1. “That’s brutal” is what DJ LeMahieu says he said to first-base umpire Jeremie Rehak to get ejected in the 10th inning of Friday’s 2-1 loss to the Red Sox for the first ejection of his career. Rehak’s call on the “foul” ball LeMahieu hit with two outs in the 10th that remained foul after review was just one of many things that were “brutal” in the loss.

2. The Yankees’ offense was brutal. The Yankees didn’t get on the board until there was one out in the ninth inning when Aaron Judge hit a game-tying home run off of Garrett Crochet. Prior to the home run, Judge had been 0-for-6 with six strikeouts against Crochet this season, but he got him for a 443-foot blast well over the Green Monster. The home run would have been remembered as an awesome moment in a great comeback win, except the Yankees didn’t win. Instead, it will just be remembered as a game-tying home run in a loss. Once the game was headed for extra innings it was only going to end with a Yankees loss.

3. The Yankees’ extra-inning approach was once against brutal. The Yankees are now 12-26 in extra-inning road games since the automatic runner was implemented five years ago, which is the worst win percentage in the majors. It’s not a coincidence Aaron Boone is the manager of the team that is the worst in the majors at succeeding in a in which success can only be obtained by a combination of smart managing, situational hitting and creativity. The Yankees continue to play for multiple runs on the road in extras rather than one run to take the lead, and they continue to not score any runs let alone multiple runs, and they continue to lose.

3. On Friday, Anthony Volpe was the automatic runner for the 10th. With no outs and Jasson Dominguez up, Volpe took off for third. Sure, Volpe has been good at stealing third in three years in the majors, but when you attempt to steal third with no outs in extra innings, you have to make it. There’s no excuse if you don’t. There’s no excuse unless you’re Boone who has an excuse for everything.

“The only reason he’s out [is] because he kind of gets caught on the slide where he doesn’t extend,” Boone said of Volpe’s attempt.

Ah, yes, Volpe would have been safe if not for the slide. And the Yankees would have won the game if not for the Red Sox scoring more runs than them. And the Yankees would have won the World Series if not for the Dodgers winning four games and the Yankees only winning one. And Boone would have multiple championships as Yankees manger if not for disappointing postseason losses in six of his seven seasons as manager and if not for completely missing the postseason in the other season.

4. If you wonder why it’s always reported how much players love playing for Boone it’s because of instances like this. Instead of calling out Volpe for a dumb decision (and it was a dumb decision because unless you’re safe in that spot, it’s dumb), he says it’s the slide’s fault. Guess who is in control of the slide? Volpe! (It was dumb whether Boone called for it or Volpe did it on his own. With one out it would have been acceptable to attempt. With no outs it’s completely unacceptable.)

Last Sunday night Jazz Chisholm did the in-game interview with ESPN against the Red Sox and when asked about Boone, Chisholm said, “We’re really good friends.” He didn’t say Boone is a “really good manager,” no, he mentioned how good of friends they are. A manager has to have the ability to call out his players when they deserve to be called out. A friend? A “really good friend” isn’t about to call out their friend even if they deserve to be.

5. It was brutal LeMahieu’s ball was called foul on the field and even more brutal the call stood after review. The ball was clearly fair.

“I want the courage to overturn the call,” Boone said, “a quarter of the all is on the line.”

I want the courage for you to call out Volpe for trying to steal third.

6. It was brutal for Tim Hill to face Carlos Narvaez with two outs in the 10th. Hill sent the game to extras by retiring David Hamilton for the final out in the ninth. Once the Yankees didn’t score in the 10th, you knew Hill would come back out with three straight lefties due up. Hill got Jarren Duran to ground out, which moved the automatic runner to third, intentionally walked Rafael Devers and struck out Marcelo Mayer. The winning run was on third with two outs and the right-handed Narvaez due up.

Boone had right-handed options in Mark Leiter Jr. or Devin Williams to go to. Leiter had pitched the previous two days and even if he had only thrown 23 pitches over those two days, the Yankees don’t use relievers three days in a row, so he wasn’t “available” in Boone’s eyes. The Yankees had yet to take the lead and Boone manages to a fictitious stat in the save, so Williams also wasn’t available in Boone’s eyes. Boone would rather lose the game than use his “closer” to extend it, so the best two options to send the game to the 11th weren’t available because of make-believe reasons. Boone stayed with Hill and Narvaez hit a ball high off the Monster to end the game. The ex-Yankee has now beaten the Yankees in back-to-back games between last Sunday night’s 11-7 loss and Friday’s 2-1 loss. Meanwhile, J.C. Escarra has a .706 OPS, is 0-for-17 throwing runners out this season and there are talks of him losing playing time at catcher to Ben Rice.

7. Rob Refsnyder served as the Red Sox’ leadoff hitter and had a hit and a walk, Aroldis Chapman retired both hitters he faced in the ninth and Garrett Whitlock threw a scoreless 10th. It was yet another all-around effort for the ex-Yankees on the Red Sox in beating the Yankees.

8. Prior to the series, I wrote “I expect the pitching to be much better than this weekend than it was last weekend, for both teams that is” and it was in the first game. Crochet was unfortunately magnificent until the Judge home run and Yarbrough held the Red Sox to one run over 4 2/3 innings. The only run the Yankees’ bullpen allowed over five innings was the unearned automatic runner and the Red Sox’ bullpen went five up and five down.

9. The Yankees’ offense has now scored two runs over its last 21 innings dating back to the start of the eighth inning on Wednesday. One of the runs was the Pablo Reyes chaos run on Thursday and the other was the Judge home run on Friday. It’s not only runs the Yankees are lacking, it’s hitting altogether. They have nine hits in those 21 innings. It’s not like they leaving everyone on, they aren’t getting anyone on.

10. That needs to change on Saturday. It’s embarrassing the Yankees are 1-3 against the Red Sox. The Red Sox season was hanging by a thread before last weekend in the Bronx and the Yankees revived them and the Red Sox have won five of seven since last Friday. With Carlos Rodon against Hunter Dobbins and Max Fried against Brayan Bello on Saturday and Sunday, the Yankees hold extreme pitching advantages in both games. Anything less than winning both games and taking the series will be brutal.

1. Score four runs against the Royals and you win. That’s what I wrote about after the Yankees’ Tuesday romping of the Royals, and the Yankees went out and scored four runs against the Royals on Wednesday and won again.

With the win, the Yankees are now 5-0 on the season against the Royals, and 9-3 against them dating back to last season (including the postseason). These Yankees own the Royals no matter who is pitching, whether it’s a lefty, a righty, the league leader in strikeouts per nine innings in the AL last season or the AL ERA leader this season like it was on Wednesday.

2. The Yankees were one of two teams to get to Kris Bubic for three or more earned runs this season entering Wednesday when he took the mound with his sparkling, best-in-majors 1.43 ERA.

“Came out feeling pretty hot,” Bubic said, “feeling pretty good in the first inning.”

Bubic retired the side with 10 pitches in the first, striking out Paul Goldschmidt and Aaron Judge. And then the Yankees ended the game in the second.

3. Cody Bellinger led off the second with his third triple of the season. Jazz Chisholm followed with an eight-pitch walk. That walk was the most important plate appearance of the inning. Chisholm struggles mightily against lefties and when he fell behind 1-2 it seemed like he would strand Bellinger at third. If Chisholm makes an out there, that leaves Bellinger on third and the Royals bring the infield in for Anthony Volpe. Instead of Volpe’s groundout scoring Bellinger with the Royals playing at double play depth, Bellinger is still at third with two outs. Then Trent Grisham grounds out to end the inning and the Yankees don’t score.

4. But that didn’t happen because of Chisholm’s walk. The walk put runners on first and third with no outs and the Royals kept their middle infielders back for a double play. Volpe’s groundout scored Bellinger and Volpe was able to beat the throw to first to prevent the double play. Grisham grounded out for the second out, advancing Volpe to second. DJ LeMahieu drew a four-pitch walk and Austin Wells came up with yet another big hit against a lefty, doubling to center field to score Volpe. Paul Goldschmidt singled in LeMahieu and Wells and Ben Rice singled in Goldschmidt (after Goldschmidt went to second on the Royals’ throw home to try to get Wells). Four of the Yankees’ five runs came with two outs.

5. The game was over at that point because when you score four runs against the Royals, you win. Clarke Schmidt made sure that trend continued with six scoreless innings (6 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 3 BB, 7 K).

“I thought he looked really good,” Bellinger said of Schmidt. “I was just kind of out there in the outfield just hanging out. He was pounding the zone, getting a lot of swings-and-misses, and it was good to play behind him.”

Schmidt has made 10 starts this season. Five have been good, three have been OK and two have been bad.

“I think every time I go out there, I’m getting stronger and stronger as far as pitch mice [goes] and more confident in who I am as a pitcher,” Schmidt said. “It’s a constant tinkering process and figuring out who you are. I think we’re going a good job of that.”

6. Brent Headrick and Fernando Cruz combined to throw a scoreless seventh and eighth. Mark Leiter Jr. had his worst outing of the season in the ninth with a six-run lead to close out and was only able to get one out before Devin Williams came in to get the final two.

7. Chisholm left the game early with a groin issue, which isn’t good. He missed a month because of a swing, was taken out early of the game on Tuesday with a neck issue and had to be removed on Wednesday because of a groin issue. Hopefully the strength and conditioning geniuses employed by the team can figure it out because these aren’t freak injuries like getting hit by a pitch or getting hurt sliding into second on a steal.

8. Volpe picked up his 20th double of the season. He had 23 doubles in 601 plate appearances in 2023 and 27 doubles in 689 plate appearances last season. He now has 20 doubles in 266 plate appearances this season. His OPS is at .776 and he’s hitting 16 percent better than league average. He still strikes out too much, isn’t stealing enough and is prone to extended slumps, but he is trending in the right direction offensively after not really improving from 2023 to 2024.

9. LeMahieu reached base twice (walk and single). His slash line is up to .279/.372/.397. He’s as close to the old version of himself as possible at this point I would think, considering he’s going to turn 37 next month. With each day he continues to hit like he has, it becomes less likely the Yankees will make a move for an infielder at the deadline (which isn’t necessarily a bad thing unless LeMahieu gets hurt after the deadline).

10. The game plan remains the same in the series finale on Thursday as it was on Tuesday and Wednesday: score four runs. Score four runs and win. The Yankees will face Seth Lugo and the last time they faced him in April they scored four runs against him … and won.

Will Warren will get the ball for the Yankees. In his last start against the Red Sox last Friday, he held them to one run through five innings before coming undone in the sixth and allowing three more. The start prior to that was the disaster against the Dodgers. The start prior to that one was his rain-shortened outing in Colorado that started off rocky. Warren hasn’t had a good outing start to finish since he shut out the Rangers for five innings more than three weeks ago. We’re back to not knowing what to expect when Warren starts. But as long as the Yankees score at least four runs, that will be enough in the last regular-season finale with the Royals.

1. After the Yankees’ disappointing home series loss to the Red Sox over the weekend, I was fearful their sloppy play may linger and travel with them to Kansas City. But I forgot how badly these Yankees own the Royals. In 2024, the Yankees went 8-3 against the Royals in the regular season and postseason. After Tuesday’s 10-2 thumping, the Yankees are now 4-0 against them this season.

2. Before Max Fried threw a pitch on Tuesday he had a two-run lead to work with after Aaron Judge crushed a 469-foot home run in the top of the first.

“I’ve never seen a ball come closer to being up there,” Austin Wells said.

“He’s playing in a different league,” Aaron Boone said.”

3. Fried didn’t need much (7 IP, 6 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 0 BB, 4 K, 1 HR), but the offense put up 10 for him. Ten runs on 16 hits and three walks. After winning a pair of one-run games and a three-run game against the Royals in April, the Yankees blew them out this time. Since the start of last season the Yankees seem to always do enough to beat them. Whether it’s winning close games like in the postseason or in April or hitting a big multi-run home run when needed like they did on Tuesday, the Yankees come through against the Royals.

4. The big blast in the game came in the fourth inning. With the Yankees holding a 2-1 lead, Wells took the left-handed Noah Cameron deep. It was Wells’ second three-home run off of a lefty in as many games for him after he took Garrett Crochet deep on Saturday.

“He’s just been really productive,” Boone said. “He’s really good in the bigger the spot.”

Wells’ OPS is up to .770, thanks specifically to his power as his on-base percentage sits at .294. Last year, he was forced to hit cleanup behind Judge because of the Yankees’ lack of lineup depth. He batted ninth on Tuesday. A No. 9 hitter with a 113 OPS+ in 2025 is as rare as a Yankees’ road extra-inning win.

5. Every Yankees starter had a hit in the game, including DJ LeMahieu with two. The Yankees have to decide what to do with their infield between now and the trade deadline in less than six weeks and LeMahieu’s resurgence is complicating the expected plans.

The Yankees certainly want LeMahieu to be the answer. They’re paying him $15 million to be the answer (even if they paid him for six years thinking they would get above average production for at least 2021 through 2023 and then deal with 2024 through 2026). LeMahieu being the answer saves them from having to trade from their system to acquire another infielder and/or prevents Hal Steinbrenner from having to pay a tax on any infielder acquired.

6. If LeMahieu continues to hit the way he has so far at .277/.365/.400, he will be the answer. LeMahieu has been 16 percent better than league average in 21 games and 74 plate appearances this season. If he were to continue to hit 16 percent better than league average, it would be his best offensive season in five years (since the 2020 shortened season). If he were to continue to hit like this, everyone who plays for, works for and roots for the Yankees would be ecstatic.

7. My biggest fear isn’t that LeMahieu continues to do well and the Yankees then don’t address adding an infielder at the deadline. My biggest fear is that those things happen and LeMahieu gets hurt post-deadline and the Yankees are stuck with Oswald Peraza and Jorbit Vivas playing every day or holding out hope for a miracle return by Oswaldo Cabrera.

LeMahieu missed the 2021 wild-card game due to injury. He missed the entire 2022 postseason because of his injury. He missed the entire 2024 postseason because of injury. In three of the last four years, LeMahieu has been shut down before the season ended because of injury and he missed the first month of this season because of injury. Every day LeMahieu plays and plays well at this point is a luxury and he can’t be trusted to stay healthy for however long the Yankees’ 2025 season goes.

I want LeMahieu to play well and be the answer. I’m just worried he will do enough that the Yankees won’t bring another player in and then he will get hurt.

8. Before Wells broke open the game, the Yankees were a clinging to a one-run lead after the Royals AL Central’d their way to a run in the second. Fried allowed an infield to Vinnie Pasquantino and then a bloop single (which should have been caught) to Salvador Perez. A ground ball from Mark Canha for a double play was bobbled by LeMahieu to only get the runner at second, allowing Pasquantino to go to third. Pasquantino then scored on a groundout. It was the pesky, infield-singles-and-bloop offense the AL Central loves.

9. The Royals want to play low-scoring games because it’s the only type of game they can win. Once Wells homered, the game was over. Get four runs against the Royals and you win. The Royals are 3-14 this season when the opposition scores four or more runs. Those three wins were against the Rockies (who will go down as the worst team in baseball history), the last-place Orioles and then the Astros.

10. I don’t expect the Yankees to put up 10 again on Wednesday with Kris Bubic starting for the Royals. Bubic has a 1.43 ERA in 12 starts. He has allowed no earned runs in six starts, one earned run in three starts and two earned runs in one start. In the other two starts he allowed three earned runs and four earned runs. That start with three earned runs allowed was against the Yankees on April 16 (5.1 IP, 7 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 4 BB, 6 K). The Yankees got to him in that start with an Anthony Volpe two-run double and a Cody Bellinger RBI double. Judge added a solo home run in the seventh off of John Schreiber and the Yankees won 4-3.

It will be the same matchup on Tuesday as that game with Clarke Schmidt going against Bubic and hopefully the same result. Score four runs and win.

1. After beating the Guardians 4-0 on Thursday night to win that series, the Yankees nearly blew a seven-run lead on Friday to the Red Sox and the Red Sox nearly blew a five-run lead on Saturday to the Yankees. Then the Yankees went out and blew two different leads in the rubber game on Sunday to lose a home series to the reeling Red Sox.

2. The Red Sox aren’t good. They came to the Bronx four games under .500 with a lackluster lineup, an awful rotation, a bad bullpen and the worst defense in the majors. They left the Bronx with a series win, having scored 27 runs over the last 23 innings of the series.

One-run losses aren’t a result of randomness and winning or losing one-run games is not a product of luck. The Red Sox have lost 17 one-run games this season. Not because they’re unlucky. But because they wildly throw the ball around the infield, lack an actual first baseman, have an untrustworthy bullpen and a top-heavy offense. Don’t try to justify the Yankees losing this series as “That’s baseball!” or anything other than what it was: disappointing.

3. The Yankees had a distinct pitching advantage for the series finale with Carlos Rodon starting and all of their top relief arms rested and available for large workloads going into the scheduled day off on Monday.

As I wrote after Rodon’s last two starts when I praised him for his turnaround in his third year with the Yankees, I still don’t trust him. Ten starts isn’t enough to erase the last two years for me because 2023-24 Rodon still exists inside him, you just hope it never rears its ugly head. Unfortunately, it did on Sunday.

When things unravel for Rodon, they unravel quickly. There’s a reason I have called him the left-handed A.J. Burnett. If you’re not prepared for a Rodon game to spiral out of control, it will do so before you get the chance to save it. The bullpen needs to be up at the first sign of trouble because there won’t be enough time to get anyone warm before the second and third signs.

4. The first sign of trouble on Sunday was when Rodon went from two outs and no one on in the top of the fifth inning to allowing a walk and home run to tie the game at 2. Rodon walked No. 8 hitter Ceddanne Rafaela and then gave up a two-run home run to No. 9 hitter Kristian Campbell, the player all Red Sox fans have been calling to be sent down in recent weeks. Having blown a two-run lead and with the Red Sox’ lineup turning over for a third time, all of the ingredients of a Rodon meltdown were present, but Aaron Boone let the pot simmer during the Yankees’ half of the fifth.

DJ LeMahieu regained the lead for the Yankees during that half with a solo home run, but the Yankees’ second lead in the game didn’t last long.

Rodon walked Rafael Devers to begin the sixth. The last four batters Rodon faced had gone walk, home run, strikeout, walk. The meltdown was in motion and with the well-rested bullpen and an all-righty lane coming up for the Red Sox, pulling Rodon then would have been the right choice based on “matchups” which is what Boone always cites when feeding the media his bullshit reasoning for any move. But in this instance, Boone said screw the matchups, fooled by Rodon’s run of strong, lengthy starts against lineups like the Guardians, Angels and Rangers. He was going to let Rodon face the heart-of-the-order righties who were solely batting in those places in the Red Sox lineup because of their outstanding success against lefties.

5. With Devers on first, former Yankee Rob Refsnyder (who is only in the league at this point because of his success against lefties) came up and Rodon walked him. Rodon had now gone walk, home run, strikeout, walk, walk. Certainly Boone would remove him with two on and no outs and another righty due up? Certainly not.

Rodon was allowed to face Carlos Narvaez — the former Yankee who is hitting .282 with an .820 OPS and who the Yankees had lower on their internal depth chart than J.C. Escarra who puts every ball on the ground to first base and who is 0-for-17 throwing out runners. Narvaez crushed a Rodon fastball down the left-field line for a three-run home run to give the Red Sox a 5-3 lead. (Escarra started the game even though it was a night game after a night game and even with a day off on Monday because he has quietly become Rodon’s personal catcher. We can throw that nonsense out the window now.)

6. Five of the last six batters Rodon faced reached base (walk, home run, strikeout, walk, walk, home run) and he allowed five runs to those six batters. Once Rodon had blown his second lead in as many innings and put the Yankees in a two-run deficit Boone had seen enough. A move that at worst two batters too late. The unraveling was evident when Rodon walked Devers, but Boone let him face a righty and walk that righty and then face yet another righty and give up the go-ahead home run.

“Falling behind hitters and giving out free bases is a no-go,” Rodon said, stating the obvious. “I need to be better.”

7. Trailing by two with still 12 outs of offense to work with, Boone went to one of his ‘A’ arms in Fernando Cruz. This is a big deal because the night before, Boone went to one of his ‘A’ relievers in Mark Leiter Jr. with the Yankees trailing by three. After the Yankees cut the deficit from three to one, Boone went to Ian Hamilton, the last or second-to-last arm in the bullpen and he put the game out of reach. Boone had committed to doing his best to give the Yankees a chance to come back on Saturday with Leiter Jr., but then abandoned his commitment to the comeback after the Yankees had started the come back.

Cruz showed up in relief of Rodon’s fire with a can of gasoline in his right hand as he couldn’t get through the sixth without allowing three baserunners and a pair of runs. He wasn’t on the mound when the runs he was charged with scored, though. That would be left-handed specialist Tim Hill who came in with the bases loaded and two outs to face a lefty and gave up a game-opening, two-run single.

After Hill, it was Jonathan Loaisiga’s turn to inflate his ERA. Loaisiga allowed two runs over 1 1/3 innings and then Boone waved the white flag, going to his Brent Headrick who gave up two more. With the Yankees down six runs in the ninth, guess who Boone called on? Hamilton! So Boone used Hamilton in a 16-run game last Saturday, didn’t use him for a week because of all the close games the Yankees played, then used him in a one-run game this Saturday followed by a six-run game. Ladies and gentlemen, Aaron Boone!

8. “They had their hitting shoes on,” Boone said. “They beat us here this weekend.”

The Yankees scored seven runs on Saturday and lost and scored seven runs on Sunday and lost. That seems like a problem. The Yankees gave up 29 runs to the Dodgers last week and 27 runs to the Red Sox this weekend. Not every game is going to be against the Rangers, Angels or Guardians where the Yankees’ relief trickery with changeups and splitters works. They need a couple of relievers who can throw a fastball by someone and not always rely on deception and smoke and mirrors to get outs. The good offenses aren’t fooled by the Yankees’ offspeed stuff.

9. The ex-Yankees on the Red Sox had one collective and enormous laugh at their old team. Narvaez and Refsnyder were in the middle of every big Red Sox rally, Greg Weissert retired all five batters he faced (and struck out four), Garrett Whitlock didn’t allow any damage after taking a line drive off his leg and Aroldis Chapman got the save in both Yankees losses. Embarrassing.

10. With the series loss, the Yankees’ lead in the loss column in the division is down to five games over both the Blue Jays and Rays. (The Red Sox are 10 games back of the Yankees in the loss column.) After the day off on Monday, the Yankees begin a stretch of 16 games in 16 days across four cities and two time zones. Get ready for weird lineups, odd bullpen usage and a lot of already scheduled days off for certain players.