The Yankees arrived in Chicago desperately needing to stack wins. With three games against the majors’ fourth-worst team, the Yankees opened their series against the White Sox with another loss.
The Yankees arrived in Chicago desperately needing to stack wins. With three games against the majors’ fourth-worst team, the Yankees opened their series with the White Sox with another loss.
1. On Sunday, Carlos Rodon was removed from the Yankees’ eventual loss to the Astros with a hamstring injury. After giving up five runs in 2 2/3 innings Rodon was pulled when he couldn’t convince Aaron Boone and the training staff to let him continue.
“In this moment I feel normal,” Rodon said after Sunday’s game. “I feel confident that everything is OK … (Going on the injured list) is not what I’m thinking … In this moment I feel pretty confident that I should be able to pitch.”
In typical Rodon and Yankees fashion, he wasn’t “normal” and he’s not “able to pitch.” A day after making those claims, Rodon was placed on the IL with a hamstring strain.
2. It’s hard to like Rodon. I actually like both Aaron Hicks and Josh Donaldson more than Rodon. Rodon has made six starts in four-and-a-half months as a Yankee and has lost five of them. He has never completed six innings as a Yankee and hasn’t even been able to complete 4 2/3 innings in three of his six outings. Rodon hasn’t pitched because of various injuries, and when he has pitched he has sucked. Add in the nearly $800,000 he “earns” every five days whether he pitches or not and his kiss blowing in Anaheim, and I don’t know how anyone could like him. There’s also his cocky, arrogant quote from spring training when it was announced he would start the season on the IL.
3. “I’m not here to pitch until the All-Star break,” Rodon said on March 9. “I’m here to pitch well into October. If this was down the stretch, yeah, I would be going for sure. If it’s October 5 or the ALDS, I’m taking the ball.”
Well, it’s “down the stretch” and Rodon isn’t pitching because of a new and different injury. As for pitching on “October 5 or the ALDS” Rodon won’t have to worry about either of those because the Yankees won’t be playing baseball on October 5 and they certainly aren’t going to the ALDS. The last game of the regular season will be the last game of the Yankees’ season.
4. After losing to the White Sox 5-1 on Monday night in Chicago, the Yankees are now 5 1/2 games out of a playoff spot. The idea “It’s in front of us” like Boone keeps reiterating and Rodon echoed last week in talking to the media, is one more game in the standings from being untrue. The Yankees have six games remaining against the Blue Jays (who won again on Monday), the team they trail by 5 1/2 games. Once the Yankees’ deficit to the Blue Jays is higher than the amount of games left between the two teams, the Yankees will no longer control their own destiny. That could happen as early as Tuesday night.
5. After Sunday’s loss to the Astros, Harrison Bader gave the most tone-deaf postgame interview imaginable. Asked if the Yankees missed an opportunity to win a four-game series against the Astros, he said, “Actually, I feel the complete opposite.” Asked if he’s concerned with how many games the Yankees are out from a playoff spot, he said, “No concern at all.” One day and one game later, the Yankees are another game out of a playoff spot. I wonder if Bader is concerned now. I doubt it.
I doubt it because the manager still isn’t concerned. Well, he’s concerned, just not with wins and losses or the standings or if Giancarlo Stanton cares even a little bit about running the bases with even the smallest amount of effort. Boone is concerned with the umpires and balls and strikes.
6. Home plate umpire Laz Diaz was inconsistent on Monday in Chicago, and yet, the White Sox had no problem touching up likely Cy Young winner Gerrit Cole for four runs and Tommy Kahnle for a fifth. That didn’t stop Boone from performing the most ridiculous, outrageous, over-the-top tirade on the field in protest of Diaz’s strike zone. It made me uncomfortable to watch Boone give a dramatic, sarcastic impression of Diaz’s emphatic strikeout call, and it made me embarrassed to be a fan of a once-proud franchise that has resorted to blaming the umpires for losses.
7. “I heard Anthony’s was a strike maybe,” Boone sheepishly admitted after the game, implying Diaz was to ring Volpe up.
Not “maybe.” It was a strike. Every pitch in Volpe’s at-bat that sent Boone over the edge was in the zone. Yes, it’s Diaz’s fault the Yankees are 5 1/2 games out of the playoffs and 47-52 against teams not named the A’s or Royals. It’s Diaz’s fault the Yankees drew seven walks in the first four innings against Dylan Cease and didn’t score any of them. It’s Diaz’s fault the Yankees had one extra-base hit on Monday and loaded the bases three times in the game, scoring just one run. It can’t possibly be anyone employed by or playing for the Yankees’ fault that they lost another game, lost another game in the standings and lost another game to a team with nothing to play for.
8. The White Sox are an organizational mess, even more than the Yankees. They are 22 games under .500. A week ago they officially gave up and traded away important roster pieces at the deadline. Their starting catcher reportedly slapped their starting shortstop during this season. On Saturday, that starting shortstop ignited a bench-clearing brawl with the Guardians. On Sunday, newest Yankee Kenyan Middleton gave an interview in which he gave insight into the disfunction within the White Sox’ clubhouse, dugout and bullpen, and former White Sox and newest Dodger Lance Lynn confirmed Middleton’s claims on Monday. The White Sox have the fourth-worst record in Major League Baseball and are on pace to lose 97 games. And yet, the Yankees not only lost to them on Monday, but are 1-3 against them this season.
9. It was the Yankees’ second straight loss. They have lost six of nine and are back in the basement of the AL East. They need a lengthy winning streak to gain ground on the Blue Jays, and a three-game series against the White Sox was a perfect opportunity to begin that hypothetical winning streak. Instead, they wasted another Gerrit Cole start and stranded 13 baserunners.
This was supposed to be the “break” in the schedule sandwiched between having to play the Orioles, Rays, Astros and then the the Marlins, Braves and Red Sox. This was supposed to be when the Yankees started their late-season run to a postseason berth. It ended up just being another inexcusable loss in a long list of those types of losses. The Yankees are now 50-50 in their last 100 games and 99-101 in their last 200 games.
10. Boone has never been worried about the Yankees’ place in the standings. A week ago, it was Rodon who told the media he wasn’t nervous by the Yankees not holding a playoff spot. On Sunday, it was Bader who said he wasn’t concerned. On Monday, Cole took the baton.
“It’s doable,” Cole said when asked about being 5 1/2 games back with 49 games left to play. “Mountains are different sizes. The goal is just to get to the top.”
The Yankees now have a 10.7 percent chance of climbing the mountain and reaching the postseason. Don’t be surprised if the top of the mountain and the postseason get a little farther away after Tuesday’s game.
The Yankees had a chance to win a four-game series against the hated Astros, but they didn’t. They split the four games with the Astros, and are still searching for their first series win over a team not named the A’s or Royals since late June.
The Yankees had a chance to win a four-game series against the hated Astros, but they didn’t. They split the four games with the Astros, and are still searching for their first series win over a team not named the A’s or Royals since late June.
1. After play on Sunday, July 23, the Yankees were 53-47. They were 8 1/2 games out in the AL East and two games out of the final wild-card spot. They were about to play a crucial 12-game stretch against the Mets, Orioles, Rays and Astros to hopefully not just get themselves back into holding a wild-card berth, but also to get back in the division race. Coming off a three-game sweep of the Royals (their first series win in a month) and with the trade deadline taking place and the expected return of Aaron Judge during these 12 games, there was a reason to be cautiously optimistic.
That 12-game stretch is over. Their 8 1/2-game deficit in the division is now 12 games. Their two-game deficit for the final wild card is now 4 1/2 games. After going 5-7, they are the farthest they have been out of a postseason spot this season. They didn’t win any of the four series. They split the two games with the Mets, lost two of three to the Orioles and Rays and then split four with the Astros. They are now 58-54 this season and 50-53 against teams not named the A’s or Royals.
2. The Yankees have become a laughingstock on the field with the highest payroll in the AL and only a higher run differential than the Guardians (four games under .500), Tigers (13 games under .500), White Sox (23 games under .500), Royals (on pace for 110 losses) and A’s (on pace for 117 losses). And they have become a laughingstock off the field with their roster management, handling of injuries and public relations nightmares. As I wrote last Monday, every single day the Yankees create at least one bizarre headline that borders on the unbelievable. Watching this team is like watching a cheesy, unrealistic soap opera in which the plot makes little to no sense.
3. To show how their daily, preposterous drama has played out in recent weeks, here’s a timeline of the last week.
Monday, July 31 Aaron Boone is asked about Anthony Rizzo’s prolonged slump dating back to May 21, and why he believes he will come out of it. “He’s Anthony Rizzo. He’s healthy,” Boone says.
After losing two of three to the Orioles over the weekend, the Yankees spend Trade Deadline Eve losing to the Rays. They score one run on three hits. Prior to the game, Domingo German is scratched from starting with a supposed “armpit” injury and Boons says he will be evaluated by a doctor. A little over hour after not throwing the first pitch of the game as the starter, German enters in relief and throws five scoreless innings.
Tuesday, August 1 The Yankees make a last-second deadline move to acquire Kenyan Middleton, just to say they did something before the deadline. They are the last team in the majors to make a deadline move. They are neither sellers nor buyers, keeping the status quo with a last-place team that doesn’t hold a playoff spot.
Willie Calhoun is designated for assignment after coming off the injured list. In Calhoun’s most recent game with the Yankees, he batted third, then after coming off the IL, he is designated for assignment with the entire league passing on him on waivers. None of the other 29 teams want a player the Yankees deem worthy of being their 3-hitter.
On the field, star free-agent Carlos Rodon gets lit up for four runs, two home runs and eight baserunners in four innings. Rodon, who was signed for six years and $162 million in the offseason, is outpitched by Zach Eflin, who throws six scoreless innings. Eflin was signed for three years and $40 million by the Rays in the offseason.
Wednesday, August 2 Boone teases a “major announcement” involving the rotation. That announcement ends up being Domingo German going on the restricted list for alcohol abuse. The Wall Street Journal reports he was belligerent in the clubhouse on Tuesday, confronted Boone, argued with teammates, smashed a TV and had to be restrained in the sauna in the clubhouse. Brian Cashman says German won’t pitch for the Yankees again this season.
Luis Severino is asked if he’s starting on Friday, and says he “thinks he’s starting on Friday” and tells the media, “If you guys know something, let me know.” How could he not know or be told if he is starting in 48 hours? How could he be asking the media for the team’s planned rotation? Then again, how did he not know what time Game 3 of the 2018 ALDS started? Good thing Boone was hired for unrivaled communication skills. The same skills Gerrit Cole cites Boone as having in his in-game interview with FOX the following night.
Thursday, August 3 It turns out Rizzo isn’t “healthy” like Boone said not even 72 hours prior. Rizzo is placed on the IL with post-concussion syndrome dating back to a May 28 collision at first base. At best, Rizzo and the Yankees are lying about the injury and symptoms to put him on the IL. At worst, they just let a player play baseball every day at the highest level for more than two months with a brain injury.
Rizzo complained about “fogginess” over the past weekend series against the Orioles and then played in all three games of the series. Boone is asked if there was any consideration in not playing Rizzo after the first baseman complained of “fogginess.” Boone responds, “No.”
Friday, August 4 After beating the Rays on Wednesday and Astros on Thursday, the Yankees lose to the Astros 7-3. The loss is made possible by Severino keeping his rotation spot and allowing three first-inning runs and five runs in four innings. Boone is asked about Severino remaining in the rotation and answers, “Everything is on the table moving forward,” which is the same answer he gave when asked the same question five days earlier after Severino bombed in the first inning in Baltimore.
Saturday, August 5 Giancarlo Stanton elects to not run (or even jog) from second base to home plate on a single to right field and is thrown out at the plate on what would have given the Yankees a lead in a game they are facing Justin Verlander in. Boone defends Stanton not running on the play, calls him “healthy” and says, “It’s just him trying to preserve himself.” (Preserving himself for what? His ridiculously absurd offseason workout routines he posts on social media?)
Sunday, August 6 Trying to win their first series against a team not named the A’s or Royals since June 23-25, Rodon is torched for two home runs and five runs in 2 2/3 innings and then is forced to leave the game with a hamstring injury. It’s his fifth loss in six starts as a Yankee, having never completed six innings for the team so far.
4. This is just the last week of Yankees drama. In the two weeks prior to this timeline, the Yankees fired their hitting coach and hired Boone’s longtime, experience-less friend in his place; lost two of three to the last-place Rockies; got swept in Anaheim with Rodon blowing a kiss to heckling fans and announced Jose Trevino would undergo season-ending wrist surgery after having played since spring training with a wrist tear. And oh yeah, six days prior to the Trevino announcement, Boone said Trevino was OK physically aside from the usual bang-ups a catcher deals with during the season. Ah, the usual bang-ups like tearing your wrist in spring training and then posting a .570 OPS through mid-July before being shut down.
Every other major-league team plays a game each day and occasionally has an injury, trade or signing announcement. Not the Yankees. Each day of the Yankees season is full of lies, hidden injuries, misdiagnosed health problems, underachieving play, confrontations with fans and really just an overall negative shitstorm surrounding a lost season. And nearly half the days also include a loss on the field.
5. The Rizzo situation is completely unsurprising. This is the same organization and medical staff that after 2019 couldn’t diagnose a broken rib and punctured lung in Judge for six months. The same organization Severino told he had forearm pain to in October 2019 and then nothing was done about it until he tore his UCL and needed Tommy John surgery in 2020 spring training. The same organization and medical staff who didn’t do an MRI on Severino in June 2019 when he was returning and then suffered a setback, for which Cashman said if the Yankees could do it all over again, they would have had Severino undergo an MRI. Misdiagnosing is what the Yankees are better at than any other team. They used to be better at winning any other team, but that hasn’t been the case for a while now, and doesn’t look like it will be the case for a while.
6. If you ask ownership and the front office, they will tell you this is a “championship-caliber roster.” Last Tuesday after the trade deadline, Cashman said, “Obviously, we’re in it to win it. So you know, we stayed the course.” They really still believe it, and likely believe it at this moment coming off a 5-7 stretch against the Mets, Orioles, Rays and Astros. They believe it even though they’re 8-1 against the A’s and Royals and 50-53 against all other teams.
The manager believes it. He keeps saying “It’s in front of us” even as the games keep coming off the schedule and they keep losing ground on a postseason berth. The players believe it. Rodon said, “It’s all in front of us,” last Tuesday as if he were doing a Boone impression. And no one believes it more than Harrison Bader, who if I didn’t know any better was auditioning for a future managerial role with the Yankees after Sunday’s loss to the Astros. This is the exchange Bader had with the media on Sunday afternoon.
7. Do you think this was a lost opportunity to take the series from the Astros?
“Actually, I feel like the complete opposite. I thought that for the first time in a long time, a really good game and a really good battle. There wasn’t a single time during that game regardless of what was happening on the other side where we felt like we were out of it. All you can do after nine innings is ask yourself if there was ever a swing or a situation where you put yourself in a position to win the game and obviously the way it came down there we did a great job of that battling back, so I think this is actually a really big momentum boost for us moving forward.”
How much of a concern is it being 4 1/2 games out of a playoff spot, the highest it’s been all year?
“No concern at all. One game at a time. We keep playing this brand of baseball it’s going to be just fine. Like I said, all you can do is put yourself in a position to win and what’s what we did, which feels really good moving forward.“
Bader knows the Yankees lost, right? I mean he started and played all nine innings in Sunday’s loss. He had to know the final score, and yet, those answers make it seem like he has no idea.
But why wouldn’t Bader think everything is going to be “just fine?” Why wouldn’t he not be concerned about the team being 4 1/2 games out a playoff spot with a 16.2 percent chance of reaching the playoffs? Every day since he has become a Yankee a year ago, he has listened to his manager tell the media just that. When they couldn’t win a game last August or September and nearly blew a 15 1/2-game division lead. When they trailed the Astros 3-0 in the ALCS and he used highlights from the 2004 ALCS as a motivational tactic. Boone has created a clubhouse and culture that is comfortable with losing and Cashman let him create it and Hal Steinbrenner let Cashman let Boone create it.
8. As for the “momentum” Bader speaks of, well, momentum in baseball is only as good as the next day’s starting pitcher. Right now, outside of Cole, the Yankees’ starters consist of a pitcher who has lost five of six starts this season and is undergoing an MRI on Monday, a starter who has a 7.74 ERA and doesn’t know if he’s still in the rotation from start to start, a pitcher who is currently in rehab for alcohol abuse, a lefty who has pitched four innings since May 30 and Clarke Schmidt, who was nearly as bad as Severino earlier this season. Momentum doesn’t exist with the Yankees because their rotation is a complete unknown every four out of five days and their offense can disappear at any moment even with Judge (who no one knows if he will play from day to day). It’s why they haven’t won more than three games in a row since May.
The only way the Yankees are going to overcome their now extremely long postseason odds are if they stack wins and win more than three games in a row at a given time. They need a lengthy winning streak, and it’s just doesn’t seem possible with this rotation, with this roster.
9. Part of me still thinks the Yankees will reach the postseason, only to lose in the wild-card round or ALDS and then have the organization think the team simply reaching the playoffs was a success. That scenario would lead to no change within the roster, coaching staff or front office and it would be detrimental to the future success of the Yankees, just like reaching the one-game playoff in 2021 was or barely getting past blowing a 15 1/2-game division lead in 2022 was.
Then again, I’m not sure finishing in fourth or fifth place in the AL East and missing the postseason in a format in which 40 percent league makes the playoffs will lead to any change either. The Yankees haven’t been a true contender since 2019, and the front office continues to believe a two-month stretch from the end of April 2022 to the end of June 2022 is who they really are. They started using the Injury Excuse Tour back on May 4, and that was a month before Judge went down. They will likely turn to it once this season ends. It’s convenient and it prevents them from taking any responsibility for the embarrassment that is spending nearly $300 million on this roster.
10. It’s off to Chicago now for three games against the White Sox, who are 23 games under .500 and took part in a bench-clearing brawl in Cleveland on Saturday. Their season has been over for months, and it was over long before they took two of three from the Yankees in the Bronx back in May. They traded away important roster pieces at last week’s deadline and are counting down the games until this miserable season ends for them.
Anything less than a sweep over the next three nights is unacceptable, and yet, I have no expectation the Yankees will win the series let alone sweep it. If they lose one or more games against the White Sox, the Yankees won’t need Boone to tell everyone they will be fine. They have Bader for that.
The Yankees had a chance to upgrade their roster for the remaining two months of the season before Tuesday’s trade, or a chance to start building for next season. They did neither, then lost another game to the Rays and another game in the standings as well.
The Yankees had a chance to upgrade their roster for the remaining two months of the season before Tuesday’s trade deadline, or a chance to start building for next season. They did neither, then lost another game to the Rays and another game in the standings as well.
1. I knew the Yankees were going to do nothing before Tuesday’s trade deadline, and yet, it’s unbelievable that they did nothing before Tuesday’s trade deadline. The same problems that existed for the Yankees yesterday morning exist this morning. Those same problems have existed for several years, and they continue to go unresolved.
After letting the deadline pass with only trading for an unnecessary middle reliever just before the clock struck 6, Brian Cashman spent the early innings of Tuesday night’s game speaking with the media about what went into the organization’s decision to do nothing. They didn’t buy. They didn’t sell. They did nothing.
2. “We were in play on a lot of different levels … all the way through until the clock stopped,” Cashman said. “Reinforce pitching, positions players, it didn’t matter.”
Cashman didn’t actually say that. Well, he did say it, he just didn’t say it yesterday. He said those words at last year’s deadline, when the same exact problems the Yankees face today were also problems.
“We were entertaining a lot of different concepts and ideas. We were throwing ideas that didn’t find success and receiving ideas that we didn’t gravitate to at the end.”
That was also said last year.
3. Here’s what Cashman said on Tuesday.
“We were being opportunistic buyers if anything made sense, and opportunistic sellers.”
Apparently, nothing made sense. Nothing.
“With the frustration of how we played recently, we became cautious buyers,” Cashman said. “There were a lot of clubs we were heavily discussing things with that I think their intention was potentially sellers, but their teams got hot and they became buyers.”
Cautious buyers is one thing. The Yankees are the couple that goes dealership hopping every week for a new car for years and never pull the trigger, choosing instead to keep driving their same, old car with 190,000 miles and rust all over the exterior.
The only club that fits the description of being a seller-turned-buyer is the Cubs, and Cashman is so clearly talking about Cody Bellinger. Guess what? The Yankees could have had Bellinger in the offseason, just like the Cubs, and all it would have cost them was money. Not prospects, not trying to line up with the Cubs’ needs, not needing the Cubs to go on a losing streak to be sellers. Just money, and the Yankees passed.
4. “I’d say it wasn’t a deep trade deadline in terms of options,” Cashman said. “Navigating it wasn’t easy.”
I think navigating it was easy for the Yankees since they didn’t navigate it. They stood on the side and watched it go by.
Max Scherzer, Justin Verlander, Jordan Montgomery, Aaron Civale, Jordan Hicks, Kendall Graveman, Lance Lynn, David Robertson C.J. Cron Jack Flaherty, Josh Bell, Carlos Santana, Lucas Giolito, Reynaldo Lopez, Jorge Lopez, Dylan Floro, Amed Rosario, and many others were traded. I’d say it was deep enough in terms of options.
5. “No one was able to pry anything away from us that we felt was more valuable than where we’re sitting in the standings a 3.5 games out still.”
No one is ever able to pry anything away from the Yankees. No one could pry away Eduardo Nunez until the Yankees finally released him for nothing. No one could pry away Miguel Andujar until he was released for nothing. No one could pry away Clint Frazier until he was released for nothing. No one has been able to pry away Oswald Peraza, who like the others is too good to trade and somehow not good enough to play for this shitty team. I look forward to the Yankees eventually releasing Peraza for nothing someday.
6. “We stayed the course with what we had because we felt that given the options that were available coming our way … this was the best play for us.”
What you have is the worst team nearly $300 million can buy. The Mets may have a higher payroll and waved the white flag by trading away Scherzer, Verlander, Robertson and Mark Canha, but at least they have a plan. The Yankees have no plan. Outside of Aaron Judge and Gerrit Cole, the team is a collection of underachieving, disappointing, oft-injured players and pitchers. The bullpen is fine, but what’s the point of having a great bullpen if they never have a lead to protect?
To think about where the Yankees were seven years ago today after having sold off every tradeable asset to start playing for the future, and to think about where they were six Octobers ago, coming within one game of the World Series with a roster littered with mid-20s everyday players, and now where they are today is beyond disturbing. The Yankees accomplished nothing during this time, and the only player still standing and playing well for the Yankees from that exciting 2017 team is Judge (unless you think Severino is still standing and doing well for the Yankees).
The dark ages are looming for the Yankees. Stanton and LeMahieu aren’t going anywhere. Rizzo has another year. Torres continues to evade every trade opportunity. Anthony Volpe is more likely to turn out to be a bust than a generational talent, and again, somehow Peraza isn’t good enough to play for this team. The Yankees aren’t going to be able to address their offensive needs this coming offseason because the non-Shohei Ohtani star of the free-agent class is Bader, and the last thing the Yankees should do is bring back the right-handed, oft-injured, can’t-hit-righties and can’t-get-on-base Bader.
What you have is what you get with the Yankees, and the roster that is 47-51 this season against teams not named the A’s and Royals is the same roster that will try to overcome a 3 1/2-game playoff berth deficit over the remaining 55 games, and it’s mostly the same roster you will see on Opening Day 2024. (I’m a little surprised the Yankees didn’t send out one of their clearly-can’t-read-the-room season ticket email offers immediately after the trade deadline ended.)
7. As for Tuesday’s game, like the Orioles, the Rays are so much better at everything than the Yankees. From the last man on the roster through the front office, there’s nothing the Yankees do better than the Rays. You can’t even use the ‘bullpen building’ card when it comes to comparing the Yankees and Rays because the Rays are even better at that.
The Rays traded for the Pirates’ Tyler Glasnow. The Yankees traded for the Pirates’ Jameson Taillon. The Rays gave Zach Eflin a three-year, $40 million deal this past offseason. The Yankees gave Rodon a six-year, $162 million deal this past offseason. The Rays do everything better and more efficiently than the Yankees, and like the Orioles, who have the league’s third-lowest payroll, the Rays’ have the league’s fifth-lowest payroll.
8. The Yankees lost 5-2, and the offense no-showed until there were two outs in the ninth inning, and Rodon no-showed for the fourth time in five starts as a Yankee. But he did clear just over $800,000 in salary for last night’s four-inning, 97-pitch effort, so good for him.
The Yankees were getting shut out until there were two outs in the ninth when they managed to score two runs on four hits. With two on and two outs, Stanton came up as the tying run, but Kevin Cash stopped joking around with Colin Poche and brought in Pete Fairbanks to blow Stanton away with fastballs.
9. The loss was the Yankees’ third straight and fourth in five games in this crucial stretch against the Orioles, Rays and Astros. The Blue Jays hold the final wild-card berth, and they lost for a third straight game as well, so the Yankees have now wasted three days of trying to overcome the Blue Jays.
The division path to the postseason is not an option as the Yankees are 11 games behind the Orioles. The first wild card is not an option as the Yankees are 9 1/2 games behind the Rays. The second wild card is not an option as the Rangers just traded for everyone and the Astros just returned Jose Altuve and Yordan Alvarez from the injured list and brought back last year’s AL Cy Young winner. That leaves the third wild card as the Yankees’ only viable path to the postseason, and “viable” may as well be sarcastic in that context.
10. The Yankees are now two games behind the Red Sox, who also don’t hold a playoff spot, and a 1/2-game behind the Angels. The Yankees have the same record (55-52) as the Mariners, who sold at yesterday’s deadline, while the Yankees stood pat.
“We know that we have better baseball in us,” Cashman said yesterday, “although, we haven’t shown that and proven that.”
I don’t know that the Yankees have better baseball in them. Since July 3 of last season, they are 99-100. They have been a below-.500 team for the equivalent of a full season and then 23 percent of another season. Why should Yankees fans think the remaining 55 games of this season will be different? They shouldn’t.
The Yankees opened a season-defining, seven-game homestand with a 5-1 loss to the Rays. The offense was nowhere to be found and the pitching decisions were beyond puzzling as they fell even further behind in the postseason race.
The Yankees opened a season-defining, seven-game homestand with a 5-1 loss to the Rays. The offense was nowhere to be found and the pitching decisions were beyond puzzling as they fell even further behind in the postseason race.
1. Earlier this season, a friend of mine told me he believes the 2023 Yankees are a social experiment: a test to see how far the organization can push its fans while still maintaining a fan base. At first I laughed because of the comedic way it described this Yankees season, but as the season has progressed, it has become hard to ignore as a possibility. Maybe the Yankees are just fucking with all of us? It sure would explain a lot of decisions they have made this year, and none more than Monday night’s pitching decision.
2. Leading up to first pitch against the Rays, Domingo German was scratched with “discomfort in his armpit area.” An odd and untimely injury that prevented German from playing catch on Sunday forced the Yankees to call up Jhony Brito to start in his place. Aaron Boone said German felt good, but was expected to see a doctor, and if he turned out to be OK, he would slotted back into the rotation within the next few days.
Brito started and got rocked. He gave up five runs and four home runs in four innings, and after giving up back-to-back bombs in the fourth inning, German started warming up in the Yankees bullpen. Yes, German. The German that was scratched a few hours earlier and was said to need to visit a doctor for an evaluation. Just about an hour after the first pitch of the game that German was supposed to throw but didn’t throw due to injury, he was warming up to enter the game in relief of Brito.
3. How could this be? How could German go from being unable to play catch on Sunday to being scratched on Monday to suddenly being healthy enough to enter the game he was supposed to start? What happened to seeing a doctor? Did he have a telehealth appointment during the second inning?
“He got cleared with Dr. Ahmad after he saw him in the 5:00 hour,” Boone said after the Yankees’ 5-1 loss.
Every single day the Yankees create at least one bizarre headline that borders on the unbelievable. Watching this team is like watching a cheesy, unrealistic soap opera in which the plot makes little to no sense.
When I saw German warming up, I thought maybe the decision to flip Brito and German was Boone trying to pull a fast one on the Rays like he tried in Game 2 of the 2020 ALDS with Deivi Garcia and JA Happ.
I wasn’t the only one to think that as he was asked by the media if he was using the same strategy from 2020 on Monday.
“No,” Boone said emphatically, shaking his head in disgust that the question was asked.
The fact multiple people had the thought Boone was trying to be strategic with the starting pitching change and that the question was reasonable to ask him sums up his era of managing the Yankees well.
4. German ended up pitching more innings in relief (5) than Brito pitched as the starter (4). German held the Rays scoreless for his five innings and allowed just two hits. Good thing he didn’t start.
Had he started, he would have had to be as dominant as he was in relief because once again the Yankees offense failed to show up. One run on three hits and three walks is all the Yankees were able to “mount” (to use a Boone buzz word).
5. The Yankees had their chances to get back in the game. In the third inning, trailing 3-1, with Aaron Judge at the plate representing the tying run, Tyler Glasnow gladly threw four pitches out of the zone to walk Judge. The Rays put the tying run on base to pitch to Anthony Rizzo and Glasnow struck him out on four pitches.
Why does Boone think Rizzo will come out of this slump that is more than two months old?
“He’s Anthony Rizzo. He’s healthy.”
Well, OK then! Who am I to question Boone with that kind of analysis?
Has Boone thought about moving him down in the lineup?
“It’s something I have considered,” Boone said. And yet, he hasn’t done it.
6. Boone’s carefree attitude has rubbed off on Rizzo to the point that Rizzo now sounds like Boone. Here are some quotes from Rizzo from Sunday night in Baltimore.
“The beauty of this game is you get to come in tomorrow and keep working,” Rizzo said of his slump. “Just keep working, it has to turn. Just keep on working.”
The reference of “tomorrow.” The idea that “it has to turn.” It’s like Boone wrote out Rizzo’s answers on notecards for him.
“We have the guys in here,” Rizzo said of needing to add at the deadline. “The production can come from within here.”
Hmm, that sounds an awful lot like Boone claiming the guys in the room are more than capable.
“We have 50 plus games left,” Rizzo said of urgency. “With this division we can get hot and teams can get cold.”
You have to love the urgency of the Yankees. It’s as if the season doesn’t have a finite amount of games and will just continue until they have claimed a playoff because they’re the Yankees. I was waiting for Rizzo to throw out “It’s all in front of us,” as a tip of the cap to his manager.
7. Joe Girardi was fired for being too tense, as Brian Cashman was worried Girardi’s intensity was rubbing off on the roster. So he went out and hired a guy who experiences as much comfort in losing as he does blowing bubbles and fidgeting with his oversized watch in the dugout. Why do you think the Yankees continue to make foolish mistakes on the basepaths? Why do you think mental errors are swept under the rug? It’s because there’s no accountability on the team. There are no repercussions for poor play. Boone will concoct a lie how he likes a player’s aggressiveness when he is thrown out by a mile trying to take an extra base, and he’ll defend the team’s big free-agent starting pitcher signing after he blows a kiss to heckling fans because blowing a kiss is better than getting into an altercation.
8. Hal Steinbrenner doesn’t hold Brian Cashman accountable. Cashman doesn’t hold Boone accountable. Boone doesn’t hold his players accountable. When Cashman spends $300 million on a roster that is 47-50 against teams not named the A’s or Royals, he keeps his job. When Boone uses the Yankees’ 2004 ALCS loss as motivation for the 2022 Yankees’ ALCS deficit or says his offense had “good at-bats” after striking out 18 times in game, nothing happens to him. When Rizzo has one home run in 10 weeks, he stays hitting in the top four spots in the lineup, and when Josh Donaldson weigts more than his batting average, he still hits fifth.
The Yankees replaced a manager from the tough Midwest who knew how to win as a player and manager and did both with the Yankees with a laid-back Southern California Pollyanna who’s more concerned with getting the lowest rarity score in a clubhouse Immaculate Grid competition than beating the Orioles or Rays and who has never won anything as a player or a manager.
9. After Rizzo failed to get the Yankees back in the game in the third, they had one more chance in the sixth. Trailing 5-1, Giancarlo Stanton came to the plate with Judge on third and Rizzo on first. Stanton could keep the rally going or possibly even get the Yankees to within one run with one swing. Except his one swing came on the first pitch he saw and that swing resulted in a weak 72.8 mph ground ball into a 5-4-3 double play to end the threat and the inning.
It was another banner night for the Yankees’ 3- and 4-hitters of Rizzo and Stanton, as they combined to go 1-for-8 with three strikeouts. Judge was given three free passes, and the embarrassing protection behind him couldn’t do anything. Rizzo now sits at 0-for-30 with two outs and runners in scoring position for the season and the 0-for dropped Stanton’s batting average to a humiliating .198.
10. The Yankees lost for the third time in four games in a crucial 10-game stretch against three teams that are direct competition for a playoff berth. Do they care? Not really. There’s always tomorrow as Annie Boone preaches to his players. Except there isn’t. The Yankees are running out of tomorrows to count on, and if the rest of the week at Yankee Stadium against the Rays and Astros goes as badly as Monday night, the rest of the season will be a meaningless formality.
The Yankees went to Baltimore needing to win series and stack wins. Instead, they leave Baltimore having dropped another series and remain in last place and out of a playoff spot.
The Yankees went to Baltimore needing to win series and stack wins. Instead, they leave Baltimore having dropped another series and remain in last place in the AL East and out of a playoff spot.
1. I didn’t know what to expect from Luis Severino on Sunday night. I had a fear he wouldn’t be good because he has been mostly not good this season. But I hoped for the best and braced myself for the worst.
Well, maybe I didn’t exactly brace myself for the worst because for as bad as Severino has mostly been this season, what unfolded in the first inning isn’t one of the scenarios I visualized taking place: single, single, double, double, walk, home run to open the game. The first six Orioles Severino faced all scored. The Yankees trailed 6-0 before they could record an out, and just like that, the game was over.
2. I knew what to expect from Dean Kremer: a few runs at best and a lot of strikeouts. It was just over three weeks ago that Kremer went to Yankee Stadium and struck out 10 in seven innings of one-run ball. The Yankees had won the first two games of that four-game series, and Orioles legend and broadcaster Jim Palmer told Michael Kay on the day of that July 5 game that it was the biggest game of the season for the Orioles to prevent a second-half tailspin. Kremer stepped up, shut down the Aaron Judge-less Yankees and the Orioles went on an eight-game winning streak that eventually led to them taking over first place in the AL East.
With Kremer once again facing a Judge-less Yankees lineup, Sunday’s offensive performance wasn’t just expected, it was inevitable.
3. Kremer struck out seven Yankees and the Orioles bullpen struck out another 11. In an immensely important game, Aaron Boone sat Judge and gave the finally-heating-up DJ LeMahieu the night off and the rest of the Yankees struck out 18 times.
“Outside of the strikeouts, I thought at-bats were building off of last night,” Boone said. “I thought we grinded out really well.”
Outside of the team striking out for 18 of their 27 outs, Boone thought the offense did a good job grinding out at-bats. There’s no end for how far this idiot will will go to spin something into a positive.
“We made it really tough on Kremer,” Boone said.
Two weeks ago, the Yankees were shut down by Griffin Canning in Anaheim as Canning recorded a career-high 12 strikeouts. What did Boone say about his offense that night? “At least we made Canning work hard to do it.”
There was Boone again on Sunday night, citing the Yankees making Kremer work hard as a reason to be pleased with his team losing a game to the Orioles, losing the season series to the Orioles and losing on a day in which the Blue Jays, Rangers, Astros and Red Sox also lost.
4. “I thought we carried some of that momentum in from last night,” Boone said.
“Last night” refers to Saturday night. On Saturday night, the Yankees scored eight runs against a starting pitcher who was sent down to Double-A immediately after the game and a starter-turned-reliever due to performance with a 5.93 ERA. There was no momentum carried over because there is no momentum with this team. Unless they’re playing the A’s or Royals they can’t win back-to-back games. And now they are 47-49 when they play teams other than the A’s or Royals.
Since winning two of three against the A’s in the last week of June, the Yankees have lost two of three to the Cardinals, split a four-game series against the Orioles after winning the first two, lost two of three at home to the Cubs, lost two of three to the Rockies, got swept by the Angels, swept the Royals, split two with the Mets and lost a series to the Orioles. The Yankees finish July having won one series in the month and have lost four straight rubber games.
5. I have always liked Severino. Even when he couldn’t get out of the first inning in the 2017 wild-card game. Even when he sucked in the second half of 2018. Even when he didn’t know the start time for Game 3 of the 2018 ALDS and couldn’t get a 10th out in that game. Even when the injuries started piling up in 2019, forced him to miss all of 2020 and nearly all of 2021. Even when more injuries forced him to miss most of 2022. Even when he cited exit velocity and the Crawford Boxes in Houston as the reason for him losing Game 2 of the 2022 ALCS. Even as he has pitched as bad as any Yankees starter in the team’s history has pitched this season, allowing 108 baserunners in 57 2/3 innings.
When news broke in 2015 of a 21-year-old Severino getting called up to the Yankees, I anticipated him one day being the ace of a championship Yankees team. Instead, I will have to settle for him being one of the faces of the Baby Bombers era that once has so much hope and promise and instead turned into an unmitigated disaster. On Sunday, Severino allowed at least nine runs in a game for the second time in July becoming the first Yankee since 1934 to have two of those starts in a calendar month. It’s hard to believe Severino will get the ball in five days against the Astros.
6. It’s hard to believe Anthony Rizzo is under contract next season with the Yankees at $17 million and then has a $17 million option or $6 million buyout for 2025. Rizzo isn’t just bad, like most of the Yankees lineup he’s unplayable, and yet he has to play. When you miss on all of your free-agent signings, bring in a litany of oft-injured players and fail to develop your own talent, you get stuck with a lineup full of underachieving, unplayable players that then have to play. In a season in which the Yankees began paying Aaron Hicks to play for the first-place Orioles and continued to roster, play and bat Josh Donaldson fifth in the lineup, Rizzo has become the face of this historically bad Yankees offense.
Rizzo has one home run since May 20, a wall-scraping, short-porch job at Yankee Stadium that wouldn’t have been out of any of the other 29 stadiums in the majors. That home run came off of Jordan Lyles, whose season is making Severino’s look 1999 Pedro Martinez’s. Since that home run, Rizzo has a 53 wRC+, which is the lowest among qualified hitters in that time, making him the worst hitter in the majors for more than 10 weeks now. On Sunday night, Rizzo went 0-for-5 and his OPS fell to a career-worst .710.
7. Not far behind that abysmal OPS is Giancarlo Stanton with a .722. ESPN showed a graphic on Sunday night letting viewers know Stanton has homered in seven of his last 15 games. Here is the list of pitchers he hit those seven home runs off of.
Smyly is the closest thing to a household name of those seven and you would have to be from a household that really follows baseball to know who he is. Smyly is on his fifth team in five years and seventh in 10 major-league seasons.
Rucker has a 5.03 ERA.
Gomber has a 5.83 ERA.
Seabold has a 6.95 ERA.
Silseth was making his ninth career start.
Coleman has a 9.95 ERA.
Wells was sent to Double-A after his performance on Saturday.
So if you’re a journeyman hanging on to a major-league career, the 26th man on a roster, a rookie trying to learn how to pitch at this level or an arm so out of whack you get demoted two levels down, and you throw a middle-middle fastball or hang a breaking ball, Stanton may take you deep. Other than that, Stanton isn’t going to do anything.
With or without Judge, these two have to hit. It’s been the same rhetoric all season and the season is dwindling down. It could be the last week of September and the Yankees could be eliminated from postseason contention and Boone will still be saying the Yankees just “need to get a few guys going” and that “they are going to get on a roll.”
8. No one is asking Rizzo to be and no one thinks he can be the .901 OPS player he was for the Cubs from 2014-19. No one is asking Stanton to be and no one thinks he can be the .908 OPS player he was for a decade from 2012-21. All anyone is asking is that they don’t be automatic outs, which is what they have been for the majority of this season, and what Stanton has been since the start of last season.
As for the rest of the lineup? There’s no hope outside a possibly-returning-to-form LeMahieu or the occasional few-game streak from Gleyber Torres. Jake Bauers plays infrequently, Harrison Bader is at best a fourth outfielder on a good team, Anthony Volpe is a disappointment and Kyle Higashioka and Isiah Kiner-Falefa will again be disappointments once their playing time increases and they are exposed like their career numbers suggest.
9. Boone continues to preach that the rest of the season and the Yankees’ path to the postseason is “right in front of them” to take advantage of. The only thing that appears to be in front of the Yankees is more losing. They have three against the Rays and four against the Astros. Next week’s “break” in the schedule comes against the White Sox, who took two of three from the Yankees in the Bronx earlier this season. Then it’s nine straight against the Marlins, Braves and Red Sox.
10. On Monday night, the Yankees will face Tyler Glasnow, a real, legitimate starting pitcher with ace-like stuff.
“We need to be ready to go,” Boone said of the upcoming series against the Rays. “Obviously, with the urgency of where we’re at in the season.”
“Where we’re at in the season” wouldn’t happen to be with 57 games remaining and the Yankees in last place in the AL East and 3 1/2 games out of a playoff spot, would it? The “urgency” Boone speaks couldn’t be sitting Judge and LeMahieu on Sunday, could it?
With the way the offense has performed against back-of-the-rotation arms and now-out-of-the-league starters, it’s difficult to envision a scenario in which Glasnow doesn’t dominate the Yankees lineup. If he does, Boone will be there after the game to tell us at least they made Glasnow work hard.
