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Yankees Thoughts: I Love the Greg Allen and Estevan Florial Yankees

The Yankees did what I asked them to do, which was to do to the Phillies in New York what the Phillies did to them in Philadelphia: win both games of the two-game series.

The Yankees did what I asked them to do, which was to do to the Phillies in New York what the Phillies did to them in Philadelphia: win both games of the two-game series. The Yankees have now won four straight and four of five since the All-Star break.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. These Yankees are fun. And by these Yankees I mean the players, not the manager, who continues to mismanage his roster and bullpen and spew lies when speaking with the media. But these Yankees led by Greg Allen and Estevan Florial are fun.

These Yankees are fun because they’re winning, having won four of five games since the All-Star break. The Yankees entered the second “half”of the season needing to win 50 of their remaining 73 games to win the division, a .685 winning percentage over two-and-a-half months and so far they have played even better (.800), outscoring the Red Sox and Phillies 24-15. They have a long way to go to holding one of the three available postseason spots to them (3 1/2 games back of the second wild card, six games back of the first wild card and seven games back in the divison), but it’s a start, and they needed this kind of start after the break to have a chance at saving their season.

2. If the Yankees were at full strength, there’s no way Brett Gardner should be on the team over Greg Allen. Of course, Gardner hit a wall-scraping solo home run on Tuesday night, which will solidify his roster spot and playing time for the rest of the season, but the only thing he’s better at than Allen is age and seniority. And Gardner’s presence as a veteran leader on the team hasn’t exactly gotten the Yankees anywhere in recent seasons.

“Been an absolute pro in the room and been incredibly productive between the lines,” Boone said of Allen. “Obviously, the element he brings of running the bases, the versatility, and the really good defense he brings in the outfield … Every at-bat, the quality of the at-bat has been really strong.”

In five games, Allen is 5-for-12 (.417/.500/.750) with five runs, two doubles, a triple, two RBIs and three walks. He has been successful in all three stolen-base attempts and has been a part of every Yankees rally in the second half.

3. The same goes for Estevan Florial. All Yankees fans have been told about him is “he isn’t ready,” and yet, he was the most important player for the Yankees on Tuesday and scored the go-ahead run in the seventh on Wednesday.

“He’s got loads of talent,” Boone said about Florial. “The quality of the at-bat was there too. Results, yes, but really good at-bats too. It wasn’t an accident.”

In three games, Florial is 3-for-9 (.333/.455/.778) with two runs, a double, home run, two RBIs and two walks as well as a stolen base. His at-bats have been exceptional and he looks everything like the player the Yankees dreamed me might one day become (yes, I know, small sample size). I pray Florial continues to be great and to start for this Yankees team because the better he does, the less likely it is that Aaron Hicks has a future with this team.

3. The Yankees have won these last four games with singles and bunts and stolen bases and hit-and-runs, and the occasional home runs. The station-to-station baseball, which has ruined every Yankees season over the last 11 years has been temporarily removed as the team’s strategy with the absence of Aaron Judge and Luke Voit, and the Yankees have had to rely on other ways to score runs than waiting around for someone to hit a three-run home run, which usually never comes.

After Aaron Nola dominated the Yankees for 7 2/3 shutout innings earlier this season, the Makeshift Yankees got to him on Tuesday night. They manufactured their first run with an Allen triple and productive ground out by Florial. Then trailing by a run, Allen walked, stole second, moved to third on a Florial flyout and scored on an error. Then the bats came alive and Gardner hit a home run, Gary Sanchez hit a home run, Giancarlo Stanton hit a home run and Florial hit his first career home run, and the Yankees won 6-3.

4. The four solo home runs were responsible for two-thirds of the Yankees offense, but it was the speed of Allen that rattled Nola and took him off his game as Allen’s extended leads and the threat of him stealing his way into scoring position got to Nola. In the age of advanced stats, stolen bases have been mostly removed the game, as the risk of getting caught has been thought of as not being worth the gamble. But even David Cone, who loves advanced stats as much as anyone, says there’s a place in the game for stealing bases. Speaking from experience, he explained on YES on Tuesday with Allen leading off first, how much of a distraction it is to go from the windup to the stretch and to have to worry about giving up an extra base. Cone said it affected him when he was on the mound, and as a borderline Hall of Famer, if it affected Cone and his illustrious career, it’s certainly going to affect someone like Nola, and it did.

5. On Wednesday night, Cone said something that still haunts me even though the final result favored the Yankees. “It’s Nick Nelson’s game right here,” Cone said in the eighth inning of the two-game series finale.

Nelson was in the game because Boone had seemingly made Chad Green unavailable, saying as much with this postgame exchange with the media.

“Was Chad Green unavailable?”

“Yes.”

“He only threw 13 pitches.”

“He threw 30 two days before that, so he’s thrown over 40 pitches in three days, so Greeny was down. I wanted to avoid Greeny last night just because it’s been a little heavy for him lately. Yeah, he was definitely down tonight.”

Here are Green’s recent appearances:

July 10: Off
July 11: 12 pitches
July 12: Off
July 13: Off
July 14: Off
July 15: Off
July 16: Off
July 17: Off
July 18: 29 pitches
July 19: Off
July 20: 13 pitches

Boone was right, Green had thrown 13 pitches the night before. He was wrong about Green throwing 30 pitches on Sunday (he only threw 29). But what Boone failed to mention was that prior to the 29 pitches, Green had thrown 12 pitches over the previous eight days. Over the 11 days before Wednesday, Green had thrown 54 pitches.

If Boone hadn’t used Green on Tuesday, which he said he didn’t want to, he would have thrown even less, and the Yankees probably lose on Tuesday as a result. It’s hard to believe anything Boone says, but when he continues to say “the season is on the line” and then manages as if the Yankees have a 20-game lead on a postseason spot, it’s embarrassing.

6. After putting 31 baserunners on in 20 2/3 innings, while allowing 11 earned runs and four home runs as a rookie for the 2020 Yankees, Nelson’s 2021 had been unbelievably bad even before he entered Wednesday’s game. After taking the loss in the 10th inning on Opening Day, he had somehow been allowed to ruin two games against the Rays, one against the Braves and another against the Indians all in the month of April alone. He appeared in one game in June for the Yankees and allowed six baserunners and four earned runs in 1 2/3 innings against the Rays again, and in his only July appearance before Wednesday, he was idiotically chosen as the opener for a game in Seattle, and walked the bases loaded in the first inning, needing to be relieved after recording only two outs.

Then came Wednesday. After a Gleyber Torres error and a pair of walks by Zack Britton, Nelson was brought in with the bases loaded and one out and the Yankees holding a 5-2 lead in the eighth inning.

7. Nelson allowed a two-run single to the first hitter he faced — No. 9 hitter Luke Williams — to put a dent in the Yankees’ lead, making it 5-4. With runners now on first and second, Nelson walked the free-swinging Jean Segura to load the bases again. Two pitches later, he threw a pitch to the backstop and the Phillies tied the game. Miraculously, Nelson struck out J.T. Realmuto before walking Bryce Harper to once again load the bases. Thankfully, Andrew McCutchen decided to jump on the first he saw from Nelson, rather than let Nelson walk in another run, and McCutchen flew out to center to the end the inning.

Nelson threw 25 pitches (just 13 strikes), gave up a two-run single, walked two, threw a wild pitch, and allowed all three inherited runners to score and it wasn’t even his worst outing of the season. His ERA came down as he only screwed over Britton’s, and Nelson now has a respectable 9.45 ERA and 2.175 WHIP.

8. The Yankees somehow won a game Asher Wojciechowski, in which Justin Wilson, Nick Nelson and Brooks Kriske also pitched. Reminder: Nelson and Kriske were kept by the Yankees over Garrett Whitlock, who has 1.34 ERA and 1.043 WHIP for the Red Sox, and has thoroughly dominated the Yankees in four appearance: 7.1 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 1 BB, 9 K.

9. “Kinda building on, frankly, his last couple outings,” Boone said of Wilson. “He gave a home run in his last outing, the time before that I think he gave up a run. But it’s different, it’s a different guy than what we saw before.”

I like how Boone says Wilson has been a “different guy” of late, and then says all the bad he has done of late. Wilson did pitch 1 1/3 scoreless innings on Wednesday, after walking the first hitter he faced. In his July 16 apperances, he allowed one earned run in one inning. On July 8, he retired the only batter he faced. On July 3, he allowed four hits, a walk and five earned runs without recording an out. I’m not exactly sure when Wilson became a “different guy” over his previous three appearances, but OK.

“It’s been a fun brand of baseball here the last few days,” Boone said after the first win of the series, in what was one of the only truthful things he has said in 2021 going back to his first press conference in spring training.

10. It’s been a fun brand because the Yankees are winning, and they need to keep winning. On Thursday, the Yankees begin a 10-game, 11-day road trip against the Red Sox (4), Rays (3) and Marlins (3). The Yankees need to win seven of these 10 games, and if they have any aspiration of reaching the postseason as the AL East winner, three of hose seven wins will need to come this weekend in Boston.

“There’s no denying the importance of it,” Boone said of the road trip. “It’s a tough road trip … We understand the importance and urgency of every day.”

I understand the importance and urgency of this road trip. I think the Yankees players understand the importance and urgency of this road trip. I’m not sure if Boone understands the importance and urgency of this road trip. If he does, he won’t manage like he did on Wednesday night.


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Yankees Thoughts: Season-Saving Weekend

The Yankees beat the Red Sox. It only took until their eight game against them of the season, but they did it. The Yankees won the weekend series and have now won six of nine.

The Yankees beat the Red Sox. It only took until their eight game against them of the season, but they did it. The Yankees won the weekend series and have now won six of nine to inch closer to holding a postseason spot.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. The weekend didn’t start well. A rainout on Thursday caused a postponement, though that was far from the worst Yankees news to begin the second half of the season. Luke Voit was placed on the injured list for a third time this season, and Aaron Judge, Gio Urshela, Kyle Higashioka, Jonathan Loaisiga, Nestor Cortes and Wandy Peralta were placed on the COVID-19 IL and would be out at least 10 days. Add in Clint Frazier still being out with vision issues, Miguel Andujar’s absence for a wrist strain, a finger contusion for Michael King and Darren O’Day’s season-ending hamstring injury and the 2021 Yankees had become the 2021 RailRiders. (To make matters worse, Tim Locastro tore his ACL in left field on Friday and then Trey Amburgey suffered a hamstring injury on Sunday.)

This type of injury bug and protocol misfortune is “adversity,” a word Aaron Boone has used frequently and improperly this season to define the team’s horrific play against the Red Sox, Rays, Tigers, Mets and all of their improbable losses, of which there have been too many to keep track of. None of that was adversity. That was just a bad team playing badly and being managed badly. Adversity is the lineup used on Sunday, featuring Amburgey, Chris Gittens, Ryan LaMarre and Greg Allen, and a roster that now has Rougned Odor being as important as Robinson Cano once was compared to some of the other names the Yankees are turning to.

2. On Friday, against a left-handed starter, Boone batted Odor third. Then 48 hours later, against a left-handed starter, with less roster options and inferior personnel, Boone batted Odor seventh. Nothing the Yankees manager does makes sense. Nothing.

3. The Yankees losing all of these players made it easy to understand how they were shut out on Friday, dominated once again by Eduardo Rodriguez, who gets knocked around by every other team he faces. The Yankees produced three hits, gave Jordan Montgomery yet another game without any run support and fell to 0-7 against the Red Sox. After Friday’s game, if the Yankees hadn’t played a game against the Red Sox this season, they would have been only one game back in the loss column. Instead, they were eight. The Red Sox, of all teams, have single-handedly ruined the Yankees’ season to date.

Both Trey Amburgey and Hoy Jun Park made their major league debuts on Friday night. In typical Yankees fashion, Park played right field, a position he has NEVER played professionally. That’s just Boone putting his players in the best possible position to succeed again.

4. The Yankees should have traded Luke Voit in the offseason. His value was never going to be higher than it was after leading the league with 22 home runs in the shortened 2020 season. Now he’s on the IL for the third time this season, though when he has played this season, he’s been pretty awful: .241/.328/.370.

Voit played in 118 games in 2019, hurting himself while unnecessarily going for two in London then was left off the postseason roster after his performance declined following the injury. He managed to play in 56 of the 60 games in 2020, but this season, he has played in 29 of 92 games (32 percent). Next season, Voit will turn 31 before spring training, and as an oft-injured, right-handed first baseman who’s not good defensively, the Yankees really missed the opportunity to get something for him and to move one of their abundance of right-handed bats.

5. I believe the Red Sox aren’t good. Their starting pitching makes the Yankees look like mid-90s Braves, their lineup has three hitters and their bullpen is far from reliable. On Saturday and Sunday, we saw the Red Sox I feel are the real Red Sox, a team that lost both games to the Makeshift Yankees and scored only two runs in 15 innings.

6. It turns out Gerrit Cole can pitch to Gary Sanchez. Amazing. Not only that but Cole was infinitely better with Sanchez catching him against the Red Sox (6 IP, 5 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 2 BB, 11 K) than he was with Kyle Higashioka catching him a few Sundays ago in Boston (LINE).

Cole needing to have his security blanket in Higashioka always catch him (and yes, it’s Cole’s decision, not Boone’s), has made me think less of him since someone of his stature and ability and reputation shouldn’t need a personal catcher. It was good to finally see the best pitcher on the team throwing to the best catcher on the team, and it working out yet again. It worked out because it doesn’t matter who catches Cole. No catcher has that much of an impact (if any at all) on a pitcher’s ability, and certainly not one of Cole’s level.

7. The rain-shortened game on Saturday may have saved the Yankees’ season. It was a miracle they scored three runs in the game, and had the game continued, Cole would have come out following a delay (because of the delay and because he was at 96 pitches), and the Yankees’ bullpen would have had to get nine outs to hold a two-run lead with one viable option (Chad Green). If the rest of that game gets played, there’s a good chance the Yankees lose, fall to 0-8 against the Red Sox, lose yet another series and suffered their third straight loss since the debacle in Houston on July 11. If the Yankees go on to reach the postseason or doing anything special this season, we can look back at the six-inning win over the Red Sox that made it possible.

8. Boone mismanaging the sixth inning on Sunday night was inevitable. Two times through the order, Taillon had shut out the Red Sox, and even though the 2-3-4 hitters were due up in the sixth and even though the numbers against Taillon a third time through the order look like Mickey Mantle’s 1956 season, Boone was fooled by what he had seen to that point in the game, completely disregarding the numbers and everything Taillon has done in a Yankees uniform.

Taillon was able to strike out Alex Verdugo, the most inferior of the heart of the Red Sox’ order, but J.D. Martinez singled on an 0-2 pitch and then on the seventh pitch of his at-bat, Xander Bogaerts doubled to right field. Suddenly, the Red Sox had second and third and no outs and the tying run at the plate in Rafael Devers, who owns the Yankees. While all of this unfolded, Green was warmed up and ready to enter game.

Boone decided to go to Green for Devers, bringing him into a rather unpleasant situation, rather than just giving him a clean inning. Thankfully, he struck out Devers and got Hunter Renfroe to ground out to end the inning.

The majority of Boone’s nonsensical bullpen management has been hidden since 2018 because he has been able to call on Green or Zack Britton or Aroldis Chapman or Dellin Betances or Adam Ottavino or Tommy Kahnle. The Red Sox didn’t score in the sixth inning on Sunday, but that doesn’t mean Boone made the right call. Far from it.

9. Giancarlo Stanton’s presence on the Yankees is a problem. Not only because of his immovable contract, but because he isn’t good and he can only be the designated hitter, which means when someone needs a “half-day off” they have to come completely out of the lineup. Over teh weekend, Boone said Stanton playing the outfield is “on the horizon” as they continue to stretch him out to play nine innings of a baseball game in the outfield, in which he may not actually have to do anything. You would think Stanton is training to run a marathon.

Stanton sucks. It’s painful watching his at-bats and him running into a middle-middle fastball and hitting it 500 feet every other week isn’t nearly enough. I don’t know how this is going to go on for the next six years.

Stanton was 0-for-12 with five strikeouts against the Red Sox over the weekend, and is now 3-for-30 (all singles) with 15 strikeouts against them this season.

In 18 games from April 1 to April 25, Stanton hit .186/.250/.414. Then in eight games from April 26 to May 5, he hit .571/.595/.943. In the 46 games he has played since May 6, he has hit .220/.342/.719. On the season, he’s hitting .258/.350/.462. Those numbers aren’t good and are the only somewhat respectable because of those eight games at the end of April and beginning of May. Stanton has been good for an eight-game stretch in 92 games. Six more years of this.

10. The Yankees won the series against the Red Sox and have now won three straight series, going 6-3 over their last nine games. It’s a start, but it can’t end. They now need to do to the Phillies what the Phillies did to them in Philadelphia in two games and then go to Boston and beat the Red Sox again. The Yankees need to win four of the six games they play this week. There’s no alternative. In order to keep their postseason aspirations alive, they can’t do any worse than that, and they will have to do it with the most Makeshift Yankees lineup since mid-2013.


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Yankees Thoughts: Path to Postseason Isn’t Pretty

The Yankees are out of chances to turn their season around. When the second “half” begins on Thursday, they have to win games at an incredible pace or they won’t reach the postseason. Here are

The Yankees are out of chances to turn their season around. When the second “half” begins on Thursday, they have to win games at an incredible pace or they won’t reach the postseason.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. I went to the first game of the Subway Series. Why? Like I wrote after the Yankees were swept by the Red Sox in Boston, I still think there is time (though not much) to turn it around. Again, I’m like Rudy’s fellow scout team member in Rudy who tells him, “I’m under the delusion that I might get a chance to run out that tunnel.”

What a mistake that was going to the game. The Yankees produced yet another piss poor, disgusting effort and when I walked out of the Stadium during the top of the sixth, the Yankees had allowed five runs in the inning, were losing 8-0 and the offense hadn’t produced a single hit. I was back home before the game ended and felt sorry for the thousands of Yankees fans who decided to stay through the end of the team’s latest slopfest.

2. The following day, on the Fourth of July, the Yankees might as well have been playing spring training games given how much I was into a Subway Series doubleheader. I couldn’t have cared less about watching Sunday’s comical seven-inning doubleheaders. There are sold-out stadiums across the league and the Stadium had 40,000-plus people on Saturday, and yet the league can’t play actual full-length games? It’s a joke.

Thankfully, I didn’t give a shit if the Yankees won the first game on Sunday because they didn’t. Gerrit Cole let everyone down once again and given his performance in that game and over the last month it seemed like he might be a huge problem going forward if unable to use sun screen or Vaseline or Spider Tack or Silly Putty or Play-Doh to get outs. Thankfully, he put the idea he can’t pitch without some foreign substance to rest with his dominant start against the Astros over the weekend.

3. Unfortunately, about 19 hours later, Cole’s complete-game, 12-strikeout start was erased by his manager’s inability to make even the most elementary decisions as a major league manager. Boone pissed away a five-run, ninth-inning lead in the series and first “half” finale, as the Yankees fell to 3-9 when they have a chance to sweep.

“It’s another gut punch, and we’ve had a number of those, obviously, here in the first half,” Boone said after the loss. “We’ve gotten off the mat each and every time and we’ve gotta do it again and understand what’s at stake starting Thursday.”

The amount of gut punches the Yankees have taken would cause irreparable harm, internal bleeding and possibly death. I guess that’s why they’re on the brink of no longer having a season.

When exactly have the Yankees “gotten off the mat’ from the guy punches they have taken. They are three games over .500, have the fourth-worst offense in the AL and a plus-1 run differential. They have been down on the mat all season.

4. With a five-run lead in the ninth, Boone stuck with Domingo German who had used as a reliever in the game. German allowed two baserunners to begin the ninth and with runners on second and third and no outs, Boone turned to Chad Green. Why not Aroldis Chapman, the highest-paid closer in the history of baseball? 

“I want to pick those situations where Chapman gets a clean outing under his belt,” Boone said about his closer who has allowed 14 earned runs in his last 6 2/3 innings. “Once it became a save situation I wanted to go with Greeny.”

A five-run, ninth-inning lead is about as perfect of a soft landing spot for a pitcher who hasn’t been able to get anyone out for the last month like Chapman, no matter the opponent. If Chapman can’t get three outs before giving up five runs having only pitched twice in the last 12 days, then there’s no place for him on the Yankees, owed money or not. Instead of going to Chapman, Boone went with Green, and didn’t go to him until the score represented a “save situation.” Yes, the Yankees manager made his final bullpen decision on Sunday based on a meaningless stat.

Sunday was July 11. Over the previous week, Green had pitched in four games, including both games of the July 4 doubleheader.

Sunday, (Game 1): 2 pitches
Sunday (Game 2): 35 pitches
Wednesday: 18 pitches
Friday: 26 pitches

Green had pitched multiple innings in two of his four appearances, going three innings in the second game on Sunday and two innings on Friday. He was asked to do so because Chapman can no longer throw strikes or get outs, Zack Britton is hurt, Darren O’Day is hurt, Jonathan Loaisiga wasn’t available due to protocol, Justin Wilson is awful, Luis Cessa is … well, Luis Cessa and Adam Ottavino is being paid by the Yankees to pitch for the Red Sox. Boone had used Green for multiple-inning outings 14 times already in 2021, including six times in April and four times in the first nine games of the season. Boone didn’t “bring along” Green as the season went on because the Yankees have been trying to save their season since Opening Day and the overuse finally caught up with Green. Take the unavailability of anyone else to get outs against the Astros and add Boone’s inability to manage the situation and understand the workload he has given Green and you get a recipe for disaster. The type of disaster that took place in Houston on Sunday.

5. After the Yankees lost to the Astros in the 2019 ALCS, Britton said the bullpen was overworked, and they were. Out of the 55 innings in that series Yankees pitchers pitched, the bullpen pitched 31 1/3 of them. Britton, Ottavino and Tommy Kahnle pitched in five of the six games and Green pitched in four. Green was used in relief in three of the first five games of the series and then as an opener in the sixth game, in which he gave up a three-run home run to Yuli Gurriel in the first inning.

In three of the last four games Green has pitched against the Astros, he has allowed a crushing three-run home run. The one to Gurriel in Game 6 of the 2019 ALCS, the one to Altuve on May 6 of this season to give the Astros their only win of that series and the one to Altuve this past Sunday to give the Astros their only win of that series. The difference between the Yankees being 6-0 and 4-2 against the Astros this season is two Jose Altuve three-run home runs.

Green allowed back-to-back doubles and a single and then finally recorded the first out of the inning on a lineout. The 6-7-8-9 hitters were squaring him up and Boone never thought of not letting him face Altuve, who had already hit a three-run home run off him two months prior.

“He was obviously a little bit off with command, leaving some stuff up early,” Boone said. “I thought he rallied there and found it a little bit.”

Rallied? Found it? What exactly did he find other than Altuve running the bases following yet another walk-off home run against the Boone Yankees with the team ripping his jersey off and laughing in the face of the Yankees, who they absolutely own both on the field and in trash talk.

6. “I’ve said it a handful of times how much some of them have stung, and obviously, as well as we played this week to not finish it off right there is difficult,” Boone said. “But we’ve gotta rally from the adversity of it.”

Someone should really let Boone know what “adversity” means because he uses it incorrectly nearly every day. “Adversity” means “misfortune.” The 2021 Yankees haven’t been misfortunate. The players and pitchers have underachieved, they have been poorly managed and poorly constructed by the front office. The 2021 Yankees have faced zero adversity. They have just been a team with expectations that hasn’t met those expectations. Big difference.

“We’ve got a lot at stake starting on Thursday,” Boone said. “And it’s in our hands.”

The Yankees had a lot at stake beginning on Thursday, April 1, not Thursday, July 15, but they failed to recognize that because there’s always tomorrow with their manager. No loss seems to affect his mood or create any sense of urgency with the team and that’s how to get two first-round exits, an ALCS loss in which the team lost four of the final five games of the series and this horrific season under his watch.

7. Starting on Thursday, the Yankees have 73 games left, and they need to win 50 of them. I wish I were joking. The 46-43 Yankees need to now go 50-23.

There is still a path to the postseason for the Yankees, even if it’s currently covered in leaves, debris and litter with several seemingly immovable boulders blocking their way. For as improbable of a path it is, there’s still a path. There won’t be for much longer.

I have done a rough outline of how the Yankees can win 50 games and get to 96 wins on the season over the next two-and-a-half months:

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

Doable? Unlikely. Impossible? No.

8. Right now, the Yankees have a 9.3 percent chance to win the division and a 41.1 percent chance to make the playoffs. The division odds seem right, the odds of making the playoffs seem high, considering they need to pass the Blue Jays and Mariners just to be the first team outside the postseason picture.

Here are the teams ahead of the Yankees and what their records would be if they play .500 baseball the rest of the season (or one-game-over-.500 if they have an odd amount of games remaining).

Red Sox: 91-71
Rays: 89-73
A’s: 87-75

For the Yankees to win 91 games, they would need to go 45-28 (.616).
For the Yankees to win 89 games, they would need to go 43-30 (.589).
For the Yankees to win 87 games, they would need to go 41-32 (.562).

In all three of those scenarios, the Yankees would have to play better than they have this season (.517), while the Red Sox would simply have to go 36-35, the Rays 36-36 and the A’s 35-35. I think the Red Sox are the most likely of those three teams to have a bad second “half” and play .500 baseball, but it’s unlikely any of the three will drop that low.

9. Each loss is extremely detrimental to the fragile math the Yankees are working with now and a loss occurring when the Yankees need to get three outs before allowing five runs is crushing. You can tell yourself the Yankees still won the series in Houston, taking two of three, which is no easy task, but Sunday’s loss essentially erased Friday’s and Saturday’s wins, and turned what would have been a great 5-1 road trip and three straight wins into the break into a 4-2 trip with the latest worst loss of the season hanging over the Yankees’ break with eight of their next 10 games against the Red Sox.

Winning three-game series and taking two of four in four-game series is no longer good enough. Fifty wins in 73 games is a .685 winning percentage. That’s more than winning each three-game series and taking two of four in the four-game series the rest of the way. The Yankees need to finish teams off in the final games of series the way they weren’t able to in Houston or in Seattle and the way they haven’t been able to do in nine of the 12 series they have had a chance to sweep this season.

10. The Yankees need to rebound from their 0-6 start against the Red Sox in the final 13 games with them. They need to beat the Phillies in New York the way the Phillies beat them in Philadelphia. They need to find a way to win four out of six from the Rays and at least four out of seven from the Blue Jays. They need to beat up on the truly bad opponents they have left in the Orioles, Marlins, Twins and Rangers. They need to find a way to win games in Oakland (something they haven’t been capable of for a long time) beat the Mets at Citi Field in games Jacob deGrom isn’t starting, beat the now-Ronald Acuna-less Braves and the average Mariners and Angels.

I’m not sure if this team, this roster and this manager can do all that, but if these Yankees want to erase the embarrassing first three-and-a-half months of this season and reach the postseason, they don’t have a choice. It’s their only path now.


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2021 MLB All-Animosity Team

The All-Star break means the announcement of this season’s All-Animosity Team.

The All-Star break is here, which means the season is “half” over. For the Yankees, it’s actually 55 percent over with 73 games left, and they likely need to win 50 of those 73 games to have a chance at the division and might need to win that many just to play in the one-game, wild card game. Don’t tell Aaron Boone that though. He thinks the season is endless without a finite number of games to be played. At least that’s the way he talks after each loss, and there have been a lot of them.

Another All-Star break means another All-Animosity Team. I’ll always remember the teams which featured David Wright, Josh Beckett, Dustin Pedroia, David Ortiz, Adrian Gonzalez, Chone Figgins, Kevin Youkilis, Robert Andino, Carl Crawford, Manny Ramirez, Matt Wieters, Delmon Young, B.J. Upton (when he went by B.J.), Jarrod Saltalamacchia, Jose Bautista, Magglio Ordonez and many others. But I also like having a new generation of players to have animosity for.

The standards to be considered for the team are simple and only one of the following three requirements needs to be met:

1. The player crushes the Yankees.

2. The player plays for the Red Sox or Mets.

3. I don’t like the person. (When I say, “I don’t like the person” or if I say, “I hate someone” I mean I don’t like the person who wears a uniform and plays or manages for a Major League Baseball team and not the actual person away from the game. I’m sure some of the people on this list are nice people. I’m glad we got that out of the way since I can already see Player X’s fan base in an uproar about me hating someone who does so much for the community.)

Here is the 2021 All-Animosity Team.

C: Danny Jansen
If you’re wondering who Danny Jansen is, you’re not alone. Jansen is the Blue Jays’ catcher with the career .201 batting average, .290 on-base percentage and .358 slugging percentage. He’s as light of a hitter as you can be in the majors and still be in the majors. So why is that no Yankees pitcher can get him out?

In 228 career games, Jansen is a .201/.290/.358 hitter with 26 home runs and 80 RBIs. In 25 games against the Yankees, he’s a .316/.416/.605 hitter with six home runs and 15 RBIs. On a team with Vladimir Gurrero Jr., Bo Bichette, George Springer, Teoscar Hernandez, Cavan Biggio and Rowdy Tellez, I would rather have any of those players up in a big spot against the Yankees than Jansen.

1B: Pete Alonso
I will never get over Pete Alonso breaking Aaron Judge’s rookie home run record in a season in which the actual baseball was manufactured so differently that Brett Gardner hit 28 home runs. Alonso never should have hit 53 home runs and never should have broken Judge’s record of 52.

To be honest, I like Alonso. I like his personality, I like how he loves competing in the Home Run Derby, and I like how he won the 2021 Home Run Derby when I had him at +600 to win. I just don’t like that he plays for the Mets.

2B: Jose Altuve
Jose Altuve used to be my favorite non-Yankees player. That was before October 2019 and the uncovering of the Astros’ sign-stealing scandal.

After hitting .320/.414/.560 with two home runs, four walks and a stolen base in the Astros’ 2017 ALCS win over the Yankees, Altuve hit .348/.444/1.097 with a double, two home runs, four walks and a stolen base in the Astros’ 2019 ALCS win over the Yankees. He’s also responsible for ending the Yankees’ season with a walk-off, pennant-winning home run in Game 6 of the 2019 ALCS.

I used to enjoy watching Altuve play (when not playing the Yankees) and admired his ability for his stature. Now I watch him hoping he will fail, though he rarely does, and certainly doesn’t against the Yankees, as his two three-run home runs this season of Chad Green are responsible for the Yankees’ only two losses to the Astros.

3B: Rafael Devers
The moment Rafael Devers hit that two-strike, opposite-field home run off Aroldis Chapman in 2017, I knew I had a problem. I also knew the All-Animosity Team had a third baseman for the next decade.

After his impressive 58-game rookie season in 2017, Devers looked lost last in 2018, batting .240/.298/.433 in 121 games and I got ahead of myself thinking the 21-year-old might be a bust. In 2019, he hit .311/.361/.555 with a league-leading 54 doubles to go along with 32 home runs 115 RBIs. He already has 10 career home runs against the Yankees in only 58 games, and has driven in nine runs against them in six games this season.

Devers is going to be on this team for a long, long time. That is, until he’s set to free agency and the Red Sox cry poor and trade him like they did Mookie Betts. I can only dream that will happen.

SS: Carlos Correa
While Altuve and Alex Bregman were hiding behind their prepared statements and vague responses to questions about the Astros’ sign-stealing scandal following the 2019 season, Correa was busy talking to anyone who would listen. The only problem was a lot of what he said was outrageous.

Add in his ridiculous .939 career OPS against the Yankees in the regular season, his .913 OPS against them in the 2017 ALCS and his two home runs in the 2019 ALCS, including his walk-off in Game 2, and Correa is an easy fit to pencil in at short on this team.

LF: Trey Mancini
After being left off the 2020 roster, so he could beat cancer rather than play baseball, it’s good to have Mancini back on this team because it means he’s healthy and it means he’s playing baseball again.

Since the Manny Machado trade and until the emergence of Cedric Mullins, Mancini was the only actual major leaguer playing for the Orioles. Despite this, the Yankees would still allow Mancini to beat them. He’s the last person I want up in a big spot when the Yankees play the Orioles as he always seems to find a gap at the most inopportune times.

CF: Kevin Kiermaier
Kiermaier is a career .247/.306/.408 hitter, but against the Yankees it seems like he’s Ken Griffey Jr. Thirteen of his 73 career home runs (18 percent) have come against the Yankees, and in 2020, Kiermaier drew game-changing walks, hit big home runs against Masahiro Tanaka and Gerrit Cole and continued to play Gold Glove defense to help the Rays easily win the division.

Normally, I want Yankees pitching to face as many hitters with Kiermaier’s numbers as possible, but not Kiermaier. I’m looking forward to his contract with the Rays ending in 2022, and hopefully the team option for 2023 isn’t picked up.

RF: Randal Grichuk
How, for a second straight year, did Randal Grichuk end up on this team full of All-Stars, award-winning players and ex-Yankees? Well, in 2018, he hit five home runs in 16 games against the Yankees. In 2019, he had two doubles, eight home runs, 15 RBIs and a .938 OPS in 19 games against the Yankees. This season, he’s added another two home runs and four total extra-base hits, including his 10th inning double on Opening Day to give the Blue Jays the lead in a game they would win to launch arguably the worst Yankees’ season in nearly 30 years.

Grichuk is barely a major leaguer when he plays against the 28 other teams not named the Yankees, but a Hall of Famer against the Yankees. He essentially hits against the Yankees the way Ortiz, Evan Longoria, Jose Bautista, Edwin Encarnacion and Manny Machado used to.

DH: Alex Bregman
The first thing I used to think about when thinking about Bregman was how hard it is to retire him at the plate. Now when I think of him, I think of him standing there at the Astros’ fan fest after the 2019 season and giving the same rehearsed answer over and over about the team’s sign-stealing scandal with that smirk on his face and the sarcastic laugh he kept giving the media. The easiest of players to root against.

SP: Nathan Eovaldi
Never trust a pitcher who throws triple-digit fastballs and can’t strike anyone out and that’s exactly what Eovaldi is. The Dodgers gave up on him and then the Marlins gave up on him as a 24-year-old with incredible velocity because he didn’t have an out pitch and didn’t know where the ball was going. So the Yankees gave up Martin Prado and David Phelps because of the glamour of Eovaldi’s fastball, thinking they would be the ones who could fix him. They weren’t.

Eovaldi pitched to a 14-3 record in 2015, so every idiot who relies on wins and losses to determine a pitcher’s success thought he had a great season. It didn’t matter that he received 5.75 runs of support per game or that he routinely struggled to get through five innings and qualify for a win because he needs 20-plus pitches to get through each inning. In 2016, it was more of the same. Eovaldi pitched to a 4.76 ERA over 21 starts and 24 games before being shut down for another Tommy John surgery, ending his time with the Yankees as they let him leave at the end of the season.

When Eovaldi returned to baseball in 2018 and pitched well with the Rays, many Yankees fans started to think about a reunion, having not learned their lesson from the last time Eovaldi was a Yankee. When he was traded to the Red Sox, I laughed with excitement, envisioning him destroying the Red Sox’ chances at winning the division. Instead, he shut out the Yankees in the all-important August series (even if faced a JV lineup) and then shut them out against in September. I never thought he would be able to beat the Yankees in October in the Bronx, but he did, after getting more run support than any other pitcher against the Yankees in the team’s history.

Eovaldi beat the Yankees and the Astros in the playoffs, mixed in a few relief appearances and then became a hero for his bullpen work in Game 3 of the World Series, even though he took the loss after giving up a walk-off home run. (Only in Boston could a losing pitcher become a “hero.”) Now Eovaldi is a World Series champion, continues to beat the Yankees’ poorly-designed, all-right-handed lineup and I’ll never get over it.

RP: Adam Ottavino
I actually like Ottavino. I don’t like what him being on the Red Sox symbolizes, and him being on the Red Sox symbolizes the Hal Steinbrenner Yankees, who are so petrified of the luxury tax they would rather pay players to play for their rival than exceed the luxury.

I have enjoyed watching Ottavino embarrass the Yankees all-right-handed lineup this season, while being paid by the Yankees to do so. Rather than keep Ottavino in the last year of this three-year contract, re-sign the reliable Tanaka and sign Darren O’Day, Justin Wilson, Brett Gardner and Corey Kluber, the Yankees chose only to sign the latter players. In return, they have received 10 2/3 innings from O’Day, 14 2/3 innings from Wilson, a .614 OPS from Gardner and 10 starts from Kluber.

Manager: Aaron Boone
No Yankees player is allowed to be on the All-Animosity Team, even though there have been a lot of players over the years who have been deserving of a roster spot. A manager on the other hand …

Boone doesn’t play for the Yankees, and since I have often said Boone is the Yankees’ most difficult obstacle to winning the World Series, moreso than any other team, why shouldn’t he be on the team?

It’s hard to envision the Yankees ever winning a championship with Boone as manager. He has managed the team to one division title in three seasons, two first-round exits and an ALCS loss, in which the Yankees won one of the last five games of that ALCS. He has the Yankees buried in the division standings this season and needing to pass two teams in the wild card standings just to be the first team outside the postseason picture.

With each mounting loss, Boone talks about needing to overcome adversity, even though the word “adversity” means “misfortune” and the Yankees haven’t experienced any misfortune. They have been healthier than they have been in four years, are greatly underachieving and being managed like a dive bar that needs to be shut down, rebuilt and rebranded by Jon Taffer. The Yankees haven’t experienced any adversity.

Either the Yankees go 50-23 and reach the postseason or Boone is no longer the manager of the Yankees and I’ll need a new manager for the 2022 All-Animosity Team. Either way, the result is a good one. (Unless the Yankees don’t reach the postseason and the team keeps him as manager, in which case I will no longer watch baseball.)


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Yankees Thoughts: Another New Low Point in Nearly Lost Season

The Yankees suck. I have used that phrase (with credit to the Red Sox fans chanting it over the years) at times during this soon-to-be lost season in jest, but it’s true. They do suck.

The Yankees suck. I have used that phrase (with credit to the Red Sox fans chanting it over the years) at times during this soon-to-be lost season in jest, but it’s true. They do suck.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. I keep thinking we have reached the lowest point in the 2021 Yankees season, and the Yankees keep going even lower. I thought getting swept by the Red Sox to fall to 0-6 on the season against them and six games back in the loss column to them, while only scoring seven runs in 27 innings at the most right-handed-hitter-friendly park in the league despite facing two left-handed starters would be the lowest point. I was wrong. The Yankees followed up their atrocious weekend in Boston by losing to the Angels on the day Aaron Boone declared “the season is on the line,” and two nights later, they lost to the Angels again despite scoring seven runs in the first inning and having a four-run lead in the ninth. We have yet another new low.

After the Red Sox series, the Yankees had 13 games remaining before the All-Star break. I thought they had to win at least eight of those, which would mean going 8-5 at worst. They are 1-2. With Thursday’s rainout, they now have 12 games in total from the end of the Red Sox series until the All-Star break, and they have to win seven of the nine remaining. I feel like I have a better chance at winning the Powerball this weekend, and I don’t even have a ticket for the drawing.

2. The Yankees have lost fix of six, have the second-worst offense in the AL, a negative run differential, a worse record than the historocally-bad Mariners, three more losses than the $54 million Indians and after Friday’s game (if it takes place with the forecast), the season will be half over. Things aren’t just bad, they’re miserable. It’s painful to watch this team play each night knowing they will either not score any runs or allow too many runs, and even if things are going well, their manager will find a way to ruin the game. They invent new ways to lose each game to the point it’s actually unbelievable. Like The OC after Marissa Cooper’s departure or The Office after Michael Scott left, it’s unwatchable, but yet people keep watching.

3. Monday’s game wouldn’t have been a Michael King start without him allowing some first-inning runs (he gave up two) and without him giving the team length (he went 4 1/3 innings and allowed eight baserunners). After the game, he was asked why he struggles in the first inning. “I like to set guys up for their second and third at-bats.” It was arguably the worst answer I have ever heard at a postgame press conference, and I don’t miss Boone postgame press conferences. King is apparently willing to sacrifice runs and putting his team in an early hole to get outs later in the game. What? How is that a real answer he gave? What makes it even more ridiculous is that the Yankees don’t allow King to face a lineup a third time.

I don’t know when the Yankees will stop letting King start games, but it doesn’t appear to be anytime soon. Deivi Garcia isn’t doing well at Triple-A, but he’s only at Triple-A, so the Yankees can roster King and/or Scumbag Domingo German. Garcia not performing well at Triple-A simply doesn’t matter to me. What he did last year for the Yankees is what matters. He should have never been in Triple-A in the first place this season.

4. King isn’t good, and neither is Jameson Taillon. The Yankees scored a season-high 11 runs on Tuesday (10 of them while Taillon was pitching), and he still couldn’t get through six innings. Taillon lasted 5 1/3 innings, allowed five earned runs, put 10 runners on and gave up another three home runs. An embarrassing performance in what has been a season full of them for a pitcher Brian Cashman was called a genius for trading for. Taillon has now given up 14 home runs in 69 2/3, which is a 40-home run pace over 200 innings. In a rotation that features, King and Scumbag German, Taillon has been the worst. Congratulations!

5. King isn’t good, neither is Taillon, and neither is Scumbag German. As expected, German put the Yankees behind 2-0 before they could even bat on Wednesday, and even though he was given SEVEN runs of support in the bottom of the first inning, that didn’t stop him from allowing a third run in the second inning, as he finished the game with three innings pitched, while allowing three earned runs and seven baserunners.

So the Yankees’ rotation is King (sucks), Taillon (sucks), Scumbag German (sucks), Jordan “Crooked Number” Montgomery and then Gerrit Cole, who just had the worst start of his Yankees tenure in the biggest regular-season game of his Yankees tenure, and has looked more like the other four than his former self since the crackdown on foreign substances. Why do I spend three-plus hours of each day watching this team again? That’s not rhetorical. I’m really asking. I need help. All Yankees fans still watching do.

6. It’s not all on the pitching. Yes, the offense has been great the last two games, scoring 19 runs, including their second double-digit output of the season, but where were they when the pitching was actually good in May? That’s when they were putting up two and three runs per game like they did last weekend in Boston.

The entire team is a problem. The starting pitching is awful, the offense is mostly non-existent, the manager looks like someone hired to do a job they were unqualified to do, the coaching is comical, the defense is poor and the baserunning is worse than all of those other things combined. Put it all together and you get a team that’s 41-39, just two games over .500 through 80 games with the season about to be half over.

7. On the day (Monday), Boone said, “The season is on the line,” his team scored three runs and lost. Two nights later after stopping the four-game losing streak, the season must have no longer been “on the line” as he chose to sit Aaron Judge and Gio Urshela. Boone claimed the day off for Judge was one “he really needed.” The night before Judge hit a ball off the batter’s eye bar in center field. He looked real fatigued.

Following Wednesday’s unimaginable loss, Boone was asked what he has to say to Yankees fans. “I feel bad for them,” Boone said. “They deserve better than this.” Then resign. If you truly feel Yankees fans deserve better than the team’s performance, and you are the one leading and guiding the team, then resign and step away from the job. Boone would never do that because he wouldn’t give up the seven-figure salary. No one would. But in reality, Boone doesn’t think this season (or any of the last three) are any bit his fault. He thinks he has made every right decision and pushed every right button, and his players have failed him. Unfortunately, Cashman and Hal Steinbrenner agree.

8. The Yankees went into yet another season with Brett Gardner as their fourth outfielder despite rostering Judge (one full season in his career), Hicks (no full seasons in his career), Stanton (can’t play the outfield and hasn’t played a full season in three years), Clint Frazier (unproven with history of injuries) and Mike Tauchman (can’t hit major league pitching). They had to know Gardner would become an everyday player at some point, and were OK with it, and he has been an everyday player now pretty much all season. Just like he was in 2019 and 2020.

Here were Alex Rodriguez’s 2016 numbers at the time of his forced midseason retirement by the Yankees:

65 games
9 HR
31 RBIs
.200/.247/.351
.598 OPS

Here were Gardner’s numbers in 65 games (through Tuesday):

65 games
3 HR
8 RBIs
.195/.301/299
.599 OPS

How was A-Rod forced into a midseason retirement (with a year to go on his contract), but Gardner is playing EVERY DAY for the Yankees?

If Gardner sits this weekend, it won’t be because the Yankees have a better option. The Yankees acquired outfielder Tim Locastro on Thursday. In 200 games and 480 career plate appearances, he has hit .234/.339/.324. That right-handed bat wih a .663 OPS will fit in nicely on this Yankees team as they have yet another outfielder who can’t hit because Gardner, Hicks, Miguel Andujar, Frazier and Ryan LaMarre weren’t enough. I fully expect to see Locastro playing this weekend against the Mets and won’t be surprised to see him bat ahead of other established major leaguers. Maybe Boone will even have him bat third since he has let everyone else have a turn in that spot this season.

9. It’s a miracle the Mets were able to get their game in on Thursday, a game started by Jacob deGrom, which takes him out of the equation this weekend. This lineup against deGrom would have been as automatic and as much of a guaranteed loss as there can in this sport. While most Yankees fans have given up on the season, I still think there is time (though not much) to turn it around. I’m like Rudy’s fellow scout team member who tells him, “I’m under the delusion that I might get a chance to run out that tunnel.” The delusional part of me is ecstatic the Yankees are missing deGrom. The part of me telling me to do something else with my weeknights and weekday afternoons for the next three months is sad they are going to get further embarrassed this season by potentially being no-hit by deGrom.

10. The Yankees are in real danger of not having a season. I have long said they are in trouble, going back to early April, but they are well past trouble, and now sitting on the brink of disaster. After this weekend, the Yankees have Monday off and then go the Seattle for three and finish the first “half” of the season in Houston with three games.

After the All-Star break, the Yankees play four against Boston, two against Philadelphia, four against Boston and three against Tampa Bay. The latest we will know if there’s any point in watching the last two months of this season will be on Thursday, July 29. At worst, all Yankees fans will have one month of their summer not wasted by this team.


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