1. The Yankees’ season was supposed to change by 6 p.m. on August 3. Even without Aaron Judge (due to a rib injury), Giancarlo Stanton (due to a ridiculous calf injury that is in its fourth month) and Cody Bellinger (due to a hamstring injury), August 3 was going to be the day the Yankees got a new catcher, added to their bullpen and got a right-handed bat. For weeks, the Yankees were connected to Tarik Skubal and Adley Rutschman, and even the great Mason Miller. But when 6 p.m. came on Monday, the Yankees had added only a right-handed bat (with poor defense) and a left-handed bat (with poor defense). The right-handed bat (Heliot Ramos) crushes left-handed pitching, but can’t hit right-handed pitching, and the left-handed bat (Luis Garcia) crushes right-handed pitching, but can’t hit left-handed pitching, and neither has a position.

2. There was no new catcher when the clock struck 6. The Rays — the team the Yankees have been chasing for essentially three months — got a new catcher. The Red Sox — the team that the Yankees once led by 15 games in the loss column and now lead by one game — got a new catcher.

There was no bullpen help. Despite an abundance of high-end relievers being dealt, the Yankees didn’t add a single arm to their overworked, top-heavy bullpen.

3. The Yankees needed a right-handed bat because Judge is out indefinitely and Stanton heals at a glacial pace. They needed a right-handed bat because Anthony Volpe is no longer a major leaguer and neither is Jasson Dominguez. They needed a right-handed bat because they believed Paul Goldschmidt could withstand a six-month season. They needed a right-handed bat because Amed Rosario isn’t hitting lefties. They needed a right-handed bat because they designated Randal Grichuk for assignment in April after very little playing time. (Grichuk started 0-for-13 as a Yankee then went 6-for-18 with four doubles before being DFA’d. He has an .880 OPS since.) So the Yankees traded their No. 5 and No. 13 prospects for Ramos.

The Yankees didn’t need another left-handed bat, but what they did need was offense, any semblance of major-league offense after scoring 32 runs during their 10-game road trip. You may think 32 runs in 10 games and abysmal, but it’s actually worse than it looks. Nine of the 32 runs came in one game and one of the runs was an automatic runner in extra innings. Not only that, but the Yankees played four extra innings on the trip and scored the automatic runner once. So the Yankees traded for Garcia to give them a quality major-league hitter not named Ben Rice in their current lineup.

Off the field, the deadline was a disaster for the Yankees. On the field, it was worse.

4. After walking 26 batters in 23 starts this season, Cam Schlittler walked five Cardinals in three innings on Monday. He walked the first batter of the game on four pitches and gave up a one-out, two-run home run. He then walked the fourth batter of the game and gave up a line-drive single before getting out of the inning with a double play.

In the second, Schlittler walked the leadoff hitter again and then gave up a run-scoring double on an 0-2 pitch. He walked another hitter, sandwiched between striking out the side.

In the third, Schlittler walked the leadoff hitter for the third straight inning and allowed that run to score on a two-out single. After three innings, nine baserunners and 81 pitches, Schlittler was removed from the game.

The Yankees trailed 6-0 after four innings. Four earned runs against Schlittler and another two from Tim Hill after Hill allowed his latest home run. But the Yankees fought back in the fifth with back-to-back home runs: a two-run home run from Austin Wells and a solo home run from Trent Grisham to make it 6-3.

5. Still trailing 6-3 in the seventh, Ryan McMahon and Jose Caballero went back-to-back to lead off the inning and make it 6-5. Grisham hit a one-out double and Garcia brought him in with a two-run home run to give the Yankees a 7-6 lead. After last year’s post-deadline debacle in Miami, the Yankees were going to have a memorable deadline day performance on the field to make up for the shortcomings in the front office off it.

Except they weren’t. Aaron Boone had Ryan Yarbrough get the final two outs of the seventh when the game was still 6-3. It made sense to pitch Yarbrough with a three-run deficit and let him eat up the final innings if the score remained the same. But when the Yankees took the lead and were six outs away from a win in a game in which they had trailed by six runs, sending Yarbrough out for the eighth to protect the one-run lead should have never been an option. But it was for Boone. In Game 113 with the Rays having already won on the day, Boone tried to steal outs with Yarbrough. Sure enough, Yarbrough allowed a leadoff triple to begin the eighth.

6. Due to recent workloads, even though neither Fernando Cruz, Paul Blackburn, Brent Headrick nor David Bednar had pitched on back-to-back days, Boone stayed away from all of them. The Yankees’ rule that relievers can’t pitch three straight days remains idiotic and unscientific as a way of preventing injuries, but in this instance, Boone wasn’t even following that rule, he was simply not going to his best relievers because he felt they had thrown too much lately. In a winnable game against an inferior opponent, Boone was willing to lose instead of use two of his best four arms. And lose they did. Angel Chivilli relieved Yarbrough and allowed three home runs in the eighth. The Cardinals entered the inning trailing 7-6 and left it leading 13-7. Chivilli was sent down after the game. Good enough to pitch in high leverage at 10:30 p.m. Not good enough to be a Yankee at 11:30 p.m. Just like Max Schuemann was good enough to bat LEADOFF for the Yankees multiple times in the last week and then wasn’t good enough to be a Yankee after the trade for Garcia. Chivilli wasn’t the only one sent down. Volpe was sent down along with Dominguez.

7. It was a bad start for Schlittler, but it was going to end up being a good win against a bad team. Instead, it was undone by a bad manager. Everything about the day was so perfectly the Cashman/Boone Yankees. Cashman didn’t just fail to get any game-changing talent at the deadline, he failed to fulfill the few needs the Yankees absolutely had to address. Needs that exist because of moves he has made. Boone was willing to lose a winnable game and play for tomorrow to protect the arms of impending free agents when it’s unknown if they will even be needed to protect small leads in the coming days.

8. Ben Rice went 0-for-4 and is 4-for-29 with 10 strikeouts since the start of Chicago week. Jazz Chisholm went 0-for-4 and is 4-for-31 with 15 strikeouts since the start of the 10-game road trip. Maybe Chisholm just needs his teammates to remind him again that he’s “the best player in the world.” He only has 49 games remaining to hit 34 home runs and steal 20 bases.

9. The Yankees went 6-4 on the 10-game road trip to Philadelphia and Chicago. I wrote that I would have signed up for 5-5 before the trip started, but once the trip started 3-1, going 5-5 was a disappointment. The Yankees had extra-inning leads in two of the games against the White Sox and had a seventh-inning lead on Saturday against the Cubs and they lost all three games. It could have been an 8-2 or even 9-1 road trip. But much like everything with these Yankees, it was a disappointment. A disappointing road trip, followed by a disappointing deadline, followed by a disappointing game on Monday in what is becoming a disappointing season now that they are four games behind the Rays in the loss column again and just one game up on the Red Sox in the loss column. They had a 15-game lead in the loss column over the Red Sox in late June.

10. It will be Ryan Weathers against Hunter Dobbins on Tuesday. Weathers was outstanding against the Phillies and White Sox. Dobbins is the former Red Sox, who said he hated the Yankees and that his dad was drafted by them, even though his dad wasn’t drafted. The Cardinals are a bad team headed nowhere other than to the offseason after Game 162. They sold at the deadline and have no business winning a series against the Yankees in the Bronx with the Yankees in the middle of a pennant race. But if you haven’t learned by now, and if the road trip, deadline and Monday’s loss weren’t reminders, always be prepared to be disappointed by these Yankees.

1. On Sept. 1, 2011, I thought I saw the lowest Baseball IQ play I would ever see from a Yankee when Nick Swisher laid down a sacrifice bunt with a runner on first and already one out in the inning. That play stood for nearly 14 years until Aug. 2, 2025, when Jazz Chisholm was picked off first base on a pop-up to the second baseman on the infield dirt. I didn’t think there would ever be a play that could top Chisholm’s idiotic baserunning decision, believing his former teammate would drop the ball on purpose to try and erase him on the bases. Until Wednesday.

Ali Sanchez’s extra-inning gaffe was so unbelievable, so ill-advised, so patently dumb that I can’t envision it ever being topped. I believe it will stand forever as the lowest Baseball IQ play I will ever see from a Yankee (though as long as Aaron Boone is at the helm, you can’t discount how fundamentally low the Yankees may stoop). To attempt to pick off a runner at third with two outs in a one-run game when all you need to do is retire the below-league-average Andrew Benintendi to win a crucial game is so incomprehensible that I still have a hard time believing it actually happened.

2. “Me and McMahon felt that he was a little slow getting back to the base,” Sanchez said. “I just made a bad throw. I’ve got to make a better throw.”

I don’t care if the runner (Munetaka Murakami) was 10 feet off the base with his back to Camilo Doval and his eyes closed it’s a throw that can’t be made. But it’s a throw that was made and it ruined the Yankees’ chance to win the game in that inning.

And Sanchez isn’t the only one to blame. Ryan McMahon played a part in the moronic play as well.

“It was there,” McMahon said, even though it wasn’t there. “Ali and I, we just didn’t execute. We did a shit job on both ends. I’ve got to block that and he’s got to get it there. It ended up hurting us.”

Sure enough, just like he defended Chisholm last August in Miami, Boone defended his catcher and third baseman.

“We’re big leaguers,” Boone said. “We’re not going to not do things.”

So because this is the big leagues, pickoff attempts at third base with the game on the line should be accepted? What the fuck are you talking about?

3. The Yankees held a 4-0 lead in the seventh with Cam Schlittler on the mound and had a 4-1 lead after the seventh. Paul Blackburn turned back into Paul Blackburn in the eighth and blew a three-run lead after allowing back-to-back home runs, erasing and wasting the 6 1/3 innings and two-hit start from Schlittler.

The Yankees stranded a runner on third with one out in the sixth and couldn’t score after a leadoff double in the seventh. Had they been able to come through with situational hitting in either of those spots, the game never goes to extras and they win. But the game did go to extras, and the worst road extra-inning team in the majors since the automatic runner was implemented six years ago, and the worst road extra-inning team in the majors this season lost another road extra-inning game.

If you think it’s a coincidence, randomness or chance that the Yankees continue to lose road extra-inning games under Boone, you’re a fool. When situational hitting, fundamentals, sound strategy, creativity and baseball smarts are at a premium, it’s no surprise the Yankees are at their worst.

4. The Yankees failed to score in the 10th despite the top of the lineup being up. Tim Hill was able to miraculously keep the White Sox off the board in the bottom of the inning with the winning run on third and no outs, but it didn’t matter, because after the Yankees took the lead in the 11th, Sanchez and McMahon decided to be “big leaguers” as their manager called them and threw away the game. The Yankees failed to score again in the 12th, even though they had runners on the corners and no outs, and then went on to lose in the bottom of the inning.

5. On Tuesday, the Yankees scored three runs in the second inning and never scored again. On Wednesday, the Yankees scored four runs in the first inning and never scored again until extra innings, when they plated one of six baserunners. It was a typical bad offensive performance in innings two through nine and the standard disturbing performance in extra innings.

6. Trent Grisham, who gets to lead off against right-handed starters no matter what, went 0-for-5 with a walk and two strikeouts. (Grisham has hit .156/.241/.312 in July with three hits since the All-Star break ended two weeks ago.) Ben Rice went 1-for-5 with a double, walk and two strikeouts. Jasson Dominguez went 0-for-4 with a walk and strikeout. Paul Goldschmidt went 2-for-5 with a strikeout. Spencer Jones went 2-for-4 with a three-run home run and two strikeouts. Jazz Chisholm went 1-for-5 with two strikeouts. (Chisholm is 3-for-16 with 10 strikeouts on the road trip. Soon, he will hit a home run and the Yankees and YES will wonder if that is the home run that will get him going and then he will have an extended slump until the next home run and this cycle will continue until he’s no longer a Yankee.) McMahon went 1-for-5, Jose Caballero went 2-for-5 and Austin Wells went 0-for-4 with a strikeout. (We keep hearing how good Wells has looked over the last few weeks. He’s 1-for-11 on the road trip.)

7. The Yankees lost a game in which they had a four-run lead with eight outs to go and the best pitcher in the American League on the mound working a one-hitter. They lost a game in which they had the lead in the 11th inning and were one out away from the win. They lost a game in which they couldn’t situationally hit in the sixth, seventh, 10th and 12th innings, when they could have scored runs by making outs. They lost a game on a day in which the Rays won and the Red Sox won (on the road in extra innings for good measure). Their division deficit is back to three games in the loss column and their lead over the Red Sox is down to four games in the loss column.

8. It’s likely the game would have ended differently if Angel Chivilli, Brent Headrick and David Bednar had been available, but they weren’t because of recent workloads and usage. Bednar wasn’t available because he had pitched in the first two games of the series over the previous two days. If you remember, he was needed on Monday to get the last out of the game after Volpe dropped what should have been a game-ending pop-up.

9. The White Sox needed and wanted the game so badly that they had their best reliever Grant Taylor pitch across three innings, something he had never done in his 75 previous major-league appearances. Jordan Hicks — the White Sox’ version of Doval who throws 103 mph but can’t strike anyone out — ended up getting the win. Everything about the game except for the first inning and Schlittler was awful on what became the worst night of the season.

10. It’s up to Ryan Weathers to get the bad taste of Wednesday out of everyone’s mouth, though I’m not sure it’s a taste that can be removed with a single win. The combination of losing a Schlittler gem and losing on a day when the Rays and Red Sox won is going to take a long time to get over. I’m still not over the post-deadline, extra-inning game in Miami from a year ago that was the difference in the division. If the Yankees’ postseason seeding is impacted by a single game this year, I may never get over what took place at Rate Field on Thursday. Weathers pitched very well against the White Sox last month (6.1 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 1 BB, 8 K, 1 HR) in a loss, and with the current state of the Yankees’ offense, it’s going to take an outing like that for the Yankees to win.

1. I love the AL Central. Since the 2012 ALDS, the Yankees haven’t won a best-of-5 or best-of-7 postseason series against a non-AL Central team. During that time, the Yankees have used beating up on the AL Central to reach the postseason nearly every season and they’re doing it again in 2026. Following Tuesday’s 3-2 win over the White Sox, the Yankees are now 4-1 against the White Sox this season and 17-9 against the AL Central overall, compared to 16-16 against the AL East and 13-9 against the AL West.

2. The White Sox are the “best” team in the Central and they have allowed the Yankees to have run totals of 12 (June 16), 10 (June 17) and 9 (July 27) against them without Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton for the first two of those games and without Cody Bellinger as well for the third. They have lost games started by Gerrit Cole twice (12 IP, 2 ER), Carlos Rodon (5 IP, 3 ER), Ryan Weathers (6.1 IP, 1 ER) and a rusty, pitch-count-limited Max Fried (3 IP, 3 ER). Their only win came in a game in which the Yankees scored one run, and that game was tied at 1 in the eighth. The White Sox are fake good, the AL Central sucks, and the Yankees are doing their job by taking care of annual business against their postseason red carpet.

3. On Tuesday, for the second straight night, a mediocre-at-best left-handed White Sox starter struck out the side in the first inning. Jasson Dominguez and Trent Grisham hit back-to-back singles to open the second and moved up a base on a wild pitch. Anthony Volpe hit a double to the wall in left-center that allowed Dominguez to score, but Grisham was unable to score because of the combination of having to wait to see if it was caught (which it initially was) and his half-assed running style. Grisham and Volpe both came around to score when Max Schuemann hit a double down the third-base line and the Yankees had an early 3-0 lead.

4. Cole easily handled the White Sox lineup with six scoreless innings and seven strikeouts. The White Sox had a bases-loaded, two-out threat in the fourth, but Cole easily extinguished it with an inning-ending flyout to Amed Rosario in shallow left field. Angel Chivilli threw a perfect seventh in relief of Cole and Brent Headrick picked up his major-league-leading 46th scoreless appearance in the eighth. It wasn’t until a two-out, two-run home run in the ninth off David Bednar that the White Sox got on the board, ending Bednar’s scoreless appearance streak, which dated back to May 18.

5. The Replacement Yankees (a term I haven’t used since the 2019 Yankees) went 6-for-32 with four walks and 10 strikeouts, and their only offense came in the three-run second inning. Paul Goldschmidt went 0-for-3 with two walks and a strikeout, Ben Rice went 0-for-4 with two strikeouts, Rosario went 1-for-4 with two strikeouts, Jasson Dominguez had his second straight two-hit game, Trent Grisham had a single, Volpe went 1-for-4 with the double, Jazz Chisholm went 0-for-3 with a walk and two strikeouts, Max Schuemann went 1-for-2 with the double and Austin Wells went 0-for-4 with a strikeout. Spencer Jones went 0-for-2 with a strikeout after pinch-hitting for Schuemann. Defensively, the Yankees didn’t commit an error, which seems like a rarity this summer.

6. If Volpe played second base and batted ninth, the entire perception of him would be different. But because he was given the starting shortstop job and has had it taken away from him for not even two weeks over the last four seasons, while every other Yankees prospect ever has had to earn playing time, everyone is sick of him. Again, not sick of him as the person, but sick of what he represents in the Yankees’ arrogance in this era. Because Volpe continues to bat between fifth and seventh in the lineup and play shortstop every day despite having a second baseman’s arm, he will never live up to the prospect status and hype he once had. The Yankees and fans could deal with him if he played the lesser position and was a bottom-of-the-order presence, and maybe that’s the plan for him once George Lombard Jr. arrives and Chisholm leaves, but until then, the constant criticism of him and the disappointment from him won’t end.

7. Another game off the schedule and another day closer to the August 3 trade deadline and no new names on the roster for the Yankees. Last season, Ryan McMahon was traded to the Yankees six days before the deadline and Rosario five days before. The Yankees traded for Austin Slater one day before the deadline and got Camilo Doval, Jake Bird, Bednar and Jose Caballero on deadline day. The deadline is now five days away, so we are certainly in range of the Yankees beginning to make moves, and as I outlined in recent Thoughts, they have to make moves and get Judge, Stanton and Bellinger back if they plan on ending the championship drought before it reaches 17 years.

8. The Rays and Red Sox both lost on Tuesday, so the Yankees are now two games back of the Rays in the loss column and five games up on the Red Sox in the loss column. The difference between winning the division and not winning it right now is getting a bye to the ALDS or playing the Red Sox in a best-of-3 for the second straight season. A few days ago, the Yankees were in a position where, if the playoffs had started that day, they would have hosted the Guardians in the Wild Card Series with the winner playing the White Sox in the ALDS. I don’t want any part of the Wild Card Series, but if the Yankees are to play in the best-of-3 round, that’s the opponent and path you want.

9. Michael Kay stirring his tea with his glasses was disgusting and Joe Girardi was right to call him out for it. Kay tried to make Girardi out to be the crazy one in the argument, but I can’t imagine there is anyone on Kay’s side for this one. If the tea didn’t dissolve like Girardi explained, Kay could have either drunk it unstirred or not drunk it at all, but at no point was using his glasses to stir it an acceptable choice.

10. Schlittler coming off the most dominant regular-season start of his career gets the ball on Wednesday. He’ll go against Davis Martin — the White Sox best starter — who the Yankees blasted for nine earned runs and three home runs in 3 1/3 innings back on June 16 at the Stadium. A win on Wednesday would clinch at worst a .500 record on the 10-game road trip, which is the mark I would have signed up for before it began.

1. On July 27, the Yankees fielded a lineup resembling a February 27 game. Despite their spring training look, the Yankees scored their most runs since July 9 and their second-most runs since June 17 in a 9-5 win over the White Sox. It wasn’t the kind of win you would expect from a nine-run output. The Yankees fell behind three runs in the first inning, took a one-run lead in the fourth, gave away the lead in the fifth, retook a one-run lead in the sixth, made it a five-run lead in the eighth and allowed the White Sox to bring the tying run to the on-deck circle in the ninth.

2. After throwing five scoreless, one-hit innings in his return from the injured list on Thursday, Max Fried looked like his pre-IL self on Monday. Fried lasted only three innings, allowed seven baserunners and three earned runs and needed 66 pitches to get nine outs.

“I wish I would’ve been sharper to be able to get some more innings,” Fried said.

3. Fried wasn’t sharp, but he wasn’t helped by his defense either, which makes sense since the Yankees had multiple players playing out of position to maximize their right-handed-hitting options. The Yankees had Max Schuemann playing left field and leading off, Jasson Dominguez in the clean-up spot, Anthony Volpe batting fifth, Jose Caballero playing third base, Jazz Chisholm and Spencer Jones playing with a lefty starting and Amed Rosario (who was re-signed specifically to play against lefties) on the bench.

4. For the first three innings, it looked like the 22-year-old rookie Noah Schultz and his 6.04 ERA were going to easily navigate the Yankees’ lineup like so many mediocre starters have since the beginning of June. Schultz struck out the side in the first and had five strikeouts through three. In the fourth, trailing 3-0, the Yankees loaded the bases with a pair of walks and a single, leading to a Volpe groundout to make it 3-1, which led to Schultz’s removal. Chisholm greeted reliever Chris Murphy with a two-run, game-tying double, stole third and scored on a Jones groundout to give the Yankees a 4-3 lead.

5. The White Sox tied the game at 4 in the fifth against Tim Hill and it remained tied until Ben Rice drove in Rosario following Rosario’s pinch-hit double. In the eighth, the Yankees added a run to their lead after a throwing error and broke the game open with an Ali Sanchez three-run home run, the first of his career.

“You always dream to play in the big leagues,” Sanchez said. “Having yoru first homer with the Yankees uniform and getting the ‘W,’ it’s special.”

6. In the ninth, the combination of Camilo Doval and poor infield defense led to the White Sox bringing the tying run to the on-deck circle. Volpe dropped a popup on the right side of the infield that would have ended the game, but instead, it led to David Bednar needing to relieve Doval and throw pitches in a game the Yankees led by five in the ninth. Back-to-back games with crucial errors from Volpe. Nothing to see here! Start him again at short on Tuesday!

7. The Yankees had to use seven relievers to get through six innings after Fried’s ineffectiveness and pitch count forced him out after three. Will Warren only gave the team three innings as well on Sunday. The Yankees need length from their starters, and they need exceptional starts, considering expecting nine-run outbursts from a lineup that features mostly reserve and minor-league players is a recipe for disaster, not success.

8. I have no idea what the Yankees’ plan is for the trade deadline, and it seems like no one else does either. There are reports that they are willing to go all-in for Mason Miller. There are reports connecting them to CJ Abrams. There is talk of them going after Zach Neto. There are so many different outcomes for the Yankees at the deadline ranging from upgrading shortstop to getting a catcher to revamping one-third of the 26-man roster. All I know is that their deficit to the Rays hasn’t moved and their lead over the Red Sox is dwindling as neither of those teams seems to lose. Waiting until the actual deadline to acquire upgrades means six more games (against the White Sox and Cubs) off the schedule and likely a seventh with the Yankees playing an hour after the deadline.

9. When you look at Monday’s lineup, at full strength (if that ever happens) and after the expected post-deadline moves, it’s likely Rice and Chisholm are the only two who would be starting for the Yankees in the postseason. Schuemann would be on the bench (at best), Goldschmidt would be on the bench, Dominguez would be on the bench (at best), Volpe would hopefully not be on the roster or in the organization, Caballero would be on the bench, Jones wouldn’t be on the roster and Sanchez would likely not be on the roster either. With the left-handed Anthony Kay starting on Tuesday, the Yankees lineup won’t look much different from what it was on Monday.

10. The bad news is that, for probably the rest of the road trip, the Yankees are going to have to manage with lineups identical or close to Monday’s. The good news is that the Yankees are already 3-1 on the road trip. I would have gladly signed up for 5-5 before it began in Philadelphia, so based on that expectation, the Yankees winning two of the remaining six games against the White Sox and Cubs should be deemed a success. With Gerrit Cole, Cam Schlittler and Max Fried starting four of those six games, the Yankees have the opportunity to have a much-better-than-expected road trip.