See how many frequent sayings the Yankees manager will say during his postgame press conference after each game.
See how many frequent sayings the Yankees manager will say during his postgame press conference after each game.
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 won a game and then lost a game. They don’t need a win, they need a winning streak, and a long one at that if they plan on saving their season before it can’t be saved.
The Yankees won a game and then lost a game. They don’t need a win, they need a winning streak, and a long one at that if they plan on saving their season before it can’t be saved.
Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.
1. Things are bad. Really, really bad. The Yankees are 6-11, have the worst record in the American League and have scored 18 runs over their last seven games, losing six of them. The team has 17 home runs in 17 games. Gleyber Torres (1), Clint Frazier (1) and Brett Gardner (1) have as many RBIs combined (3) as Jay Bruce, who retired on Sunday and was barely playing after the first week of the season. Giancarlo Stanton is hitting .158. Aaron Hicks is hitting .154. Frazier is hitting .175. Gardner who has supposedly played so much better than Frazier is hitting .214. Kyle Higashioka has had 16 plate appearances and has as many home runs (2) as Hicks, Torres, Frazier, Gardner, DJ LeMahieu, Mike Tauchman and Mike Ford combined.
The Yankees have recently turned to the Mikes (Ford and Tauchman) to save their season despite Ford not being good enough to make the team over Bruce three weeks ago and Tauchman not being good enough to play much at all to this point. The Yankees tried to revive Rougned Odor’s career, but are seeing exactly why the Rangers are happily paying him $27 million to not play for them (.120/.185/.240).
Anyone who thinks Luke Voit coming back (whenever that actually happens) is going to save the season is kidding themselves. This team isn’t one player away from going on a run. They are an entire lineup away from going on a run.
2. On Tuesday, in the first of two games against the Braves, Hicks wasn’t in the lineup. Aaron Boone said Hicks would have the two-game series off to work on “mechanical adjustments.” The same Hicks who Boone laughed at the media for asking about moving out of the 3-hole after the first weekend of the season. The same Hicks who Boone said would be fine “over the long haul.” After 15 games, he was being benched.
Hicks entered the game in the eighth inning as a pinch hitter. It only took him seven innings to make those “mechanical adjustments.” He was back in the lineup on Wednesday night as well, but batting seventh. What happened to him being the No. 3 hitter? What happened to needing a left-handed bat to bat third to separate the right-handed hitters?
The Yankees called up Ford to play first base, so that three-time Gold Glove-winning second baseman LeMahieu could play his natural position. Last September, the Yankees sent Ford down, deeming him not good enough to be a Yankee in the regular season, but in October, he was on the postseason roster and used as a pinch hitter over Frazier and Gary Sanchez in the ALDS with the season on the line. Not good enough to be a Yankee in September, but good enough to pinch hit in October.
On Tuesday, Ford was batting sixth. Not good enough to be a Yankee over Bruce on April 1, but good enough to bat ahead of Sanchez and Frazier on April 21.
3. Just two days ago I wrote Aaron Boone Has Excuse for Every Loss and listed the excuses Boone had made for each of the team’s 10 losses to that point. Well, the loss total is now 11.
I have watched a lot of Boone press conferences in his time as Yankees manager. I watched him come up with a bullshit excuse for leaving Luis Severino in Game 3 of the 2018 ALDS (after he didn’t know the start time) to load the bases with no outs with the Red Sox hitting every ball hard. I sat through him trying to find something that made sense for why he went to Lance Lynn to get out of that bases-loaded jam. I struggled through him saying he let CC Sabathia go through the entire Red Sox’ lineup a second time in Game 4 of that series just so he could face No. 9 hitter Jackie Bradley. I watched in disbelief as he tried to walk the media through his 2020 ALDS Game 2 strategy. I never thought a press conference could top those, but Wednesday’s night might have. At worst, it’s a first-ballot Aaron Boone Postgame Press Conference Hall of Fame inductee.
4. Corey Kluber wasn’t good again, failing to get through five innings for the fourth time in as many starts as a Yankee. What did Boone think of his No. 2 starter?
“I thought the stuff was good.”
How could the stuff have been good? Kluber pitched only 4 2/3 innings and allowed two earned runs and walked four. You know who had good stuff? Braves’ starter Ian Anderson. The New York native has now embarrassed the Yankees in his two career starts against them: last night and his major league debut last season.
Things unraveled for Kluber in the fifth inning. What happened to Kluber that inning?
“I think, obviously, it being cold and windy, I think at times and a little bit tough getting a feel,” Boone said. “It might have had a little bit to do with the weather.”
Boone has officially run out of excuses. He’s now using the weather to defend his team. I guess there were ideal weather conditions in the bottom half of each inning when Anderson was on the mound shutting down the Yankees (6.2 IP, 4 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 4 BB, 4 K, 0 HR).
5. At 62 pitches and three outs away from getting 15 outs for the first time as a Yankee, Kluber allowed a line-drive single to Pablo Sandoval. He struck out Dansby Swanson and then walked No. 8 hitter Austin Riley. He followed that by walking No. 9 hitter Guillermo Heredia. No teams walks 8- and 9-hitters like the Yankees. Boone stayed with Kluber with the bases loaded and he allowed a sacrifice fly to Ehire Adrianza to give the Braves a 1-0 lead. Boone left Kluber in to face Freddie Freeman of all people, and Kluber, either too scared to make a pitch or unable to know where the ball was going (likely the latter) walked Freeman on four pitches. Bases loaded.
Boone had seen enough. He went to the mound to get the ball from Kluber. Knowing his team’s offensive struggles since Opening Day and knowing how big of a spot in the game this was, Boone called on … Nick Nelson. What? That’s right, Nick Nelson.
After the game, Meredith Marakovits asked Boone why he went to Nelson there and did he consider using Darren O’Day, who is a proven elite reliever and automatic against right-handed batters.
“No, not O’Day,” Boone replied to Marakovits with a sarcastic, cocky tone. “Not at that point in the game.”
Not at that point in the game? The game was on the line. It was a high-leverage situation regardless of the inning, yet Boone continues to manage to the inning and not the situation.
6. Nelson isn’t good. He wasn’t good last year, and he hasn’t been good this year. On Opening Day, the Yankees used him for the 10th inning with the runner on second and no outs. The Yankees lost in the 10th inning. In the first game in Tampa, leading 4-2, Boone went to Nelson to relieve Kluber with the bases loaded. His first pitch was a ball, and the next pitch was a two-run double to tie the game. When the Yankees inexplicably didn’t have a starting pitcher for the 13th game of the season against the Rays, they decided to go with an opener. That opener was Nelson. Three batters into the game, the Rays had a 2-0 lead and hadn’t made an out. So why wouldn’t Boone go to Nelson with the game on the line on Wednesday night? All he has done in his career is prove himself time and time again.
Nelson walked Ozuna on four pitches to walk in a run. These weren’t borderline calls that just missed and it wasn’t like Nelson was getting squeezed. The four pitches were either short of home plate or in the other batter’s box. If you told me Nelson was a left-hander throwing with his right arm, I would have believed it, that’s how bad he was coming into the game.
Nelson might as well be Jonathan Holder or Ben Heller or Brooks Kriske or Luis Cessa or Johnny Barbato or Nick Goody or Anthony Swarzak or Esmil Rogers or Branden Pinder or Chris Martin or David Carpenter or Nick Rumbelow or any other incapable right-hander the Yankees have let destroy games over the years. Nelson, Cessa and Kriske are all in this list and they all pitched on Wednesday night. The Braves scored a run off each of them.
7. Ultimately (Boone buzz word!), the pitching didn’t matter. The Yankees could have allowed one run or 100 runs, they were going to lose on Wednesday. The only run they scored came in the ninth inning because the Braves didn’t hold Hicks at first base and he moved to second on defensive indifference and scored on a Frazier bloop single over first. Congratulations to Frazier on his first RBI in Game 17 of the season!
The offense hasn’t shown it’s coming out of its slump. Even in the win on Tuesday, the Yankees only won because the Braves gift wrapped an eighth inning rally for them. They had the bases loaded with no outs and needed a wild pitch and walk to score two runs as Torres and Frazier both popped up. The scary thing is this is no longer a slump. A slump is a series or a week. It’s April 22 and 11 percent of the season has been played. This isn’t a small sample size.
Stanton has been awful, but unsurprisingly awful since he’s a complete guess hitter and hasn’t been guessing right. Hicks has been horrible, but unsurprisingly horrible because he isn’t good. Frazier has looked lost, but unsurprisingly lost because he plays sporadically and this isn’t the sport to play sporadically. The one player who I’m surprised and who truly worries me is Torres.
8. Torres hasn’t been good since the 2019 ALCS. Last year, he reportedly came to Spring Training 2.0 out of shape and unprepared, but what’s the excuse for this year? He was supposed to evolve into the Yankees’ best player, a franchise shortstop who could bat third for years to come. His defense isn’t major league caliber and he might as well not go to the plate with a bat and hope the pitcher throws four balls before three strikes (it works for Hicks sometimes).
On Wednesday, Torres check swung on a pitch and it ended up going in play. He jogged to first the way you would jog if you were seconds away from being home and it started to rain. Torres most likely wasn’t going to beat the throw anyway, but the effort wasn’t there, and running hard to first is the easiest thing any major leaguer can do.
“I think any time that kind of situation where a guy’s gotta get out off the mound, you gotta get after it,” Boone said. “I think initially the check-swing, he just probably in his mind (thought) foul ball right away and then it’s, ‘Oh no, I gotta get going.’”
Boone did say, “Sure, yeah,” when asked if he would talk to Torres about the lack of hustle. Hustle is easy to do and demonstrate. When you’re going as bad as Torres, it’s a must. I’m very worried about Torres and his future.
8. It’s not just Torres though, it’s everyone. LeMahieu is hitting every ball on the ground to short and third. Judge can only get hits and hit home runs when the bases are empty. Stanton is never on base. Hicks is never doing anything. Sanchez’s comeback story has stalled out since the first two games of the season. Frazier is a mess. Urshela might be the Yankees’ best hitter of late and he has a .311 on-base percentage. Odor is a lost cause the Yankees will continue to try to save. Gardner has been arguably worse than Frazier, who he continues to play over. The mustache isn’t bringing Ford any success and Tauchman is still the 30-year-old with six good weeks to his name in his major league career.
“I believe in our guys,” Boone said, yet again. “I know who they are. I know we’re gonna mash.”
Boone knows who his guys are. That’s good. It would be awkward if he didn’t know his own players or their names now in his fourth season as manager.
“So it’s frustrating that it doesn’t happen tonight or every game you go out there,” Boone said. But is it hard to stay positive? Not at all.”
I don’t know how anyone could be positive about this team. They have six wins in 17 games. Their six wins: two Gerrit Cole starts, a Jordan Montgomery start, a Bruce bases-loaded bloop single, a Odor bloop single and a gifted rally from the Braves. That’s it. That’s how the Yankees have won their six games.
“I know we’re walking out there with heavy artillery each and every night,” Boone said. “We just gotta unlock it right now and we will.”
Boone keeps saying the team is going to be successful and is going to get it going and is going to hit and is going to mash. Except he doesn’t know when they might be. It might not happen.
10. This Yankees team lost 15 of 20 games last year. They were 10 games above of .500 and then they were .500. In a 60-game season, they were seven games worse than the Rays. They are already 1-5 against the Rays this season and 3-9 against the Rays and Blue Jays.
Now the Yankees will see the Indians for four games. The same Indians that gave away Francisco Lindor and Carlos Carrasco in the offseason and have cut so much payroll, it has Hal Steinbrenner jealous of the way they operate.
The Indians aren’t good, and they aren’t going to be good. They are the perfect opponent for the Yankees right now. The problem is the Yankees are the perfect opponent for everyone else.
Subscribe to the Keefe To The City Podcast. New episode after every game during the season.
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Let’s go through the Yankees’ 10 losses this season and the long list of excuses from a manager who thinks everything will be all right.
The Yankees have the worst record in the American League and the second-worst record in the majors. The preseason favorite in the AL, they are already five games back in the division. At 5-10 and currently riding a five-game losing streak, they are a disaster.
No one on the team has hit, and outside of Gerrit Cole and a few relievers, no one has pitched well either. Ultimately (Aaron Boone’s favorite word), it’s on the players to produce, but the manager deserves a lot of blame for the team’s start to the season.
Boone should have never been handed the keys to a win-now roster coming off a season in which they were one win away from the World Series. With no coaching or managerial experience at any level, Boone’s name was only an option because his 2003 ALCS home run, a home run which has done much more harm to the organization than it has good. Boone has yet to progress or evolve in his position, and following his decisions in the 2020 postseason, it was the perfect time for the Yankees to move on from him before their current championship window closed anymore with someone in way over his head managing the team.
The Yankees chose to bring back Boone and they chose to bring back essentially the same exact roster from 2020 (and 2019). A team that has failed to take the next step since their 2017 ALCS loss was viewed as “being close” by their manager after their postseasons losses in 2018, 2019 and 2020. Nothing changed from the Yankees in terms of roster and personnel in the offseason, and to no surprise, nothing has changed from a results standpoint.
Going back to Sept. 15, 2019, the Yankees are now 52-51 over their last 103 games, including the postseason. The team that went 5-15 over one-third of the shortened 2020 season has gone 5-10 over nearly the first 10 percent of the 2021 season. The same issues that ruined last season in October are ruining this season in April.
The Yankees have lost 10 of their first 15 games, but if you didn’t watch the losses or didn’t know the final score of the losses, you would never know the Yankees are the worst team in the AL by only watching Boone analyze his team in each of his postgame press conferences. Boone has always been a happy-go-lucky idiot. After the team’s 2020 ALDS loss to the Rays, he said he was proud of his team for their straight early postseason exit and second ALDS exit in three years with him at the helm. Being proud of the 2020 Yankees perfectly sums up Boone’s friend-first, manager-second, relaxed Southern California personality that has made these Yankees feel comfortable with losing and accepting of underachieving.
Boone has taken his fake positivity and ridiculous excuses to another level this season to defend his team. As the losses have mounted, he has taken more time to answer questions from the media with longer pauses as he digs deep into his treasure trove of bullshit to pull out runaround answers.
Let’s go through the Yankees’ 10 losses this season and the long list of excuses from a manager who thinks everything will be all right.
On Opening Day, the Yankees started the season with a 3-2 loss to the Blue Jays after going 0-for-9 with runners in scoring position and leaving 10 on base. Being that it was the first game of the season, Boone wasn’t all that upset, never thinking on April 1 his team would be where it is on April 19.
“Credit them with executing some pitches in some situations,” Boone said of the Blue Jays’ pitching. “They made the pitches today. We just couldn’t break through with the big hit.”
Back on Opening Day, the Yankees just couldn’t break through with the big hit. Nineteen days and 14 games later and they’re still not breaking through.
Three days after the season-opening loss, the Yankees lost 3-1 to the Blue Jays. The Yankees offense had five hits and two walks.
“Obviously, today didn’t muster a lot,” Boone said of his offense. “Didn’t have a lot of great scoring opportunities. A little bit of a cold weekend … These guys will get it rolling, so I’m not too worried about it.”
During spring training, Boone let the media know Aaron Hicks would be his No. 3 hitter. No other team has to let the media know who will bat third for them, but that’s because other No. 3 hitters in the league are Mike Trout, Bryce Harper, Nolan Arenado, Juan Soto, Christian Yelich, Manny Machado, Freddie Freeman and Jose Abreu. Boone and the Yankees wanted the media and public to know about their idiotic decision before they found out the way you let your parents know you were at a party and there was drinking before they found out on their own.
Hicks went 1-for-12 with seven strikeouts in the first weekend of the season. Boone was asked about removing Hicks from the 3-hole.
“It’s one weekend,” Boone said in defense of Hicks. “I think up and down our lineup, Aaron included, it’s guys with a pretty good track record … Over the long haul, Aaron Hicks is going to be all right.”
That was two weeks and 12 games ago. Since then, Hicks has batted third in all but three games, batting fifth, first and sixth against the Blue Jays and Rays. He has hit .206/.270/.324 since the first weekend of the season and is hitting .174/.255/.261 overall. You could add Hicks’ batting average into the formula for OPS and he would still only be at .690, yet he continues to bat third for the preseason AL-favorite Yankees.
After a pair of wins over the lowly Orioles, the Yankees lost again, this time 4-3 to the Orioles in 11 innings for their third loss of the season to fall back to .500. The Yankees had 13 hits and two walks in the game, but only scored three runs. Aside from failing to hit with runners on again, the real story was Aaron Judge who wasn’t in the lineup. Was it just an unnecessary day off? Was Judge already hurt?
“I think it’s just been the general wear and tear of the first several days,” Boone said of Judge.
Wear and tear? On April 7? The season was seven days and five games old and Judge was already experiencing wear and tear.
The Yankees went to Tampa for the Rays’ home opener and after having Wednesday’s game off and a scheduled day off on Thursday, Judge still wasn’t in the lineup on Friday. He was indeed hurt. So much for the Eric Cressey offseason workout regimen of yoga and unconventional training methods. Judge lasted five games before missing two games due to injury.
The Yankees lost to the Rays 10-5. Corey Kluber was lit up by a Rays offense that had only managed to score nine runs in their previous three games against a mediocre-at-best Red Sox pitching staff. The Rays had nine innings in less than four innings against the Yankees.
Kluber lasted only 2 1/3 innings, allowing five runs (three earned) on five hits and two walks. The two-time Cy Young winner was supposed to be the Yankees’ No. 2 starter until the return of Luis Severino and he had gotten 19 outs through two starts as a Yankee. Boone didn’t see any issue with his starter putting seven runners on base in 2 1/3 innings.
“I thought stuff-wise he was good,” Boone said of Kluber’s performance.
The next day the Yankees lost to the Rays again, this time 4-0. Boone went to the “muster” well in this postgame press conference, using one of his most popular buzz words.
“Just couldn’t muster enough,” Boone said of his team’s no-run, five-hit performance. “Obviously, as a group, gotta start getting it rolling … As a group we’ve struggled a little bit to catch our stride where we’re obviously going to get to.”
“Muster,” “obviously,” “ultimately,” “ramp,” “banging,” “traffic,” “lanes.” These are all Boone buzz words, and he used “obviously” twice in this answer, essentially saying his offense is going to get to where it should be as if just wearing pinstripes would magically make them productive.
The Yankees did everything they could to get swept by the Rays in Tampa, but managed to win a 10-inning game to stop their three-game losing streak. Two days later, they would start a new losing streak, a streak that is still alive.
On April 13, the Blue Jays blasted Jameson Taillon for five runs on eight hits and a walk in only 3 2/3 innings. The offense put up only three runs of support for their starter and the team fell one game below .500.
“Hitting is hard,” Boone responded to a question about his offense’s lack of production. “It’s a game of failure. We haven’t collectively strung really good at-bats together like we are capable of yet.”
As for Taillon’s forgettable outing?
“Stuff-wise, I thought he was fine,” Boone said about his starting pitcher allowing nine baserunners in 3 1/3 innings.
The next day, Boone decided to give DJ LeMahieu and Giancarlo Stanton both the day off, despite having an actual day off the following day. Stanton had already been given the third game of the season off, so he was being given a second game in the team’s first 12 games off. (Reminder: he only bats and doesn’t play the field.) The Yankees lost 5-4 on a Bo Bichette walk-off home run.
Kluber was bad again, going only four innings and allowing three earned runs and eight baserunners. Boone didn’t see a problem.
“Kluber, I still think is close,” Boone said. “I thought the stuff was fine.”
Kluber has given the Yankees 10 1/3 innings over three starts with a 6.10 ERA and 7.16 FIP. What exactly is he close to doing? Retiring midseason like Jay Bruce?
Losers of two straight, the Yankees were back home on April 16 for a three-game series with the Rays. The Yankees chose to go with an opener in the series opener, opting to use the hittable Nick Nelson. Three batters into the game, the Yankees were down two runs and hadn’t recorded an out in an eventual 8-2 loss.
“We’re going to be successful,” Boone said, once again sure things would magically fix themselves. “We just gotta start playing better. Period.”
In the middle of their second three-game losing streak of the young season, Boone decided to hold a team meeting. Unfortunately, he didn’t look at the Rays’ rotation for the weekend, choosing to address the team the night before they would face Tyler Glasnow.
Glasnow would allow one run over five innings and the Rays would beat the Yankees 6-3. The Yankees had five hits.
“Hitting’s a tough game,” Boone said. “Especially now more so than ever.”
Bryan Hoch of Yankees.com and MLB.com then had an odd exchange with Boone.
Hoch: “Tampa Bay has really had the upper hand in this rivalry, not just this year, but the last few years.”
Boone: “Last year.”
Hoch: “5-17 that’s dating back to September 2019.”
Boone: “Oh.”
Boone wasn’t aware of the Rays’ domination of the Yankees. He also wasn’t aware that Montgomery didn’t pitch very well, allowing two home runs.
“I thought he threw the ball well,” Boone said. “Obviously, two mistakes that cost him with the long ball.”
On Sunday with Gerrit Cole pitching, the Yankees would certainly end the four-game losing streak. Wrong. The Yankees blew their first lead in four days and lost 3-2 to get swept by the Rays and increase the losing streak to five straight.
“Bad series,” Boone said. “Just gotta get better. Period.”
For the second time in as many days, Boone used “period” to finish a statement, yet the team isn’t getting better. Maybe he should have said, “Just gotta get better. Ellipses.” When asked about changing the lineup to change things up, Boone simply didn’t answer the question. Why would he change the lineup? It’s the same lineup he was “proud” limped to a 33-27 record and first-round exit in 2020. Essentially, the same lineup that hit .214/.289/.383 in the 2019 ALCS and .214/.295/.321 in the 2018 ALDS.
If Boone were doing everything he could to win and the team were still losing then it would be solely on the players. But he isn’t. Giving unnecessary days off for everyday players in the first two weeks of the season, batting Hicks third and Rougned Odor and Brett Gardner ahead of Gary Sanchez or Gio Urshela, and sitting Clint Frazier in half the games isn’t doing everything you can to win.
There are simple, easy things Boone could to that would make him lesser part of the problem. Telling the truth about his team’s embarrassing performance would be a good start.
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!
When is it not “early” anymore? Because maybe that’s when the Yankees will start to win games. The season is nearly 10 percent over and the Yankees are five games under .500.
When is it not “early” anymore? Because maybe that’s when the Yankees will start to win games. The season is nearly 10 percent over and the Yankees are five games under .500.
Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.
1.The Yankees opened the series with an opener, using the Rays’ revolutionary strategy against the Rays. Trying to be cute and outsmart the Rays like they unsuccessfully did in Game 2 of the 2020 ALDS, the Yankees’ opener strategy backfired. It backfired because they used Nick Nelson as the opener, and Nelson isn’t any good.
This spot made all the sense in the world for Deivi Garcia to start (like Game 2 of the 2020 ALDS), but he was unavailable after having thrown earlier in the week at the alternate site. The Yankees knew this game was on the schedule. They knew they would need a starting pitcher for it, and yet, they had Garcia throw at the alternate site and waste pitches in a meaningless setting rather than at Yankee Stadium against the Rays. Three batters into the game, the Rays had a two-run lead off Nelson and still hadn’t made an out.
2. When Friday’s lineup came out, I figured the front office finally took away Boone’s lineup card privileges. (Once Saturday’s lineup came out, I knew they hadn’t.) For the first time all season, Boone made a somewhat logical lineup:
DJ LeMahieu, 1B
Aaron Judge, RF
Gleyber Torres, SS
Giancarlo Stanton, DH
Gio Urshela, 3B
Aaron Hicks, CF
Gary Sanchez, C
Clint Frazier, LF
Rougned Odor, 2B
3. Aaron Hicks was removed from the 3-hole for the first time in which LeMahieu was also in the lineup. This made me happy, but it also made me question why it was being made. Twelve days earlier, Boone was asked about moving Hicks out of the 3-hole after he went 1-for-12 with seven strikeouts in the first three games of the season.
“It’s one weekend,” Boone said at the time. “Over the long haul, Aaron Hicks is going to be all right.”
Had the long haul ended after just 44 plate appearances in 2021? Or did Boone finally realize Hicks belongs batting third as much as Boone belongs being Yankees manager?
Hicks carried a dismal .179/.273/.282 batting line into the series and went 0-for-3 in the series opener. Apparently, his one-game timeout as the Yankees 3-hitter and his 0-for-3 performance was enough to get him out of the doghouse. Boone couldn’t stay mad at his favorite player for long. Hicks was back in the 3-hole on Saturday and went 1-for-4. Hicks finished the weekend 1-for-11. His OPS currently sits at .476. Maybe there’s a reason other teams use players like Mike Trout, Bryce Harper, Juan Soto, Nolan Arenado, Freddie Freeman, Manny Machado and Jose Abreu as their No. 3 hitter.
4. Hicks wasn’t just bad at the plate. On Sunday, he misplayed back-to-back balls in center field, which erased the Yankees’ first lead in four days. Rather than make it clear defensive miscues aren’t acceptable during this miserable stretch of sloppy games, Boone left Hicks in the game. Boone could have won over the fans and showed enough was enough by pulling Hicks and replacing him with Gardner, but that might cause Hicks to not like Boone or not invite him to the card game at the back of the plane on road trips. I would have completely changed my opinion of Boone if he had removed Hicks from the game. Instead of being the manager first and friend second, Boone made it clear no amount of mental lapses on the field are enough to make an example of someone.
5. Boone’s relaxed Southern California personality that has made these Yankees feel comfortable with losing and accepting of underachieving is part of the reason this team is 52-51 since Sept. 15, 2019. Why would Boone change anything about his team? It’s the same roster he said he was “proud of” after they were eliminated by the Rays in 2020 ALDS, their third straight early postseason exit and second ALDS exit with him as manager. Boone has taken his false positivity and ridiculous excuses in his postgame press conferences to another level this season, and this weekend wasn’t any different.
“We’re going to be successful,” Boone said after Friday’s loss as if things will magically fix themselves, while admitting he held a team meeting to address the team about their second three-game losing streak in 13 games. Unfortunately for Boone, he didn’t check the pitching probables for Saturday before holding the team meeting. Tyler Glasnow would be starting for the Rays. The same Glasnow who had shut down the Yankees in Game 5 of the 2020 ALDS and who had allowed one earned run through his first three starts in 2021.
6. Hicks was back in the 3-hole on Saturday as Torres failed his one-game audition for the spot. Frazier was benched again for Gardner and Odor was back to batting ahead of Sanchez and Urshela. Three-time Gold Glove second baseman LeMahieu was once again at first base instead of second base because the Yankees unnecessarily sent down Mike Ford and had to wait 10 days to bring him back up.
Glasnow inevitably shut the Yankees down, allowing one earned run over five innings and the Yankees lost their fourth straight. The Yankees only managed three runs and five hits in the game.
“Hitting’s a tough game,” Boone said in defense of his team’s offense, completely disregarding the Rays had no problem scoring 32 runs in the first five games against the Yankees this season. (They have now score 36 in six games.)
Jordan Montgomery only allowed two hits over six innings, but both of them went over the fence. Four earned runs in six innings for Montgomery. That’s a 6.00 ERA. That’s not good. Well, unless Boone is the one grading you.
“I thought he threw the ball well,” Boone said about Montgomery who seems to always allow a crooked number. “Obviously, two mistakes that cost him with the long ball.” Just two mistakes, no big deal. Just two home runs that cost the team the game. Other than that, he was good.
7. Gary Sanchez took a foul ball off his throwing hand on Saturday because for some reason Sanchez continues to not protect his throwing hand behind his back. Boone and the training staff evaluated Sanchez and allowed him to stay in the game. He finished the inning and then hit in the bottom half of the inning. Then while catching warmup pitches the next inning, Boone replaced him with Kyle Higashioka. Letting Sanchez stay in the game and then bat only to then take him out was so irresponsible, but exactly the way the Yankees have handled injuries the last few years, while setting all kinds of injured-list-placement records.
“I’ll play Higgy tomorrow into the off day,” Boone said after the game. Oh yeah, like Boone wasn’t going to start Higashioka with Gerrit Cole before Sanchez got hit on the hand. All the foul ball off Sanchez’s hand did was make it easier for Boone to explain why Sanchez wasn’t catching Cole again.
The 6-3 loss on Saturday wasn’t the only loss Boone would be handed that day. Bryan Hoch of Yankees.com and MLB.com (and Keefe To The City Podcast alum) handed Boone another “L” in the postgame press conference during this exchange:
Hoch: “Tampa Bay has really had the upper hand in this rivalry, not just this year, but the last few years.”
Boone: “Last year.”
Hoch: “5-17 that’s dating back to September 2019.”
Boone: “Oh.”
It’s now 5-18 after Sunday’s game. Five wins in 23 games against the Rays.
8. Jay Bruce announced he would be retiring after Sunday’s game. Clearly, Bruce realized he wasn’t going to play much, if ever again, as a Yankee and once Luke Voit returns, he would be gone. Rather than be forced into retirement, Bruce dumped the Yankees before they could dump him. He retires having made $103 million in his career. I think he’ll be OK without the Yankees and baseball. Boone couldn’t let him bat instead of Odor in the bottom of the ninth with two outs and no one on and the Yankees down by two? Is there really any difference between Odor and Bruce? Both are left-handed. Both are no longer major leaguers. The only difference is one is retiring because he can no longer do what he once did on the field, and the other is being paid $27 million by the Rangers to not play for them because he can no longer do what he once did on the field. There was no reason Bruce couldn’t have received one last at-bat.
9. With Bruce announcing his retirement to open up a roster spot and with Cole starting, I thought Sunday would be the day the Yankees turn the season around. It didn’t happen. Cole was good, but got no help from Hicks in center field or the offense and took his first loss of the season. After Hicks’ first blunder, Cole gave a look of displeasure. After Frazier airmailed the cutoff man later in the same inning to allow a runner to move into scoring position, Cole gave a look like he might join Bruce in retirement after the game.
It was the sixth time Cole has faced the Rays as a Yankee. His line: 34 IP, 32 H, 16 R, 15 ER, 10 BB, 54 K, 8 HR, 3.97 ERA, 1.235 WHIP. Good, but not great. The Yankees got him to be great, especially against their direct competition in the division.
If the Yankees couldn’t end their losing streak with Cole on the mound, when will they? They have already wasted two of his four starts this season (Opening Day and Sunday) and now he won’t pitch until Friday. The Yankees will play three games between now and the next time Cole pitches.
“Bad series,” Boone said. “Just gotta get better. Period.”
Maybe the Yankees need another team meeting since Friday night’s worked so well. The Yankees are 0-2 with five runs and eight hits since Boone “addressed” them.
10. If you thought things were bad after Wednesday’s loss to the Blue Jays, welcome to a new low. The Yankees are 5-10, have lost five straight, are 1-5 against the Rays, 3-9 against the Rays and Blue Jays, have the worst record in the American League and the second-worst record in the majors. The scary part is this might not even be the low point of the season.
The Yankees’ next two games on Tuesday and Wednesday are against the Braves and they will face Charlie Morton, who dominates them, and Ian Anderson, who embarrassed them in his major league debut last season. If you think things are bad right now, buckle up for the next two days. Most likely, it’s going to get worse before it gets better. If it gets better.
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The Yankees are a textbook bad team. They aren’t average or mediocre because they would have to be .500 to be that. They flat-out suck.
The Yankees were a game under .500 then a game over .500 then two games under .500 then .500 and now they’re two games under .500 again. That’s a textbook bad team, and that’s what the Yankees are. They aren’t average or mediocre because they would have to be .500 to be that. They flat-out suck.
Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.
1. I used to hate off days on the Yankees’ schedule. Not anymore. Not with this team. A day off from watching this team is like a vacation. There’s no being frustrated, annoyed, upset or angry over a bad baseball team that is run poorly, managed poorly and plays poorly.
I wish I could go back to life on March 31. Back to the day before this miserable season began when there hadn’t been any games yet, and the idea that this season might be different than the previous three was still a possibility. That’s no longer a possibility as the Yankees are a mess.
2. In the series finale, I didn’t expect the Yankees to win. So when Bo Bichette took Chad Green deep to lead off the bottom of the ninth inning, all I could do was laugh because this team is a joke. In the rubber game of a series against the team the Yankees are directly competing against for the division, and with an off day the following day, Aaron Boone still decided to give both DJ LeMahieu and Giancarlo Stanton the day off. The Yankees played an immensely important game without their leadoff hitter and best defensive infielder and without their cleanup hitter for no reason other than that their manager thought they needed to rest.
Rest from what? Stanton entered the season having played 51 games since the start of 2019. How could he need more time off? The 2021 season has been going on for 15 days. In those 15 days, the Yankees have had three scheduled days off (April 2, 8 and 15). Stanton, personally, has had another two days off (April 4 and 14). In 15 days, he has played 10 games, all as the designated hitter. He has barely exerted any energy. He has scored three runs and one of them was on his lone home run, so he has barely had to run the bases. He has barely been on base with his dismal .233 on-base percentage. He’s also making $179,012.35 per game this season (though the Marlins are paying some of his salary), so Boone may want to have him play sometimes. And by play, I mean walk from the dugout to the on-deck circle, from the on-deck circle to the batter’s box and then maybe walk back to the dugout (strikeout), jog to first (walk or base hit to the outfield), jog the bases (home run), or do something between a jog and run (groundout or flyout).
If you think things are bad with Stanton when it comes to his actual production and the amount of time off he gets, think about what you will be doing six years from now. Because six years from now, the Yankees will be still be playing Stanton. They will either be paying him to be their 37-year-old designated hitter or they will be paying him to not play for them. And eight years from now, they will pay him a $10 million buyout to not play for them.
3. For the first time as a Yankee, LeMahieu has looked off. How would you go about getting LeMahieu back on track? I would think you would want him to play and get at-bats and correct whatever is screwing him up. It’s hard to do that when you’re sitting on the bench, but Boone clearly thinks not getting at-bats is what LeMahieu needs to produce better at-bats. If you’re terrible at cooking, the best way to get better is to simply not cook. Just sit in the living room and look at the kitchen and envision yourself cooking. That’s what Boone had LeMahieu do on Wednesday.
4. I don’t have the energy anymore to fight the Aaron Hicks battle. I’m tired and worn down. The Yankees think he’s Bernie Williams and no lack of production will change their mind. I also have lost the energy to criticize the decision to not add any major-league- worthy left-handed bats in the offseason, so the Yankees continue to force Rougned Odor and Jay Bruce into the lineup. Outside of Gerrit Cole and a couple of home runs from Gary Sanchez two weeks ago, there is nothing else to be happy or excited about with this team unless you’re excited about a scumbag being given the fifth starter spot out of spring training, a tired and overworked bullpen, a lineup that doesn’t walk as much as they used to and can’t hit or a former two-time Cy Young winner who’s making J.A. Happ seem not so bad.
5. Back on Jan. 7, I wrote a blog titled Corey Kluber Is Perfect Low-Risk, High-Reward Candidate. I stand by that. He was the perfect candidate for the back end of the Yankees’ rotation, and if he were to regain his pre-2019 form then the Yankees would have an elite option behind Cole and Luis Severino (once he comes back). I thought he could be a valuable piece as a guy trying to save his career. I didn’t think he would be the piece. I didn’t think the Yankees would be foolish enough to trust a 35-year-old coming off a shoulder injury with a lot of miles on his right arm to be their No. 2 starter.
Kluber has been awful, and if his name weren’t Corey Kluber and the Yankees weren’t paying him $11 million this season, he would no longer be a Yankee. But he’s what they have right now, and what that is is a really bad starting pitcher, who doesn’t give the team length or quality innings, and is ineffective in the small amount of innings he does give them. Here is Kluber’s line in three starts: 10.1 IP, 16 H, 10 R, 7 ER, 7 BB, 12 K, 3 HR, 6.10 ERA, 2.226 WHIP. You can’t even turn to his FIP to try and make it seem like he’s been better than traditional numbers suggest because he has a 7.20 FIP.
6. On Wednesday, Kluber was horrible, yet again. He only lasted four innings, giving up three earned runs and two home runs. No one could say he was any good with a straight face. No one except for Boone.
“Kluber, I still think is close,” Boone said after the game. “I thought the stuff was fine.”
Close to what? No longer being a major leaguer? He’s certainly not close to figuring it out or turning into the pitcher he was in Cleveland. If Kluber ever gets through five innings as a Yankee and records 15 outs, they should stop the game like when a player reaches a historic milestone and have the entire team go out to the mound and hug him. That’s how far away he is.
As for his stuff being fine. What? He put eight baserunners on in four innings. He’s put 23 runner on in 10 1/3 innings this season. That doesn’t seem like “fine” stuff to me.
7. That answer about Kluber’s performance from Boone was expected. Boone is a liar. All he does is lie. He lies about injuries. He lies about performance. He lies about roles on the team. Lie after lie after lie.
At his season-opening press conference at spring training, Boone said Clint Frazier would be the team’s everyday left fielder. At the time, the Yankees’ most recent games had been their seven postseason games in which Boone benched Frazier for Brett Gardner in five of them. Back on Feb. 22, I wrote:
If the Yankees were completely healthy, I still think Boone inexplicably sits Frazier against right-handed starting pitching and plays Gardner in left field those days. He did it in the 2020 postseason, so why wouldn’t he do it again in the 2021 regular season? Nothing has changed since then.
Frazier has started nine of the Yankees’ 12 games, but he’s only started six in left field. I thought “everyday player” meant you play every day, not half of the days. The only reason Frazier has appeared in nine games overall is because of the games Aaron Judge missed due to an injury Boone lied about. If not for Judge’s injury, Frazier would have played in six of 12 games.
8. Frazier’s playing time is tied to every single at-bat. There’s no room for error. An 0-for-4 game will find him on the bench the following day. This past week, when trying to sugarcoat the Yankees’ embarrassing offense, he mentioned how baseball is “a game of failure.” Except, it’s only a game of failure when it fits his narrative. Like talking about why his lineups suck or why Hicks can’t hit or why Gleyber Torres looks like he has completely lost all of his ability to play the sport or why Stanton can’t hit the ball in the air. It’s not a game of failure for Frazier.
Frazier has been playing under unrealistic expectations his entire Yankees tenure and this season has taken it to another level. Meanwhile, Judge and Hicks and Stanton, and even Gardner, are allowed to endure extended and endless slumps with no change in their playing time or spot in the batting order. It’s sickening. It really is.
I wanted Gardner back if he were to finally be the team’s fourth outfielder, not as someone who would once again take playing time and at-bats from Frazier. Through 12 games, Gardner has started as many games in left field as Frazier. At a time when the Yankees desperately need offense, they’re turning to the 38-year-old with a career .744 OPS.
9. Remember when Boone said Cole didn’t have a personal catcher in spring training? If you believed him, you likely believe Severino knew the start time of Game 3 of the 2018 ALDS.
The idea Kyle Higashioka makes Cole good is the most ridiculous thing of all time. All time. ALL TIME. You could pull any professional catcher from any level of affiliated or independent baseball, and he would dominate. The only reason the person would need that level of experience would be to catch his breaking pitches.
So now Gary Sanchez will apparently have every fifth day off no matter the opponent or importance of the game. If the Yankees are to reach the postseason, and I say if at this point because it’s clearly no longer a given, that means Higashioka will play in the biggest games of the season. You could see Higashioka in Games 1, 4 and 7 of a seven-game series. Obviously playing in a seven-game series would mean the Yankees have reached the ALCS or World Series and right now they are about as “close” to that as Kluber is close to whatever Boone was suggesting he is close to.
10. The Yankees will hit. They will. They might not hit when it matters or against elite starters or in October, but over the course of six months they will see enough awful pitching that they will score runs. I’m not worried about the offense long term.
I’m worried about the starting pitching though. I truly don’t think it’s going to get better. Kluber isn’t going to suddenly become a seven-inning, 3.00-ERA guy. Jameson Taillon will never be allowed to give the team length since the Yankees are petrified of him getting hurt, and they would rather have him not pitch than win games or preserve their bullpen. Jordan Montgomery is inconsistent. Scumbag German sucks. Deivi Garcia is being wasted at the alternate site. The Yankees are setting themselves up to desperately need Severino to return this summer and be his pre-injured self, which is unfair to him given the time normally needed after Tommy John surgery to regain peak ability, and it’s just an unrealistic expectation.
The Yankees are in trouble. Big trouble. If they don’t outhit their own pitching, there won’t be a postseason for them in 2021. That’s not what I’m worried about though. I’m worried they won’t reach the postseason, will bring back the same roster for 2022 and retain Boone. That’s what keeps me up at night.
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My book The Next Yankees Era: My Transition from the Core Four to the Baby Bombers is now available as an ebook!