The Yankees played a series against the Blue Jays, and that means the Yankees lost a series since they can’t seem to beat the Blue Jays in 2021. It was the Yankees’ first series loss in their last 10, but it came as no surprise as the offense once again failed to show up.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. Goodbye, Corey Kluber. After straining a shoulder muscle in his first start following his no-hitter, Kluber won’t throw for four weeks. That brings us to the end of June. Then he will need about four to six weeks to get built up to return. That brings us to the beginning or middle of August. That’s if everything goes right.

Seeing how Kluber pitched one inning last season before suffering a shoulder injury which needed surgery coupled with the Yankees’ history of properly diagnosing, treating and handling injuries and I would say there’s a better chance Kluber doesn’t throw another pitch in 2021 than there that he returns sometime in August. It’s unfortunate because Kluber had looked like his former Cy Young-winning self over his previous five starts, but this was always a risk in signing the 35-year-old Kluber coming off his last two seasons.

2. Kluber’s injury opens the door for Deivi Garcia to join a rotation he should have been in to begin the season. This should be Garcia’s job moving forward. Not Michael King. Not an opener. Garcia and Garcia only. Garcia proved himself last season and the Blue Jays proved on Thursday afternoon what happens when you give your high-end prospects a chance at the major league level: they just might succeed.

3. Alek Manoah became the latest starting pitcher to shut down the Yankees, and he shut down the entire lineup except for Miguel Andujar, who was able to get a broken-bat single and a blooper to fall in. 6 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 2 BB, 7 K.

When the Blue Jays announced they would be calling up Manoah to face the Yankees, there was a story on MLB.com essentially saying that while Manoah had dominated in three Triple-A starts this season, Triple-A isn’t Yankee Stadium. Well, it might as well be. Because you can add Manoah and his 35 professional innings entering his Thursday start to the list of starting pitchers that have stifled the Yankees this season, a list that includes Michael Wacha, Matt Harvey, Joe Ross, Jordan Lyles and Steven Matz.

4. I guess this wasn’t the series the Yankees’ offense decides to show up for good in 2021. Maybe it will be the next series or the series after that or the series after. Most likely it won’t be, but Aaron Boone keeps telling us it’s going to happen!

Seven runs in three games. It was the latest atrocious performance from a lineup that continues to one-up itself with each new series. The Yankees have scored two more runs that the Orioles and 63 less runs than the Rays. It’s embarrassing, but the Yankees don’t seem to mind. They continue to give regular at-bats to Mike Ford and Brett Gardner and Tyler Wade and Rougned Odor.

5. Every day Odor is a Yankee is a day I’m embarrassed to be a Yankees fan. It’s bad enough the Yankees traded for him to be a bench player, but he has been an everyday player for the Yankees, and he’s been about as a good as a player who was released by a last-place team despite being owed $27 million like he was by the Rangers.

In Tuesday’s series opener, Odor went 0-for-3 with a walk and three strikeouts, batting in the 6-hole. On Thursday, in the first game of the doubleheader, Odor was batting second. Second. Second! SECOND! A place usually reserved for Aaron Judge and Odor of all players was batting there. He rewarded Boone for his inexplicable trust in him by going 0-for-2 with a walk and two strikeouts.

6. During Odor’s second at-bat (after he had struck out on three pitches in his first at-bat), YES showed the graphic with his stat line for the season and his abysmal batting average, which led Michael Kay to say the following: 

“Rougned Odor hasn’t hit with the consistency that you’d expect.”

What? Odor has hit .212 in his last 2,008 plate appearances since the start of the 2017 season. So over five seasons he has been a .212/.278/.414 hitter and Kay doesn’t think his numbers as a Yankee (.160/.269/.333) are what should be expected.

6. Estevan Florial was called up for the doubleheader and doubled in one of his three at-bats. Then he was sent down after the game as the Yankees don’t feel he’s ready for the majors. Based on what?

Gardner has one double in his last 51 plate appearances and two in his last 105, has no home runs this season and can’t catch up with fastballs over 92 mph. Odor last hit a home run in April and has two doubles in 93 plate appearances as a Yankee. Wade has barreled two balls in his major league career. Ford has no doubles this season and one home run in the last month. Are any of those guys ready for the majors in 2021?

7. OK, so Florial supposedly isn’t ready for the majors. That doesn’t change the fact the Yankees need a new everyday center fielder, now that it’s official Aaron Hicks won’t play again in 2021. (It was actually official the moment it was announced he had a wrist injury.) It doesn’t matter Hicks is under contract through at least 2025 and then will need to be bought out in 2026. When he was unnecessarily extended for SEVEN years at $10 million per, it was with the caveat that it wasn’t a franchise-crippling amount of money, and they could afford to pay him to go away. The hope was that wouldn’t happen until 2023. It has happened in 2021.

Hicks can’t be trusted for 2022 and beyond, and planning to pencil him as the everyday center fielder in 2022 will be a regrettable decision the Yankees can’t afford to make. The Yankees need to trade for someone between now and the July 30 trade deadline or hope they hit on either Florial or Jasson Dominguez at some point. They will likely have to trade for someone now and hit on one of those two as well.

8. The Yankees had Monday off. They had had Wednesday off. That didn’t stop Boone from playing Gio Urshela in only one of the two games on Thursday. Urshela sat out the first game and the Yankees were two-hit and shut out.

In the second game, Urshela batted fourth and produced an RBI double in his first at-bat. I guess playing 16 innings of baseball is all he could handle in a four-day span. Good thing he couldn’t have played in a second shortened seven-inning game on Thursday. The Yankees might have won, and everyone knows unnecessary rest is more important than wins.

9. The Yankees are now 3-6 against the Blue Jays with 25 runs scored in the nine games. That’s on top of the 3-6 they are against the Rays with 25 runs scored in those nine games. The Yankees are 6-12 against their direct competition for the division and 23-9 against everyone else. Both the Rays and Blue Jays scare the shit out of me, and I think both teams are better than the Yankees, even if only the Rays have a better overall record than the Yankees.

I would sign up for the second wild-card berth right now if I were the Yankees, and yes, that means playing a one-game playoff on the road and losing Gerrit Cole for Game 1 of the ALDS. I just don’t know if the Yankees can outlast both teams in for the division title and then outlast one of two as well as the Red Sox and Astros or A’s for a wild-card spot. With this Yankees offense, the second wild card sounds pretty good right about now.

10. The Yankees have a chance to pick up wins this weekend, and likely three of them. The Tigers are a disaster with the second-worst record in the AL, only to the Orioles (who the Yankees have trouble beating). The Yankees swept the Tigers in New York to open the month and now they have a chance to sweep the Tigers in Detroit to close the month.

After another series loss to the Blue Jays and with a four-game series against the Rays and a three-game series against the Red Sox next week, three games against the Tigers are exactly what the Yankees need.

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The Yankees swept the team that used to have the best record in the American League. The Yankees had been 1-6 when they had a chance to sweep a series, but now they’re 2-6, having won six straight games with a big series against the Blue Jays up next.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. Going back to last Monday when Gerrit Cole was rocked by the Rangers, I was very scared about the next six games. The Yankees’ offense has been non-existent all season, Cole had just been lit up by a last-place team and wouldn’t pitch again until Saturday, and the 2021 Yankees were starting to look like the 2019 Yankees in terms of injuries. I thought there was a very real chance the Yankees could get swept by the Rangers after Cole lost the series opener and then get swept by the then-best team in the American League in the White Sox.

It looked like this might happen when Jameson Taillon put the Yankees in a 3-0 hole the night after Cole laid an egg, but then the Yankees rallied with a five-run fifth inning and haven’t looked back. Since Cole’s worst start as a Yankee last Monday, the Yankees haven’t lost. They took the final three games in Texas and then completely shut down the White Sox, allowing five runs in three games, and finally closing out a sweep.

2. I said all offseason the Yankees or White Sox will represent the AL in the 2021 World Series, and I still believe that. The White Sox have the better chance since they are a guarantee to win their division, getting to play 78 games against the Indians, Royals, Twins and Tigers. The White Sox’ record is truly a product of an awful, and I mean awful AL Central as they are already 17-9 against. Meanwhile, the Yankees will have to battle the Rays, Blue Jays and possibly the Red Sox all season just to avoid the one-game, wild-card playoff. It’s unfair, but it’s the way it’s set up.

The White Sox are overrated. White Sox fans can whine about not having Luis Robert or Eloy Jimenez, however, they just got swept by a Yankees team that didn’t have Giancarlo Stanton or Aaron Hicks, didn’t have Clint Frazier until the series finale, and had way too much of Mike Ford, Tyler Wade and Rougned Odor in the lineup.

3. Goodbye, Hicks. Hicks opted for surgery to repair his wrist sheath, and we won’t see him again in 2021. There is supposedly a chance he could return very late in the season, but we’re talking about Hicks here, and he has never returned from an injury before or on schedule.

Hicks will be 32 later this year, and if he doesn’t play in another game in 2021 (which he won’t), he will have played in 493 of 870 regular-season games as a Yankee, or 57 percent. He will now have a surgically-repaired wrist to go along with a surgically-repaired elbow, a balky back, and he has had issues with both obliques, a hamstring and his intercostal muscle. The seven-year extension for Hicks was a mistake the second it was announced and it looks like an even bigger mistake now that he has experienced three significant injuries since it was signed: a back injury, Tommy John surgery and now wrist surgery. Even if Hicks is ready to go for Opening Day 2022, this doesn’t seem like an injury that he’s going to bounce back from right away and be fine at the plate. He has barely ever been fine at the plate in his career, anyway.

4. Hicks will be a Yankee through at least 2025 (he will be bought out for 2026), and that’s four more season after this one. For a player who was never healthy in his 20s and hasn’t been in his early-30s, I’m not sure how the Yankees think he’s going to be for his age 32, 33, 34 and 35 seasons.

The Yankees need a center fielder, and no, not Brett Gardner. I mean a real center fielder. Someone who can play against both right-handed and left-handed pitchers, which Gardner can no longer do. I’m sure the Yankees will trade for someone to fill that role this summer, though they need a long-term solution since Hicks can’t be trusted to be that. That’s where Jasson Dominguez comes in, and he better be as good as he’s been hyped to be.

5. Gleyber Torres hit .234/.327/.287 in April. In May, he’s hit .375/.434/.521. The power still isn’t there (just three extra-base hits in 53 plate appearances in May), but his overall approach and offense is there.

This is the player who nearly came from behind to win the 2018 AL Rookie of the Year award and the player who hit 38 home runs in 2021 (even if everyone was hitting 25-plus home runs). This is the player who was supposed to become the Yankees’ No. 3 hitter for years and eventually the team’s best and most important player. I don’t know where he was for the 2020 shortened season and for the first month of 2021, but it’s good to have him back.

6. Aaron Judge played in all 13 games in the last 13 days, starting 12 of them. That’s as good as it will ever get for Judge when the Yankees play 13 games in 13 days. And what do you know? Judge hit .457/.537/.804 with five home runs and eight RBIs in 54 plate appearances and added his first career walkoff with the walkoff walk on Sunday. It’s almost as if Judge doesn’t need unnecessary rest and personal days off. It’s almost as if the Yankees are better with their best overall player in the lineup and in the game (they went 10-3 in the 13 games) than if he’s inexplicably on the bench so he can have preventative rest.

7. When Jordan Montgomery strikes out 11 over seven shutout innings (like he did on Friday) and Jameson Taillon shuts out a team over five innings (like he did on Sunday), you know things are going your way. Having those two going against the White Sox scared me and they combined for 12 shutout innings and 15 strikeouts. Right now, I think this is how the Yankees would set up their rotation for a postseason series:

Game 1: Gerrit Cole
Game 2: Corey Kluber
Game 3: Jordan Montgomery
Game 4: Scumbag Domingo German

I don’t think Taillon would get a postseason start. I also really need Luis Severino to return and be his old self, so that he, Cole and Kluber can pitch Games 1-3 and only one of Montgomery or Scumbag German is needed for Game 4. I don’t trust Montgomery, Scumbag German or Taillon, and I’m not sure when or if I will.

8. It’s time the Yankees send every runner home from second a base hit to the outfield with no outs. I can’t watch the team strand runners at third with no outs anymore, or get nothing from second and third with no outs or nothing from the bases loaded and no outs. It’s always been a problem with these Yankees and it will continue to be a problem with these Yankees because everyone on the team with the exception of DJ LeMahieu and Gio Urshela is trying to hit a 500-foot home run in every at-bat, and they are unable to simply put the ball in play in a productive way. Mostly, when the 2021 Yankees have put the ball in play with the bases loaded and no outs, it has resulted in a double play. The Yankees lead the majors in ground into double plays, but at least it was somewhat evened out with the triple play they were able to turn on Friday when it looked like they were going to give away a winnable game.

The Yankees had Monday off after playing 13 games in 13 days, and now they’ll play another 12 games in 13 days, except these 13 game are doing to be much harder. Sandwiched around three games in Detroit are three against the Blue Jays, four against the Rays and three against the Red Sox.

9. We’re still waiting for the offense to show up in 2021. Sure, there have been a few games where the Yankees will score seven runs, like they did on Tuesday in Texas, or on Saturday against the White Sox, but in the other five games last week, they scored 13 runs total. As of now, the Rays have scored 60 more tuns than the Yankees in two more games played. That’s absurd. The Yankees have become a the glorified Rays with bigger names and a much bigger payroll. They have the same style of play, relying on their pitching and hoping to scratch across three or four runs. I don’t hate it. I would rather the Yankees have better pitching than hitting since we have seen where having an overpowering regular-season offense and mediocre pitching has gotten them since 2004, but this team is supposed to have both.

10. I keep thinking maybe this will be the series the offense finally breaks out, and it keeps not being the series. But maybe this will be the series the offense breaks out since they are avoiding Hyun Jin Ryu and the Blue Jays have lost six straight and seven of 10. If it’s not, I’m sure the Yankees will beat up on the Tigers this coming weekend to end the month like they did to begin the month, and everyone will think the offense has finally arrived, but then on Memorial Day, they begin their fourth series of the season against the Rays and we’ll see whether the offense will be attending the third month of the season after being absent for the first two.

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The Yankees’ season-long, three-city, 10-game road trip ended with a 7-3 record, three series wins and three straights wins. Now it’s back to the Bronx, where the Yankees will play the best team in the American League: the White Sox.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. I’m happy with the road trip. I wanted a 7-3 road trip and the Yankees provided it, winning all three series. They managed to play .700 baseball despite only outscoring the Rays, Orioles and Rangers 37-35. They were able win seven of 10 because they won a 3-1 game, a 1-0 game and two 2-0 games.

The offense is still a problem, and it’s going to continue to be a problem because one-third of the expected everyday lineup is currently injured (Giancarlo Stanton, Aaron Hicks and Clint Frazier), and while Frazier isn’t on the injured list like the other two, he hasn’t played since Monday. Gary Sanchez was removed from Tuesday’s game, Gleyber Torres just returned, Gio Urshela is dealing with a lingering knee issue and Aaron Judge seems to always be dealing with something.

2. Remember when the Yankees overhauled their entire training staff following 2019 and hired Eric Cressey and he was going to prevent the amount of injuries the Yankees had recently suffered? So much for that. That isn’t a knock on Cressey either. He was hired to do an impossible job: keep the Yankees healthy. It’s impossible because the Yankees’ roster is full of injury-prone and soft players. There’s no fixing that. Cressey notably changed the offseason workout routines of Judge and Stanton, and Judge has already missed four games due to injury and held out of others for fear of getting injured, while Stanton had four personal day off to prevent injury and still ended up on the injured list with a quad issue. The Yankees aren’t quite to the level of the 2019 Yankees when it comes to injuries, but they are on their way.

Because of the injuries, Brett Gardner, Rougned Odor, Mike Ford, Tyler Wade and Ryan LaMarre (until he was also injured) have become somewhat everyday players. It’s 2019 all over again with replacement players placing, minus the consistent production from the replacement players.

3. Given the Yankees’ disappointing loss in the series opener in which Gerrit Cole looked like Nick Nelson, I thought the Yankees were headed back to where they were in April. Instead, the Makeshift Yankees came through with a five-run rally on Tuesday to overcome the most recent deficit Jameson Taillon has put his team in, got a no-hitter from Corey Kluber on Wednesday and a combined shutout from Scumbag Domingo German, Chad Green and Aroldis Chapman on Thursday.

Cole had easily his worst start as a Yankee (5 IP, 7 H, 5 R, 5 ER, 2 BB, 7 K, 2 HR) and likely what will end up being his worst start of 2021 (at least I hope it is). When Cole is on (like he mostly is), it’s hard to envision any team ever hitting him, let alone the way the Rangers did with five extra-base hits in five innings. Cole gets a pass because of how good he is and because there’s no way (just knocked on wood) he will have back-to-back bad starts. He laid an egg and it’s over with. Now he gets the best team and best lineup in baseball on Saturday afternoon, and a chance to get back on track.

4. You know who doesn’t get a pass? Taillon. He has run out of passes. Another start in which he was unable to go five innings (five times in eight starts). Another start in which he allowed four earned runs (four times in eight starts). Another start in which he aallowed a home run (seven of eight starts). Another start in which he couldn’t put away hitters with two strikes.

Taillon is Phil Hughes. He looks like Hughes, throws like Hughes and can’t put anyone away with two strikes, allowing countless two-strike fouls, like Hughes. His stats also resembles Hughes’. Taillon has a 5.73 ERA, a 1.274 WHIP, has allowed nine home runs in only 37 2/3 innings and batters have an .806 OPS against him.

The season is more than a quarter complete at 27 percent and Taillon has been had for essentially all of it. I know, I know, he hasn’t pitched in two years. And yes, that’s a valid excuse, but there’s no time for excuses because of the Yankees’ horrific start to the season they are still trying to undo and because the top four teams in the AL East are all separated by one loss. The Yankees can’t wait around for Taillon to figure it out, and the same goes for Jordan Montgomery. They have to figure it out now, or the Yankees need to give Deivi Garcia a chance to.

5. Kluber has figured it out.

Back on Jan. 7, before Kluber became a Yankee, I wrote a blog titled Corey Kluber Is Perfect Low-Risk, High-Reward Candidate. In that blog, I wrote:

What I do see is the Yankees signing Corey Kluber. Rather, I want them to sign Kluber. I will go pick him up if needed.

Kluber faced three batters in 2020 before going down for the season. In 2019, he only threw 35 2/3 innings because of injury. But from 2014 through 2018 he was the best pitcher in the American League, pitching to a 2.85 ERA and 1.016 WHIP, while averaging 218 innings per season and 10.1 strikeouts-per-nine innings.

If the Yankees sign Kluber and he’s his 2018 self (20-8, 2.89 ERA, 0.991 WHIP, 9.3 K/9), well then they have Gerrit Cole, Kluber and potentially Luis Severino as their 1-2-3.

Over his last five starts, Kluber has looked every bit like his 2018 self. The Yankees have won all five of his starts, he has given the team length going at least 5 2/3 innings in all five starts and has pitched to this line: 35.1 IP, 21 H, 7 R, 7 ER, 9 BB, 36 K, 1 HR, 1.78 ERA, 0.850 WHIP.

I have never been worried about Kluber’s performance, just about his health. Even when Kluber didn’t look like himself early in the season, I still had an odd sense of confidence and comfort when he was on the mound, always thinking he would figure it out.

It took him nearly a month, but he has figured it out, and so far, the Yankees have hit on their low-risk, high-reward candidate.

6. After Cole’s clunker, I thought the Yankees could be looking at potentially getting swept by the last-place Rangers. The Yankees had once again only scored two runs in a game on Monday, and Aaron Boone put out this lineup on Tuesday:

DJ LeMahieu, 3B
Brett Gardner, CF
Aaron Judge, DH
Gio Urshela, SS
Rougned Odor, 2B
Gary Sanchez, C
Miguel Andujar, LF
Mike Ford, 1B
Ryan LaMarre, RF

That’s an early-March spring training lineup. Taillon put the Yankees in a 3-0 hole, but a shocking (mostly) two-out rally in the fourth inning saved the game.

With one out, Judge singled and Urshela doubled in Judge. Then with two outs and Urshela on first, Sanchez doubled in Urshela, Andujar singled in Sanchez, Ford singled, LaMarre walked and LeMahieu doubled in Andujar and Ford. The Yankees batted around in the inning, and Gardner made two of the inning’s outs.

7. The next night, the offense didn’t show up again. I thought there was a real chance Kluber could throw nine no-hit innings and the Yankees would eventually lose in extra innings because of the offense’s inability to do anything against Hyeon-Jong Yang. Thankfully, a Kyle Higashioka single and Tyler Wade triple, yes triple, gave the Yankees the lead. I didn’t know Wade was capable of hitting a line drive into the gap because he has never done it before in any of his five seasons with the Yankees. It was a more improbably feat than Kluber throwing a no-hitter, and I would bet a Yankee throws another no-hitter before we see Wade barrel a ball again.

8. The Yankees entered Thursday’s afternoon, getaway day game with an 0-5 record in weekday afternoon games and a 2-7 record in getaway day games, and for the first six innings we saw why. The Yankees hit into a couple more double plays to increase their league lead, ran into a couple of more outs on the basepaths, as if they think they have to be pegged by the ball to be out on, and also made Dane Dunning look like a star, allowing him to throw six shutout innings. With the Yankees’ offense enduring a season-long slump and missing one-third of its expected everyday members (Stanton, Hicks and Frazier), Boone decided to give Judge and Urshela the day off. Judge had only DH’d the previous two games, so he was getting a day off from only batting, and Urshela was just given Friday off, before being needed to hit a pinch-hit, three-run home run.

9. Urshela was needed again on Thursday after being unnecessarily given the first six innings of the game off for the second time in seven games. And for the second time in seven games, he delivered a go-ahead pinch-hit. With a 1-0 lead and Sanchez on second and Urshela on first, Boone then called on Judge to pinch hit. He singled in Sanchez to give the Yankees a 2-0 lead. It’s a good thing Urshela and Judge both had the first six innings of the game off with the offense in its current state and the amount of everyday major leaguers available on the roster.

10. This weekend is going to be tough. The White Sox are the best team in the American League with a deep, balanced lineup and a strong rotation. All offseason I wrote and said the White Sox would be the Yankees’ biggest obstacle to reaching the World Series (aside from Boone), and that has proven to be true through the first nearly two months of the season. 

The Yankees will see Carlos Rodon (1.47 ERA), Dylan Cease (2.41 ERA) and familiar for Dallas Keuchel (4.44 ERA) this weekend. (Keuchel doesn’t scare me the way he once did after the Yankees finally solved him for good in the 2017 ALCS.) The Yankees will send Montgomery, Cole and Taillon to the mound. Their best starter sandwiched between their worst two. I expect Cole to pitch well, especially after his most recent start. I don’t expect much from either Montgomery or Taillon, and will be surprised if they are able to successfully navigate their way through the White Sox’ lineup.

The Yankees are 19-8 in their last 27 games and are 7-0-1 in their last eight series (and 7-0-2 if you count the two-game series against the Braves). It won’t be easy, but I want the Yankees’ current unbeaten series streak continue this weekend. That means winning two of three against the best team they have played this season.

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!