After starting their three-city, nine-game road trip 4-0, the Yankees end up going 5-4. The Yankees’ losing combined with the Rays’ winning has all but taken the division away as a possible postseaon path for the Yankees. Get ready for the Yankees playing in the one-game playoff once again.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. The division is over. The Yankees trail the Rays by seven games and have 29 games left. If the Rays were to play under .500 and go 14-15 the rest of the way, they would finish with 98 wins. The Yankees would have to go 21-8 just to tie them. The Rays are currently on a 102-win pace and the Yankees would have to go 25-4 to win 102 games. Most likely, the Rays will win 99-100 games and the Yankees would have to go 22-7 to get to 99 wins and 23-6 to get to 100. The Yankees aren’t mathematically eliminated in the AL East, but the odds really, really bad. Fangraphs gives the Yankees a 9 percent chance of winning the division.

The two losses to the Angels hurt and hurt the Yankees’ division chances. But it wasn’t like those losses were the only ones that hurt. All 56 losses to this point have hurt with several of them coming in the final innings of games in which the Yankees led. For as good as the Yankees have been since their 5-10 start (72-46), since the second game of the July 4 doubleheader (36-15), since the All-Star break (31-13) and since the trade deadline (24-8), the Rays have been even better. When you have 31-13 run team, which includes a 13-game winning streak, you’re supposed to do serious damage in the standings. The Yankees did so in terms of the wild-card standings, but in the division, they actually lost ground on the Rays, who have gone 31-12. That’s ridiculous.

2. So now the Yankees look destined for the one-game, wild-card playoff for the third time in the last four seasons in which it was held, and the fourth time in the last six seasons in which it was held. The five-team postseason format has hurt the Yankees more than any other team. In 2015, the Yankees would have advanced to the ALDS in the old, four-team format. Instead, they lost to Dallas Keuchel and the Astros 3-0 at Yankee Stadium. In 2016, the Yankees nearly didn’t trade away Andrew Miller, Aroldis Chapman, Carlos Beltran and Ivan Nova because ownership wanted to hold on for the possibility of winning the second wild-card berth. In 2017 and 2018, the Yankees would have advanced to the ALDS in the old format, and the same will be true in 2021.

The Yankees have the best possible starting pitcher for the one-game playoff in 2021 in Gerrit Cole. Outside of Jacob deGrom, he’s the best pitcher in baseball. But it’s still one game, in which anything can happen, and any player, pitcher or team could have the best or worst game or day imaginable. Look at the starting pitchers who have shut down the Yankees in a single game this season: Matt Harvey, Michael Wacha, Jordan Lyles and Paul Blackburn, among many others. All fringe major leaguers who the Yankees couldn’t muster (Aaron Boone buzz word) any offense against. Cole could have the kind of unbelievable start he had on Wednesday night in Anaheim (7 IP, 4 H, 1 R ,1 ER, 0 BB, 15 K), and the Yankees could still lose because it’s ONE GAME. “One-game playoff” is the scariest phrase in baseball, and having gone through three others already in the last five years, I’m speaking from experience. It’s a horrible, miserable, nail-biting event that excites for everyone other than the team and the fans of the team who earned the first wild-card berth.

3. If the Yankees earn the first wild card (which they are likely to do) and start Cole (which they will do), and they win the game, well, they’re set up for failure in the ALDS. The wild-card game is on Tuesday, Oct. 5. The ALDS begins on Thursday, Oct. 7. The Yankees would have one full day off between the wild-card game and Game 1 of the ALDS. They would have to travel to Tampa and play the first two games of the ALDS against the AL-best Rays (a team that has owned them during the Aaron Boone era) at the Trop (a place they have had an extremely difficult time winning) and they would be without Cole until Game 3 of the series. Rather than have Cole for two games in a best-of-5 against the Rays, the Yankees would have him for one game, meaning some combination of Jordan Montgomery, Jameson Taillon, Nestor Cortes and Corey Kluber would start as many as four games against the Rays. The Yankees couldn’t beat the Rays in a best-of-5 last October with Cole pitching twice in the series and none of the games being at the Trop. Given the opponent, where the first two games of the series will be played and the lack of Cole, the Yankees’ chances of eliminating the Rays and advancing to the ALDS this October aren’t great.

That doesn’t mean it can’t happen, just like it doesn’t mean the Yankees can’t end their championship drought. It’s just unlikely for either thing to happen. That’s what the wild-card game is meant to do: severely obstruct the path to postseason success for the teams who have to play in it. That’s why I value each game the same from Opening Day through Game 162 because each game can be the difference between having a bye to the ALDS and being able to have three days off and set up your rotation to maximize potential success or having to play one game for your season in which you have to use your best starter and diminish your odds of winning in the first round.

4. Once again, the Yankees simply didn’t do everything they could to avoid the one-game playoff, and I truly believe they’re fine with it. “Just get in” they would say, and if it doesn’t go well, and their postseason lasts one night, Brian Cashman will be there to tell you about how baseball’s postseason is a crapshoot and success in it is random.

Without a playoff berth clinched, and barely hanging on in the division, and barely holding on to the first wild card, and even after losing four straight games to the A’s and Angels recently, Boone still gave Giancarlo Stanton the day off on Wednesday in the series finale in Anaheim.

“Just a day off,” Boone said. “I probably should have given it to him yesterday.”

Boone might as well have waved a white flag with “AL East” written on it in his pregame press conference. Trailing the Rays by eight games before the start of Wednesday’s game, Boone sat Stanton even with a scheduled day off on Thursday. In Game 133 of 162, Boone is still putting his lineup together as if the Yankees are 15 games up in the division or as if the end date of season is indefinite and will continue until the Yankees achieve first place in the division.

5. “I think guys are ticked off that we haven’t continued to roll,” Boone said about the four-game losing streak immediately following the 13-game winning streak.

The “guys” should be “ticked off” at Boone. It’s Boone who continues to change the lineup daily, never once starting the nine best available players. It was Boone who watched Kluber (in his first start in more than three months) allow three consecutive first-pitch singles and then load the bases without getting anyone up in the bullpen. It was Boone who allowed Kluber, running on fumes, to give up a grand slam in that same inning, and it was Boone who allowed Kluber to keep pitching after the slam because no one was completely warmed up after Boone failed to warm anyone up in time. It was also Boone who watched Taillon struggle to put away hitters the following night and after giving up a 3-spot in the third inning, sat there and let Taillon give up another 3-spot the very next inning, never thinking to go to his bullpen in what was still a winnable game at the time. Boone’s lack of understanding when to remove a pitcher and his seemingly need to bring in each reliever in a no-margin-for-error situation is infuriating.

6. Stanton’s unnecessary night off meant got Luke Voit back in the lineup. Stanton shouldn’t need to sit for Voit to play. Anthony Rizzo shouldn’t need to sit for Voit to play. NO ONE should need to sit for Voit to play. Voit should play every single game because he’s a great hitter, and ironically, there’s a spot in the AL batting order for a great hitter, who doesn’t have to play the field. Even with a dedicated lineup spot for someone who is one of the best hitters in baseball, but doesn’t necessarily have a position, this is how Boone has used (or not used) Voit the last few weeks:

August 15: 3-for-5, HR, 2 RBIs
August 16: 1-for-3
August 17: 2-for-5, HR, 3 RBIs
August 18: Off day
August 19: 1-for-4, 2B, 2 RBIs
August 20: 4-for-5, 2B, HR, 2 RBIs
August 21: 2-for-4, 2B, 2 RBIs
August 22: Off day
August 23: Bench
August 24: Bench
August 25: Off day
August 26: Bench
August 27: 1-for-4, HR, RBI
August 28: 1-for-3
August 29: 0-for-4
August 30: Bench
August 31: Bench
September 1: 2-for-3, 2B, 2 RBIs

7. The constant benching of Voit, despite him bashing the ball and recently winning AL Player of the Week is due to Boone’s love for Brett Gardner and his needing to play Gardner in as many games as possible. Gardner was supposed to be the team’s fourth outfielder beginning in 2018, thought he was always going to play more than a normal fourth outfielder with the oft-injured Aaron Hicks on the team and the also oft-injured Stanton and Aaron Judge. Gardner played 140 games in 2018 (86 percent), 141 games in 2019 (87 percent), 49 games in 2020 (82 percent) and has played in 113 games in 2021 (85 percent).

The problem with Gardner going from fourth outfielder to everyday outfielder every year since since 2018 is Gardner isn’t any good. In fact, he’s bad. He isn’t one of the best nine players on the team deserving of an everyday lineup spot, but he continues to be an everyday player. He hasn’t been good enough to be an everyday player since 2017. In 2018, he lost his everyday role in the trade for Andrew McCutchen. The Yankees brought him back anyway for 2019, rather than sign Michael Brantley, and thanks to the super baseball, Gardner hit 28 home runs, which were nothing more than a mirage in a season in which Gleyber Torres hit 38 (he has nine in 141 games since) and Ketel Marte hit 32 (he he has hit 11 in 110 games since). Gardner’s 2019 stats look as fake as every cast member of Friends does now except for Lisa Kudrow. Gardner was horrible again in the shortened 2020 season, until a two-week hot streak to end the season somehow made up for his last three years and led to him starting five of the Yankees’ seven playoff games.

If given the opportunity to play Gardner, Boone will always play Gardner. I can’t help but think of the scene in Moneyball where Billy Beane is forced to trade Carlos Pena and Jeremy Giambi so Art Howe has to play Scott Hatteberg at first. The only way for Boone to not play Gardner and to play the best possible lineup is for Gardner to no longer be on the team. Unfortunately, with a month left in what should be his final major league season (if this isn’t Gardner’s last major league season I may have to boycott rooting for the Yankees), Gardner is here to stay.

8. That means you should prepare yourself to see Gardner starting in center field in the one-game playoff. Gardner started five of seven postseason games in 2020. In 2019, Boone batted him third in both the ALDS and ALCS. In 2018 with the Yankees facing elimination, Boone sat McCutchen for Gardner. There’s no way Gardner will be on the bench for the one-game playoff. If everyone is healthy for the wild-card game, this will be the lineup:

DJ LeMahieu, 2B
Anthony Rizzo, 1B
Aaron Judge, RF
Joey Gallo, LF/Giancarlo Stanton, DH
Joey Gallo, LF/Giancarlo Stanton, DH
Gleyber Torres, SS
Gio Urshela, 3B
Kyle Higashioka, C
Brett Gardner, CF

(If it’s Chris Sale, Stanton will bat fourth. If it’s a right-handed starter, Boone will bat Gallo fourth to alternate righty-lefty since he thinks it’s a mandatory lineup rule when facing a right-handed starter.)

Playing with two near-automatic outs in the lineup (Higashioka and Gardner) in one game for your entire season, and what could be Boone’s job, is absolutely crazy. But Boone is going to do it. He’s 100 percent going to do it.

9. Boone has been unbelievably bad this season as his in-game management “ability” has somehow declined (something I didn’t think was possible), and it’s obvious (Boone buzz word) his communication skills (for which he was praised and essentially hired for) have fallen apart as well.

Since last October when he benched Clint Frazier for Gardner and failed to discuss Gary Sanchez’s playing time with the catcher, things have unraveled for Boone off the field. In spring training, he didn’t feel it was necessary for Scumbag Domingo German to address the team regarding why he was suspended by the league in 2019 and for 2020, until Zack Britton openly told the media “you don’t get to pick who your teammates are.” Boone publicly lied about Frazier being the starting left fielder in 2021, even though the second Gardner re-signed everyone knew Boone would give Frazier less than a week to prove himself before turning to one of his favorites. He said Sanchez would catch Cole in 2021, and Sanchez caught Cole on Opening Day and then didn’t again until Higashioka was pinch hit for in a game Sanchez won with his pinch-hit home run and didn’t again until Higashioka went down with COVID. He said Stanton would be used in the outfield as early as the beginning of the season, and Stanton finally played the outfield on the second-to-last-day of July in the 102nd game of the season. He has once again lied about injuries, injury rehabs and return dates from injuries and spent the first three-plus months of the season essentially saying, “Everything is fine” while failing to hold himself or any player on the roster accountable for the Yankees’ embarrassing performance half of the season.

I don’t see how Boone is the Yankees’ manager in 2021 unless the team reaches the World Series. In a season in which the Yankees were expected to represent the AL in the World Series and were the odds-on favorite to do so, I don’t know how the Yankees can bring him back and tell the fan base settling for yet another wild-card game and early postseason exit is acceptable.

10. The remaining 29 games are about clinching the first wild-card berth since it would take a colossal Rays collapse for the division to become in play again. Winning games and hoping the Red Sox lose games is what these remaining four-plus weeks are about. Because while the one-game playoff is scary as is, the only pitcher I’m truly petrified of the Yankees having to see in it is Chris Sale. Give me any of the A’s or Mariners or Blue Jays starters. If the Yankees lose to them, so be it. If the Yankees play the Red Sox and win, it will be like it always is: the Yankees were supposed to win. If the Yankees were to be eliminated by the Red Sox for the second time in four years and third time since 2004, losing at home in a game started by Cole in a year in which the Red Sox weren’t supposed to be competitive, it will be a very bad scene.

As is the case every day of every baseball season, the Yankees need to win and the Red Sox need to lose. More now than ever.

Subscribe to the Keefe To The City Podcast. New episode after every game during the season.

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

The Yankees are fun again. They are fun because they’re winning and winning is fun. Since losing the first game of the doubleheader against the Mets on July 4, the Yankees are 33-11.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. 50-23. That’s the improbable record the Yankees needed to post after the All-Star break to reach 96 wins (which would win me by preseason over 95.5 wins wager) and most likely win the AL East and avoid the one-game, wild-card game. The Yankees have gone 28-9 (.757) since the All-Star break, a ridiculous, silly run to not only pass both the A’s and Red Sox to take control of the first wild-card berth, but to make winning the division a reality.

The problem is it might take more than 96 wins now to win the division. While the Yankees have been stacking wins for the last six weeks, so have the Rays. The Rays have nearly matched the Yankees’ incredible pace by going 26-11 themselves, and for as dominant as the Yankees have been since July 16, they have only made up two games of ground on the Rays. Two games! With a 28-9 record!

2. The entire look, feel, culture and expectations for the team changed at the trade deadline when Brian Cashman admitted his egregious mistake of thinking a team without real, major-league-caliber left-handed bats could win by trading for Joey Gallo and Anthony Rizzo. The additions of Wandy Peralta, Joely Rodriguez and Clay Holmes throughout the season have been helpful and needed, but they haven’t had the impact Gallo and Rizzo have had.

Even if Rizzo hasn’t hit much since his first few days with the team (.248/.346/.446), without him, the team gets swept by the Marlins in Miami and their season potentially goes into a tailspin at the end of July rather than this remarkable run. The hits Rizzo has had have all been impactful, and even without racking up hits, he’s still getting on base and playing Gold Glove-level defense, something the Yankees tried to live without from 2002-2008 and again from 2017-July 29, 2021.

The same goes for Gallo. The hits he has gotten have been meaningful, every one of his plate appearance seems to last at least six pitches and his outfield defense has been essentially impeccable. It’s scary the Yankees have gone 21-4 since acquiring the two and neither of them has played to their offensive ability. Scary.

3. The trade for Rizzo made Luke Voit seemingly expendable. Thankfully, it didn’t lead to him being traded away. Voit has been one of the best hitters in baseball since his most recent return from the injured list, batting .320/.393/.620 with four home runs and 17 RBIs in 15 games (13 starts). Last week, Voit openly spoke about how he deserves to play as much as Rizzo does and then he went out and posted a 1.591 OPS for the week.

It doesn’t need to be and shouldn’t be Rizzo or Voit. It should be Rizzo and Voit. Rizzo at first base and Voit as the designated hitter and an outfield of Aaron Judge, Giancarlo Stanton and Gallo. No more Brett Gardner. Please, no more Gardner. He shouldn’t be on the team taking up a roster spot, let alone taking up an actual lineup spot and forcing any of those names to the bench. Play the best lineup and play it every day. There’s 36 games remaining. Enough games were given away this season due to unnecessary rest that once again didn’t prevent injury or underperformance. Do everything possible to win the division. Something this organization has done once since 2012.

4. I wrote and said a lot of critical things about Nestor Cortes in 2019, and they were all earned. Cortes was awful. He somehow managed to maintain a roster spot throughout the season with 5.67 ERA and 5.57 FIP, while serving as an opener and the first in relief of the opener. This was when the Yankees decided to use Chad Green as an opener for the majority of the season and then were shocked when he couldn’t get the Astros out every night in October.

The career turnaround Cortes has experienced this season is remarkable. He went from getting unprotected by the Yankees in the Rule 5 draft in 2017 to getting returned to the Yankees by the Orioles in 2018 to getting traded to the Mariners for 2020 to re-signing with the Yankees for 2021. Before this season, over 79 career innings, Cortes had a 6.72 ERA, 6.69 FIP and had allowed 139 baserunners. He was a fringe major leaguer at best and really just an organizational depth arm. Now he’s being compared to El Duque.

Two years ago, it was painful to watch Cortes, now it’s enjoyable. His starts are entertaining, full of creativity and surprise with his various arm angles, deliveries and pitches. Most importantly, he’s been successful. I never thought I would be OK with Cortes starting a postseason game for the Yankees, but here I am being OK if Cortes were to start a postseason game for the Yankees.

5. For Cortes to start a postseason game, the Yankees need to get to the postseason. Not just get there, but to get to an actual series. That means either winning the division and avoiding the wild-card game or winning the wild-card game. That means the back end of the bullpen needs to be optimized in a way that the bullpen isn’t managed solely on who’s owed the most money.

Disregarding recent performance and ability this season (as well as not being able to use simple logic in determining who should get high-leverage outs) is why the Yankees are still chasing the Rays and not the other way around. Zack Britton is now injured and potentially done for the season, but before he went on the injured list, it took Britton going to Aaron Boone and telling him he shouldn’t be used in high-leverage situations for the time being. It’s supposed to be the manager’s job to recognize who he should or shouldn’t use to get outs at the most crucial time. Yet, it’s another thing Boone simply hasn’t been able to grasp as manager. (I’m waiting to find something he has been able to grasp as manager other than his use of the word “obviously.”)

6. The same is now true of Aroldis Chapman. It’s been true of Chapman since mid-June when he started pitching like the left-handed Nick Nelson. Chapman has walked 31 and given up seven home runs in just 42 innings. His strikeout-to-walk ratio is a miserable 2.29, the lowest it’s been since it was 1.73 a decade ago when he was a 23-year-old breaking into the majors.

As I talked about on the podcast after his latest meltdown in Atlanta, he can’t be trusted. Not now, not in September and certainly not in October. Chapman has already ushered in the offseason for the Yankees the last two years with the home runs he allowed to Jose Altuve and Mike Brosseau, and if given the chance this October, he will likely send the Yankees home prematurely again. Chapman doesn’t deserve to be the “closer” until he proves he can be trusted (if he ever can).

7. The Yankees shouldn’t even have a closer. That role should have been retired once Number 42 retired. It’s an unnecessary job and term, and the save stat is rather ridiculous, and it’s a disaster that salaries, contracts and arbitration are based on a meaningless stat. How is protecting a three-run lead to start the ninth inning against a team’s 7-8-9 hitters more important than getting the heart of the order out when the lead was only one run the inning before?

The Yankees should finally move on from having a set closer and set innings. Let the matchup determine who gets the ball, not the inning.

8. Right now, I trust Jonathan Loaisiga the most in the bullpen. (See how much things have changed from a year ago.) Here is my current Bullpen Level of Trust (scale 1-10):

Jonathan Loaisiga: 8.2
Chad Green: 7.9
Clay Holmes: 6.9
Joely Rodriguez: 6.2
Wandy Peralta: 6.1
Lucas Luetge: 5.7
Albert Abreu: 5.4
Aroldis Chapman: 2.1

Loaisiga and Green are in their own tier. Then Holmes. Then Rodriguez and Peralta. Then Abreu and Luetge. I actually don’t have a problem with any of the relievers other than Chapman right now.

9. It’s not the bullpen the Yankees expected when they signed Darren O’Day and Justin Wilson, and thought those two would pair well with Britton and Chapman at the end of games. But it’s still a very good bullpen and one that’s good enough to win, as long as they aren’t walking in runs. Or as long as Boone doesn’t let a game get to the point in which any of them are walking in runs.

10. The Yankees don’t need to win every game in Oakland this weekend. They don’t even need to win the series. It would be great if they swept the A’s since the Rays are playing the Orioles and there’s a better chance of Boone logically filling out the lineup card for a single game than there is the Orioles taking a game from the Rays this weekend.

Winning two of the four games against the A’s is all the Yankees need to do. (They could actually only win one of the four and it wouldn’t be a big deal, they just can’t get swept.) It would keep them five games ahead of the A’s, most likely keep them ahead of the Red Sox and it would take four games off the schedule with them not losing much, if any, ground. It would likely set them back to a game or two to the Rays, but that’s OK. The ground was never going to be made up while the Rays were playing the Orioles. If the ground is going to be made up, it’s going to come when the Rays play the Red Sox (7), Tigers (7), Blue Jays (6), Astros (3) and Yankees (3) in the final three games of the season. The Yankees need to get the division deficit to one game before that final weekend, so that a series win ties them with the Rays for the AL East, forcing a one-game playoff the day after Game 162 for the division with the loser going to the wild-card game.

That’s the goal: get the division deficit to one game by Game 160. The Yankees have 33 games to get the division deficit to one game. It won’t be easy, but a big weekend in Oakland would make it a little easier.

Subscribe to the Keefe To The City Podcast. New episode after every game during the season.

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

A month ago, the Yankees trailed the Red Sox by eight games. Today, they are ahead of the Red Sox and hold a playoff spot for the first time in nearly three months.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. The sun is shining a little brighter today after the Yankees swept the Red Sox in a doubleheader on Tuesday to hold a playoff spot for the first time since the end of May. The Yankees’ two wins moved them past the Red Sox for the second wild card and when the A’s lost on Tuesday night, the Yankees moved past them for the first wild card.

How did the Yankees get here? By winning, of course, and winning at a ridiculous rate. Here are the Yankees’ records since specific July checkpoints:

Since the second game of the doubleheader against the Mets on July 4: 27-11

Since the All-Star break: 22-9

Since losing three of four to the Red Sox from July 22-25: 17-5

Since the trade deadline: 15-4

The Yankees began the second half of the season needing to play nearly .700 baseball for the remaining 73 games and go 50-23, and so far they have been even better than that wishful thinking, playing .710 baseball.

2. Be happy today. Be very happy. But don’t be content. The goal is to win the World Series, not win a wild-card berth. And the best path to winning the World Series is to advance to the ALDS by avoiding a one-game playoff, in which anything could go wrong. That means overcoming the five-game deficit to the Rays with 43 games left.

3. Back on July 14, coming out of the All-Star break, I wrote Yankees Thoughts: Path to Postseason Isn’t Pretty. In that I had this path to the postseason with the Yankees needing to win 50 of 73 games:

Red Sox: 10-4
Phillies: 1-1
Rays: 4-2
Marlins: 2-1
Orioles: 7-2
Mariners: 3-1
Royals: 2-1
White Sox: 2-1
Angels: 3-1
Twins: 3-1
Braves: 1-1
A’s: 2-2
Blue Jays: 4-3
Mets: 2-1
Indians: 2-1
Rangers: 2-1

The current path is now:

Red Sox: 2-2
Twins: 3-1
Braves/Indians/Rangers: 6-2
A’s: 2-2
Angels: 2-1
Orioles: 5-1
Blue Jays: 4-3
Mets: 2-1
Rays: 2-1

4. The last few times I have updated the path to 96 wins, I have written, “Again, not crazy. Also, not likely.” Now it’s actually likely. That right there is a 28-14 record, the equivalent of winning two of every three games for the next six weeks. The Yankees have been doing so while not close to full strength. They just got Gerrit Cole, Jordan Montgomery and Gary Sanchez back. Anthony Rizzo is close to returning, Gio Urshela is beginning baseball activities, Gleyber Torres is working out, Aroldis Chapman is throwing and Corey Kluber is pitching in rehab games.

5. I know whenever the Yankees get one player back, another goes down, but if everyone were to be healthy at the same time, this could be the lineup in the very near future:

DJ LeMahieu, 2B
Anthony Rizzo, 1B
Aaron Judge, RF
Joey Gallo, CF
Giancarlo Stanton, LF
Luke Voit, DH
Gary Sanchez, C
Gleyber Torres, SS
Gio Urshela, 3B

That’s the best possible Yankees lineup. No Brett Gardner. No Tyler Wade. No Rougned Odor. No Kyle Higashioka. Those four can make up the bench. But some version of those nine names should be the starting lineup.

6. Voit had a big day against the Red Sox with what ended up being the game-winning hit in both games: a two-run single in the day game and a solo home run in the night game. Voit has been much better of late with three home runs, nine RBIs and an .804 OPS since returning on 10 days ago. After the sweep, Voit spoke about his status and potential playing time, and it was a little odd.

“I was Top 10 in MVP and I’ve been a great player for this organization for the last three years,” Voit said after the night game. “I’m not going down. I wanna play. Obviously, I know it’s going to be tough here with Rizzo, but I deserve to play just as much as he does. I led the league in home runs last year and I feel really good again. Obviously, the injury bug is the reason he’s here beause of me, but I hope Booney can do whatever he can to get me consistent at-bats.”

I’m glad Voit acknowledges Rizzo is a Yankee because of his own doing. Voit’s inability to stay healthy (he’s played in 39 games this season) is the reason Rizzo is here. The Yankees had to go out and get a first baseman because they didn’t have one because Voit can’t stay healthy. And even when Voit was “healthy” he wasn’t performing. Now the Yankees have Voit and Rizzo and they both can only play first base.

Rizzo has had the better career, is better at getting on base, is a left-handed hitter who hits both righties and lefties and plays a Gold Glove first. There’s nothing Voit does better than Rizzo, and he should never play over him. But thanks to the designated hitter spot, they can both play. That will just mean the Yankees playing Stanton in the outfield more often, a move that should have been happening frequently all along the last two years.

7. With Cole and Montgomery back and Kluber nearing a return, the Yankees will go from having a rotation featuring Andrew Heaney and an opener day to having seven capable starters for five spots. I fully expecet the Yankees to do the wrong thing and insert Scumbag German back into the rotation, put Nestor Cortes in the bullpen and send Luis Gil down. The Yankees don’t care about fielding the best possible team, they care about roster depth. It’s why Greg Allen is in Triple-A and Jonathan Davis is striking out and grounding out to short in every plate appearances. It’s why Nick Nelson is on the major league roster and Stephen Ridings is back in the minors.

Gil became the first pitcher in the Modern Era (since 1900) to strikeout 18 without allowing an earned run in his first three career starts, and I fully expect the Yankees to send him down once there are five other starting options not named Andrew Heaney.

Even after Gil dominated the Orioles and Royals, the idea he “isn’t ready” and needs more seasoning and grooming in the minors was prevalent. Well, he just pitched 4 2/3 scoreless innings against the Red Sox, a team that has crushed Cole in two of his three starts against them. What more could Gil need to do to prove he belongs?

8. I have written and said a lot of critical things about Aaron Boone over the last three years and nearly five months. They have all been fair. He’s a terrible manager who was undeserving of the position and has been a disaster in the role. But for all the negative things I have said about Boone (again, all accurate and fair), he had his best-managed game of his career in the first game of the doubleheader, outmanaging Alex Cora for the first time ever.

The starting lineup was poorly constructed, but Boone will never get that right. I’m only speaking to his in-game mnagement. He removed Montgomery at the right moment, one out shy of five innings pitched. He correctly went to Albert Abreu to get the last out of the fifth, and was right to go to Jonathan Loaisiga for both the sixth and seventh innings of the seven-inning game. In addition to his successful bullpen management, he used Staton to pinch hit for Odor (Stanton produced an RBI single) and then used Davis as the center fielder, moved Wade from left field to third and Gardner from center field to left field.

For the final inning of the night game, Boone moved every position player except for Higashioka to get the most optimal defensive alignment. It was a crazy idea considering the Yankees trailed by two runs and a walk or bloop and a blast and they would have had to score more runs without some big bats, but it worked out. Boone pushed the right buttons on Tuesday, something he rarely ever does.

9. Boone will never be a great in-game manager. He has been in the managerial role for 524 games and I have seen too much (or too little) to expect him to change suddenly change his ways. The lineup will always be an issue (like batting Gardner second) and the batter-to-batter, stealing-outs strategy will always be a problem. But if Boone is even a little better at his job over the next six weeks and for as long as he’s Yankees manager (which will hopefully only be until their last game in 2021), it will make things so much easier.

Boone is the Yankees’ biggest obstacle to winning a championship. The offense can’t always outhit his mistakes, like it has had to do for going on four seasons. On Tuesday, when the offense only produced five runs in the first game and two runs in the second, normally that wouldn’t be enough to overcome their own manager. However, when he makes the right, most logical decisions, good things happen like they did in the doubleheader, and the Yankees won both games.

10. I’m happy today. Happy, but not content, This team was expected to represent the AL in the World Series, now celebrate a trip to the one-game playoff for the third time in the last four years in which there was a wild-card game (and fourth in time in last six years there was one).

“We’ve got a long way to go,” Boone said after the night game. “We’ve gotta continue it. We’ve gotta keep the foot down on the gas and continue to grind away. It’s going to be a tough road ahead still.”

I’m happy the Yankees aren’t prematurely talking trash, the way Judge loves to do and like he did after the Game 2 in the 2018 ALDS and like he did earlier this season in Houston. Like Boone said, the Yankees have a long way to go, and given their remaining schedule and the Rays’, it’s not going to be easy.

There’s so much work left to do. Winning the division has been and still is the goal. It was a nearly impossibly goal a month ago. Now it’s very possible.

Subscribe to the Keefe To The City Podcast. New episode after every game during the season.

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

Another series and another series win for the Yankees. The offense barely showed up in the four games against the Mariners (13 runs in the series), but the Yankees’ pitching was outstanding again, the way it’s been all season.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. On Thursday night, Nestor Cortes used his new-found trickery to pitch five solid innings (5 IP, 5 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 3 BB, 2 K, 1 HR), but Chad Green gave up another potential late-inning, go-ahead home run that would have been the icing on the cake for what was the latest lackluster performance from the Yankees when not playing the Orioles.

Thankfully, Joey Gallo hit the exact home run I envisioned the 6-foot-5 on-base machine hitting when the Yankees acquired him: a high flyball, which barely found the short porch for the most Yankee Stadium home run you might ever see (until Rougned Odor’s Saturday home run). The go-ahead, three-run, seventh-inning home run gave the Yankees a win in a game. The Yankees play half of their games in a stadium that’s 314 feet to the right-field foul pole, and yet, it took them 101 games into a 162-game season to add a major-league-caliber left-handed bat.

Even if Michael Kay ruined the moment with his cringe-worthy yelling about how the home run being Gallo’s “signature Yankees moment,” it was still a great moment, and a much-needed moment to provide a much-needed win.

2. On Friday night, the Yankees needed another late-inning comeback to tie the game against the Mariners  before gong on to win in 11 innings. The Yankees were held scoreless through the first seven innings on Friday by Marco Gonzales, who entered the game with a 5.15 ERA over 73 1/3 innings. In a season in which Jorge Lopez, Matt Harvey, Michael Wacha, Jordan Lyles, Martin Perez and countless other barely-in-the-league starters have shut down the Yankees, Gonzales became the latest, throwing  6 2/3 scoreless innings, allowing only thee hits and two walks.

Recently-acquired Diego Castillo entered for the Mariners in the eighth, and while Castillo has been very good in his career, I felt good knowing the Mariners hadn’t gone back to old Joe Smith, who got the last out of seventh, because his sweeping slider has been giving the Yankees trouble for 15 years. After four-plus seasons with the Rays, the Yankees had seen Castillo a lot and even for this anemic Yankees offense, they perform better with someone they’re comfortable with. (I would rather the Yankees face Chris Sale than some call-up making their major league debut, as crazy as that sounds). Gardner pinch hit for Jonathan Davis, who has about as much business being on the 2021 Yankees as Gardner, let alone starting every game against a left-handed starter. Gardner worked an all-important seven-pitch walk to begin the inning. Then DJ LeMahieu walked on six pitches and Anthony Rizzo was hit by a pitch. Down one with the bases loaded, no outs, the Yankee had Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton due up: an ideal situation (at least on paper). Judge hit a line drive which went right at the left fielder, but was deep enough to score Gardner and tie the game. After two walks, a hit by pitch and a rocket line drive against a more-than-shaky Castillo, Stanton  swung at the first pitch and banged into a 6-4-3, inning-ending double play.

In the ninth, both Kyle Higashioka and Gardner failed to get in the winning run from second base. In the 10th, the Mariners scored the go-ahead run, but thankfully, Stanton came through with two outs in the bottom of the inning, this time successfully swinging on the first pitch of his at-bat for the game-tying RBI single.

In the 11th, after Albert Abreu pitched a seemingly improbable scoreless inning, Higashioka failed to get in Torres from second again, but this time Gardner didn’t fail to win the game, driving in Torres to win the game.

3. I have said a lot of critical things about Gardner this season and they are all true. He shouldn’t be on this team. Certainly not over Greg Allen or Estevan Florial based strictly on performance.

Allen has played the way the Yankees still think Gardner does, and likely why he has a lifetime vesting one-year contract. The fact Gardner has been able to maintain his roster spot throughout this dismal season, while Allen and Florial have both gotten sent down to accommodate Gardner’s presence is an embarrassment. The Yankees forced Alex Rodriguez into retirement in early August 2016 following a Hall of Fame career and being the sole reason the organization is currently looking at only a 12-year championship drought and not a 21-year drought. Gardner doesn’t belong on this team. He never did. And ever since he became the elder statesman among position players on the team and the longest-tenured Yankee, the team hasn’t done or won anything. His clubhouse leadership hasn’t brought the Yankees anything other than an outfield logjam, and detrimental roster moves to keep him around. If the Yankees are to reach the playoffs, it’s easy to see Gardner being in the lineup, starting in center field and batting ninth.

His walk-off hit doesn’t change this. It was a nice moment and a big hit in a big spot resulting in a big win. But given enough chances, Gardner will come through every once in a while, like any borderline major leaguer. The problem is his every once in a while is now every once in too long of a while.

4. Saturday was Aug. 7. Aaron Judge hit a first-inning solo home run, and it was the first time the Yankees had scored in the first inning since July 7. A team whose Top 5 hitters have mostly been a combination of LeMahieu, Judge, Stanton, Rizzo, Gallo, Gary Sanchez and Torres for a month failed to score a single run in the first inning of a month’s worth of games.

Judge’s home run didn’t give the Yankees a lead because Andrew Heaney started for the Yankees and was doing Andrew Heaney things: giving up runs and home runs. Heaney allowed two runs in the first (on a two-out, two-run home run) and then another two runs in the second. Heaney was the only Yankees starting pitcher to have a bad weekend, allowing four earned runs over six innings. Yes, he settled down after the second (after he had already allowed four runs), but the way he was praised by the YES broadcast and on social media, you would have thought he had pitched a complete-game shutout. If not for Mitch Haniger falling down late on Saturday and the Mariners inexplicably not throwing home to get LeMahieu, the Yankees lose on Saturday. Heaney wasn’t good, and I don’t expect him to be good.

5. You know who is good? Luis Gil. The Luis Gil who is supposedly “not ready” for the majors has now pitched 11 scoreless innings over two starts to begin his career. Gil was only given a chance because Gerrit Cole and Jordan Montgomery went down with COVID, Scumbag Domingo German hurt his shoulder and Luis Severino and Corey Kluber aren’t ready to return yet. If the Yankees needed only one rotation spot, it would go to Cortes then Heaney then Gil. If not for needing Gil to jump to the majors out of desperation, he would still be wasting pitches in the minors.

In a weekend in which the Yankees started Cortes, Wandy Peralta as an opener, Heaney, and Gil, they went 3-1. And they went 3-1 because of those names, not because of the offense.

The Yankees’ Sunday performance was all too familiar. The team was held to six hits, failed to score any of their 10 baserunner and even against a left-handed starter, the nearly all-right-handed lineup (minus Gallo and Odor) was shut down. On paper, the Yankees’ lineup is awesome. In actuality, it’s far from it. 

Going back to July 22, the Yankees have played 17 games. In two of those games, they scored 23 runs against the Orioles. In the other 15 games, they have scored 45 runs, an average of three runs per game. In nine of those games, they have had both Rizzo and Gallo on the team.

The Yankees have been winning since the second game of their doubleheader against the Mets on July 4 (20-9) and since the All-Star break (15-7) and since the trade deadline (8-2), but it hasn’t had anything to do with their offense. Even in the two games when the offense went off against the Orioles, the pitching staff held the Orioles to four runs in 18 innings. Pitching has carried the Yankees this season and outside of Heaney’s first two innings on Saturday, that was the case this weekend against the Mariners.

Here is the Yankees’ pitching line for the weekend:

38 IP, 39 H, 11 R, 8 ER, 13 BB, 43 K, 3 HR, 1.89 ERA, 1.368 WHIP.

6. The power drought is still a drought. The Yankees don’t make nearly enough contact to be able to string together hits to score runs and their lack of home runs is the reason for their lack of scoring. Here’s the recent power problems for the everyday Yankees:

Kyle Higashioka (he’s now an everyday player with Sanchez out): No home runs since June 22.

DJ LeMahieu: No home runs since June 26
Gio Urshela: One home run since June 28
Brett Gardner: one home run since June 30
Aaron Judge: Two home runs since July 10
Giancarlo Stanton: One home run since July 20
Gary Sanchez: No home runs since July 20
Gleyber Torres: No home runs since July 21
Rougned Odor: One home run since July 25

Even Joey Gallo only has one home run since July 27, nearly two weeks.

7. Welcome back, Luke Voit. Voit was back because Rizzo is now out for about two weeks (at minimum), and so the lineup balance the Yankees created at the trade deadline is down to just Gallo, who has hit .162/.295/.351 in 10 games with the Yankees.

Voit was in the starting lineup on Sunday and hit fifth. In theory it made sense since Voit is a right-handed hitter and the Yankees were facing a left-handed starter (Yusei Kikuchi), and Voit has been great against left-handed pitching as a Yankee. The problem is Voit was awful in the 29 games he played in this season in May, June and July, and on Sunday, he looked like a guy who hasn’t seen major league pitching in a month and has barely seen it in 2021. Voit went 0-for-4 with two strikeouts, and left five runners on. His inability to make contact (in his first two at-bats, and swung at seven pitches, swinging through six of them and fouling off one) cost the Yankees multiple chances to score a run. The Yankees ended up not scoring a run in the game.

8. Stephen Ridings was given a chance because of his dominant minor-league season, but really he was given a chance because of injuries and COVID and Nick Nelson and Brooks Kriske being arguably the two least effective relievers in the history of the Yankees. On Tuesday against the Orioles, in his debut, Ridings struck out the side in a scoreless inning. Three days later, in the bullpen game, he pitched 1 1/3 perfect innings across the second and third in the bullpen games against the Mariners. On Sunday, he struck out the side again in the seventh. His line in three games: 3.1 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 6 K. At 6-foot-8 and with a triple-digit fastball and that breaking balls, he reminds me of Dellin Betances. So far, his results have been peak Betances.

When Aroldis Chapman is healthy, the “elite” relievers are Chapman, Zack Britton, Chad Green and Jonathan Loaisiga. Those four are the four Boone wants to use in the highest-of-leverage situations. Then it’s Clay Holmes, Lucas Luetge and Joely Rodriguez (who reminds me of 2009 World Series hero Damaso Marte) with that sweeping left-handed delivery. Then it’s Wandy Peralta and Albert Abreu and finally Brody Koerner. I think Ridings is already in the second tier (with Holmes, Luetge and Rodriguez) and I think he’s at the top end of that tier. I love everything about Ridings (so far). His results, his velocity, his demeanor on the mound and the way he carries himself with the media.

9. I need the Yankees to get to 96 wins for my preseason over 95.5 wins wager and because I think 96 wins would win them the AL East and avoid them playing in the one-game playoff. The Yankees are 61-50. They would have to go 35-16 to finish with 96 wins. It’s improbable, but not impossible.

There is a path to 96 wins and the division title, but it includes winning pretty much every series the rest of the season with essentially no margin for error.

The Yankees needed to win three out of four agains the Mariners to keep pace, and they did. Here is how the Yankees can get to 96 wins and possibly a division title:

Royals: 2-1
White Sox: 2-1
Angels: 3-1
Red Sox: 4-2
Twins: 3-1
Braves/Indians/Rangers: 6-2
A’s: 2-2
Orioles: 5-1
Blue Jays: 4-3
Mets: 2-1
Rays: 2-1

Again, not crazy. Also, not likely. That’s a lot of wins and not a lot of losses. That’s what happens when you piss away nearly 100 games, and the first four months of a six-month season.

10. The Yankees’ winning ways can’t stop. Not now, not for the rest of the season. Next up are the Royals a team that’s 17 games back in the AL Central and 15 games out of the second wild card and on pace for 71 wins. The Royals suck. Not Orioles level of suck, but they are a very bad team with very bad pitching and the second-worst offense in the AL. This is a series the Yankees should win and have to win. In the 13-game stretch against the Marlins, Orioles, Mariners and Royals, I thought the Yankees had to go at least 10-3. Well, they’re 8-2. A series win this week in Kansas City gets them to the needed record. With the Rays and Red Sox playing this week, every Yankees win will make up ground on one of them, and every Yankees loss will cause them to lose ground on one of them. Get ready for nearly two more months of playoff games and scoreboard watching.

Subscribe to the Keefe To The City Podcast. New episode after every game during the season.

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

The Yankees have won 18 of their last 26 games, are 13-6 since the All-Star break and 6-1 since the trade deadline. They are as close to the top of the AL East as they have been in months and one game back in the loss column for the second wild card. Yes, Yankees baseball is fun again.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. The three best things to happen to the 2021 Yankees have all happened in the last week: the trade for Joey Gallo, the trade for Anthony Rizzo and the emergence of Luis Gil. That’s how bad the first four months of the season were outside of Corey Kluber’s no-hitter in Texas, which was now nearly three months ago.

Gallo’s go-ahead, three-run, seventh-inning home run on Thursday night to beat the Mariners was the exact home run I envisioned the 6-foot-5 on-base machine hitting when the Yankees acquired him. Gallo hit the ball a mile into the air and it just kept carrying and carrying before landing in the first few rows of the short porch for the most Yankee Stadium home run you might ever see. The Yankees play half of their games in a stadium that’s 314 feet to the right-field foul pole, and yet, it took them 101 games into a 162-game season to add a major-league-caliber left-handed bat.

They didn’t add just the one major-league-caliber bat, and had they done so, their division dreams would be over and they would be buried for the second wild card. That’s because Rizzo single-handedly carried the Yankees to a sweep in Miami, and without his presence in the lineup, the Yankees get swept. It was Rizzo who played a part in all seven of the Yankees’ runs in the first two games in Miami (scored five and drove in two), reaching base in eight of nine plate appearances. And it was Rizzo who hit the game-tying single in the series finale in Miami to spark the Yankees’ late comeback. If the Yankees only trade for Gallo or only trade for Rizzo, they’re not where they are right now, which is in the best position they have been in since the first pitch of the season on April 1.

With a rotation that’s decimated by injury (Kluber, Luis Severino and now Scumbag Domingo German and Clarke Schmidt in the minors), COVID (Gerrit Cole and Jordan Montgomery) and underperformance (Deivi Garcia in Triple-A), the Yankees were forced to start new addition Andrew Heaney against the Orioles and he took the Yankees’ only loss in the series, allowing four home runs in four innings of work (and they will inexplicably start Heaney again on Saturday against the Mariners). During all of this Nestor Cortes has somehow emerged as arguably the Yankees’ best starter (along with Jameson Taillon, who was atrocious in the first half of the season), and because of the lack of starting pitching, on Friday against the Mariners, the Yankees are going to use Wandy Peralta as an opener. Peralta (and his 5.19 ERA in 22 games as a Yankee) hasn’t pitched since July 8 because of the All-Star break and his time on the COVID list. When he takes the ball on Friday in what is essentially a must-win game, he won’t have pitched in 29 days. Thankfully, Luis Gil (6 IP, 4 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 1 BB, 6 K) was given a chance to showcase his ability on Wednesday, otherwise Nick Nelson or Brooks Kriske might be opening a game this weekend as well.

2. It’s bad enough the Yankees chose to keep Nelson and Kriske on the 40-man roster over Garrett Whitlock (1.21 ERA in 52 innings for Red Sox) and let Whitlock get away, but to know that someone like Stephen Ridings has been in the minors this season while Nelson was allowed to pitch in 10 games and Kriske in seven games is the most irresponsible things the Yankees have done since hiring Aaron Boone. Ridings was amazing in his major league debut, striking out the side in relief on Wednesday night, with a triple-digit fastball and silly breaking ball. At 6-foot-8 (making him the tallest Yankee on a team that has Aaron Judge, Giancarlo Stanton and Gallo), he’s the exact height as Dellin Betances and has what appears to be the same repertoire as Betances. The Yankees have possibly had Betances 2.0 in the minors all season, and yet they let Nelson appear in double-digit games, including two as the opener, and let Kriske throw 50-footers en route to an extra-inning loss in Boston. I don’t get it.

3. Just like I don’t get why Greg Allen is no longer on the Yankees’ 26-man roster, the same why I didn’t get it when Estevan Florial was removed from it. Do the Yankees really need Jonathan Davis? Are they that worried about making room on the 40-man? I can find at least seven names I would be willing to remove from the 40-man right now, and I could easily part with another five.

Allen is who the Yankees still think Brett Gardner is, but watching the two play, it’s like thinking Tyler Wade is Corey Seager. The fact that Gardner has been able to maintain his roster spot throughout this dismal season, while Allen and Estevan Florial have both gotten sent down to accommodate Gardner’s presence is an embarrassment. The Yankees forced Alex Rodriguez into retirement in early August 2016 following a Hall of Fame career and being the sole reason the organization is currently looking at only a 12-year championship drought and not a 21-year drought. Gardner doesn’t belong on this team. He never did. And ever since he became the elder statesman among position players on the team and the longest-tenured Yankee, the team hasn’t done or won anything. His clubhouse leadership hasn’t brought the Yankees anything other than an outfield logjam, and detrimental roster moves to keep him around. If the Yankees are to reach the playoffs, it’s easy to see Gardner being in the lineup, starting in center field and batting ninth.

4. To reach the playoffs, the Yankees are going to have to keep winning series, and to win the division, they are going to have to continue winning at their current rate and play about .700 baseball for two more months.

Are the Yankees good? They are now 13-6 since the All-Star break and 6-1 since the trade deadline. Or are they just playing bad teams? They have gone 3-4 against the Red Sox, 2-1 against the Rays and 2-0 against the Phillies, but are a much-needed 6-1 against the Marlins, Orioles and Mariners. Whichever it is, it doesn’t matter. The Yankees are winning, and that’s all that matters.

5. I need the Yankees to get to 96 wins for my preseason over 95.5 wins wager and because I think 96 wins would win them the AL East and avoid them playing in the one-game playoff. The Yankees are 59-49 and 10 games above .500 for the first time in 2021. (It only took 108 games.) They would have to go 37-17 to finish with 96 wins. It’s improbable, but not impossible.

There is a path to 96 wins and the division title, but it includes winning pretty much every series the rest of the season with essentially no margin for error.

6. Here is how the Yankees can get there:

Mariners: 2-1
Royals: 2-1
White Sox: 2-1
Angels: 3-1
Red Sox: 4-2
Twins: 3-1
Braves/Indians/Rangers: 6-2
A’s: 2-2
Orioles: 5-1
Blue Jays: 4-3
Mets: 2-1
Rays: 2-1

7. Not crazy. Also, not likely. That’s a lot of wins and not a lot of losses. That’s what happens when you piss away nearly 100 games, and the first four months of a six-month season.

You can swap out wins and losses among the teams however you like, except the remaining games against the Red Sox and Rays. Those have to happen. The Yankees have to go at least 4-2 against the Red Sox and at least 2-1 against the Rays, otherwise this path, which is already obstructed by leaves, debris and litter with several seemingly immovable boulders blocking the way will be become even more unlikely.

8. We’re now seeing the Red Sox team I expected to see in 2021. A team with an awful starting rotation, a shaky bullpen and three, maybe four real hitters. They have lost seven of nine, have fallen out of first place in the AL East and are barely hanging on to a wild-card berth with the Yankees, A’s and Blue Jays rapidly ascending. Given the Red Sox’ remaining schedule, their lack of talent and the tracks of the regression going right through Fenway Park, it’s not hard to see a complete second-half collapse from the Red Sox leaving them where they belong: outside the playoffs.

The Rays are a much harder sell on blowing their division lead. They have the easiest remaining schedule in the AL East and even though their lineup strikes out more than any other in the game, their pitching is too good and too deep to see them experiencing an extend losing streak or a bad two-month run. I want it to happen. I pray it happens. It’s just difficult to envision.

The focus is on the Red Sox and Rays since those are the teams ahead of the Yankees, but anyone who isn’t closely watching the Blue Jays is foolish. The Blue Jays have won eight of 10, have possibly the best rotation in the East with Hyun Jin Ryu, Jose Berrios, Robbie Ray and Alek Manoah and their lineup features George Springer, Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Bo Bichette, Marcus Semien and Teoscar Hernandez. I’m very, very worried about the Blue Jays.

9. I’m mostly worried about the Yankees though. While, they have been winning, aside from a couple laughers against the 31-games-under-.500 Orioles, the offense is still a mess. Anthony Rizzo single-handedly led the team to a sweep in Miami, and without him, they get swept in Miami, and Anthony Gallo’s three-run Yankee Stadium led the team to a comeback win on Thursday night over the Mariners. (It was the exact home run I have been waiting for Gallo to hit: a ball that carries just enough to barely reach the short porch in right field.) The two trade deadline additions have done their part. The rest of the everyday players, who have been with the team all season, leading the Yankees to a 53-48 record, which forced the team to acquire Rizzo and Gallo? They continue to do close to nothing.

10 That can’t continue. It’s gone on for four months and a week and 108 games. The games against the nothing-to-play-for Orioles and other AL basement dwellers are going to dry up and the non-Rizzo and Gallo Yankees are going to need to hit consistently in a way they haven’t in two years. If they don’t, the nearly improbable path to a division title will be the same path to the wild card.

Subscribe to the Keefe To The City Podcast. New episode after every game during the season.

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