The Yankees extended their season-opening winning streak to five with a 5-2 win over the Diamondbacks in Arizona on Monday.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. The Yankees have played five games this season and Anthony Volpe has played in four of them. The offensive player Volpe has been in 18 plate appearance is a version of Volpe we never saw in his rookie season.

Sure, he hit 21 home runs last year, but in between those home runs were a collection of at-bats you would expect from someone who had played just 132 games above Single-A, even someone as highly regarded as Volpe.

2. This Volpe, the Volpe of the first few days of this season, is the Volpe the Yankees likely envisioned when they allowed him to play in 159 games a year ago and accumulate 601 plate appearances despite hitting .209/.283/.383 over a full season. He was never threatened with a demotion, never lost playing time and kept having is name penciled into the starting lineup even as he was putting up numbers representing among the worst in the majors.

3. It’s not like Volpe finished 2023 in such a way that it foreshadowed his start to 2024 as he hit .163/.226/.255 in September and struck out in 29 percent of his plate appearances. Volpe essentially was worse in September than he had been the rest of the season and there was no promise at the time that his development was headed in the right direction.

Whatever Volpe did in the offseason completely changed him as an offensive player. This doesn’t seem to be a sample size issue either. The command he has had of the strike zone this season, the discipline he has shown laying off unhittable pitches and the swings he has taken on balls in the zone are all traits he lacked last season. Yes, players go on random hot streaks (look at Jose Trevino in 2022) and eventually revert to their normal, former selves, but for Volpe, his presence and plan in the batter’s box suggests this version of him is here to stay.

“Results can be fleeting, especially this time of the year,” Aaron Boone said. “But the fact that he is getting results and the quality of each at-bat, it’s been impressive.”

(Is that Boone and I agreeing on something?!)

4. If this version of Volpe is who he will be moving forward (and I think it is) then the Yankees may have solved their leadoff problem. With the ongoing injuries and ailments of DJ LeMahieu since 2021, and my lack of enthusiasm for Gleyber Torres in that role, Volpe realizing his potential and his former top prospect status like this would solve that problem. I don’t expect that change to happen in Arizona or next week or the week after. The Yankees, as an organization, typically take their time with lineup promotions for their young players, unless injuries make it necessary. (It took two months of Judge hitting .328/.428/.690 in 2017 for him to finally hit third in the lineup.) At the least, though, Volpe needs to be hitting higher in the order than Alex Verdugo. I don’t care about righty-lefty alternation.

5. Last season, Volpe’s at-bats were painful to watch with him flailing at breaking balls and swinging through high-and-away fastballs. This season, so far, it’s been the opposite because he’s been the opposite. On Monday, Volpe continued his early season onslaught, going 4-for-4 with two doubles. The Yankees had eight hits in their 5-2 win and Volpe was responsible for half of them and had a hand in three of the five runs.

6. Luis Gil started his first game in the majors in nearly two years and mostly stifled the Diamondbacks: 4.2 IP, 1 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 3 BB, 6 K. Gil blew his triple-digit fastball by the reigning National League champions, but even after allowing just one run on one hit, with one out and no one on in the fifth, Boone came to take the ball with Gil at 84 pitches.

“I get it,” David Cone said of Boone taking the ball from Gil before he could face the Diamondbacks’ lineup for a third and qualify for the win. “I still don’t like it.”

I’m guessing Gil’s pitch count was 85 and being at 84 was enough? I didn’t have a problem with it. A “win” for a pitcher is meaningless, and the “win” for the Yankees is all that matters. Gil gave the Yankees 13 outs and trusting the bullpen to protect at least a four-run lead (even if it’s Luke Weaver you’re asking to protect that lead) is understandable.

“I understand there’s a set amount of pitches that I’m under,” Gil said. “I definitely didn’t feel bad about coming out of the game at that time.”

7. One time through the rotation and Gil gave the Yankees’ their second-best start after Marcus Stroman. I would rank the Yankees’ starters first starts this way: Stroman, Gil, Clarke Schmidt, Nestor Cortes, Carlos Rodon. Cortes gave up more runs than Rodon (four to one), but Cortes’ final four innings were strong, where Rodon had two runners on every inning and every out seemed to be a line drive.

8. It’s crazy the Yankees have won five straight against the Astros (who have been to seven straight ALCS) and the Diamondbacks (who went to the World Series five months ago) with mediocre-at-best starting pitching. Only two of their five starters has pitched into the sixth inning (Stroman and Schmidt) and only has given them six innings (Stroman). The Yankees have asked their bullpen to hold deficits and protect leads and it has to a ridiculous level. Yankees relievers have allowed one run (Weaver on Monday) in 19 1/2 innings.

9. It’s even more crazy the Yankees are 5-0 and the first five hitters in the lineup (Torres, Soto, Judge, Rizzo and Stanton) have combined for two home runs in five games (one from Soto and one from Stanton). No long balls from Torres, Judge or Rizzo. The Yankees are averaging more than five runs per game and Torres, Judge, Rizzo and Stanton have driven in a total of four runs in five games. That’s scary. In a good way.

10. In the past (especially the last two seasons), if Judge didn’t hit, the Yankees didn’t win. Judge has done very little this season (3-for-21 with two walks), which is understandable since he missed a lot of spring training at-bats, and the Yankees are still winning. It’s amazing what lineup balance can do for a team. Who would have thought having quality left-handed bats and not an all-right-handed lineup could lead to success?

The Yankees opened the season with a four-game sweep of the Astros in Houston.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. The beginning of the 2024 schedule worried me. Four games in Houston against a team that has been to seven straight ALCS and that has owned the Yankees followed by three games against the defending National League champions in Arizona? I would have gladly signed up for a 4-3 start to the year, and even going 3-4 would have been acceptable. After four games in Houston, the Yankees are 4-0.

2. The odds of the Yankees sweeping the four-game series in Houston were close to zero and in the fifth inning on Opening Day I was already trying to think about how the season-opening road trip could be salvaged and not end in complete disaster. But not only did the Yankees win all four games in Houston, they won all four in memorable fashion. On Opening Day, the Yankees erased a four-run deficit. In the second game, they trailed 1-0 through six before scoring seven runs in the final three innings. In the third game, they used a three-run seventh to overcome a two-run hole and in the series finale, they got to the Astros’ superstar closer — the highest-paid reliever of all time. The Yankees are 4-0 and the Astros are 0-4. That may be my most favorite sentence I have ever written.

3. At some point in the four games, every single position player had a moment. Gleyber Torres had the single that led to his go-ahead run on Sunday. Aaron Judge had the double off Ryan Pressly on Thursday and came around to scored the game-tying run. Anthony Rizzo had four hits, two walks and an extremely important hit by pitch. Giancarlo Stanton hit a home run on Friday and added a big double on Sunday. Alex Verdugo hit the go-ahead sacrifice fly on Thursday. Jose Trevino got the three-run rally started on Opening Day. Austin Wells had a pair of hits and two impressive walks. Anthony Volpe provided tough at-bat after tough at-bat in what has been and a complete turnaround from the hitter he was last year. Jon Berti provided a go-ahead RBI single (and later saved the game with his glove on Sunday) in his first Yankees start. Oswaldo Cabrera had two home runs, seven hits and spent the weekend tying games or giving the Yankees a lead. And then there’s Juan Soto.

4. I could write 10,000 words gushing over Soto’s play every game. Here is some of what I wrote about him after Opening Day:

Soto was the Yankees’ first baserunner of the game, drove in the first run of the game, added a second walk and threw out the would-be game-tying run in the bottom of the ninth. This wasn’t a one-game blip. This is who he is. He’s the best hitter with the base eye in baseball. A 25-year-old superstar. Not a generational superstar, but an all-time superstar, who has achieved more italicized bold on his Baseball Reference page by age 25 than the rest of the roster has combined.

He followed up his Opening Day performance by going 8-for-14 with a double, home run and walk in the next three games. His home run off Bryan Abreu on Saturday gave the Yankees a late lead, and the at-bat he had against Josh Hader on Sunday did the same. Soto may be the only hitter in the world capable of doing what he did against Hader in that spot against those pitches.

5. “Tip your cap,” Hader said. “You can always say you can throw another pitch, but I executed what I wanted to do, and a good hitter is going to do that sometimes.”

Excuse me, Josh. A “good” hitter? How about the “best” hitter? And how does a 15-year, $1.5 billion contract sound? That’s what I would offer the 25-year-old Soto. Not even Aaron Boone allowing Clarke Schmidt to face the top of the Astros’ order a third time could keep the Yankees from winning with Soto. Not even Clay Holmes doing everything he could to blow multiple games this weekend could keep the Yankees from winning with Soto.

6. The Yankees looked like the 2017-2023 Astros and the Astros looked like the 2017-2023 Yankees over the weekend. Would I feel confident with the Yankees playing the Astros in a postseason series? Of course not. But for these last four days, the roles in this one-sided rivalry were finally reversed.

“You don’t really play playoff games in March,” Schmidt said. “But this was a big-time series and a big-time sweep.”

These games did feel like playoff games, or maybe that’s just because I forgot what the playoffs feel like after a postseason-less October last year. Opening Day always feels like a playoff game no matter the opponent, and that was heightened this year because of the opponent. But then Games 2, 3 and 4 also felt like playoff games because of the opponent, which isn’t normally the case.

And this was a “big-time series” and a “big-time sweep.” The four-game sweep clinched the Yankees the season series over the Astros. That could matter. That could be the difference between getting a playoff berth or not. Every game matters, and a game on March 30 matters just as much as a game on September 30. These last four games mattered a lot, and the Yankees won all of them.

7. “It’s eerily similar to how we were in 2022, when we started off good,” Schmidt said. “We just felt like we weren’t going to lose at the end of games.”

I have tried my best to erase the 2022 season from my memory, or at least everything from that season from July 9 on, when the Yankees were 61-23, only to finish 41-46, including the postseason. But I know what Schmidt means. The difference is that first-half Yankees performance was somewhat of a mirage given how bad the team was in 2021 (outside of one 13-game winning streak to save their season) and how miserable they were in 2023 (finishing two games above .500). This version of the Yankees feels different because the roster is a lot different.

8. These Yankees are likable. Not just because they’re winning, but because they have gotten rid of seemingly everyone that was unlikable, mainly Aaron Hicks, Josh Donaldson, Harrison Bader and Isiah Kiner-Falefa. That’s not to say I’m a fan (yet) of Alex Verdugo, but if he keeps playing defense like he did over the weekend, it will be easy to be. It’s fun to root for a team with players that you actually like. It’s fun to root for a team with a lineup that features left-handed batters.

9. The starting pitching was OK overall, and pretty much how I expected it to be. Nestor Cortes was awful through the first inning-plus, but settled in to give five innings after the bullpen was up early. Carlos Rodon limited the damage (one earned run in 4 1/3 innings), but he put eight baserunners on and needed 87 pitches to get 13 outs. Marcus Stroman had the best start of the series (6 IP, 0 ER) and was let down by his defense, giving up three unearned runs. Schmidt would have had a nice line if Boone had pulled him after five, but whenever you can steal outs with Schmidt whose numbers the third time through are as bad as can be against Jose Altuve, Yordan Alvarez and Kyle Tucker, you have to try, right? The starting pitching is certainly not trustworthy, given the recent production and injuries of everyone in the rotation, but it was good enough for four games in Houston, which is something no one expected.

10. Now it’s Luis Gil’s turn, and he will open the series against the Diamondbacks on Monday night. When the Yankees went down 4-0 with no outs in the second inning on Thursday in Houston, it seemed like they were going to need to have a big three days in Arizona to avoid returning home for the first time in 2024 with a dismal record and disappointing start to the season. After their weekend in Houston, they no longer need to have a big series in Arizona, but it certainly won’t hurt if they do.

The Yankees began the 2024 season in Houston against the hated Astros, and for the first four innings, Opening Day was playing out like nearly every Yankees-Astros game over the last seven years. It didn’t finish that way though.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. The last meaningful game the Yankees played was on Sunday, Aug. 13 of last season. It was an 8-7 walk-off loss to the Marlins in Miami, a game the Yankees led by four runs going into the bottom of the ninth. That game ended the 2023 Yankees season, and the remaining 44 games were a mere formality, a two-and-a-half month slog to the finish line in which the Yankees barely finished above .500 and then retained their manager, general manager and their entire front office.

Thursday’s Opening Day game in Houston was the first meaningful game for the Yankees in seven-and-a-half months. And through the first four innings, you would have never known it was a new year and a new season. Those four innings played out like a continuation of last season. Game 1 of 2024 was looking like Game 163 of 2023.

2. Nestor Cortes was named the Opening Day starter out of necessity and through two innings pitched like the Nestor Cortes that the Yankees, Orioles and Mariners didn’t want once upon a time. During the first inning of the first game of the season to start a seven-games-in-seven-day stretch, Aaron Boone had Nick Burdi warming up in the bullpen. That’s how well Cortes was doing.

Cortes allowed three runs in the first inning and a solo home run to the 9-hitter to lead off the second. Framber Valdez and the Astros were getting big outs when they needed them and big hits when they needed them as well. Cortes and the Yankees weren’t, just like they never seem to do against the Astros.

3. Juan Soto’s first plate appearance as a Yankee poetically resulted in a walk, but he was left stranded in the first when Aaron Judge hit into an inning-ending double play. The Yankees left the bases loaded in the second when Jose Trevino banged into a 6-4-3 double play and they were left loaded again in the fourth when Alex Verdugo banged into a 4-6-3. The Yankees were getting the kind of “traffic” Boone dreams of, but they were ruining it with inning-ending double plays. (We’re coming up on the three-year anniversary of Boone saying, “Typically, the better teams are going to hit into double plays,” after the Yankees’ loss to the Red Sox on June 4, 2021.) Valdez had thrown more balls than strikes and the Yankees hadn’t made him pay.

4. Everything changed in the fifth inning, thanks to the Yankees’ two worst hitters. Cortes had put up back-to-back scoreless frames in the third and fourth, and the Astros’ lead remained 4-0. Then the Yankees’ .570 OPS duo went to work.

Trevino posted a .570 OPS in 55 games last season and Oswaldo Cabrera barely beat him out with a .574 OPS in 115 games. (Yes, Cabrera was allowed to play in 115 major-league games with a .574 OPS. That’s how bad the 2023 Yankees’ offense was.) But it was those two who got the Yankees’ fifth-inning rally started with a walk and single. The catcher who is strictly a major leaguer because of his defense and the utility player who was only in the lineup because the everyday third baseman is on the injured list, and the player the Yankees traded for to avoid having to play Cabrera didn’t arrive in Houston until 2 a.m.

5. After Gleyber Torres walked, Soto ripped a line-drive single to right to plate the Yankees’ first run. Following back-to-back strikeouts from Judge and Giancarlo Stanton, Anthony Rizzo was drilled by a pitch to score a run and Anthony Volpe drew a walk to score another. Through five innings, the Yankees had cut the deficit to 4-3.

Trailing by one in the sixth, Cabrera came to the plate with one out. For as bad as Cabrera looked in his first at-bat of the game against Valdez (a four-pitch strikeout in which his swings looked as if he were blindfolded), it was startling that he was able putting the ball in play in a 1-2 count against Valdez in the fifth for a single and then clobber a home run on a 1-2 pitch off Rafael Montero in the sixth to tie the game. Maybe it’s just one game, or maybe Cabrera is beginning to figure things out.

6. The same goes for Volpe. Volpe looked like a different player on Thursday than he did for all of 2023. His at-bats on Opening Day were battles. He singled in the first inning, walked on four pitches in the fourth, walked on four pitches in the fifth and drew an eight-pitch walk in the seventh. (He ended his day with a strikeout against Josh Hader, but there’s no shame in that.) It was the best Volpe has ever looked at the plate for an entire game. The Volpe we watched on Thursday was not the Volpe we watched for 159 games last year.

7. The Yankees took the lead in the seventh on a Verdugo sacrifice fly (a skill previous iterations of the Yankees lacked), and four innings of shutout relief work from Jonathan Loaisiga, Ian Hamilton and Clay Holmes gave the Yankees a 5-4 win. It wasn’t as smooth as that reads though, and why would it be with Holmes on the mound in the ninth?

There was no way the Yankees were going to trail by four runs early to the Astros in Houston, then mount an improbable comeback to get within one run, then tie the game on a home run off the bat of the 9-hitter the team desperately doesn’t want to play, then take the lead and coast to a win. It wasn’t going to be easy.

8. You pretty much know which Holmes you’re going to get from the very first pitch he throws, and Holmes’ first pitch on Thursday nearly took Mauricio Dubon’s head off. Dubon hit a line-drive single on the next pitch. I figured either Dubon was going to steal second and Jose Altuve was going to drive him in to tie the game or Altuve was just going to skip tying the game and club a two-run, walk-off home run to destroy a game that was three outs away from being a glorious win. Altuve swung at the first pitch and lined out to Torres.

When Yordan Alvarez walked up the plate all I could envision was Holmes leaving his sinker up and Alvarez hitting a ball to a place no other player had ever hit a ball in MinuteMaid Park. Holmes got the ground ball he needed to possibly end the game from Alvarez, but it was perfectly placed and instead resulted in a single. Wither runners on first and second and one out, it was like the Astros were trying to make their inevitable comeback and walk-off win as painful as possible.

9. Holmes put a second-pitch sinker right over the middle of the plate for Kyle Tucker to extend his arms on and drive to right field. Dubon rounded third and headed for home to tie the game as Soto gathered the ball to throw a laser to the plate. Dubon tried to evade Trevino to get to the plate with a headfirst slide, but Trevino tagged him and Dubon was called out.

I’m not sure Trevino did tag Dubon, and for that, I’m thankful James Hoye called Dubon out on the field. I’m even more thankful there wasn’t a sufficient angle of the play to overturn the call. The call stood, and two pitches later, Holmes got Alex Bregman to ground out to end the game. A nice, clean one-inning save for Holmes that included three hits and a runner getting thrown out at the plate.

10. I couldn’t sleep on Thursday night. Not because of the excitement of the win, the idea of Yankees baseball being back or the Yankees hitting on the money line as an underdog. I couldn’t sleep because I couldn’t get the idea of life without Soto out of my head, and the thought of him leaving at the end of the season, and ending up with the Mets, or anywhere other than the Yankees had me tossing and turning.

Soto was the Yankees’ first baserunner of the game, drove in the first run of the game, added a second walk and threw out the would-be game-tying run in the bottom of the ninth. This wasn’t a one-game blip. This is who he is. He’s the best hitter with the base eye in baseball. A 25-year-old superstar. Not a generational superstar, but an all-time superstar, who has achieved more italicized bold on his Baseball Reference page by age 25 than the rest of the roster has combined.

I realize there’s a better chance of Boone becoming Bruce Bochy than there is of Soto signing an extension without testing free agency (though maybe that has or will change given Scott Boras’ performance this offseason). But Soto is the guy and needs to be a Yankee for the rest of his career. I can’t just watch this guy play for the Yankees for another 161 games and then possible playoff games. I need to watch him play for the Yankees until my three-year-old and one-year-old are teenagers.

For now, I will enjoy every game he is a Yankee, and thankfully, there’s another one on Friday. And another one on Saturday, and Sunday, and so on. Yankees baseball is back.