The Yankees lost another series to a bad team. They went to California with three straight wins and left as losers of four of seven against the A’s and Angels.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. On July 8, when the Yankees held a 15 1/2-game lead in the AL East, I never thought I would be here. Here being scoreboard watching the Rays and Blue Jays games as the calendar turns to September. But the Yankees’ 30-36 since June 19, their 15-24 since the All-Star break and their 10-18 in August has me doing exactly that with five weeks to go in the season.

A week ago, the Yankees were in the middle of what would be a five-game winning streak, momentarily stopping their free fall of more than two months. They were going to California for seven games against the worst team in the AL in the A’s and an Angels team that once again failed to meet expectations, fired its manager midseason and is just counting down the games until their miserable 2022 season ends. The Yankees were supposed to go beat up on the two AL West teams the same way they did earlier in the year when they went 6-0 against this lowly competition. They were going to make up some of the ground they had lost in recent weeks. They instead lost more ground.

2. After winning the first two games in Oakland, the Yankees lost the next two, splitting a four-game series with a team that traded their supposed best pitcher a month ago to the Yankees. The Yankees were one-hit over 11 innings in the third game of the series and scored one run in the final game of the series. Over the final three games of the series, they scored six runs in 29 innings against a team on pace for more than 100 losses.

Things would get better in Anaheim, right? That’s what Aaron Boone said. “We gotta better … We gotta turn the page.” Boone spewed his two patented lines after the debacle in Oakland, continuing to believe there’s always tomorrow up until he’s giving an end-of-the-season press conference while the postseason is still taking place, like he has in every season as Yankees manager. Things didn’t get better in Anaheim. Things got worse.

3. The Yankees lost the first game of the series 4-3 with Frankie Montas on the mound. Montas had allowed two earned runs total in his last four starts against the Angels, but in this one, he allowed four earned runs on eight hits, including three home runs.

Montas has been a bust as a Yankee. In five starts, he has only given them 25 2/3 innings. In those 25 2/3 innings, he has allowed 20 earned runs and 43 baserunners. After each of his starts, Boone has thought he looked “good.”

It was another bad performance from the Yankees’ prized trade deadline acquisition. How did his manager think he pitched?

“I thought he was good,” Boone said. “I thought his stuff was good.”

If “good stuff” has a pitcher giving up three home runs in six innings, I would hate to see what Boone considers to be “bad stuff.”

4. The Yankees finished August at 10-18. It was their worst month since 1991. So add that to Boone’s resume as Yankees manager. He has overseen one division title, one ALCS loss, two ALDS losses, one wild-card game loss, two postseason eliminations to the Red Sox and the most lopsided home postseason loss in franchise history. He was the first Yankees manager to return for a fifth season without winning a championship and now was at the helm for the worst month of Yankees baseball in 31 years. He does it all! Give him a lifetime contract!

5. The Yankees scored seven runs against the Angels in the second game (scoring more than four runs in a game for just the third time in their last 20 games) in a 7-4 win. Would that game be the game for the Yankees to go on another extended successful run? Just like every other failed attempt to go on an extended run since June 19, the Yankees followed it up with a disappointing effort in the series finale.

On Wednesday night, the Yankees staked Gerrit Cole to a two-run lead, and Cole looked like he would be able to preserve that lead for seven or maybe eight, possibly even nine innings to avoid having the division lead fall to just five games in the loss column.

Leading 2-0 entering the bottom of the sixth, Cole retired Max Stassi to begin the inning. He then allowed an infield single on a tough play that Josh Donaldson threw away to allow David Fletcher to go to second with one out. Fortunately, Cole got Mike Trout to swing at the first pitch of his at-bat and hit a routine ground ball to short. Unfortunately, Isiah Kiner-Falefa booted the ground ball. With Shohei Ohtani due up with two on and one out, trailing by two, well, if you didn’t see it, I think you know what happened next.

Two nights after beating the Yankees with a home run, Ohtani launched a 2-0 pitch from Cole to straighaway enter to give the Angels a 3-2 lead. Don’t let Trout or Ohtani beat you. That’s all the Yankees needed to do going into the series, and they decided to pitch to both of them throughout the series, and Ohtani beat them … twice.

6. Kiner-Falefa should have never been the 2022 Yankees’ everyday shortstop. I have spent the last four months writing and saying as much. The Yankees have acted as though they are sacrificing his anemic bat for defense equivalent to Omar Vizquel, except they are getting defense equivalent to Gleyber Torres. The only way to justify Kiner-Falefa being an everyday player on this team would be if he played shortstop like Vizquel. He doesn’t hit enough (since he doesn’t hit at all) to continue to be the starting shortstop for the New York Yankees. If he were to be released today, he wouldn’t start at shortstop for another team in Major League Baseball.

Boone doesn’t see it that way. After the game he said Kiner-Falefa “has been one of the best defenders in the league at shortstop.” There is no defensive metric that suggests that’s true, so it’s just yet another lie from the mouth of the Yankees manager who lies daily.

As Kiner-Falefa continues to be an automatic out at that plate and unable to make the routine play in the field, the Yankees have the No. 5 prospect in all of baseball posting an OPS over .900 in the last three months at Double-A, and the No. 53 prospect in baseball posting a nearly .900 OPS over the last three months at Triple-A. While the Braves and Astros (the two teams that met in the World Series last October), along with teams like the Mets and Orioles continue to dip into their Triple-A and Double-A farm systems, the Yankees continue to stand pat, playing Kiner-Falefa every game.

7. Donaldson too. I have an inordinate amount of time, time I will never get back, writing and talking about the need to bench Donaldson. But because the Yankees owe him $24 million next year, and because once upon a time he was one of the best hitters in the league, he gets endless opportunities to turn his season around. There isn’t enough time to turn his season around. It’s September 1. Even with an Aaron Judge-like September, his overall season will still be a disaster.

The two seem to be a package deal. They came over as a package, and they man the left side of the infield and waste two rosters spots as a package. It’s gotten to the point where if Anthony Volpe or Oswald Peraza isn’t starting at shortstop on Friday night at Tropicana Field, I don’t know how I can root for the Yankees against the Rays. If the actual organization doesn’t care about fielding the best possible roster, why should any fan care whether they win or lose?

8. The Yankees have every ingredient needed for an unspeakable collapse. They have a front office unwilling to make a change. They have a manager who talks and acts as if there is an “x” next to the Yankees’ name in the standings denoting the team’s clinched postseason berth. They change leadoff hitters nightly, changing between DJ LeMahieu, who is playing through a foot injury and has a .349 OPS over the last three weeks, and Andrew Benintendi, who has a .698 OPS as a Yankee. They have a first baseman who has now missed games for a third time in the last month for chronic back issues. Their highest-paid position player has missed more than one-third of the season (again) and has a .776 OPS, which is more than 100 points below his career average. They have two automatic outs at short and third, and at second, a player they tried to move at the deadline and likely plan on moving in the offseason. The only two good position players to feel good about are Judge and Oswaldo Cabrera. The former is the AL MVP and the latter was inexplicably given the night off on Wednesday the day before a scheduled day off. Yes, a day off for an energetic 23-year-old, who was recently called up to the major leagues and probably sits in his uniform all day waiting for first pitch.

9. I used to love when the Yankees played West Coast games. I would look forward to them and stretch myself out for them in the days leading up to them like a reliever transforming into a starter. Now I hate them. Staying up late until the early hours of the following day with a four-month-old and near-two-year-old isn’t conducive to a healthy lifestyle. By the time I got my life back on track from the early-August games in Seattle, the Yankees were headed to California. I have had a headache since the series opener in Oakland last Friday and coupled with the Yankees 3-4 record against the A’s and Angels, and their overall free fall, the consistent headache is the least of my worries.

Last week, I wrote that things could get worse for the Yankees before they got better, and they might not get better this season. The Yankees could collapse themselves out of a first-round bye in the postseason. It’s still unlikely mathematically, but this Yankees team spits in the face of math. Their lack of urgency and general who-gives-a-shit attitude is why they are now playing meaningful games in September rather than sitting back and waiting for the postseason to begin. Their approach of sitting regulars and giving extra rest to their best starters and holding back their best relievers didn’t prevent injuries (yet again) and only helped them to this two-and-a-half-month stretch of under-.500 baseball. The Yankees have been acting like they have had everything clinched since early June and now they are clinging to a five-game lead in the loss column against a team they will play six times in the next 10 games. I thought it was bad enough when they weren’t playing to win the best record in the AL. They aren’t even playing to win the AL East.

10. September was supposed to be about getting healthy and ready for the postseason. Instead, the Yankees will have to play as if it’s already the postseason to avoid playing in the best-of-3 wild-card series.

This weekend represents the biggest series of the season. Something that didn’t seem possible two and even three months ago. Domingo German, Clarke Schmidt and Montas for the three games at the Trop? As we say goodbye to summer, we might be saying goodbye to the Yankees’ 15 1/2-game lead.

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The Yankees momentarily ended their second-half slide with a five-game winning streak, but after losing back-to-back games to the worst team in the American League, the second-half misery is as bad as ever.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. After the Yankees were able to salvage the final game of their four-game home series against the Blue Jays a week ago and then beat the Mets twice at the Stadium, you know Aaron Boone, Brian Cashman, the entire front office and ownership breathed a sigh of relief. They definitely thought the Yankees were “turning the page” Boone seems to always reference in his postgame press conferences, and that the team was putting their abysmal second-half performance to date behind them. When they opened their four-game series in Oakland with a 13-run outburst, it likely only further reinforced the idea within the organization that the team was back, and scoring 13 runs without hitting a single home run would quiet the critics that the team too desperately relies on the long ball. But over the weekend, the post-June 18 Yankees returned after a five-game hiatus, posting back-to-back losses to the worst team in the American League and the second-worst team in baseball.

2. Not only did the Yankees lose back-to-back games to the A’s on Saturday and Sunday, they recorded one hit in their 11-inning loss on Saturday and scored one run on Sunday. Over the final 22 2/3 innings in the series, the Yankees got five hits, all singles.

After losing the series finale, Boone was asked about the offense’s struggles, and after tipping his hat to another fringe major-league starter he actually referenced the shadows in Oakland because of the West Coast start times as a reason why the offense didn’t show up against a team on pace for 102 losses.

The fact that the word “shadows” came out of Boone’s mouth is despicable because it means that he truly thinks that’s a valid excuse for why the Yankees were embarrassed over the weekend. Are the shadows the reason why the under in Yankees games is 15-3 since August 9? Are the shadows the reason why the Yankees have multiple everyday players with sub-.700 OPS? Did the A’s not have the same shadows covering the home plate area when they batted?

3. Prior to Opening Day, the Yankees tweeted their 2022 slogan:

No moral victories. No excuses. No storylines. No narratives. Talk is cheap.

Remove the four uses of “No” and change “cheap” to “everything” and you have the 2022 Yankees.

4. It’s not like the Yankees were shut down by (now former A’s) Sean Manaea or Chris Bassitt in Oakland. They were shut down by Adam Oller (who entered Saturday with a 6.41 ERA) and Adrian Martinez (who entered Sunday with a 6.08 ERA). Both starters managed to have the best starts of their careers on back-to-back days against a team that’s supposedly vying for a championship.

Yes, the two losses on Saturday and Sunday erased whatever feel-good mirage the Yankees had created over their previous five games. The wins over the Blue Jays (1), Mets (2) and A’s (2) leading into the weekend weren’t a sign the Yankees were getting back to being the pre-June 19 Yankees.

5. Not a single person other than Aaron Judge should receive a first-place AL MVP vote this season. The Yankees hold a rather comfortable AL East lead (though it has been cut in half over the last two months) with five weeks left in the season. With Judge, the Yankees are going to finish with the second-best record in the AL and get a first-round bye in the playoffs. Without him, they are likely on the postseason, wild-card bubble.

From mid-April until mid-June when the Yankees were keeping pace with the 1998 Yankees, I consistently wrote the reason the Yankees were where they were was because of Judge, the starting pitching and the combination of Michael King and Clay Holmes. But since King went down for the year (and likely next year), Holmes became ineffective and got hurt, and the starting pitching regressed, the only constant has been Judge. He is the sole reason the Yankees are where they are, and has been the only consistently productive presence on the team all season.

6. Judge homered on Monday and Tuesday against the Mets and on Friday against the A’s (all Yankees wins). Those were the only home runs hit by the Yankees all week. The last time a Yankee other than Judge homered was last Sunday when Andrew Benintendi hit his first home run as a Yankee. The team that relies on the home run to produce a biggest percentage of its runs than any other team in the majors hit one home run in 38 innings against the A’s and had only one of its players hit home runs in a six-game span. Yeah, the Yankees are fine!

That’s sarcasm, obviously (have to tip my hat to Boone any time I use the word “obviously”). The Yankees aren’t fine. Fare from it. They are now 29-34 since June 19. They are 14-22 since the All-Star break. They are 9-16 in August.

Judge’s historic season combined with the starting pitching and the early-season backend-of-the-bullpen dominance has masked an abundance of issues with the team. The same issues that have existed since Opening Day that the Yankees continue to choose to do nothing about.

7. I have no idea how the Yankees can consider themselves championship caliber if Isiah Kiner-Falefa is starting at shortstop on Monday night in Anaheim and not either Oswald Peraza or Anthony Volpe.

Kiner-Falefa is down to .262/.310/.314 on the season. His .625 OPS is the lowest it’s been all year and there’s an incredibly good chance it dips below .600 by the end of the year if he continues to play. He has two extra-base hits since July 27 and three since July 15. We are almost at the point where he has grounded into as many double plays (13) as he has extra-base hits (18).

Josh Donaldson is equally as bad of a problem. His numbers are nowhere as bad as Kiner-Falefa, but given Donaldson’s salary, career numbers and the fact he continues to bat in the heart of the order based on his career numbers, actually makes him worse than Kiner-Falefa. Donaldson is as washed up as it gets, but because the Yankees are paying $24 million for this season and owe him $24 million next season, his leash is endless. We know it’s endless because he keeps batting fifth with a .694 OPS.

On Sunday, Aaron Hicks started his first in a week, and singled, scored the Yankees’ only run and walked, so you can be sure he will be back in the lineup in Anaheim, as if reaching base twice in one game somehow makes up for his .216/.337/.302 slash line.

8. Because the Yankees won a few games last week with Benintendi hitting leadoff, you can bet your ass the plan for the rest of the season will be to bat him leadoff against righties and DJ LeMahieu against lefties. I hate it. Pick a leadoff and stick with it. And if it’s between those two, give me LeMahieu. But really, give me Judge.

This is the lineup I want to see if the Yankees ever get back to full strength:

Aaron Judge, CF
Matt Carpenter, DH
Giancarlo Stanton, RF
Anthony Rizzo, 1B
DJ LeMahieu, 3B
Andrew Benintendi, LF
Oswald Peraza/Anthony Volpe, SS
Oswaldo Cabrera, 2B
Jose Trevino, C

Yes, that means Gleyber Torres, Josh Donaldson and Isiah Kiner-Falefa (and Harrison Bader if he ever actually plays) on the bench. It means a better Yankees team.

That lineup will never happen.

9. It will never happen because the Yankees aren’t going to call up Peraza (who is hitting .290/.357/.496 in Triple-A since May 25) or Volpe (who is hitting .293/.383/.544 in Double-A since May 28).

Here is how Kiner-Falefa performed at each level of the minors:

Triple-A: .479 OPS
Double-A: .699 OPS
High-A: .700 OPS
Single-A: .617 OPS
Rookie: .705 OPS

(The fact he made the majors is remarkable. Him being an everyday player for the New York Yankees is like he won a contest to do so.)

It will never happen because the Yankees won’t bench Donaldson (who they regrettably traded for and took on his entire salary, but reportedly tried to trade him at the deadline) or Torres (whose offensive career is a lost cause and who the team also reportedly to move at the deadline). And the second Bader is healthy, he is playing every day, whether he’s the outfield version of Kiner-Falefa or not.

10. This was supposed to be an “easy” West Coast trip, against the A’s (who are on pace for 102 losses) and the Angels (who are on pace for 92 losses). Instead, the Yankees are 2-2 on it and now head to Anaheim to see an Angels team that just swept the Blue Jays in Toronto. The same Blue Jays that won three of four against the Yankees in the Bronx a week earlier. After the three games in Anaheim, it’s off to Tampa for three with the Rays.

On June 18, the Yankees had a 15 1/2-game lead in the AL East. That lead is now down to 7 1/2 over the Rays and seven in the loss column. A bad few days in Anaheim and a bad Labor Day Weekend in Tampa, the Yankees could be on the verge of an all-time collapse. I’m sure Boone’s hat is ready to be tipped to Jose Suarez, Mike Mayers and Patrick Sandoval in Anaheim.

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The Yankees are 2-5 on their current homestand, and it’s not over yet. They still have to face Max Scherzer and Jacob deGrom before this miserable week at home ends.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. The Yankees lost another series. And not just “another” series, but a four-game series to the Blue Jays, the team still trying to catch them in the AL East.

It was another frustrating and disappointing week for the Yankees as their once-15 1/2-game lead is now down to eight games, and seven games in the loss column. If they could just find a way to play .500 baseball for the rest of the season, they would finish at 94-68, and in doing so, the Blue Jays and Rays would have to go 29-13 to tie them, and likely 30-12, as right now, the Yankees hold the head-to-head tiebreaker over both teams. Because of this math, the Yankees have a 91.2 percent chance of winning the division still, despite losing 14 of their last 18.

2. The Yankees lost three of four to the Blue Jays and were outscored 20-8 in the series. They have now put together these rather horrific records over the last two months:

The Yankees are 25-32 since June 19.

The Yankees are 10-20 since the All-Star break.

The Yankees are 5-14 in August.

3. As the Yankees’ division lead has been significantly cut into, Aaron Boone has gotten testier and more sensitive with each passing day. On Saturday, Boone got snippy with Meredith Marakovits and freaked out on the media after the Yankees lost 5-2 for being asked about the dwindling lead in the standings.

“I gotta quit answering these questions,” Boone exclaimed right before he slammed the table. This came a day after he said, “I don’t give a crap about the division lead.” It’s literally his job to answer questions from the media and to give a crap about the division lead.

If Boone doesn’t answer questions from the media, then the media doesn’t cover baseball. If the media doesn’t cover baseball, there’s no attention paid to baseball. If there’s no attention paid to baseball, then fans don’t exist. If fans don’t exist then Major League Baseball doesn’t exist. If Major League Baseball doesn’t exist then Boone’s entire life is different since everything he has had in life has been a result of Major League Baseball. Major League Baseball was the way his grandfather earned a living to pay for his father’s life. Major League Baseball was the way his father earned a living to pay for his life. Major League Baseball is the way he has earned a living to pay for his family’s life. He might want to shut up and answer questions about the game that has given him everything.

4. The Blue Jays went into this season as the favorite to win the American League. When they were 46-42 through July 12, they fired their manager for failing to meet expectations as they were 15 1/2 games back in the division and barely holding on to the final wild-card berth. Since then they have taken 7 1/2 games off the Yankees’ lead and are tied for the first wild-card berth with the Rays.

The Yankees went into last season as the favorite to win the AL. They finished fifth in the AL and third in their own division. Their manager’s contract was up, and instead of moving on from Boone (who had failed to meet expectations in each of his four seasons as Yankees manager), the front office gave him a new three-year contract with an option for a fourth year.

Unless the Yankees collapse to the point of not winning the division and having to play in the best-of-3 round and losing there, I don’t think Boone’s job is in jeopardy. Even then, I think he would be safe. I think if the Yankees were to miss the playoffs completely, he would still be safe. But for the last week he hasn’t been talking to the media like someone who has never been held accountable for a single second in his position. He has been talking like someone who is on the hot seat, which he has never been on. Despite his endless nonsensical lineups, idiotic in-game decisions, incredible lies about injuries and unbelievable sugarcoating of poor performances, Boone has never once had to worry about his job as Yankees manager.

5. In the Derek Jeter documentary The Captain, Buck Showalter talked about leaving the Yankees after 1995 and how George Steinbrenner wanted to fire all of his coaches. Showalter said he couldn’t have stayed with the Yankees and had “any credibility” with all of his coaches being let go. After 2021, the Yankees fired Boone’s third base coach and friend since childhood Phil Nevin as well as his hitting coach Marcus Thames, assistant hitting coach P.J. Pilittere and first base coach Reggie Willits. This comes two years after firing his bench coach Josh Bard and his pitching coach Larry Rothschild. Boone has maintained his job while everyone around him has been replaced.

The only person who hasn’t been replaced is the one person who unconditionally loves Boone: Brian Cashman. The only way Boone isn’t the Yankees manager in 2022 is if the Steinbrenners move on from Cashman with his contract expiring at the end of this season and the new general manager wants his own manager. But Cashman isn’t going anywhere. For as much as he loves Boone, the Steinbrenners love Cashman more. Hal Steinbrenner has never once blamed Cashman or Boone for the organization’s shortcomings over the last four-plus seasons and always blames the players.

It’s hard to believe Boone has any credibility in the clubhouse. He might be a nice guy and could be the nicest guy of all time, but it’s hard to believe the players on the team experience decisions he makes and think he should be in the role he is in. If a manager is going to be given credit for a team’s run following a team meeting then they should be criticized when a team meeting has an opposite effect. Since Boone’s team meeting in Seattle, the Yankees are 4-9. I wonder why his message didn’t get across to his players.

Boone said himself on Saturday, “We’ve got great friggin’ players in there.” So if you truly believe you have great players then why have they played .439 baseball for more than two months? Why didn’t they listen to what you had to say in Seattle?

6. A day after saying he manages “great friggin’ players,” the Yankees blew an early 1-0 lead and a late 2-1 lead before finally winning a game with Andrew Benintendi finally doing something at the plate. Even with a .951 OPS over the last six games, Benintendi is still hitting just .211/.322/.368 with the Yankees, which tells you how bad he has been since becoming a Yankee on July 28.

7. The Yankees won on Paul O’Neill Day at the Stadium with the organization retiring Number 21. I loved O’Neill growing up as a Yankees fans in the ’90s, but in no way should his number be retired. He was a great Yankee, but number retirements should be for iconic Yankees. The Yankees have diminished what it means to get your number retired with the Yankees, and the fact that people have conversations about if CC Sabathia and Brett Gardner should have their numbers retired tells you all you need to know about how much (or how little) it now means.

I was at Ron Guidry Day in August 2003 when Number 49 was retired. For gifts, George Steinbrenner gave Guidry an SUV, a tractor, golf clubs, a digital camera, a gold ring, mountain bikes for his kids and five roundtrip train tickets from Louisiana to New York because Guidry doesn’t like to fly. George’s son gave O’Neill a replica of his plaque in Monument Park, a single bottle of wine, a Number 21 jersey signed by the 2022 Yankees (that probably goes right in the trash) and a gimmick gift of a $29.97 Gatorade cooler from Dick’s Sporting Goods with band-aids on it and a bat through it. Hal isn’t just cheap when it comes to the actual Yankees roster.

The fact that the Yankees won on Paul O’Neill Day has definitely raised the idea to Hal that the Yankees don’t need to buy players to win games they can just retire more undeserving numbers. I wouldn’t be surprised if Sabathia and Gardner get their numbers retired at some point, and it will likely happen after Tino Martinez and Scott Brosius get theirs.

8. On Sunday, Boone first asked Lou Trivino to come into a 2-2 game in the seventh inning with the bases loaded and two outs and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. up. Trivino successfully got him to ground out to end the seventh. Then he asked Trivino to start the eighth and he produced a 1-2-3 inning. Then he sent him back out for the ninth and he pitched around a one-out walk to save the game for the Yankees. It was the Yankees’ most impressive relief pitching performance of the season. They had to have the game on Sunday and going to Trivino for seven outs was an absolutely insane ask, but he Trivino handled it just about perfectly, needing only 32 pitches to get through 2 1/3 innings.

9. Alek Manoah hitting Aaron Judge is a non-story. First base was open and Manoah was going to pitch Judge inside and if he happened to hit him in doing so, so be it. It was a good strategy for the Blue Jays. Gerrit Cole trying to play the role of tough guy or enforcer and hopping over the dugout railing to chirp Manoah as if he was going to do anything to do the 6-foot-6, 285-pound Manoah was comical. What Cole should worry about is pitching like Manoah. Cole was awful in his start in the series on Saturday, allowing four earned runs on five hits and two walks across six innings. His manager (friend and neighbor) did say “he threw the ball well,” though, so there’s that.

10. The Yankees need to find a way to win of these two Subway Series games against Max Scherzer and Jacob deGrom. Starting Domingo German against Scherzer on Monday would be bad at any time, but with the state of the Yankee’s offense it’s especially egregious. Then asking the Yankees to beat the best pitcher in baseball the following day is just unfair, let alone with Frankie Montas starting, who will likely give up a run per inning.

After the second half of the Subway series, the Yankees head to the West Coast for seven games in seven days against the A’s and Angels, two teams they are a combined 6-0 against this season. But that doesn’t mean anything because these Yankees aren’t he same Yankees that went 6-0 against the A’s and Angels, outscoring them 33-12 earlier this season.

I expect the Yankees to have trouble with the Mets this week. If they have trouble against the A’s and Angels, then I think we will all officially know how this season is going to end.

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The Yankees ended their latest losing streak with a come-from-behind, walk-off win on Wednesday against the Rays. They still lost the three-game series and have lost five straight series, but for one game the Yankees gave their fans a night off from being depressed.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. It’s nice to write these Thoughts coming off a win. It would have been better to write them coming off a series win, something the Yankees haven’t had in three weeks, but I will take what I can get att this point as the Yankees continue to make me sweat my over 91.5-win preseason wager. (They need to go 19-25 to clinch for me.)

I’m happy the Yankees won on Wednesday and I’m happy they scored eight runs (seven if you don’t count the automatic runner in the 10th). I’m happy they finally called up two position players to give the roster and lineup a new look, and I’m happy they finally brought back the organization’s best reliever since Michael King went down and Clay Holmes turned into Jonathan Holder. But the happiness is only as good as the next day’s game, and if the Yankees get embarrassed by the Blue Jays over the next four days the way every team other than the Royals has embarrassed them since the All-Star break, Wednesday’s much-needed come-from-behind win will be forgotten the way every other win since June 19 that has been labeled as “The Possible Turning Point” has been.

No team with a 73-45 record should have as big of a win in mid-August as the Yankees had on Wednesday night over the Rays. The Yankees were a an an early four-run deficit and eventually three outs away from yet another loss and from seeing their once-15 1/2-game division lead falling to just seven games in the loss column. But then Josh Donaldson (one of the faces of everything wrong with the 2022 Yankees) stepped up and had his biggest hit as a Yankee.

2. The “Owed $48 Million Man” hit a walk-off grand slam in the 10th inning off Jalen Beeks to prevent the Yankees from losing a fourth straight game, and for at least one night, brought some good vibes back to the Bronx.

Do I expect Donaldson to now go off and turn around his season and make his situation and contract with the Yankees anything more than the disaster it’s been (which is why they reportedly tried to trade him at the deadline, but no general manager was as dumb as Brian Cashman to take on his money owed)? No, I don’t. I don’t because this isn’t the first time Donaldson has had a game in which he tried to fool fans into thinking he was anything other than washed up only to continue his drastic decline.

On Opening Day (April 8), Donaldson went 2-for-6 with a walk-off single against the Red Sox as the leadoff hitter. He then hit .207/.343/.345 with two home runs over his next 105 plate appearances.

In Chicago against the White Sox on May 12 and May 13, Donaldson went 4-for-10 with a double, two home runs and six RBIs. He then hit .213/.283/.336 with two home runs over his next 138 plate appearances.

From July 6 through July 9, Donaldson went 5-for-13 with three home runs and nine RBIs. He then hit .192/.259/.295 with one home run over his next 85 plate appearances.

In Seattle on August 8, in the middle of a five-game losing streak, Donaldson went 4-for-5 with two doubles, a home run and three RBIs. He then hit .120/.241/.120 over his next 29 plate appearances before Wednesday.

And then on Wednesday he hit the grand slam. Even with the grand slam, his OPS is at .698 on the season.

So I’m sorry if I don’t think Wednesday night’s moment was anything more than that: a moment. I don’t expect 2015 AL MVP Donaldson to now appear for the Yankees, and I don’t even expect 2021 Donaldson to appear. I expect the version of Donaldson we have seen for nearly the entire season to continue to be the Donaldson we see, and if he continues to play every day like he has all year, he will have occasional moments like he did on Wednesday. Not enough to warrant him being an everyday player for a championship team, but just enough for him to keep playing and to bat in the middle of the order for these Yankees.

3. Welcome back, Estevan Florial, and welcome, Oswaldo Cabrera. It took scoring one run (on an error) over three games and watching the Yankees 15 1/2-game division lead get cut in half for them to finally make some roster changes. Florial is back after four games with the team earlier this year (and after hitting .300/.440/.550 in 11 games last year), and Cabrera made his major-league debut at third base on Wednesday. Aaron Boone said both are going to play, and we’ll see if Fletcher Reede actually means what he says.

4. Isiah Kiner-Falefa hit his first home run of the season and drove in all three Yankees runs in their win on Saturday when the outrage about his play and the calls for Oswald Peraza were as loud as they have ever been (and still remain that loud). Donaldson finally did something at the plate in a big spot for the Yankees on the day one of the Yankees’ top prospects made his major-league debut at Donaldson’s third base. It’s almost as if sending messages and not being complacent can lead to positive results! Who would have known? (Well, clearly the defending-champion Braves who have called up their prospects with less Triple-A time and production than the Yankees’ prospects and have had immense success.)

I hope Florial and Cabrera both flourish in their opportunities. I want the Yankees to roster likable players, and Florial and Cabrera having success in the majors means less of Aaron Hicks, Donaldson and Kiner-Falefa. (I don’t actually think it will mean less Donaldson and Kiner-Falefa since the Yankees clearly think they are good, everyday-worthy, winning players. But it should mean less of them if this duo plays well.)

If Peraza keeps hitting in Triple-A, he should get a chance too. Just because the Yankees traded for Kiner-Falefa as a 2022 stopgap to bridge them to Peraza or Anthony Volpe doesn’t mean they have to wait until 2023 to turn to either. Kiner-Falefa has done enough (or rather not enough) for the Yankees to already have reason to be playing either of them now in the majors. If Kiner-Falefa continues to be an atrocious at-bat with an untrustworthy glove, give someone else an everyday chance.

5. It was nice to see Gleyber Torres finally do something as well on Wednesday, as he hit a two-run home run to get the Yankees on the board. But then in the seventh inning with the bases loaded and one out and the Yankees trailing by one run, Torres came to bat, swung at the first pitch and grounded into an inning-ending double play. Aaron Judge had walked on four straight pitches right before Torres came to bat and it’s likely what happened in Judge’s at-bat never crossed Torres’ mind. It was an ill-advised swing from a player who continues to boast arguably the lowest Baseball IQ I have seen from any player since Nick Swisher.

6. Boone did everything he could to try to extend the Yankees’ losing streak on Wednesday. After Lucas Luetge allowed a run in the sixth, he sent him back out there for the seventh. Luetge was allowed to put two more runners on in the seventh (after putting on two in the sixth) before Boone turned to “Roster Manipulation Ron” Marinaccio to get out of the jam. If Boone was willing to go to Marinaccio in the seventh, why didn’t he just start the inning clean? Why do I find myself writing a sentence similar to that in every one of these Thoughts blogs?

7. Thankfully, Marinaccio was recalled and available on Wednesday. It’s comical that Marinaccio entered in what was the highest leverage situation in the game to that point. Good enough to be used as the most important reliever last night, but not good enough to be a Yankees the previous 10 days. Well, that’s not true. He has always been good enough to be a Yankee, he was just used as a pawn in the Yankees’ roster manipulation strategy. The Yankees lost seven of nine will Marinaccio was wasting away in Triple-A, losing games because of meltdowns from Albert Abreu, Scott Effross, Lou Trivino and Holmes. The Yankees likely have a couple more wins if Marinaccio is on the Yankees over that nine-day period, as well as if Clarke Schmidt were too (who is still wasting away in Triple-A).

8. In the bottom of the ninth, Boone sent up Hicks as pinch hitter for Kiner-Falefa. Boone operated under the idea that Hicks had a better chance of ending the game with one swing than Kiner-Falefa, but that concept is meaningless since I too had a better chance of ending the game with one swing that Kiner-Falefa. Hicks has also homered in 1.6 percent of his plate appearances this season, so let’s not act like Matt Stairs was coming off the bench in that situation. Hicks struck out.

9. Then in the 10th, Boone brought in Aroldis Chapman. I was fine with that decision. What I wasn’t fine with was staying with Chapman with the bases loaded and one out and Francisco Mejia up. Mejia is a .225/.248/.384 hitter against righties and a .386/.397/.561 hitter against lefties. Even down 0-2, Mejia was able to hit a go-ahead, three-run double off Chapman.

As I said on the Keefe To The City Podcast earlier this week, Chapman could pitch 30 straight perfect innings and I will never trust him. The narrative of Chapman of late had been that he had resolved his issues and was his old self, and deserving of being the No. 1 arm in the Yankees’ bullpen. Then he went out on Wednesday night, got two outs and allowed two walks and a double, nearly ruining the game and handing the Yankees another loss before the walk-off in the bottom half of Chapman’s disastrous inning.

10. All Wednesday’s win should have done was make Yankees fans feel good in the exact moment of the walk-off grand slam. That’s it. Be happy until the moment Donaldson crossed the plate and then get back to reality. Because all the Yankees did was win one game. They still have a long way to go to getting back to being even remotely close to the team they were from mid-April to mid-June and to proving their postseason isn’t going to last only a handful of days.

Wednesday was one game and it was one win. Maybe it’s the start of something for the first time in two months. No win since June 19 has been the start of anything, but maybe this win will be different. I pray it is.

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