1. I thought Sunday would be the low point of the season. The Yankees were shut out at Fenway Park and swept by the Red Sox, falling to 1-5 against their storied rival on the season. They finished the weekend having scored just three runs in 28 innings for their worst offensive showing at the hitter-friendly park in more than 100 years. But then Monday happened.

I thought Monday’s loss to the Angels would be the low point of the season. The Yankees left 12 runners on base, couldn’t score in multiple leadoff-runner-in-scoring-position situations and lost in 11 innings to the lowly Angels. But then Tuesday happened.

On Tuesday, the Yankees were shut out again and again by the Angels, tying a franchise record with three consecutive shutouts against. They didn’t face a capable starter like they had on Sunday or Monday, instead they faced Kyle Hendricks, who entered the game with a 5.20 ERA, good enough for second worst in the majors. Hendricks had averaged 5.6 strikeouts per nine innings with his mid-80s repertoire this season, but he struck out nine Yankees over six innings, his most strikeouts in a single game in nearly five years.

The Yankees haven’t scored a run in their last 29 innings. They have scored five runs in their last 63 innings. They have scored in five of their last 69 innings.

2. Cody Bellinger called the Yankees’ offensive performance over the last six games “a little rut” after Tuesday’s loss. On Monday, Boone had called it a “few-game tough stretch.” Six games isn’t “little” and it’s certainly more than a “few.” If it weren’t such a big deal then why did the Yankees need to hold a team meeting after being blanked by the-hanging-on-to-a-career Hendricks to “remember who they are” like they’re Mufasa talking down from heaven to Simba.

3. On Tuesday, Boone attributed the Yankees’ embarrassing six-game run to “baseball” and with a straight face said, “We are one of the best offenses in the league.”

“Hendricks, I thought, was good,” Boone said, “rocking us back and forth.”

You want to tip your cap to Garrett Crochet? Sure, he’s one of the best in the game. Jose Soriano? OK. Hendricks? No. Absolutely not. Tipping your cap ends with Hendricks.

“We gotta go up and really focus on having quality at-bats,” Boone said. “And that will happen and hopefully tomorrow’s the day.”

“Hopefully!” That’s where the state of the offense is now: relying on hope.

4. Aaron Judge went 0-for-4 with three strikeouts. After the Yankees’ win last Wednesday, Judge had homered four times in four games and was hitting .394/.490/.779 on the season. Aaron Boone didn’t start him for the first time in 2025 the next day, and since then, Judge is 2-for-20 with 13 strikeouts and two walks. He has lost 22 points on his batting average, 21 points on his on-base percentage and 39 points on his slugging percentage.

5. Paul Goldschmidt went 0-for-4 with two strikeouts. Goldschmidt is hitting .161/.230/.232 over the last three weeks. He has one multi-hit game in June and two extra-base hits in the month.

6. Austin Wells went 0-for-3 with two strikeouts. Despite his impressive three-run home runs against Crochet and Noah Cameron over the last two weeks, Wells has a .680 OPS over the last five weeks. He has struck out multiple times in three of his last four games and has struck out 31 times in his last 90 plate appearances.

7. Anthony Volpe went 0-for-3. The Golden Boy was finally moved all the way to eighth in the batting order ahead of the only hitter worse than him in the “everyday” lineup. Volpe’s slash line is down to .238/.311/.426. His OPS+ has fallen to 106+. The faction of fans that defend him with the argument that he has been above league average this season are watching their argument dissolve with each game. Volpe is another week like this past one from being right where he has been since his debut: below league average.

8. DJ LeMahieu went 0-for-3 with three strikeouts. A few days ago he couldn’t go first to third on an obvious first-to-third base hit because of his legs. On Monday, he couldn’t get a bunt down that would have possibly led to a Yankees win and instead struck out because of his abilities. On Tuesday, he couldn’t keep a ground ball to second from reaching the outfield and it led to the Angels’ first run because of his age. LeMahieu is down to .244/.333/.341 with a 92 OPS+. He’s 2-for-17 over the last week. He has no power, no legs, no range.

LeMahieu has become the Yankees’ family dog who wanders around aimlessly and goes to the bathroom all over the place and lies around and sleeps all day. You try to pretend like the end isn’t near and you try to remember the good times to get through the bad times. Once in a while the dog will do something to remind you of what it used to be, but it’s just a momentary tease.

LeMahieu is being paid $15 million this season and next. He’s going to continue to get opportunities because of that. And there will be days a ground ball of his finds a hole or he inside-outs a pitch to right field. But those will be the momentary teases. I will remember his 2019 and 2020 seasons. I will always defend him for how good he was in trying to single-handedly bring the Yankees to the 2019 World Series while the rest of the team no-showed like it does every October. But he’s as washed up as it gets for someone still being given playing time.

9. Boone moved Volpe down and benched Trent Grisham and Ben Rice, while batting Jasson Dominguez leadoff. I liked it. I would do it again on Wednesday. I have seen enough Grisham and Rice over the last month to think Grisham is anything more than a fourth outfielder and it’s hard to keep harping on Rice’s all-red Statcast metrics when it’s not translating into actual results. Keep Dominguez at the top of the lineup for an extended period and see what he gives you there. On Tuesday, he provided a base hit and a stolen base, which is a lot more than anyone else is doing.

10. The Yankees’ franchise record for consecutive shutouts against is three (stat from Katie Sharp), so they are one away from the record. The franchise record for consecutive scoreless innings by the offense is 37 (stat from Katie Sharp), so they are eight scoreless innings away from that record. The Yankees could break both records on Wednesday night. Will Michael Kay exclaim, “History with an exclamation point!” if they do?

1. The Yankees were shut out by the Angels for 11 innings on Monday at Yankee Stadium. They were shut out by the Red Sox on Sunday. They were held to two runs by the Red Sox on Saturday. They scored one run against the Red Sox in 10 innings on Friday. They scored one run against the Royals on Thursday. They scored one run over the last seven innings against the Royals on Wednesday. The Yankees haven’t scored a run in their last 21 innings. They have scored five runs in their last 54 innings. They have scored in five of their last 60 innings.

2. “Going through a few-day tough stretch here of producing some offense,” Aaron Boone said.

I would say it’s more than a few. The Yankees have had trouble scoring for six straight games. They single-handedly revived the Red Sox’ season, and following their 1-0 loss to the Angels on Monday, their lead in the loss column in the AL East is down to three games.

“[Jose] Soriano was really good,” Boone said. “He kept us in the ballpark.”

That’s what Soriano does. He hasn’t allowed a home run since April 22. And when the Yankees don’t hit the ball over the wall, they don’t know what to do. When they aren’t hitting home runs, they’re pathetic. Today marks a week since someone other than Aaron Judge hit a home run. A week!

3. It’s not that the Yankees didn’t have opportunities to score runs, it’s that they are the worst situational hitting team in baseball. They lack the awareness and ability to get a runner in from second with no outs, and if they were given five outs to get the runner in, I still don’t think they would be capable of it.

On Monday, they had runners on first and second with no outs in the first inning and didn’t score. They got a leadoff double in the second inning and the runner stayed put. They hit into an inning-ending double play in the fourth. They stranded two in the fifth. They left a runner on second in the seventh and left another on in the eighth.

4. With the game tied 0-0 in the bottom of the ninth, Giancarlo Stanton delivered a leadoff double and then was removed for a pinch runner in Jasson Dominguez. Rather than do everything possible to score the run and win the game, the Yankees seemed to be playing for multiple runs when one run would end the game.

Boone inexplicably let Jazz Chisholm swing away, and Chisholm, as he always does, tried to hit the ball on the 4 train tracks rather than just put the ball in play. He struck out on three pitches.

Next up was Anthony Volpe. If Chisholm is the worst situational hitter in baseball then Volpe is second. Volpe constantly swings at early pitches in counts as if he’s in an 0-2 hole. In this at-bat, Dominguez had third base stolen, but Volpe swung away and popped up a ball foul to send Dominguez back to second. When Dominguez went for third again, Volpe did what he does best and hit a ground ball to the left side of the infield, leading Dominguez to be tagged for the second out. Austin Wells struck out swinging to end the inning, with the third strike above his head.

5. Jonathan Loaisiga stranded the automatic runner in the top of the 10th, but the Yankees stranded theirs in the bottom half. DJ LeMahieu tried to bunt the runner over to third, but couldn’t and ended up striking out and then Trent Grisham and Paul Goldschmidt flew out;.

In the 11th, Loaisiga allowed a one-out, excuse-me double down the left-field line to score the automatic runner from second. In the bottom of the inning, the Angels intentionally walked Aaron Judge to secure the win. Cody Bellinger flew out, Goldschmidt was thrown out at home, Chisholm reached on an infield single and then Volpe swung at the first pitch of his at-bat and did what he does best again: hit a weak ground ball to the left side.

“First pitch is the best one to hit sometimes,” Boone said.

Sometimes the first pitch is a good one to hit. But that one wasn’t. If it had been good, why did Volpe swing like he was in an 0-2 hole battling for the game and take an off-balanced, half-hearted swing? Either the pitch wasn’t a good one to swing or Volpe isn’t good. Or both.

6. “We had some leverage there late with the runner on second,” Boone said, “and just couldn’t push it around.”

The Yankees are a disaster in extra innings. They have played nine extra innings this season, which means they have had nine automatic runners. One of those nine have scored.

7. Do you think it’s a coincidence the Yankees continue to lose one- and two-run games? Do you think it’s random that the team Boone manages has no idea how to drive in runs with productive outs? Do you think it’s just bad luck that the team can’t win games when situational hitting, fundamentals and managing are heightened? On Monday, the Yankees were 1-for-18 with runners in scoring position in the game. (The one was the infield hit that led to no runs.) They left 12 on base.

8. It wouldn’t surprise me if this dumbass team gives Stanton the day off on Tuesday while they are starved for offense. It would be very Yankees for them to sit him and say it was the plan to give him a day off after he played one game since the World Series.

9. The free fall for Grisham and Ben Rice continues. Volpe and Wells are back to their usual selves. Chisholm is swinging for the fences with every swing like he was before he got hurt, DJ LeMahieu’s few-game hot streak is over and April Bellinger has returned. The only capable, trustworthy bat remains Judge and Ron Washington isn’t dumb enough to let him beat his team as he continues to intentionally walk him. Things are bad right now with four straight losses and losses in six of nine, but it’s not hard to see how it can get worse if the offense doesn’t wake up.

10. The Yankees have wasted strong starts by Ryan Yarbrough, Max Fried and Clarke Schmidt and a winnable start from Carlos Rodon. The starting pitching isn’t good enough to continue to give the Yankees these efforts, and outside of Fried, there aren’t any expectations for the other four. That includes Will Warren, who gets the ball on Tuesday.

Kyle Hendricks goes for the Angels. If the Yankee can’t wake up and hit the soft-tossing Hendricks and his 5.20 ERA, I don’t know when they will wake up and put an end to this embarrassing offensive run.

1. It’s about that time of year. The time of year when the Aaron Boone Yankees begin their annual midseason free fall that leaves the team in disarray, the fan base calling for the jobs of the manager and general manager and the season in peril.

Last year it began this same exact weekend when the Yankees lost two of three to the Red Sox at Fenway Park and then lost 22 of their next 33 games, leaving Boone to say, “It’s all right in front of us,” on July 7. In 2023, Boone said, “It’s all there right in front of us,” on July 15, and in 2022, he said, “It’s right in front of us,” on August 20. Each year it’s come a little earlier, but it always comes.

2. It takes about a month of poor play from the Yankees for Boone to explode and go deep into his bag of bullshit to pull out a version of “It’s right in front of us.” This team has all of the necessary qualities and traits to extend the annual midseason meltdown to a fourth straight season: poor fundamentals, a general lack of awareness, inept situational hitting, sloppy defense, a shaky bullpen, underperformance from the majority of the lineup for a lengthy period and a manager who may be the very worst at in-game decisions in the league.

3. The Yankees showed the world their flaws this weekend against the Red Sox and were swept for the first time in 2025 and had their worst offensive output as a franchise at Fenway Park in more than 100 years. The Yankees scored four runs in 28 innings, hit one home run and were stifled by two starting pitchers and a bullpen that have been lit up by the league this season.

4. If Aaron Judge’s historical season spirals out of control and his 2025 season turns out to be amazing and not legendary, we’ll know exactly when it turned. As of now that moment is June 12 in Kansas City when Boone didn’t start Judge for the first time all season. Since then Judge is 1-for-13 with 10 strikeouts and looks like his 2016 late-season call-up self than anything he has been over the last eight-and-a-half seasons. The Yankees go as Judge goes and Judge did nothing this weekend, and to no surprise, the Yankees were humiliated, falling to 1-5 on the season against a team that is 32-35 against the rest of the majors.

5. It was frustrating to watch Jasson Dominguez get picked off of second base to end the seventh inning on Saturday. It was comical to watch Ben Rice do the same on Sunday. In both instances the Yankees had two runners on, had the potential tying run on base and the go-ahead run at the plate. The characteristics of the team the Dodgers exposed in the World Series and then spent the offseason laughing about publicly in every opportunity they got are still present. They’re still present because their manager is the same manager and for as long as Boone is at the helm of the Yankees, fundamentals will be held in no regard and accountability won’t exist.

6. The Yankees were 8-0 this season following a loss with Max Fried starting, but that streak came to an end. Fried did his part to be a stopper by allowing two earned runs over seven innings, but sloppy defense and a no-show performance from the offense led to the loss. It’s not wise to waste Fried starts when the rest of the rotation remains a coin flip in terms of performance every time out.

7. There’s an old adage that any time you watch a baseball game you may see something you have never seen before, and on Sunday, I saw something I had never seen before. Trent Grisham led off the third inning and got ahead in the count 3-0. He took the next pitch and it barely grazed the bottom of the strike zone to make it 3-1. Grisham could hunt a fastball on 3-1 or pick a small part of the zone to look for a pitch and drive it for a hit, an extra-base hit or a home run to tie the game, or he could take the next pitch if it wasn’t in that small part of the zone he wanted it to be in and possibly walk since Brayan Bello is among the league leaders in walks per nine innings. Grisham did neither. He squared up to bunt and laid a bunt down the third-base line foul to run the count to 3-2. On the next pitch he popped out to third for the first out of the inning. Outside of a hitter trying to sacrifice a runner over in the ninth inning or extras innings at all costs or a pitcher trying to sacrifice a runner over when pitchers had to hit, I’m going to say no batter in history has ever laid down a bunt attempt on a 3-1 pitch as the leadoff hitter in the third inning of a game. The Yankees aren’t just sloppy, they’re unintelligent. In a weekend in which their shortstop threw a ball away he didn’t have to throw, two players got picked off of second base in the late innings of a close game, a strike was given to a batter for not getting in the batter’s box in time and a runner was caught stealing third with no outs in extra innings, Grisham’s 3-1 bunt attempt was the dumbest decision of the weekend. Well-earned, Trent.

8. After Saturday’s loss I wrote about how bad Grisham and Ben Rice have been for more than a month now, so what does Boone do? Bats them first and second in the lineup. Let’s give the two worst hitters on the team since the middle of the May the most plate appearances on the team! Let’s give them more plate appearances than Judge and Cody Bellinger!

9. I want to like Anthony Volpe. I really do. But he makes it so hard. On Friday, he got caught stealing third with no outs in the 10th. On Saturday, he gifted the Red Sox their first run with an ill-advised throw. On Sunday, he booted the first ball of the game for yet another error and threw up an 0-for-4 at the plate for good measure. I don’t know how anyone can watch Volpe play every day since being called up at the start of 2023 and think he’s a winning player. What exactly does he do well other than commit an error in every big moment and hit mostly weak ground balls? His fielding is overrated. His arm is below average. His Baseball IQ isn’t exactly glowing. His power is limited to the short porch at home and he doesn’t even attempt to steal anymore. He may as well be Giancarlo Stanton once he reaches first base. He has stolen seven bases in 12 attempts (58 percent), which proves he has no instinct on the basepaths and his last stolen base was back on May 13. I’m not sure why a faction of the fan base loves Volpe other than that he was born in New York, grew up in New Jersey as a Yankees fan and is a homegrown product. In terms of what matters, which is performance on the field, he’s lacking in every aspect.

10. The Yankees may not have the roster to avoid a fourth straight midseason meltdown and it may be inevitable, but they at least have the schedule to avoid it. They have the lowly Angels at home the next four days and then a weekend series against the even lowlier Orioles. After that it’s three in Cincinnati and three back home against the A’s. When the best team you will play in a 13-game stretch is the Reds, you’re in a great position. Coming off the embarrassment and humiliation of the weekend, if the Yankees don’t have an impressive homestand against two shitty teams then get ready for a rocky summer because it will be right in front of them.

1. Carlos Rodon was bad, the offense was worse, the Yankees once again lacked any semblance of fundamentals under Aaron Boone and they lost 4-3 to the Red Sox. The loss dropped them to 1-4 against their storied rival this season.

Not everyone thought was Rodon was bad. His manager didn’t think he was bad despite lasting only five innings and allowing nine baserunners, four runs and three earned runs in those five innings.

“I actually thought he was pretty sharp,” Boone said.

2. Rodon’s last two starts have come against the Red Sox, the Yankees have lost both and he has allowed eight earned runs in 10 innings. In the first of the two, he blew two different leads.

“It seemed like they had a team approach today,” Rodon said. “They were a little more aggressive than last time.”

Rodon went on to say that he would try to have better location with his pitches the next time he faces the Red Sox instead of trying to overpower them. The idea Rodon and the Yankees thought a good game plan would to be to not locate pitches and try to overpower the Red Sox is unbelievable (but actually very believable with this organization).

We’ll always have those few weeks when Rodon dominated the Rays, Guardians, Orioles, Padres, Rangers and Angels and people were fooled into thinking he figured it out and could be trusted. As I wrote multiple times during that stretch, I still didn’t trust Rodon and never will.

3. Is it possible the Yankees have gotten worse with fundamentals and details under Boone? I didn’t think it was possible given the last seven years, culminating in the World Series Game 5 disaster, but it just may be.

In the first inning, the Red Sox had a runner on second with two outs (Rob Refsnyder doubled on a middle-middle fastball on Rodon’s first pitch). Carlos Narvaez hit a ground ball to Anthony Volpe in the hole at short and after recently making two successful Derek Jeter-esque jump-throws, Volpe attempted it again and wildly threw the ball nowhere near the bag. Narvaez was safe at first and Refsnyder came around to score to give the Red Sox an early lead. Not only was Volpe’s throw poor, but Paul Goldschmidt played the throw like he had never received an errant throw before. He played it like he had never played first base before.

“I feel like that one was on me,” Goldschmidt said. “He should have the freedom to throw that ball across the diamond like he did.”

4. A day after foolishly attempting to steal third with no outs in the 10th inning, Volpe tried to a be a first-inning hero rather than put the ball in his pocket and let Rodon face the left-handed Jarren Duran with two on and two outs. Duran popped out to third. Complete unawareness from Volpe.

His unawareness didn’t end there. In the fourth inning, Trevor Story drove in Narvaez with a base hit to center field. With Volpe’s back to second waiting for the throw in, Story took off for second and turned a single into a double. Volpe turned around stunned to see Story sliding safely into second.

5. A night after it took the Yankees until the ninth inning to get on the board, it took until the seventh inning on Saturday. Trailing 4-2 with two runs in and still two on with two outs, Jasson Dominguez was inexplicably picked off of second to end the inning.

The following inning with the Yankees desperate for a baserunner to bring the tying run to the plate, Ben Rice was given an automatic strike for a pitch clock violation to start his at-bat 0-1. He would go on to strike out.

At this point, I’m waiting for the day the Boone Yankees bat out of order.

6. If Boone thought Rodon was “sharp” in his inadequate performance, I wonder what Boone thought about Hunter Dobbins’ performance. Dobbins shut out the Yankees for six innings, allowing just two hits. In two starts over the last week against the Yankees, Dobbins allowed three earned runs over 11 innings and won both starts.

7. It was more of the same from the ex-Yankees on the Red Sox playing well at the Yankees’ expense. Refsnyder went 2-for-3; Narvaez did the same and added a walk; Justin Wilson faced six Yankees, struck out three and put an end to their eighth-inning rally and Greg Weissert pitched the ninth to earn the save. All that was missing was another pair of dominant outings from Garrett Whitlock and Aroldis Chapman.

8. The Yankees 1 through 3 hitters went 0-for-12 with six strikeouts. Everyone has been so worried and concerned about what will happen with the lineup when Giancarlo Stanton returns, but Rice and Trent Grisham seem to have resolved the issue on their own. Since May 13, Rice has a .527 OPS and Grisham has a .552 OPS.

9. I have written this before, but I would have Judge lead off. I don’t care that he will bat with no one on base in his first at-bat of the game. He’s the best player in baseball at getting on base given his majors-leading .479 on-base percentage and no pitcher is going to pitch around the first batter of the game. If Shohei Ohtani can lead off for the infinitely smarter Dodgers who do everything better than the Yankees then Judge can lead off for the Yankees. Give me Judge, Cody Bellinger and Stanton at 1 through 3 when Stanton returns this week. (It will never happen.)

10. Max Fried gets the ball on Sunday to try to salvage the series. The Yankees offense scored one run in 10 innings on Friday and two runs on Saturday. My expectation for “the best offense in baseball” which has scored four runs in its last three games isn’t high for Sunday . But maybe the bats will show up in the series finale to support their ace and keep their performance against the Red Sox this season to just embarrassing and not allow it to progress to humiliating.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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