The Yankees had another late lead, and they blew it in what was another loss. The Yankees let Shohei Ohtani beat them in a 4-3, 10-inning loss in Anaheim.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. For the majority of the season the Yankees have done everything they possibly can on the field to tell the front office and ownership that this roster isn’t worth investing in prior to the trade deadline. Over the last two weeks they have gone on a full-blown campaign to make the message clear: THIS TEAM ISN’T GOOD. Monday night served as the latest reminder of this and the most spectacular of all.

The Yankees lost to the Angels 4-3 in 10 innings on Monday night. It was their seventh loss in their last nine games, and their major-league-leading 18th extra-inning road loss since 2020. They once again ran the bases like they needed to be pegged Wiffle ball-style to be called out, struck out a ridiculous 17 times, blew a late lead and managed as if they wagered against their own team.

2. After failing to beat up on Austin Gomber and Chase Anderson and their near-7.00 ERAs, I joked a few hours before Monday night’s series opener in Anaheim that Griffin Canning and his 4.62 ERA may as well be late-’90s Pedro Martinez. And late-‘90s Martinez he was, striking out a career-high 12 Yankees and throwing 120 pitches as if it were a postseason game for the Angels. Griffin couldn’t get threw the third inning in his previous start against the Dodgers, and in his start before that, he allowed five earned runs in six innings to the Diamondbacks.

“The one good thing was they were kind of up against with the bullpen, same as us,” Boone said of his offense against Canning. “We were able to drive his count up and make him work at least.”

In terms of Aaron Boone Moral Victories, the Yankees lead the league. If the actual standings cared about Aaron Boone Moral Victories, the Yankees would have clinched the AL East already this season and would be looking at their sixth straight World Series championship.

But all driving Canning’s pitch count up did was turn the ball over to the Angels’ bullpen, which the Yankees also couldn’t hit.

The Astros put up 28 runs this past weekend in their three-game series against the Angels, and scored 18 runs against the Angels’ bullpen. The Yankees managed to scratch across one run in 4 1/3 innings against the same bullpen.

3. The one bright spot in the offense came from Oswald Peraza. Peraza hasn’t been good enough to be a Yankee in the organization’s eyes nearly all season, but he was good enough to bat leadoff on Monday night in his first start since his recent call-up. I will never understand the Yankees, but I don’t think it’s possible to understand them since they have no idea what they are doing.

Peraza was passed over in spring training in favor of Anthony Volpe. Volpe has maintained his everyday spot all season despite his massive struggles, and yet, Volpe was hitting five spots lower in the order on Monday night in Anaheim than Peraza, who needed a Josh Donaldson calf injury to get back majors. Make it make sense.

Peraza reached base all five times in the game with a single and four walks. 

4. It kind of was a postseason game for the Angels. At 46-48 entering the game, the Angels are in an even worse position than the Yankees. Phil Nevin is managing for his job, and the team needs to win and reach the postseason to have a prayer in re-signing Shohei Ohtani in the offseason. Despite lacking any major-league-quality hitters outside of Ohtani and the injured Mike Trout, no starting pitching outside of Ohtani and a horrendous bullpen, the Angels were able to battle their way to a win over the Yankees. It was a postseason game for the Yankees too, but you wouldn’t know it from the way they played and managed.

In the fifth inning with the game knotted at 0 and runners on the corners with two outs, Boone chose to intentionally walk Shohei Ohtani. It was the right decision. After years of letting the opposition’s best hitter beat his Yankees (cough, Rafael Devers, cough), Boone decided he wasn’t going to let the Angels’ only hitter with Mike Trout injured beat him. He put Ohtani on first, Luis Severino got Mickey Moniak to line out, and the game remained tied at 0.

Eventually the Yankees broke through and in the seventh inning, they had a 3-1 lead and were nine outs away from an important win (especially with the Orioles and Rays having lost earlier in the night). Boone turned to Michael King in relief of Severino, who finally provided the Yankees with a solid start (6 IP, 1 ER with a season-high 13 swings-and-misses), and King immediately struck out Trey Cabbage.

5. King got ahead of Eduardo Escobar 0-2, but then threw four pitches out of the zone to walk the Angels’ 9-hitter. The lineup turned over to Zach Neto, and King made quick work of him, getting him to strike out on five pitches. Then with two outs, Ohtani walked to the plate, representing the tying run with Escobar on first.

Boone had already set a smart precedent earlier in the game that Ohtani wasn’t going to be the reason the Yankees lost the game. If Moniak were to beat the Yankees, so be it. But it wasn’t going to be the best baseball of all time.

Or was it.

Boone chose to have King pitch to Ohtani.

6. King fell behind Ohtani with a first-pitch ball and Ohtani fouled away second-pitch 94-mph sinker at the bottom of the zone. Ohtani foul tipped a 96-mph, middle-middle fastball for a second strike, and King was in the driver seat. Rather than expand the zone with a 1-2 count, though, King came back in the zone with a 97-mph fastball and Ohtani crushed it 403 feet over the left-center wall. Tie game.

Why didn’t Boone put Ohtani on? Well, the Yankees manager said he never even considered it as an option.

“No, no, no,” Boone said. “Maybe if he Escobar had gotten to second base and fallen behind in the count or something. Not there.”

A triple “no” from Boone to emphatically describe how serious he was about not doing anything other than pitching Ohtani there.

“No, not in that spot,” Boone reiterated. “The guy hitting behind him is hitting .330 too.”

7. The guy hitting behind him was Moniak. The same Moniak Boone chose to face instead of Ohtani earlier in the game. As is always the case with Boone, he’s like a Blackjack player that stays with a 16 and the dealer showing a 7 sometimes, and then other times hits in the same situation.

Moniak entered the game hitting .326 in 151 plate appearances. He is a career .239/.285/.444 hitter in 318 plate appearances. Boone chose to pitch to the best power hitter in the game this season for fear of Moniak representing the tying run. It would be like an opposing manager choosing to pitch to Aaron Judge and citing Billy McKinney being on deck as the reason why.

“We did a lot of good things tonight,” Boone said with a straight face.

It was yet another meltdown from King on the mound. After unraveling at Coors Field on Friday night, he did the same at Angel Stadium.

8. Meredith Marakovits asked Boone after the game about King “struggling his last seven or eight times” pitching, and Boone was quick to interrupt Marakovits.

“Yeah, I wouldn’t say the last seven or eight times,” Boone said. “I would say he struggled there for about three or four then had a couple of really good ones.”

Who to believe? Marakovits, the well-established clubhouse reporter who always does her research, or Boone, the compulsive liar who you can’t trust to tell you what day of the week it is?

Here are King’s last 12 appearances:

2 IP, 2 ER
1.1 IP, 1 ER
1 IP, 0 ER
1.1 IP, 3 ER
0.2, 1 ER
1 IP, 1 ER
1 IP, 0 ER
3.1 IP, 0 ER
2.2 IP, 1 ER
1.2 IP, 0 ER
2 IP, 2 ER
0.2 IP, 2 ER

“Tonight I thought stuff-wise he was good,” Boone said of King’s game-ruining performance. Maybe ask Ohtani how good his stuff was.

9. Once the game went to extra innings, the Yankees were doomed. Not only because they are the worst road team in the majors since the automatic runner rule was implemented three years ago, but because they let the Bullpen Budget rule their decisions. No matter the month, the score or the importance of the game, Boone isn’t about to use his top relievers when he desperately needs them.

“Wandy, Tommy, Hamilton were down,” Boone said, “And Clay I was going to use in a save situation.”

Ah, the old save your best reliever to pitch to a fake statistic in an extremely important game. Always a wise decision that never comes back to haunt any manager.

Because every elite reliever was “down,” Boone turned to Nick Ramirez. Ramirez was the one who allowed the game-tying home run in extra innings in Colorado on Sunday, and on Monday, he took the loss as the Angels walked off on the Yankees.

10. “There were a lot of good things that happened tonight,” Boone said, “Especially from a compete standpoint.”

I’m glad the Yankees had a lot of “compete” in them in Anaheim. Let me know where I can find the amount of “compete” games up they are on the Rays, Orioles, Blue Jays and Astros in the standings.

Only one thing that mattered happened on Monday and it wasn’t a good thing: the Yankees lost. In last place in the AL East and now 2 1/2 games out of a playoff spot, that’s all that matters.

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The Yankees picked up post-All-Star break right where they left off. After losing two of three to the Cubs before the break, they lost two of three to the Rockies after it. They are in last place in the AL East and are out of a playoff spot.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. The Yankees got a gift. They got a gift of opening the “second half” of the season with nine games against the NL-worst Rockies, Mike Trout-less Angels and barely-better-than-the-A’s Royals. It would be the perfect opportunity for the Yankees to make up ground in the postseason race, and possibly position themselves to hold a playoff spot when Aaron Judge potentially returns, and for when Brian Cashman finally does what he was expected to do in the offseason and upgrade the offense. They have pissed away one-third of this scheduling gift.

In the last two weeks, the Yankees have had a third player in eight seasons suspended for domestic violence, went 3-3 on a road trip against the last-place A’s and last-place Cardinals, lost a home series to the Cubs, disgraced the iconic Yankees uniform with a Starr Insurance jersey sleeve advertisement, fell to last place in the AL East, fell out of a playoff spot, fired their hitting coach and hired Aaron Boone’s friend of 30 years with no coaching experience for the position and now lost two of three to the worst team in the NL.

2. “It’s baseball, Major League Baseball,” Boone said when asked how he could call his Yankees “championship-caliber” when they can’t beat the worst team in the NL. “Save it with that question.”

The Rockies are barely Major League Baseball. They are rostering the two worst starting pitchers in the majors in their rotation with the only goal of them eating innings until their miserable, lost season ends. Austin Gomber entered Friday with a 6.40 ERA and an .884 OPS against (the equivalent of every hitter being about Juan Soto against him). The Yankees scored two runs off him before they made an out in the game and then didn’t score another run off him or any Rockies pitcher for the rest of the game. On Sunday, Chase Anderson entered the game with a 6.89 ERA and a .932 OPS against (the equivalent of every hitter being about Freddie Freeman against him). He shut out the Yankees for five innings.

3. So much for Sean Casey “having an impact” like he promised he would when he was sketchily hired. I say “sketchily” because this is what A.J. Pierzynski said he heard at the Home Run Derby in Seattle about how the firing of Dillon Lawson and hiring of Casey supposedly went down.

“When were at the Home Run Derby, someone told us the story of how it happened, and this was like a week ago that Boonie called Casey and said, ‘Hey, will you be my hitting coach?'” Pierzynski said. “And Casey’s like, ‘I don’t know, brother,’ and then he called him back and said he would do it because he said it was a no-lose situation. If they do great, he’s the hero, and if they do shitty like they already are, he’s like, ‘Eh, it’s two months.'”

If that’s true, and there’s no reason to believe it isn’t, since Pierzynski is more than well connected in the league, and because Boone is buddies with Casey, it’s a pretty disturbing way for Cashman and the Yankees to conduct business, and also proves their timeline of the events were a flat-out lie. Cashman said he asked for Hal Steinbrenner’s “blessing” to make the first in-season coaching change of his general manager tenure just before he fired Lawson. (As if Hall Steinbrenner even knew who Lawson was.) Only the best from and for the New York Yankees.

4. Casey was made out to be a hero by YES in the first inning of Friday’s game when he was shown celebrating Giancarlo Stanton’s first-inning home run off Gomber as if he were the winner of the current historic Powerball drawing. I didn’t see much of Casey for the rest of Friday’s game as the Yankees never scored again in the game, and didn’t see any of him for the rest of the weekend, as the Yankees scored two runs off Gomber and Anderson in 11 innings, and at one point, had a streak of 12 straight scoreless innings at Coors Field. Casey was never going to fix the Yankees because they are unfixable. Hitting coaches are neither good nor bad. My two-year-old and one-year-old could be the head and assistant hitting coaches of the Braves right now and it would have no impact on Ronald Acuna’s inevitable NL MVP win.

The Yankees scored two runs on Friday, managed to score six on Saturday and then only scored on Sunday because of a parade of comedic errors from the Rockies’ defense. (There’s a reason why they’re 22 games under .500). With Sunday’s loss, the Yankees maintained their place in the basement of the division and fell to two games out of the last playoff spot.

5. Seven years ago, the Yankees were slogging their way through July when Cashman decided to sell instead of buy and reset the Yankees’ roster. This July feels a lot like that July. Here is what he said about July 2016 after the 2016 season.

“It was a series of twists and turns of this year. We obviously had high hopes,” Cashman said. “It was a mixed bag. It was a very frustrating and difficult process in the first three months of the season. Ultimately, we know when the dust settled, when it’s all said and done, the season did not achieve the stated goal, which was the first get to the playoffs and try to compete for a championship in October.”

That sounds a lot like this season, doesn’t it? He also said this about the decision to sell at the 2016 deadline.

“We have a worldwide network of fans that we’re proud to have. They’re very sophisticated,” Cashman said. “This was something that we think is something that they wanted to transpire, and they wanted us to press the reset button. And you know, in many cases I was tired of seeing what was transpiring in the first few months this year. Been there, done that, it’s time to do something that wasn’t part of the DNA. I think our fanbase recognizes what we did in July, and responded in kind with a lot of excitement.”

6. Maybe the Yankees will rip off six straight wins against the Angels and Royals and a week from today they will hold a playoff spot with a week to go until the deadline. But if they don’t, and this road trip that is off to a catastrophic start continues to unravel, they should not invest in this team and further deplete their farm system to fill holes they could have filled in the offseason using just cash, the thing they make more of than any team. Unfortunately, no matter what happens between now and the trade deadline, I don’t see the Yankees selling. And no matter what happens between now and the trade deadline, Boone isn’t worried.

7. “I’m not worried about where we are,” Boone said on Friday in response to falling into last place in the division. “It’s all right there in front of us.”

Boone has never been worried a day as Yankees manager, and why would he be? As long as Cashman holds his position, Boone is bulletproof. Boone survived the 2018 ALDS Games 3 and 4 debacle. He survived his bullpen management in the 2019 ALCS. He survived his pitching decisions in he 2020 ALDS. He survived the Yankees losing home-field advantage for the 2021 wild-card game and a loss in that game. He survived his choices in Game 1 of the 2022 ALCS and using the 2004 ALCS as a motivation tactic for his team when trailing 3-0 in that series. He received a multi-year contract extension with an option after creating a comfortable-with-losing culture in a clubhouse that doesn’t know what the term “accountability” means. There’s always tomorrow in Boone’s world as he preaches what the Broadway orphan sang about. The sun will come up on Monday in Anaheim for Boone as Yankees manager, and it will come up at the end of the season when it inevitably ends in an early playoff exit or even without a playoff appearance.

8. When the postseason expanded to five teams and the one-game, wild-card playoff, I wasn’t a fan. I didn’t want to have to experience the Yankees possibly playing in a one-game playoff. (Little did I know, in 10 years with that format, they would play in four of them.) Even though I didn’t like the idea of the Yankees appearing in a one-game playoff for my health, it made it easier to stomach knowing they would never miss the playoffs with 33 percent of the league reaching the postseason inn that format. (Little did I I know, they would miss the playoffs three times in the 10 seasons with that format.)

When the postseason expanded to six teams last year, I had the same feeling as I did when they expanded to five. I didn’t want the Yankees to have to play in a best-of-3 and possibly even a best-of-3 with all three games on the road. But I knew with six playoff teams per league and 40 percent of teams reaching the postseason, the Yankees would never miss the postseason again. Not with their financial resources. Well, the possibility they won’t reach the postseason is already a thing in Year 2 of the format.

9. The Yankees need to pass the Red Sox to be the first team out of the playoffs. Then they need to pass the Astros who they are two games in back of for the last playoff spot, or the Blue Jays who they are three games in back of. The first wild-card spot is gone as a path to the postseason. If you think the Yankees can catch the Orioles, then you think they can catch the Rays since the Rays now have more losses than the Orioles and are only ahead of them in the standings because of percentage points since they have played four more games. The Yankees have two paths to the playoffs, and the Red Sox, Astros and Blue Jays stand in their way. Not exactly a great place to be.

10. “We got two-and-a-half months to put ourselves in a position to be championship-caliber,” Boone said on Sunday, walking back claims from the Yankees that they are already “championship-caliber.”

I don’t look at the rest of the season as “Hey, the Yankees have two-and-a-half months to turn the season around.” I look at it like “I can’t believe I have two watch this team for another two-and-a-half months.”

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The Yankees ended the “first half” of the season with an embarrassing home series loss to the Cubs. When the “second half” of the season begins, the Yankees won’t be holding a postseason spot.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. During the first weekend of May, the Yankees went to Tropicana Field and lost two of three to the Rays. In that series finale they blew a 6-0 lead with Gerrit Cole on the mound. The loss dropped the Yankees to 18-17 on the season and 10 games out in the AL East.

Here is what I wrote at the time:

If you’re a Yankees fan who values your health and well-being, stop watching this 2023 team right now. Just walk away from this miserable roster, moronic management and clueless front office and enjoy life. Write down a list of things you wish to learn or achieve and take action. Always wanted to learn how to play a specific instrument? Well, 7 to 10 p.m. just opened up for the next five months on your calendar.

The 2023 Yankees are truly awful. Their wins are painful to acquire and their losses are excruciating to sit through. There’s very little to be excited about when watching the team, and when Aaron Judge isn’t playing there’s basically nothing to be excited about. (This is exactly why Hal Steinbrenner had to write Judge a blank check in free agency. He’s the only marketable everyday player on the team, and likely the only thing from keeping a faction of Yankees fans from learning guitar or piano instead of consuming Yankees baseball for the rest of 2023.)

That was two months and 56 games ago. Think about the hundreds of hours you could have spent learning guitar or piano or a new language, or doing anything other than watching Hal Steinbrenner exponentially grow his inherited net worth despite selling a mediocre-at-best product.

This weekend provided a reminder that this Yankees team sucks. They are on a path to nowhere and all I will have to look back on at the end of the season is the thousands of hours I wasted consuming a bad baseball team that could have been spent doing anything else.

2. Sunday’s loss was the perfect way for the Yankees’ “first half” to end. It wasn’t as magnificent as their loss in the final game of the “first half” of 2021, when they held a 7-2 lead in the bottom of the ninth in Houston, only to allow six runs, including a three-run, walk-off home run to Jose Altuve, but it was still quite spectacular. Aaron Boone managed his team to a painstaking loss, and then after the game, his biggest supporter in Brian Cashman fired the team’s hitting coach. It was the first time in Cashman’s 26 years as general manager that he fired a coach in-season.

“I wanted to give things a chance to work its way through, but I feel honestly at this point, it’s not going to improve, at least as it sits,” Cashman said. “It doesn’t mean the offense couldn’t have gotten better organically, but I feel like we’ll be better served with a new messenger.”

3. I’m more upset that Lawson got fired than I am that the Yankees lost two of three to the Cubs and fell out of a postseason spot. Not because I like Lawson or think he’s a good coach, since I don’t think any hitting coach is good or bad or matters. But because of what his firing represents. The same way I didn’t hate Rougned Odor the person/player or Aaron Hicks the person/player as Yankees, I just hated what they represented as Yankees. The firing of Lawson represents Cashman scapegoating yet another Yankees employee in what has been nearly 14 years of his own roster mismanagement.

4. This 2023 roster Cashman built is a disgrace. The Yankees have the highest payroll in the American League, and it’s comical Mr. Fiscally Responsible Hal Steinbrenner allowed his general manager to spend $300 million in such an irresponsible manner. If as a teenager, your parents had given you $300 to go to the store and buy groceries for the week for your family and you came back with two-dozen two-liter bottles of soda, 14 bags of Sour Patch Kids, six tubs of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream, eight boxes of Chips Ahoy cookies, four loaves of bread, seven bags of chips and three overpriced, about-to-expire rotisserie chickens, I don’t think you would be allowed to do the grocery shopping for your family again. Somehow, Cashman gets to keep building the Yankees roster.

5. There is nothing the Yankees can do at the trade deadline to go from the team they are now to a team capable of winning the World Series without running into a month-long streak of incredible, unimaginable luck in October. This is who they are and who they are going to be and that is a collection of overpaid, underachieving, aging disappointments. Their third baseman has a .232 on-base percentage. Their designated hitter, whose only job is to hit, has a .276 on-base percentage. Six of their nine everyday player have sub-.300 on-base percentages. They have given 533 combined plate appearances to players with a sub-.600 OPS. In the last week, they have been thoroughly dominated by Jack Flaherty, Jordan Montgomery, Dean Kremer, Kyle Bradish and Jameson Taillon. In late June, they lost games started by Paul Blackburn, and Kaleb Ort.

6. The 2014 Yankees didn’t have a single everyday player under 30. They did have 40-year-old Derek Jeter, 40-year-old Ichiro Suzuki, 38-year-old Alfonso Soriano, 37-year old Carlos Beltran, 36-year old Brian Roberts  and 34-year-old Mark Teixeira, as Cashman rebuilt the 2005 All-Star team nine years too late. Kevin Long lost his job over that lineup.

The 2015 Yankees relied on 39-year-old Alex Rodriguez, Jacoby Ellsbury, Chase Hadley and Stephen Drew. When that didn’t work out, Long’s replacement Jeff Pentland lost his job after one season.

Pentland’s replacement Alan Cockrell oversaw the 2016 on-the-fly rebuild, Aaron Judge’s historic rookie season, the best full season of Gary Sanchez’s career and a 25-home run season from Didi Gregorius. The 2017 Yankees came within one win of the World Series, and it didn’t matter. Like his manager, Cockrell was fired.

Marcus Thames worked his way up through the organization and replaced Cockrell. After four years, Thames failed to get all the right-handed bats Cashman acquired and signed to learn how to become switch hitters, so he was fired.

Then there was Lawson, who lasted one-and-a-half seasons. After firing Lawson, Cashman moved quickly to hire Sean Casey with his impressive coaching resume of zero years of experience. Much like Cashman’s hand-picked manager in Boone who was hired with zero years of experience. And what do you know, Boone and Casey are long-time friends and former teammates.

7. “I’ve had the great pleasure of knowing Sean for close to 30 years, and his passion for hitting is infectious,” Boone said. “For anyone that’s ever come in contact with him, his ability to inspire is one of his greatest gifts, and I can’t wait for him to tap into our players and help them reach their potential. There’s no doubt in my mind that he will have a tremendous impact on our team.”

There’s no doubt in Boone’s mind Casey will have a tremendous impact. Six months ago, there was no doubt in Boone’s mind Hicks would be the team’s starting left fielder. Throughout this season, there has been no doubt in Boone’s mind Josh Donaldson still can be a middle-of-the-order, major-league bat. There was no doubt in Boone’s mind Joey Gallo was going to get going soon. There was doubt in Boone’s mind Luke Voit was going to play a big role for the team once they acquired Anthony Rizzo. There has never been a doubt in Boone’s mind his offense over the last three seasons is going to turn the corner and get rolling. I was worried the Yankees may miss the postseason in a format in which 40 percent of the league reaches the postseason. But then they fired Lawson and hired Casey and now I completely trust and believe in the entire organization and their plan.

8. Casey becomes the Yankees’ sixth hitting coach in 10 years. Since the team’s last championship, Cashman has gone through two managers, four bench coaches, three pitching coaches, six hitting coaches, four first base coaches and four third base coaches. It’s always everyone’s fault, and not the fault of the guy who actually builds the rosters. He just keeps getting contract extensions as the team keeps getting worse.

“Since I’ve been here, we’ve had pretty consistently high levels of offensive production,” Cashman said Sunday. “This year has been a completely different story. Ultimately, the end results are not that Yankees DNA that we’re used to seeing.”

No one lies like the Yankees. Whether it’s Hal Steinbrenner telling the public the team has a “championship-caliber roster” or Boone telling you his starter had “good stuff” on a night when he gave up six earned runs in four innings or Cashman here trying to say the offensive issues are unique to “this year.” If this happened to be a one-year thing then why have there been six hitting coaches in 10 years?

9. The Yankees are 93-90 over their last 183 games. You are who your record says you are, and the Yankees are a mediocre team and have been for more than a full season. They are now in fourth place in the AL East and one game from being in last place. They are 1-5 against the Red Sox, lost the season series to the Twins and have lost series to the White Sox, Cardinals and Cubs. Without Judge, they may not make the playoffs. With Judge, they are good enough to make the playoffs, but not good enough to do anything when they get there.

10. Enjoy the next four days and nights without Yankees baseball. From now through Thursday, you don’t have to worry about Donaldson being rostered or batting in the middle of the lineup. You don’t have to watch Giancarlo Stanton take middle-middle fastballs and swing at sliders in the dirt. You don’t have to sit through mental mistakes from Gleyber Torres at the plate, in the field or on the bases. You don’t have to wonder if a gust of wind may force Harrison Bader to the injured list. You don’t have to try to figure out how Isiah Kiner-Falefa reached the majors. You don’t have to wonder if Rizzo and DJ LeMahieu are on their way to washed up. You don’t have to observe infielders play the outfield and position players pitching. You don’t have to see a starting pitcher get pulled after throwing just 74 pitches and allowing one hit. You don’t have to wrap your head around why elite relievers can pitch in a game with the scored tied or the Yankees losing, but couldn’t pitch in the same game when the Yankees were leading.

For the next four days and nights the Yankees can’t hurt you or your mental, physical or emotional health. Savor it. Because starting Friday, they will have at least 71 more games to do so.

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The Yankees had a lead and a chance to clinch the four-game series against the Orioles and pick up another game on the Rays. They didn’t.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. In both of the Yankees’ series this season against the Rays, they missed opportunities to win winnable games, leaving them 3-4 in the season series to date. Wednesday night against the Orioles was much of the same, and instead of clinching this four-game series against the Orioles and erasing three games off their deficit to the Orioles, the Yankees blew a two-run lead, and eventually lost 6-3.

If the Yankees had actual outfielders playing the outfield, they would have won on Wednesday night. But instead, as is the case a lot of nights, they had infielders in both left field and center field, and as is the case nearly every night, having an infielder in left field cost them a pair of runs.

On Monday night, Isiah Kiner-Falefa’s inability to judge consecutive balls in left field cost the Yankees on the scoreboard, and on Tuesday night, it was Oswaldo Cabrera’s misplay of a ball in left that did the same. On Wednesday night, with first baseman Jake Bauers in left, Bauers dove for a ball he could have played into a single, completely mistiming and misjudging his dive attempt, and Kiner-Falefa playing in center was unable to prevent the ball from getting past him as well as it rolled to the wall.

“You can’t fault Jake,” Aaron Boone said after the game, “Especially if you think he’s got a beat on it.”

No, you can’t fault Bauers since he’s a first baseman playing left field. The same way you couldn’t fault him at Fenway Park a few weeks ago when he played the Green Monster as if were blindfolded. You can blame the front office that built this roster by design, knowing very well Aaron Hicks was never going to be an everyday option for this team in 2023 and that knew they were never going to give an extended look to Estevan Florial. You can blame the manager, who keeps giving players unnecessary days off as if the team has a 19-game division lead and who keeps sitting guys who were slightly banged up or bruised the day before.

2. Where was Billy McKinney? McKinney had started one of the team’s previous six games because Boone said he was limited to only being “an emergency option” the past few days after fouling a ball off his foot. He “could be back in the lineup on Thursday,” Boone said. Well, McKinney was back in the lineup on Wednesday, just not to start the game. In typical Boone fashion, McKinney entered the game as a pinch hitter in the eighth (and singled) and then played the field in the ninth. So he was able to play and play the field for one inning, just not the other eight based on Dr. Boone’s recommended rehab and treatment.

3. And why was Kiner-Falefa in center field backing up Bauer’s misjudged ball? Because Harrison Bader was on the bench. Bader was hit by a pitch in the wrist in Tuesday’s win over the Orioles and never exited the game. In the plate appearance following getting hit on the wrist, he drove in two huge insurance runs in the Yankees’ win. But where was he on Wednesday? “The wrist is fine,” said Boone of Bader. “He’s a little sore.” “The wrist is fine,” yet Bader didn’t play with the Yankees’ painfully overcautious approach. It’s always something with Bader, and so “Everyday Isiah” was in the lineup again. The only player in baseball history classified as a “utility” or “role” player who actually plays every day.

Bader’s free agency lines up perfectly with the Yankees not having a center fielder for next season, and I still wouldn’t go near him. What’s Bader going to be looking for? At least the five years and $75 million Andrew Benintendi received, and that’s likely the floor. No, thank you. Bader is good when he plays, but he rarely plays. He’s either on the injured list or battling some injury that keeps him out of the lineup like Wednesday. He will be 30 next season, and the last time the Yankees gave a long-term deal to an outfielder on the wrong side of 30, they ended up paying him to play for the Orioles.

The Yankees were alway going to have an infielder playing the outfield once Hicks inevitably didn’t work out. They wanted Hicks to be the starting left fielder. On Opening Day, he wasn’t, it was Cabrera, who is an infielder by trade, and arguably the worst hitter in Major League Baseball (.555 OPS in 197 plate appearances). After Cabrera, their plan was Kiner-Falefa who never played the outfield before this season. Eventually, the depth chart led them to Bauers who is a first baseman, and after countless more injuries, it led them to McKinney, who is actually an outfielder. The Yankees needed a left fielder all offseason and instead decided “We’re good!” opting to play infielders in the outfield, and on Wednesday night it cost them a game against a team they are battling for a postseason berth. It wasn’t the first loss to come as a result of players playing out of position at the major-league level, and until they fix it, it won’t be the last.

4. Wednesday night’s game had everything to hate about the 2023 Yankees. It had supposed everyday players getting unnecessary rest on the bench (Bader), it had players playing out of position (Bauers and Kiner-Falefa), it had those players playing out of position (Bauers) ruining the game, it had a bad offensive performance against a bad starting pitcher (one earned run and four hits in seven innings with 10 strikeouts against Dean Kremer!), it had Josh Donaldson hitting a home run in a loss, and to top it off, it had illogical bullpen decisions from Boone.

5. Boone was willing to go to Michael King in the sixth inning, but apparently not to start the inning. Boone tried to steal outs with Nick Ramirez, and it backfired gloriously in favor of the Orioles. By the time King came in, the inning was a mess, and once Bauers dove for a ball he never should have dove for, the game was had already been unraveling. Eventually, it unraveled to the point the Yankees couldn’t overcome when Ian Hamilton turned a one-run deficit into a three-run deficit in the ninth.

Boone’s decision to not just go to King to start the inning wasn’t some odd, unique choice. It’s how he manages his bullpen. Decrease the margin of error for the next reliever by as much as possible before going to them. Boone so badly wanted Ramirez to give him a clean sixth and then he could go to King for the seventh and eighth and Clay Holmes for the ninth. Boone manages as if the plan concocted in his head is going to play out flawlessly, and once it doesn’t, he’s fucked. As soon as the game deviates even a batter off his in-head strategy he doesn’t know how to regroup and adjust. This is a man who is a third generation major leaguer whose entire life has been spent around baseball. It’s hard to fathom how he could be so bad at his job on a nightly basis.

6. Donaldson took a night off from being bad at his job, recording two hits, including a single that was his first hit against a team not named the A’s in three weeks. It was his second non-home run hit at Yankee Stadium in 2023. A pair of hits against Kremer should keep Donaldson rostered through 2023 (as if he wasn’t already going to be a Yankee through the end of the season).

7. It will be late September and we will still be hearing about how “Giancarlo Stanton can get hot at any moment and carry the team for a while!” Stanton went 0-for-4 with two strikeouts on Wednesday, as his OPS dropped to .661. He has two home runs in the last month.

8. That’s two more home runs than Anthony Rizzo has. Saturday will mark the seven-week anniversary of Rizzo’s last home run (May 20 against the Padres). “He seemed like he had extra life on his fastball today,” Rizzo said of Kremer as his slugging percentage over his last 20 games dropped to .277 after Wednesday’s performance. Here’s to another seven weeks of no power from the first base position!

9. Anthony Volpe had another nice night (1-for-3 with a home run) as he’s now hitting .396/.453/.667 in his last 15 games and 54 plate appearances. Two days ago, Boone said he has been thinking about moving Volpe back up in the lineup. Instead, he moved him down to eighth on Wednesday. Makes sense!

10. Instead of cutting the Orioles’ lead over the Yankees to two games in the loss column, and moving to within six games of the Rays in the loss column, the Yankees are four back in the loss column to the Orioles and still seven back in the loss column to the Rays. The difference between winning the series and moving to within three games of the Orioles and running in place and wasting these four games lies in the right arm of Luis Severino on Thursday.

Five days ago, Severino allowed 12 baserunners, nine runs and seven earned runs in four innings against the Cardinals. He has allowed 10 home runs in 40 innings this season and his strikeouts per nine innings is at an all-time low (7.7).

Maybe late Thursday night the Orioles can tip their hat to a starting pitcher having a bad season rather than the Yankees tipping theirs to another mediocre starter.

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The Yankees have won two straight games against the Orioles after having an atrocious road trip in Oakland St. Louis.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. Tuesday was the one-month anniversary of the first game the Yankees played without Aaron Judge after he injured his his toe at Dodger Stadium. In the 26 games without Judge (since June 4), the Yankees are 13-13. They have lost series home series to the well-below-.500 White Sox and last-place Red Sox (winning just one of six against the Red Sox overall), split with the Mets, scored eight runs in a three-game series at Fenway Park, scored one run in a loss in Oakland to the last-place A’s, lost a series to the last-place Cardinals, got no-hit through through 5 2/3 innings by ex-Yankee Jordan Montgomery and then took the first two games of their current four-game series against the Orioles. In the 24 games against the non-A’s, the Yankees scored 81 runs, or 3.38 per game. Even if you add in the A’s series in which the Yankees scored 22 runs over the three games, they still only scored 103 runs in 26 games, or 3.96.

Shohei Ohtani is the “best” player in the sport, and likely the best player of all time. He isn’t the most valuable. Judge is the most valuable player. Not just in the American League, but the entire majors as the Yankees are 17-19 (.472) when he doesn’t play this season and 31-19 (.620) when he does.

2. The last two days the Yankees won extremely important games against the Orioles, who have a plus-13 run differential and have won six more games than their record suggests. (The Yankees have a plus-39 run differential and have won one more game than their record suggests.)

The Orioles are a good team, built on a top-heavy offense (much like the Yankees), limited starting pitching (much like the Yankees with their injuries) and a great bullpen (much like the Yankees). If injuries didn’t exist, the Yankees would be a much better team than the Orioles, but unfortunately they do, and the Yankees are still three games behind them in the loss column. The good news is the Rays have lost three straight, so the Yankees now only trail them by seven games in the loss column.

3. After another forgettable series in St. Louis, Giancarlo Stanton has finally looked like a major-league hitter at the plate against the Orioles (3-for-7 with a walk). Josh Donaldson? Not so much.

Since Aaron Boone reiterated that Donaldson would be an everyday player, he hasn’t been.

Donaldson sat two of the three games against the Rangers, played all three in Oakland, sat two of three in St. Louis and didn’t play again on Tuesday. He’s 0-for-7 with a walk in his last two games, and if you take away the Oakland series (since a team that allows this Yankees offense to score 22 runs against them in three games and allows Domingo German to pitch a perfect game against them isn’t a real team), Donaldson’s last hit was on June 16. Three weeks ago.

Sadly, that Oakland series is what is keeping Donaldson on the roster. The Yankees will use his numbers against the worst team in baseball history as a reason to justify rostering him, acting like his salary isn’t the reason. So Donaldson will continue to get booed because he will continue to make outs because he will continue to be washed up.

4. Michael Kay isn’t sure why Aaron Hicks is still getting booed in his return to Yankee Stadium. Does he not remember 2016 through a few weeks ago? Paul O’Neill doesn’t.

“He spent eight seasons here,” O’Neill said on Monday night. “I didn’t realize it was that long.”

I did, Paul. We all did.

I have no problem with Hicks. He didn’t ask for the Yankees to trade for him. He didn’t ask them to offer him $70 million to play baseball for them. He didn’t ask them to evaluate him as the next Bernie Williams. All he did was what anyone would do: accept a lot of money to be a major leaguer. Hicks being bad or a sunk cost is on the Yankees, not him. Of course Hicks hit a home run on Tuesday as the Law of Ex-Yankees struck again.

5. The Yankees are likely to give Harrison Bader a lot of money this offseason to make up for the Hicks blunder because they on’t have an everyday center fielder ready to play the position right now and because Bader is the star of the upcoming free-agent class not named Shohei Ohtani (yes, the class is that bad). When Bader plays, he’s really good. “When” is the key word though, and for a guy who will turn 30 next season who has been hurt for nearly all of his 20s … well, I’m writing exactly what I wrote about Hicks four years ago. It would be good if the Yankees could win the World Series this year with Bader then walk away from him in the offseason before they make a commitment that leads to fans booing him until his release four years from now.

6. In order to do that, the roster will have to change realistically between now and the August 1. Unless Gerrit Cole and Carlos Rodon are going to Randy Johnson-Curt Schilling the Yankees to a championship, the team needs to upgrade about two-thirds of the lineup. I don’t even know how that would be possible. With the streakiness of Stanton (who hasn’t been on a hot streak in a long time) and Torres, the automatic out Donaldson, the loss of power for Rizzo (he last homered seven weeks ago) and DJ LeMahieu looking like he never played baseball before, I don’t know how the Yankees expect to score runs consistently, even if/when Judge returns. I don’t think relying on a combination of Judge, Bader and Anthony Volpe is the way to go since those three won’t be enough to outhit their own manager in October.

7. After the series finale against the Cardinals, Boone talked about how good Montgomery was, but couldn’t hold back from talking about how poorly the umpires handled the Cardinals’ pitching change stall tactics. He also talked about how his own ejection was handled.

“I had a real problem with that,” Boone said. “The sensitivity on that, and the quick throwout was brutal. It was ridiculous. You’ve gotta have thicker skin than that.”

Boone is one to talk about having thick skin. It’s embarrassing when Boone argues balls and strikes. It’s cringeworthy. Umpires are good and bad both ways, and no umpire is holding the Yankees’ offense back. The offense just flat-out sucks. On top of that, Boone says he is against an automated strike zone. So he wants umpires to continue to have the responsibility of calling balls and strikes, he just doesn’t like how they call them. Got it.

8. The Yankees not having actual outfielders playing the outfield nearly cost the team both games against the Orioles on Monday and Tuesday. Every day the Yankees have at least one infielder playing the outfield and most days they have two. Once Judge comes back, it will be down to one at home since Stanton isn’t allowed to play left field at Yankee Stadium, but the Yankees desperately need a left fielder at the deadline, five-plus months after they failed to sign one all offseason.

9. Torres is an All-Star. That’s all you need to know about the state of second base in the American League.

10. Five more games until the All-Star break. Two against the Orioles and three against the Cubs. I think winning one of two against the Orioles is necessary and certainly winning a home series against the crappy Cubs should be a given. Normally, and by normally I mean if Judge were playing, I would expect four wins in the remaining five “first-half” games, but even with Judge out I’m expecting it. You can’t go 3-3 against the A’s and Cardinals and not make up for it somehow.

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My book The Next Yankees Era: My Transition from the Core Four to the Baby Bombers is available as an ebook!