
10. Jose Caballero
11. Austin Wells
12. Ali Sanchez
13. Cam Schlittler
14. Gerrit Cole
15. Max Fried
16. Carlos Rodon
17. David Bednar
18. Brent Headrick
19. Paul Blackburn
20. Tim Hill

Does Warren get on? What about Luis Gil? Do Ryan Weathers and Clarke Schmidt do enough in two-plus weeks as relievers? Will Fernando Cruz be healthy? Have Schreiber and Fulmer done enough? Will Trent Grisham come back? Could Jasson Dominguez be a pinch runner? Would the Yankees leave Amed Rosario off? Could Volpe push himself into the equation? There are more than 30 options for 26 spots.

The Yankees carried 14 position players and 12 pitchers for the ALDS last year. Obviously, the Wild Card Series is weird in that it’s a best-of-3, so you don’t need as many starting options, and the ALDS is the “real” postseason roster.

8. I think it’s obvious Jones is the team’s starting center fielder even if Grisham does come back. Jones has an .854 OPS since July 29. He hits, hits for power, draws walks, has speed and is athletic, all traits Grisham doesn’t possess.

9. I also think Ryan McMahon may be playing himself out of a starting spot. He has one multi-hit game in the last month and one home run in the last two months. He doesn’t walk and strikes out a lot. He can get his glove on nearly everything, but then struggles to make accurate throws. He has an abysmal on-base percentage and no speed. If Volpe could hit, I would play him at second, move Chisholm back to third and stop playing McMahon. Caballero has been too poor offensively since his May IL stint to make him the starting third baseman. It will be McMahon at third in the playoffs, unless a lefty is starting and then it will be Caballero? Or Rosario? And then we will likely watch what happened in the late-June game at Fenway Park happen again with Rosario at third base in an intense atmosphere. The problem once again is that the Yankees have too many DHs on their team (Rice, Garcia, Ramos, Dominguez) and too many players making too much money to not play (McMahon, Grisham) to construct a logical roster.

10. Thursday’s series finale against the Rockies needs to result in a win. It’s Max Fried against Ryan Feltner. It’s not as lopsided as Tuesday’s pitching matchup was (because Fried will be limited by a pitch count), but it’s close. And because the Mets have their three best starters lined up for the weekend for the second half of the Subway Series, the Yankees can’t lose to the worst team in baseball.

1. Since the end of May, every Yankees fan has been waiting for the team’s best player to return to properly evaluate them and create expectations for October, and that time is now. With the return of Aaron Judge, I guess now the Yankees can be evaluated properly, and after one game, the Yankees are who I envisioned they would be offensively, and that is still a heavily flawed offense.

2. This has nothing to do with Judge, who looked like someone who hasn’t played in a game or seen real pitching in more than three months as he went 0-for-3 with two strikeouts against a pitcher who can’t strike anyone out. (Gabriel Hughes entered Tuesday’s game with only 42 strikeouts in 52 2/3 innings and then struck out six Yankees in five innings.) This has everything to do with the entire lineup sitting around and waiting for Judge to do something to carry them to a win.

3. The Yankees scored one non-defense-aided run in seven innings against Rockies pitching before Heliot Ramos’ three-run home run in the seventh created separation. At the time of Ramos’ home run, the Yankees were clinging to a 2-1 lead over the worst team in Major League Baseball and were one swing away from another Cam Schlittler masterpiece (7 IP, 1 ER, 0 BB, 10 K) being wasted. Thankfully, the one swing that changed the game was Ramos’.

4. As expected, Judge’s return didn’t suddenly turn a lineup full of sub-.700 OPS into a lineup you can trust to hit elite pitching every day in October. Ben Rice went 0-for-2 with a walk, Cody Bellinger went 1-for-4, Luis Garcia Jr. went 2-for-4, Spencer Jones went 0-for-3 with a walk, Jazz Chisholm went 2-for-4, George Lombard Jr. went 1-for-3, Ryan McMahon went 1-for-3 and Austin Wells went 0-for-3. The Yankees went 8-for-30 with three walks and 10 strikeouts. They couldn’t hit the starter Hughes and his 6.19 ERA in 11 career starts, couldn’t touch reliever Mark Manfredi, couldn’t score against reliever Jaden Hill and needed a Brennan Bernardino meltdown to put the game out of reach. It was a frustrating performance even if the final score made it look better than it was.

5. This is nothing new. The Yankees’ offense has been wildly inconsistent all season, both with and without Judge. And once Judge gets more games and plate appearances under him and finds his timing, he will hit, but it doesn’t mean others will follow. After wasting a week on the West Coast during a time when the Rays went 3-4, the Yankees nearly wasted the most lopsided starting pitching matchup of their season against the worst team they will face all season.

6. Here’s what I wrote about Judge’s return and what I expected for a nonsensical load management plan last week:

The Yankees will of course institute some asinine return plan for him like playing a full game in right field and then sitting the next game and then serving as the DH for the next game and then sitting the next game and then playing right field for a full game and so on. The Yankees believe they have figured out a scientific way to beat injuries, and yet, their load plans don’t prevent injuries because injuries happen. It’s idiotic to not play Judge as much as possible when he returns because if Judge is healthy enough to play then he should play every day. He needs at-bats with a limited number of games remaining before October.

Judge was removed early from the game on Tuesday because apparently you’re more prone to injuries late in the game than early in the game.

7. “I feel great,” Judge said. “I played half a game, so I don’t know what to say about that. I respect Boone, so whatever he says, I’m going to do. I’m not happy about it.”

Judge had to have known Boone was going to remove him before the end of the game, so it’s hard to believe he was surprised by the decision. The Yankees will likely continue this charade for the next few games before eventually letting Judge play a full nine innings of baseball.

8. The Yankees’ elimination number dropped to 15 after the Rays’ 7-1 win over the Braves on Tuesday. The division deficit has to be at most what it is now (four games) for the four-game series against the Rays in the Bronx in two weeks, but you would like it to be less so a sweep isn’t mandatory.

9. With Will Warren getting the start on Thursday, the Yankees now have their rotation lined up to have Cam Schlittler, Gerrit Cole, Max Fried and Carlos Rodon start the four games against the Rays. A lot can happen to a rotation in 15 days, but the Yankees at least are planning for the Rays series like it’s a postseason series.

10. It would be nice if the Braves could show up and win the next two against the Rays, but I’ll take even one win from the fraudulent Braves at this point. The Yankees have to sweep this series against the Rockies if they want to keep the division dream alive and avoid playing a best-of-3 against the Red Sox to determine their fate for the second straight season. Sweep the Rockies and get even just one win from the Braves and it’s three games with 16 to go and four head-to-head games remaining.

1. The Yankees were about to waste another Cam Schlittler gem. If Austin Wells’ ground ball doesn’t get through the right side of the infield with two outs in the 10th, the Yankees would have wasted an eight-inning, two-hit, one-run masterpiece from their ace. Because even though the score may have still been tied if Wells had gotten out there, we all know how the bottom of the 10th inning would have played out. (Michael Kay said the Yankees “haven’t had much luck” in extra innings on the road even though their abysmal record has nothing to do with luck.) But instead of adding to their humiliating extra-inning road record since the implementation of the automatic runner, the Yankees scored five runs in the 10th and pulled out a 6-3 win in Anaheim.

2. The Rays lost to the Mets and the Red Sox lost to the Mariners, so the Yankees improved in both the division and wild-card standings. They are now 3 1/2 games in back of the Rays (four in the loss column) and five games up on the Red Sox (six when you factor in the head-to-head tiebreaker). It was an all-around positive late night heading into Thursday’s day off.

3. Schlittler became the first Yankee in franchise history to have 19 starts of one run or fewer, a preposterous stat. The only two hits he allowed over eight innings were both to Vaughn Grissom: a single and a solo home run. He picked up nine strikeouts and lowered his American League-leading ERA to 2.04.

4. Schlittler’s only competition for the AL Cy Young Award is Dylan Cease and I don’t think it’s much of a competition. Schlittler has started three more games than Cease and has him beat in the majority of pitching categories, including the most important ones.

Schlittler: WAR, ERA, WHIP, ERA+, starts, innings, walks and walks per nine innings
Cease: Strikeouts, FIP, hits per nine, home runs per nine and strikeouts per nine

5. I wouldn’t have been able to sleep if the Yankees had lost to the Angels for the fourth time in seven games this season and wasted Schlittler’s effort on a night the Rays lost, considering the Yankees have already wasted and lost these starts from Schlittler this season:

6 IP, 0 ER
6 IP, 2 ER
5 IP, 0 ER
6.1 IP, 1 ER
7 IP, 1 ER
5.1 IP, 1 ER

6. Paul Goldschmidt went 2-for-3 in the leadoff spot and would have been 3-for-3 if not for a dazzling play by former Yankee Oswald Peraza at third base. It’s safe to say Goldschmidt will be leading off against any lefty for the rest of the season, including the postseason. Cody Bellinger went 3-for-5 in the game and 8-for-14 in the series. Heliot Ramos went 0-for-3 (but hit into some bad luck with a line-drive double play). Ben Rice went 2-for-4 and Amed Rosario went 1-for-5. Spencer Jones had a rare bad night going 0-for-4 with four strikeouts as Reid Detmers was able to get Jones to chase breaking pitches away and go after high fastballs. Jose Caballero went 1-for-4. Jazz Chisholm and Ali Sanchez combined to go 0-for-5. Wells went 2-for-2 after entering as a pinch hitter, Trent Grisham went 1-for-2 with a single in the 10th and Luis Garcia went 0-for-2 after entering as a pinch hitter. Garcia would have shouldered a lot of blame for a loss because of his at-bat with the bases loaded in the 10th, if Wells hadn’t picked him up.

7. Wells is a surprising 6-for-14 with two home runs and nine RBIs in his last five games. In those five games, Wells has produced 32 percent of his RBIs for the season. His overall stats for the year are a lost cause, but if he can just be bad and not historically awful for the rest of 2026, it will make a huge difference in the lineup. The Yankees have started to lessen the number of automatic outs in the lineup, and getting Wells to do something productive every once in a while instead of going weeks without reaching base will make the offense that much deeper.

8. I would expect George Lombard Jr. to be back in the lineup on Friday, and if he is, the only missing player will then be Aaron Judge. The Yankees are so close to having their expected position players for the postseason (not including Giancarlo Stanton since it’s hard to envision him being available again this season). The rotation is as good as it’s going to be health-wise since Ryan Weathers will only return as a reliever (if he returns) and Clarke Schmidt is preparing to come back as a reliever. It’s unfortunate the Yankees never had their entire expected roster for a single day in 2026. It’s annoying to think about what their record would be and how many games up in the division they would be if injuries hadn’t impacted Judge, Stanton, Cody Bellinger, Max Fried, Gerrit Cole, Carlos Rodon and Ryan Weathers throughout the year. (Rice and Lombard Jr. also missed games without going on the IL, while Caballero, Grisham, Wells and McMahon all went on the IL at some point.)

9. As long as the Yankees are within four games (which they are now) in the loss column when they play the Rays four times from September 22 to September 24, they will have a chance at the division. Ideally, the Yankees would be closer than four games, so they don’t need to sweep the four games in three days, and they have a chance to be closer given the Rays’ upcoming schedule: four at Texas, three at Atlanta and three against Houston. The Rangers are two games back in the West and 1 1/2 games back of the last wild card. The Braves have a four-game lead on the Phillies and are tied in the loss column with the Dodgers for a first-round bye. The Astros have a two-game division lead and would be out of the wild-card race. All three teams are playing for their postseason lives and will give the Rays everything they have.

10. The Yankees head to San Diego where they need to avenge what went on last weekend when the Padres blew two late leads to the Rays. (If not for those meltdowns, the Yankees would be two games back in the loss column.) After the weekend in San Diego, the Yankees have nine games against the Rockies, Mets and Twins. This is their chance to make sure the deficit when they play the Rays is less than the four games it is now.

1. How could Spencer Jones not be the team’s starting center fielder over Trent Grisham at this point? Here’s what I wrote about Jones before Tuesday’s game:

Jones is a better offensive and defensive alternative to Grisham, but I highly doubt the Yankees (who treat Grisham like Ken Griffey Jr.) are ready to make that determination. It takes a lot more than 118 games of piss-poor defense and being five percent worse than league average at the plate for the Yankees to pull the plug on someone they love internally. Jones has a better batting average, a better on-base percentage, a better slugging percentage, a better OPS, a better OPS+, has accumulated more WAR than Grisham and is actually above league average as a hitter, and the Yankees will choose not to accept that when Aaron Judge returns. Add in Jones’ overall speed (he’s the fastest Yankee) and his superior defense to Grisham, and there is no debate as to who should play when Judge returns.

All Jones did in Tuesday’s 7-3 win in Anaheim was hit a first-inning, two-run home run, draw a walk and drive in a third run with yet another base hit against a lefty. Jones is up to .245/.320/.451 on the season and is 13 percent above league average offensively. Since his call-up at the end of July, he has an .827 OPS. He’s riding a five-game hitting streak and has hits in eight of 10 and 15 of 20. His home run was his fourth in his last 13 games.

2. Grisham went 1-for-5 in the game and did have an RBI single for his first hit since last Wednesday, bringing his OPS back to an even .700 for the season. He remains six percent worse than league average on the season. He was 16 percent worse than league average from 2021-24, then 23 percent above league average last season and back to six percent worse this season. I wonder who the real Grisham in: the player who was a below-league-average hitter for his career before 2025 and again in 2026 and who never hit more than 17 home runs in a season, or the player who hit 34 home runs last season?

3. Ben Rice has only reached base once in his two-game audition in the leadoff spot, but I like him. Leave him there against righties. How about this lineup against righties?

Ben Rice, DH
Aaron Judge, RF
Luis Garcia, 1B
Cody Bellinger, LF
Spencer Jones, CF
Jazz Chisholm, 2B
George Lombard Jr., SS
Ryan McMahon, 3B
Austin Wells, C

5. Jazz Chisholm had a three-hit game for the second time in a week and is 15-for-33 over the last week and a half. It’s crazy that even after this hot streak, he’s still below league average as a hitter this season. That’s how bad he was all year before this streak.

6. Jose Caballero was so good to start the season before landing on the injured list in May, and he’s been so bad really since then. He went 0-for-5 with three strikeouts on Tuesday, his fielding has been poor (though he has had to move around the entire field) and his plate appearance quality is just not good. He thinks every called strike is a ball, takes hittable pitches all the time, swings at garbage and wastes challenges either out of emotion or because he doesn’t know the zone.

7. I wish the Yankees weren’t grinding out wins against the American League-worst Angels. But so far this season, the Yankees are 3-3 against the Angels and their three wins are two ninth-inning comeback wins and then Tuesday, a game in which a four-run lead became a one-run lead and was still a one-run lead into the eighth inning. These are the scores of the six games this season:

Yankees win 11-10 (trailed 10-8 in bottom of ninth)
Yankees lose 7-1
Yankees win 5-4 (trailed 4-3 in bottom of ninth)
Yankees lose 11-4
Yankees lose 10-1
Yankees win 7-3 (4-3 game in eighth)

8. The Angels have outscored the Yankees 45-29. The Angels have scored the third-fewest runs in the AL and have allowed the sixth-most runs. They suck. And for some reason the Yankees have struggled with them.

9. The Angels’ ability to score runs against the Yankees should change on Wednesday with Cam Schlittler starting, but it may not be easy for the Yankees to score with Reid Detmers going for the Angels. Detmers owns a 0.59 ERA in 15 1/3 career innings against the Yankees.

10. It’s a game the Yankees have to win if they want to keep the division dream alive, whether the Rays win or lose their series finale against the Mets. The Yankees can’t lose another game to the Angels. They can’t lose the season series to the Angels. Not this Angels team.

1. It took the Yankees one game to show the importance of winning Sunday’s season finale against the Red Sox. The Yankees left New York on Sunday with a five-game lead over the Red Sox (thanks to the head-to-head tiebreaker) and that lead is down to four. Had the Yankees lost Sunday’s game to the Red Sox, their lead would be one game in the loss column with the Red Sox owning the tiebreaker.

It took the Yankees one game because while there was a game in Anaheim against the MLB-worst Angels on Monday, the Yankees didn’t show up for it. Elmer Rodriguez got lit up and lasted only 3 2/3 innings, the defense committed three errors and the offense went 6-for-32 with no walks and 10 strikeouts. It was a pathetic performance all around from the Yankees, but not unsurprising. I answered reader questions on Monday and wrote the following about this series:

The Yankees historically don’t play well in Anaheim and that includes during this awful Angels era. I went back and looked at the last five seasons and the Yankees are 7-8 in Anaheim during that time. The Angels won 77, 73, 73, 63 and 72 games in those years. This year, the Angels have the worst record in the majors and are on pace to lose 100 games for the first time in franchise history. I could see the Angels series not being easy and being somewhat of a trap, especially the Monday game, with the Yankees coming off essentially a postseason series, having to fly across the country and using a rookie starter.

2. It’s not going to get any easier for the Yankees this week either. They will face Grayson Rodriguez on Tuesday and Rodriguez owns a 3.18 ERA in 17 career innings against the Yankees, and they will face Reid Detmers on Wednesday and Detmers owns a 0.59 ERA in 15 1/3 career innings against the Yankees.

3. It’s disturbing that the Angels are 3-2 against the Yankees this season and 50-83 against everyone else, and both of the Yankees’ wins were ninth-inning comebacks against the Angels. Losing 10-1 to any team is embarrassing, but losing 10-1 to the 2026 Angels and ending what was a seven-game losing streak is on another level.

4. In the 138th game of the season, Aaron Boone finally recognized Trent Grisham shouldn’t be the team’s leadoff hitter. Boone did the right thing by moving Ben Rice to first and Grisham to fifth and Rice rewarded Boone’s choice by going 0-for-4. Grisham also went 0-for-4, as did Luis Garcia. Jose Caballero and Austin Wells both went 0-for-3, as it turns out they aren’t very good when a position player isn’t pitching. Cody Bellinger had two singles, Amed Rosario had two singles, Jazz Chisholm had a single and Spencer Jones hit a solo home run. Those were the Yankees’ six hits and Jones’ was the entire offense.

5. Rodriguez didn’t build off his career-best start against the Astros, and instead, reverted back to the pitcher who looked unready for the majors from earlier in the season. Rodriguez allowed two-out walks in both the first and second innings, and then in the third, he allowed a leadoff double to a 35-year-old catcher with a .439 OPS, another two-out walk and an RBI single. In the fourth, with two outs and no one on, he hit the 8- and 9-hitters and then allowed back-to-back singles to make it a 4-0 game.

6. Michael Fulmer relieved Rodriguez to end the fourth and then showed why he’s on his fourth team since last season when he gave up a pair of doubles and a single and threw a pickoff attempt away in the fifth.

After Fulmer, Luis Gil made his first appearance since April 26 and allowed one run over two innings. He did strike out three, threw 27 of 39 pitches for strikes and even threw 98 mph, so there was some promise there.

Then it was David Bednar’s turn. After pitching once in 10 days, Bednar ate up the eighth inning to get some work in and whether it was rust or him just going through the motions to get through the game, he allowed three earned runs on four hits in his inning.

7. It was the kind of game that happens over the course of 162 and the kind of game you throw away and immediately forget about … if you’re in the position the Rays are in, leading the division by five games in the loss column with 24 to play. But the Yankees aren’t in that position and throwing away a game against a crappy opponent (the actual shittiest opponent you can have in the majors this season) is why it’s hard to take them seriously as being alive in the division race. The Rays lost to the Mets and the Yankees had an opportunity to cut the lead to four games, meaning they could control their own division destiny with the four head-to-head games remaining against the Rays, and instead, they took the night off against a team with nothing to play for, a team counting down the days until their latest miserable season ends.

8. If George Lombard Jr. is ready to play, inserting him at shortstop is the only lineup change I would make for Tuesday. Keep Rice in the leadoff spot and keep Grisham fifth. At this point, to me, Jones is a better offensive and defensive alternative to Grisham, but I highly doubt the Yankees (who treat Grisham like Ken Griffey Jr.) are ready to make that determination. It takes a lot more than 118 games of piss-poor defense and being five percent worse than league average at the plate for the Yankees to pull the plug on someone they love internally. Jones has a better batting average, a better on-base percentage, a better slugging percentage, a better OPS, a better OPS+, has accumulated more WAR than Grisham and is actually above league average as a hitter, and the Yankees will choose not to accept that when Aaron Judge returns. Add in Jones’ overall speed (he’s the fastest Yankee) and his superior defense to Grisham, and there is no debate as to who should play when Judge returns.

9. It appears as though Judge will be activated for the next homestand, which begins next Tuesday against the Rockies, whose loss on Monday dropped them one game behind the Angels as the worst team in the majors. If Judge returns on September 9, he will have 19 available games to get ready for October. It’s obviously unlikely he will play all 19 since the Yankees will of course institute some asinine return plan for him like playing a full game in right field and then sitting the next game and then serving as the DH for the next game and then sitting the next game and then playing right field for a full game and so on. The Yankees believe they have figured out a scientific way to beat injuries, and yet, their load plans don’t prevent injuries because injuries happen. It’s idiotic to not play Judge as much as possible when he returns because if Judge is healthy enough to play then he should play every day. He needs at-bats with a limited number of games remaining before October.

10. I’ll worry about Judge’s load management next week. For now, I still somehow have to worry about the Angels, a team on pace for the 100-loss season in their franchise’s history. The Yankees have to sweep the Rays in September and play one game better than them in the other 20 games to win the division. That’s the path to the best record in the American League, home-field advantage throughout the playoffs and a first-round bye. It’s the best statistical and most favorable road to ending a championship drought that’s approaching 17 years. The Mets helped out the Yankees on Monday and the Yankees couldn’t help themselves. That needs to change against this opponent over the next two days.