The Yankees won their seventh straight game and improved to 5-0 on the season against the Twins with a 9-5 win at the Stadium.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. Carlos Rodon was a disaster in his first season with the Yankees. He got hurt in spring training, made comments about how if it were the postseason he would be pitching, missed the first half of the season, was horrible in nearly every start, blew a kiss to heckling fans in Anaheim, turned his back on Matt Blake during a mound visit, and in his last start of the season, allowed eight earned runs without recording an out.

The more and more Aaron Boone was asked about Rodon during this past winter and the more he has been asked about him this season, the more Boone lets on that Rodon was out of shape and not completely focused on his job despite signing a $162 million contract. He said as much again on Wednesday.

2. “It started in the winter, carried into spring training, carried into game day and the days he is not starting,” Boone said about Rodon’s focus this season. “And [he] focuses on getting ready to go out and pitch, and the results have been good.”

The results have been good, even great at times. Rodon carried a perfect game into the sixth inning on Wednesday against the Twins, and the Yankees won 9-5.

3. “I had a little feeling in my stomach from the start that he was on a roll,” Austin Wells said. “I didn’t think there were many hitters in baseball that could hit him tonight.”

Rodon has given the Yankees six straight quality starts dating back to May 8, and the Yankees are 6-0 in those games.

4. “All I want to do is win,” Rodon said. “I want to perform for my teammates. I don’t want to let my teammates down.”

All Rodon did last season was lose, not perform for his teammates and let everyone down. He has been a completely different pitcher in Year 2 with the Yankees, both with his performance and his comments.

5. I finished the Yankees Thoughts after the series opener by writing:

10. Tuesday was a relaxed, rather easy win, which is how Gil starts go. Wednesday has the potential to be the same if Carlos Rodon is as good against the Twins as he was three weeks ago (6.1 IP, 6 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 0 BB, 6 K, 1 HR), or if the Yankees offense hits Chris Paddack the way they did in that same game Rodon started (5 IP, 12 H, 5 R, 5 ER, 2 BB, 4 K, 1 HR). Fourteen baserunners in five innings? I’ll sign up for that again.

Rodon was just about as good again (6 IP, 3 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 0 BB, 9 K, 1 HR), and Paddack was just about as bad again (4 IP, 6 H, 7 R, 7 ER, 2 BB, 7 K). The Yankees tagged Paddack with four runs in the first, and another three in a four-run fifth.

“Not the outing that I wanted, especially at Yankee Stadium,” Paddack said. “These are big moments you dream about as a kid. I’ve come here twice now, and it hasn’t been great.”

It’s OK, Chris. It hasn’t been great for nearly every Twins pitcher who has come to Yankee Stadium over the last two-plus decades. Paddack’s final line in two starts against the 2024 Yankees: 9 IP, 18 H, 12 R, 12 ER, 4 BB, 11 K, 1 HR.

6. Aaron Judge led the offense with a five-RBI night thanks to a bases-loaded-turned-bases-clearing triple in the fifth. Anthony Volpe had three hits, Giancarlo Stanton had two and the Yankees scored nine runs without hitting a home run. Even Gleyber Torres and Anthony Rizzo had doubles in the game. (Torres thought the ball he hit for a double was going foul and didn’t initially run out of the box, and Rizzo’s double was his second since May 11.)

7. I expect the Yankees to announce Dennis Santana has been designated for assignment prior to Thursday’s game.

Here is what I wrote about Santana on Monday:

Michael Tonkin isn’t good, but Tonkin boasts a 4.24 ERA in 250 1/3 career innings and has a 3.00 ERA in 24 innings this season (and a 1.20 ERA in 15 innings for the Yankees). Tonkin can’t be trusted, and he’s treated as such, only pitching in games the Yankees are losing or winning by five-plus runs. Meanwhile, Santana, with a much worse career and in the middle of a much worse season is treated like a middle relief weapon, when he’s only a weapon for the opponent.

Santana serves no purpose on this team. He’s not good enough to pitch in high-leverage situations (again, he has a 5.68 ERA), he can’t get a strikeout in a big spot (5.7 strikeouts per nine innings), he can’t be asked to hold a small deficit (like Sunday against the Giants) and he can’t be trusted to close out a blowout (like Wednesday against the Twins). It’s rather crazy he has been able to pitch in the majors every year since 2018 for four different teams despite posting a 5.25 ERA and 1.400 WHIP over 175 innings. As long as he’s on the team, Boone will find ways to use him. And as long as he’s used, he will either be the reason for losses, ruin the odds of comebacks or force the “A” relievers into games because he can’t even mop up.

9. The Orioles got walked off in the bottom of the ninth in Toronto thanks to a Craig Kimbrel meltdown, so the Yankees’ lead in the AL East is now 3 1/2 games. It’s an oddly-constructed 3 1/2 games (five up in the win column and two up in the loss column) since the Yankees have played three more games than the Orioles. The Yankees have a 2 1/2-game lead over the Guardians for the best record in the American League.

10. The Yankees have an opportunity to win an eighth straight game on Thursday in the season finale against the Twins. Pablo Lopez gets the ball for the Twins as they try to avoid a season sweep, and in his last start against the Yankees on May 15, the Yankees knocked him around for 10 hits in a 4-0 win. Marcus Stroman opposes Lopez like he did on May 15, and in that one, Stroman pitched six shutout innings. The second Rodon-Paddack matchup played out the same way the first one did, so here’s to the second Stroman-Lopez matchup playing out the same way the first one did.

Luis Gil had another ho-hum, six-shutout-innings, one-hit start and the Yankees extended their winning streak to six straight with a 5-1 win over the Twins at the Stadium.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. At this point, it’s no longer stunning when Luis Gil gives up a run (which is crazy), it’s stunning when he gives up a hit. Gil dominated yet another lineup on Tuesday in the Twins and the Yankees won 5-1. One hit over six shutout innings from the best pitcher in baseball.

“He’s got good stuff,” Rocco Baldelli. “He’s better than most.”

Thanks for the evaluation, Rocco. But Gil isn’t better than most. He’s been better than every starting pitcher in the majors this season.

2. It was Gil’s seventh start in a row with at least six innings pitched and one run or fewer allowed, which is now a Yankees record. It seems like Gil is matching or setting a record every start. His ERA is down to 1.82 on the season with 85 strikeouts in 69 1/3 innings and just 30 hits allowed. His 3.9 hits allowed per nine innings is the best in baseball.

“I had to come back from a big injury,” Gil said, “a lot of dedication, a lot of hours to put myself in the situation where I could be here and compete.”

3. On day’s Gil pitches the offense doesn’t have to do much, and in the series opener against the Twins they didn’t do much: three runs on six hits and four walks.

Gleyber Torres got the Yankees on the board in the second by showing he still has power … well, Yankee-Stadium-right-field-porch power when the ball goes off the outfielder’s glove. (Hey, they all count the same!) Torres has been better of late, though that’s not saying much since the bar he set through his first six weeks of the season was as low as bars can be set (he had a .543 OPS through May 11). I think the reason the perception is that he’s still struggling is because of all the non-offense-related issues he has in the field and on the bases. But he has been better.

4. Anthony Rizzo hasn’t been. He’s getting worse. Rizzo had another 0-for against the Twins and is now hitting .236/.296/.354. Add in his shaky defense (both fielding balls and catching throws), his lack of speed and his inability to get on base and there’s nothing redeeming to say about Rizzo’s season. Rizzo has one walk since May 11. He has one double since May 12. He has one home run since May 10.

5. After taking a 1-0 lead in the second on Torres’ home run, the Yankees added two more runs in the third on an Aaron Judge opposite-field double. The 3-0 lead was more than enough, but after Royce Lewis hit a home run in the seventh to cut it to 3-1, Giancarlo Stanton added two insurance runs in the eighth.

Caleb Thielbar got Stanton to awkwardly swing and miss on a first-pitch curveball, so Thielbar went back to that same pitch in the same location on his very next offering and Stanton destroyed it into the second deck in left field.

6. Because of Judge and Juan Soto, Stanton is quietly having a good season … I think? Well, that’s what everyone on YES keeps saying. His OPS is nearly 100 points below his career mark, but his OPS+ suggests he’s 16 percent better than league average. This version of Stanton is the best version Yankees fans have seen since 2021, and before that, you have to go back to his first season with the Yankees in 2018. He’s only hitting .232 and has a .281 on-base percentage, but his 15 home runs, with a lot of them being timely, is carrying the narrative of his year.

7. Stanton, Soto and Judge are the first trio in Yankees history to each hit 15-plus home runs through the first 62 games of a season. Judge is first in the majors with 21. Soto is third with 17. Stanton is fifth with 15. The trio has 53 home runs combined. That’s more home runs than the Blue Jays (52), Rockies (50), Marlins (48), Rays (48), Nationals (48) and White Sox (45).

8. Tommy Kahnle gave up his first earned run of the season on the Lewis home run, but that was the only run the Twins would score. Ian Hamilton pitched a perfect eighth, and after being a disaster for the majority of the season with six scoreless appearances sandwiched around a 16-game run in which he put 34 baserunners on in 17 innings, Hamilton looks to have resolved his issues.

9. After pitching on Saturday and Sunday, Clay Holmes got a second day off and Luke Weaver was called on to close out the game in the ninth. (It wasn’t a save situation, but I think Holmes would have been in even with a four-run lead. Also, no one should be managing based on a made-up statistic.) Weaver pitched a perfect ninth on just 10 pitches to end the game.

10. Tuesday was a relaxed, rather easy win, which is how Gil starts go. Wednesday has the potential to be the same if Carlos Rodon is as good against the Twins as he was three weeks ago (6.1 IP, 6 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 0 BB, 6 K, 1 HR), or if the Yankees offense hits Chris Paddack the way they did in that same game Rodon started (5 IP, 12 H, 5 R, 5 ER, 2 BB, 4 K, 1 HR). Fourteen baserunners in five innings? I’ll sign up for that again.

After series wins over the Padres and Angels, the Yankees finished their nine-game West Coast road trip with a sweep of the Giants.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. I find it hard to believe Aaron Judge was ever close to signing with the Giants. I think he and his agent played the Yankees perfectly from Opening Day 2022 when he turned down a fair contract extension right through the moment Hal Steinbrenner called Judge in a panic and gave him a ninth year on his contract offer. When you look at the state of the Giants, their anemic offense and puzzling roster, there’s just no way Judge was going really going to give up everything he had and had built with the Yankees to play for at best, the third-best team in the NL West for the rest of his career.

Judge gave his hometown a look at what could have been (but likely never was actually going to be) as he spent the weekend destroying the team he grew up rooting for: 6-for-10, three home runs, six RBIs, three walks and a .600/.692/1.500 slash line.

“I grew up a Giants fan and loved coming to games out here,” Judge said. “It’s pretty cool, being on the opposite side of the field.”

2. Judge wasn’t the only Yankee to have a big weekend. Juan Soto went 6-for-12, with a triple, two home runs, four RBIs and a .500/.462/1.1.67 slash line. No hit was bigger than Soto’s two-run, go-ahead home run in the ninth inning off Camilo Doval on Sunday.

“I can go back over the years, how many times we probably lost that game, facing the closer up two runs and go 1-2-3,” Judge said. “This team is different.”

This team is different because of the Soto-Judge, 2-3 combination. Judge (1.075) and Soto (1.031) have the two highest OPS in the majors. The Yankees have the ability to make the modern day Maris-Mantle combination a thing for a long time. If they don’t, and if Soto isn’t a Yankee in 2025, I will be forced to walk away from the Yankees and baseball. If the team that generates more revenue than any other team doesn’t agree to pay Soto whatever number he is looking for there will be point in rooting for or caring about said team.

3. “That’s what he does. We’ve seen it all year long,” Judge said of Soto. “He comes up in big moments. Against one of the best closers in the game, throwing up to 102 miles an hour … That was impressive.”

Everything about the 2024 Yankees that is different than the 2023 Yankees and other iterations of the roster during the Aaron Boone era is because of Soto. The wins, the big moments, the offensive outbursts can all be traced back to Soto’s presence. But nothing Soto has done has been more important than his penchant to play every day.

Last season, Soto played in all 162 games for the Padres, a feat that seemed impossible for any Yankee to accomplish because of the oft-injured issues of the roster and because the team’s manager and front office would see to it that no one played every game of an entire season. This season has been different. I no longer check on the lineup a few hours before the game under the assumption at least one everyday player won’t be playing. The Yankees have played 61 games and Aaron Judge, Juan Soto and Gleyber Torres (unfortunately) have played in all of them. Anthony Volpe has missed one due to illness. Alex Verdugo missed three on paternity leave. Anthony Rizzo has had (only) two games off (unfortunately). Even Giancarlo Stanton has only had eight days off. It’s refreshing, and it has a lot to do with Soto.

4. “We’re having a great time,” Soto said. “We have great moments. We’re just having fun, that’s all I can tell you.”

They’re having fun, I’m having fun, all Yankees fans are having fun. But again, this fun better not end at the end of 2024.

5. “I know we’ve got something special in that room,” Boone said. “Where that takes us? We’ll see.”

Soto, Judge and the rotation can take the Yankees where they want to go, where they haven’t been in going on 15 years. But in order to do so, the Yankees are either going to need to outhit their own manager’s stupidity (like they did on Sunday), have their manager finally understand simple logic (unlikely) or get significant bullpen upgrades (very possible). The Yankees nearly dropped the series finale to the Giants because of the bullpen Brian Cashman built and because of the way Boone deploys it.

After overcoming a two-run deficit thanks to another road stinker from Nestor Cortes (4.1 IP, 7 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 0 BB, 7 K, 2 HR), Boone decided to use Dennis Santana for a second inning of work in a 3-3 game in the sixth. It’s problematic that Santana was a Yankee to begin with this season, considering he has a career 5.15 ERA in 173 innings, but it’s even more problematic he’s still a Yankee with a 5.01 ERA this season. He can’t strike anyone out (just 15 strikeouts in 23 1/3 innings), and yet, he’s frequently placed in situations where a strikeout is greatly needed. He was miraculously able to get the last two outs of the fifth unscathed, but why Boone went back to him for the sixth, I have no idea.

Santana allowed back-to-back singles to open the sixth before getting a pair of outs on a pop-up and flyball. But then he hit the light-hitting, 9-hitter to load the bases with two outs. That brought up Heliot Ramos, who is pretty much the only player in the Giants lineup capable of anything. Sure enough, Ramos smoked a two-run single to left field to give the Giants their second two-run lead of the game.

6. Michael Tonkin isn’t good, but Tonkin boasts a 4.24 ERA in 250 1/3 career innings and has a 3.00 ERA in 24 innings this season (and a 1.20 ERA in 15 innings for the Yankees). Tonkin can’t be trusted, and he’s treated as such, only pitching in games the Yankees are losing or winning by five-plus runs. Meanwhile, Santana, with a much worse career and in the middle of a much worse season is treated like a middle relief weapon, when he’s only a weapon for the opponent.

Neither Santana nor Tonkin can be trusted. But the same goes for Caleb Ferguson and Victor Gonzalez, or Nick Burdi before he got hurt yet again. The bullpen is a huge problem because there are very few capable arms in it. The more incapable arms, the more there is a chance for Boone to screw it all up. Even if you’re the 25th or 26th man on the roster, if you’re on the roster, he will use you and use you at an inopportune time.

7. What made Boone’s decision to go to Santana even more questionable is that the bullpen was extremely well rested and there is a day off on Monday. He could have gone with his elite relievers to go for the sweep and an enjoyable cross-country flight home to end the road trip, and he chose not to. Luckily for him, his offense outhit his decisions to save the day. With this bullpen and the amount of close games the Yankees play, the offense is going to have to outhit Boone a lot to get to where they want to be. And in October, when every decision is the season-defining, they are going to have to outhit him against the front-end starting pitching and elite relievers every game. They haven’t been able to do that in the five postseasons they have appeared in with him as manager, but unless he changes his thought process, they will have to outhit him to end the championship drought.

8. Cortes stunk on Sunday, but Marcus Stroman was really good on Friday (7.1 IP, 6 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 2 BB, 2 K) and Cody Poteet was solid once again on Saturday (5 IP, 3 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 1 BB, 6 K, 1 HR).

“I’m not looking too far ahead,” Poteet said. “I’m just taking it a day at a time, trying to get better each day and enjoying being around so many great players.”

Poteet’s line in two Yankees starts: 11 IP, 9 H, 4 R, 3 ER, 1 BB, 10 K, 2 HR. He throws strikes and doesn’t nibble. He’s everything you want from a fifth starter, and exactly what the Yankees need for the time being.

9. For the time being the right side of the infield in Torres and Rizzo will continue to get every chance to turn their seasons around. They are extremely fortunate the best two hitters in baseball are on their team and the team is winning or they would be the focal point of the team. Instead, they are being allowed to figure out their issues, both offensively and defensively in the bottom third of the lineup.

I think it would take the two of them continuing at their current underperforming paces for the Yankees to find other options come the end of July. Even then, I could see the Yankees playing them every day through the rest of the season no matter how bleak their production is. For Torres, he’s playing himself out of a big free-agent contract at the end of this season, and for Rizzo, he’s playing himself out of the majors when his contract ends at the end of this season.

10. There’s nothing like going 7-2 on a nine-game West Coast road trip over 10 days, completing a ninth-inning comeback for the most memorable win of the season and then boarding a cross-country flight, getting the day off on Monday. The Yankees don’t play on the West Coast again until September 17, and they don’t have a game scheduled to start later than 8:10 p.m. between now and then. I’m happy that normal, East Coast start times are back.

The Yankees’ offense finally broke out in Anaheim in the series finale, and a five-run seventh inning on Thursday led to an 8-3 win.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. Last July, Carlos Rodon made his third start as a Yankee against the Angels in Anaheim, and it was a disaster. Five days after getting beat up by the eventual 103-loss Rockies, Rodon got beat up by the Mike Trout-less Angels: 4.1 IP, 4 H, 6 R, 6 ER, 5 BB, 3 K, 2 HR.

Rodon walked off the mound after recording just one out in the fifth inning and responded to heckling fans behind the Yankees dugout by blowing them a kiss.

“A fan was angry as they should be,” Rodon said after that game. “I was just angry at myself and blew a kiss, unfortunately.”

In the least surprising moment of all time, his manager protected him by saying at least he didn’t do anything worse than blow a kiss. (That got me thinking about Jorge Lopez’s wild Wednesday for the Mets, and how Aaron Boone would undoubtedly have defended and supported Lopez’s on-field and postgame reactions if he were a Yankee.)

2. Rodon has been solid for the Yankees in his second season of his $162 million deal. Not as good as he should be for someone who signed a $162 million deal and makes more than $800,000 per start, but solid. He pitched much better in his second Yankees start against the Mike Trout-less Angels on Thursday (6 IP, 3 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 1 BB, 5 K, 1 HR), didn’t blow any kisses to the crowd and the Yankees won 8-3.

3. Rodon put the Yankees in an early hole when he gave up a solo home run to Logan O’Hoppe in the second inning. The Yankees were held hitless through 3 1/3 innings by Patrick Sandoval (as I warned on Thursday, Sandoval hasn’t been good this year, but he has pitched decently well in three career starts against the Yankees), but that slump came to an end when Aaron Judge blasted his 18th home run of the season in the fourth inning with Juan Soto on first base to give the Yankees a 2-1 lead.

“He’s just a special player doing special things,” Boone said of Judge’s historic May. “I kind of felt like we needed a shot of energy. Judgie’s homer got the boys going a little bit.”

4. A few innings later, Sandoval finally came out of the game (6 IP, 2 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 3 BB, 7 K, 1 HR), Adam Cimber came in and the Yankees opened the floodgates. Alex Verdugo walked to lead off the seventh and DJ LeMahieu singled, but Gleyber Torres took a lazy, halfhearted swing on the first pitch of his at-bat and popped it up. Jose Trevino walked to load the bases and Oswaldo Cabrera drew a bases-loaded walk to give the Yankees a 3-1 lead. Anthony Volpe followed with a second straight bases-loaded walk to increase the lead to 4-1 and Ron Washington finally removed Cimber from the game. (No idea what Washington was waiting for?) Jose Suarez came in in relief and Juan Soto greeted him by hitting a first-pitch, 89-mph cutter down the right-field line for a bases-clearing, three-run triple to give the Yankees a 7-1 lead.

5. A six-run lead with nine outs to get seemed like the remaining three innings would be a formality, but the combination of Rodon, Boone and the Yankees bullpen made sure it wasn’t.

Rodon opened the seventh by going walk, single, double. The Angels trailed 7-2 and had runners on second and third and no outs. Boone went to Ian Hamilton and he struck out O’Hoppe and Jo Adell before walking Zach Neto load the bases. The Angels sent ex-Yankee Willie Calhoun to the plate as a pinch hitter, so Boone countered by going to the bullpen for Caleb Ferguson for a lefty-on-lefty matchup. Of course, Ferguson fell behind Calhoun 3-1 and allowed a run-scoring single on a line drive to left. The Yankees’ lead had been cut to 7-3 and the Angels had the tying run at the plate in Karen Paris. Fortunately, Ferguson’s lack of command and overall sucking ended with Calhoun and he retired Paris to end the inning and the threat. The Yankees added another run in the eighth in the eventual 8-3 win.

6. The historic streak of having a starting pitcher pitch at least five innings and allow no more than two runs came to an end though I think everyone always thought it would come to an end in a Rodon start.

“Now it’s time to start another streak,” Judge said of the rotation. “They’re the best in the game right now. The news about Clarke [Schmidt] definitely hurts, but I know guys will definitely pick up the slack and keep it rolling.”

7. The news about Schmidt being down for at least the next two months with a lat strain does hurt. Just yesterday in writing about who would come out of the rotation when Gerrit Cole returns, I wrote:

Usually these things have a way of taking care of themselves (injuries, lack of production, etc.) and Cole isn’t coming back any time soon, and maybe by the time he does, the Yankees will be in dire need of rotation help (knock on all of the wood).

Now no one needs to come out of the rotation, and you just hope no one else goes down. The Yankees’ pitching has been healthier than any other staff and better than any other staff this season, so something like this was bound to happen.

“It stinks for him,” Boone said of Schmidt. “But hopefully we’ll have hm down and get him on the mend, and hopefully get him back at some point.”

8. Anthony Rizzo was finally given the night off with LeMahieu moving over from third base to first base. LeMahieu went 1-for-3 with a walk and two runs. At third base, Cabrera went hitless but drew that all-important, bases-loaded walk in the seventh to extend the Yankees’ lead at the time from one run to two. The offense had its best night in nearly a week and the infield defense was flawless without Rizzo in the lineup. Coincidence? No.

9. The Yankees avoided being the first team to lose a series to the Angels in Anaheim this season and have their bullpen in very good shape for the next series. Over the last six days entering Friday night’s game, Clay Holmes will have thrown just 22 pitches and Luke Weaver just 26, and Tommy Kahnle has thrown just 17 over the last nine days. Those three are the only relievers you have to worry about being available. Anyone else who comes out of the bullpen is going to be an adventure (and likely a disastrous one) no matter how rested they are.

10. Now it’s off to San Francisco where the Yankees will finish this 10-day, nine-game West Coast road trip with three games against the one-game-over-.500 Giants. Unfortunately, the Yankees are getting the worst part of the Giants’ rotation to face with Jordan Hicks on Friday, Logan Webb on Saturday and Blake Snell on Sunday. For as weak as the Giants’ offense is, I expect these games to go similarly to how the Angels and Padres series played out, which means a couple of more late-night close games.

“It’s been a good month with a lot of wins, so I’m happy about that,” Judge said. “We’ll keep it rolling in June.”

I like the sound of that.

Luis Gil was impressive again and the offense did just enough to squeak by the Angels with a 2-1 win on Wednesday.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. Last week I referred to Luis Gil as the “interim ace” of the Yankees, but maybe he’s just the actual ace of the team moving forward, no matter who’s in the rotation. On Wednesday night in Anaheim, Gil went a career-long eight innings and allowed just two hits and one earned run. The Yankees won 2-1 and finished May having won all six of Gil’s starts.

2. “Am I fully 100 percent surprised?” Gil asked of his dominance this season. “I’m not.”

Gil finished May with this ridiculous line: 38.2 IP, 14 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 12 BB, 44 K, 2 HR, 0.70 ERA, 0.672 WHIP. Batters hit .109/.184/.178 against him in the month.

3. “When you’re able to command pitches out there,” Gil said, “really good things happen.”

Gil leads the league in fewest hits allowed per nine innings (4.1), has struck out 79 in 63 1/3 innings and has only given up four home runs on the season (a 13-home run pace projected out over 200 innings). Of Gil’s 11 starts, the only time he gave up more than three earned runs was in Milwaukee, and the only time he really had no command was after the Yankees idiotically gave him eight days off between starts. He hasn’t just filled in for Gerrit Cole, he has been better than Gerrit Cole.

4. If the Yankees had to play one game for their season right now, I don’t know how you don’t pick Gil to start it. Certainly, he may be a little too amped (think Luis Severino in the 2017 wild-card game), but if he’s on, he’s as good as any starting pitcher in baseball.

“Having Gerrit Cole around and being able to listen to the points that he’s giving me,” Gil said, “it’s been great.”

5. Someone is leaving the rotation when Cole returns. I don’t envision the Yankees going with a six-man rotation, but maybe they will surprise us. If all five members of the current rotation are heathy, given the combination of production and money owed, I’m not sure who the odd man out will be. (I know who I would make it be, but again veteran status, reputation and money owed are more important than winning typically for the Yankees.) Usually these things have a way of taking care of themselves (injuries, lack of production, etc.) and Cole isn’t coming back any time soon, and maybe by the time he does, the Yankees will be in dire need of rotation help (knock on all of the wood). All I know is right now, Gil can’t lose his spot for any reason, including workload. He has been the team’s best starter. He’s been arguably the best starter in the majors.

6. Gil is only getting better too. He shut out the Orioles for 6 1/3 innings in Baltimore to lead the Yankees to their only win in that four-game series. Then in his next start, he allowed one hit over six innings to the Astros. He followed up that up by shutting out the Rays over six innings in Tampa (a magnificent start I got to watch in person), and then he struck out a career-high 14 against the White Sox to set the Yankees’ rookie single-game strikeout record. He pitched 6 1/3 shutout innings against the Mariners last Thursday and then there was Wednesday’s masterpiece against the Angels.

“I’m friendly with a couple of guys on other teams,” Anthony Volpe said, “and they’re saying after games that it’s the most electric fastball they’ve ever faced.”

7. Volpe has been on a nice run of his own and extended his hitting streak to 21 games with a leadoff single on Wednesday. He later added a triple that he would score on after the Angels sloppily threw the ball around. Volpe has had multiple hits in five of the last seven games and has returned to being the guy he was for the first week of the season.

Volpe’s season can be broken down into three parts:

March 28-April 14: .382/.477/1.041
April 15-May 5: .163/.247/.238
May 7-May 29: .341/.378/.550

8. The Yankees needed Gil to be as dominant as he was and for Volpe to score on his wild triple because the offense was nowhere to be found in terms of driving in runs for a third straight game. A day after scoring three runs and stranding 10 baserunners, the Yankees scored two runs and stranded 13 baserunners, including stranding all nine of their walks.

Nothing was more frustrating than in the first inning when Volpe singled, Juan Soto and Aaron Judge walked and the Yankees had the bases loaded with no outs. Followings two straight walks, Giancarlo Stanton decided to swing at the first pitch he saw and popped it up in the infield. The infield fly rule was enforced and Stanton was called out, but in getting back to second base, Soto and Angels’ shortstop Zach Neto bumped into each other and Soto was also called out for interfering with the play. The call of interference was the right call by the rulebook, but also nonsensical since Soto didn’t have a lane to get back to the base and Stanton was already called out because of the infield fly rule. As mentioned on the YES broadcast, on a play like that, the play should be ruled dead since the batter is already out and the ball doesn’t even need to be caught. Instead, it was a double play against the Yankees and they wouldn’t score in the inning.

9. I figured that play and not scoring with the bases loaded and no outs in the first would come back to haunt the Yankees, and it nearly did with Clay Holmes on the mound in the ninth.

Here is what I wrote about Holmes on Wednesday:

I don’t trust Holmes with anything less than a four-run lead … If the Yankees don’t have a big lead, the bullpen will either blow it or come as close as possible to blowing it, and Boone will see to it.

Holmes allowed a leadoff single to Luis Rengifo on a ground ball to begin the ninth after getting ahead of him 0-2. (Reminder: having a closer that relies on weak contact isn’t a great strategy since bad things happen when the ball is put into play.) Holmes then threw a wild pitch to move Rengifo to second. With the tying run on second and the winning run on first with no outs and ex-Yankee Willie Calhoun up, I figured the law of ex-Yankees would come into play with every former Yankee coming up big against their former team. Thankfully, Calhoun hit into a 4-6-3 double play. Rengifo moved to third with two outs, but never scored as Logan O’Hoppe hit a rocket to third base that DJ LeMahieu in just his second game of the season was able to make a spectacular play on to field the ball and throw out O’Hoppe. Ballgame over. Yankees win.

10. On Thursday night the Yankees will face left-handed Patrick Sandoval in the series finale. Sandoval hasn’t been good this year (5.60 ERA), but he has pitched decently well in three career starts against the Yankees (18.1 IP, 9 H, 8 R, 8 ER, 11 BB, 19 K, 1 HR, 3.93 ERA, 1.091 WHIP).

Carlos Rodon gets the start for the Yankees. His lone start again the Angels as a Yankee came last July  19 in Anaheim. That was the game Rodon got lit up (4.1 IP, 4 H, 6 R, 6 ER, 5 BB , 3 K, 2 HR) and then responded to heckling fans behind the Yankees dugout by blowing them a kiss. I trust Rodon about as much as I trust Holmes, so hopefully the offense shows up for the first time in this series and takes Rodon, Aaron Boone and the bullpen out of the equation.