1. Ever since Aaron Judge played his last game of the season to date on May 31, this season has been weird. Because when Judge went down, Giancarlo Stanton had already been down for more than a month, Max Fried had been on the injured list for two weeks and Gerrit Cole had yet to come back from Tommy John surgery. Yankees fans knew the Yankees without those four weren’t the real Yankees and couldn’t be properly evaluated until they were all active at the same time (if they would ever all be active at the same time), but there was a season to be played whether or not Max Schuemann was leading off.

2. Judge has remained out and so has Stanton, but Cole returned and so did Fried, only for Carlos Rodon to get hurt along with Cody Bellinger. Each positive Yankees injury update has been met with a negative announcement about a different Yankee. Judge playing catch and running in Toronto on Sunday provided Yankees fans with the realization he would return within the next month, but on Monday — on a day off nonetheless — the Yankees announced Fried was going back on the IL with the same injury he landed on the IL with in May: a bone bruise.

The Fried news means the best rotation in baseball won’t exist for the rest of the season. Fried started on May 13 and then was out until July 22 with his last bone bruise. If a similar timeline follows this IL stint, his season is over. So instead of a 1-2-3 of Cam Schlittler, Fried and Cole in some order in October, it will now be Schlittler, Cole and either Ryan Weathers or Carlos Rodon in some order. For an offense that is putrid, losing Fried is a season-changing injury because of its postseason implications.

2. No, the offense won’t remain this putrid if and when Judge returns from his rib injury and Bellinger returns from his hamstring injury and Stanton returns from his traumatic brain injury calf injury, but even if all three return, six other bats from the weakest lineup in baseball will still be present. Yankees fans waiting for the offense to get reinforcements from those three are also banking on all three coming back and producing at a high level. Last October, all three were healthy, and only Judge produced and the Yankees’ postseason ended in the division series.

There’s nothing Yankees fans can do other than to wait for the closest thing to the Yankees’ expected roster to be available. But while we wait for whatever that roster looks like to be available, the Yankees are trying to overcome a six-game division deficit with 38 to play, while also trying to hold off a Red Sox team that is just three games back in the loss column. This past weekend in Toronto, the Yankees did a poor job of trying to catch the Rays and hold off the Red Sox as they scored four non-extra-inning runs in three games and lost two of three.

3. The play that ruined Friday’s game was so spectacularly bad, and yet, it’s likely not even the Top 10 sloppiest defensive sequences in the Aaron Boone era. Ryan McMahon’s inability to throw the ball form third to first in the air on what should have been an inning-ending double play led to Luis Garcia trying to pick a short hop (which he was unable to do) and losing his glove in the process. Seeing a runner head for third after the dropped pick, Garcia picked up the ball and launched it toward third wildly with no one covering the base. George Lombard Jr. tried to get over to third to get his glove on the ball, and in the process, collided with Vladimir Guerrero Jr. The ball went down the left-field line, and Guerrero Jr. ran home to score the Blue Jays’ second run on the play. Instead of an inning-ending double play to preserve a 1-0 lead, the Blue Jays scored twice and went on to win. Garcia’s ill-advised throw nearly ended Lombard Jr.’s career and did send Guerrero Jr. to the seven-day IL for a concussion.

4. On Saturday, the Yankees scored one run again and lost, wasting yet another strong start from Cam Schlittler. These are games the Yankees have lost since the All-Star break:

6 IP, 2 ER
7 IP, 3 ER
6.1 IP, 1 ER
7 IP, 0 ER
5.1 IP, 1 ER
7 IP, 1 ER
5 IP, 1 ER
6 IP, 1 ER
5.1 IP, 1 ER

Inexplicable. If the Yankees had won four of those nine, they would be two games out in the division. If they had won six of the nine, they would be tied for the division.

5. The Yankees entered Sunday’s series finale having gone 44-44 since May 4. So if you think Judge and Bellinger are going to save the offense, just remember that Judge played all of May and Bellinger played all of May, June and most of July and the Yankees were still a .500 team during that time.

The Yankees couldn’t score again on Sunday, putting up just two runs in nine innings. And because of their lack of offense, the Blue Jays were able to tie the game in the ninth following an error, walk, wild pitch and sacrifice fly. The Yankees were about to achieve a new worst loss of the season before Ben Rice hit a two-run home run in the 10th to make up for committing the leadoff error in the ninth. The Yankees miraculously held on for a 4-3 win.

6. It’s possible Brian Cashman has found his white whale in Ryan Weathers. After nearly three decades unsuccessfully trading for young, controllable starting pitchers (Jeff Weaver, Javier Vazquez, Michael Pineda, Nathan Eovaldi, Sonny Gray, Jameson Taillon, etc.), Weathers may have ended Cashman’s search. Weathers has a 0.85 ERA over his last five starts, a 1.94 ERA over his last seven starts and a 2.56 ERA over his last 11 starts. After allowing 16 home runs in his first 14 starts this season, he has allowed just two over his last 10, following an adjustment in his pitch usage. With Fried out, Weathers gets my vote for a postseason start (if the Yankees’ postseason lasts more than two games). I find it hard to believe anyone would feel better with Rodon on the mound than Weathers, but there are still Boone supporters and Volpe fans out there, so there are likely Rodon backers as well.

7. Boone finally decided to shake up the lineup on Sunday after weeks of having Trent Grisham lead off proved ineffective. (The Yankees last scored a first-inning run on July 29.) Boone sat Jazz Chisholm and his .471 OPS since July 22 and played Jose Caballero. Boone made it clear Chisholm would return to second base on Tuesday no matter how well Caballero played. Caballero went 1-for-2 with a run, an RBI, a walk and a stolen base in just his third start since August 3. Caballero has a 1.033 OPS and more extra-base hits, RBIs, steals and walks than Chisholm since July 28. Without Caballero in the lineup on Sunday, the Yankees would have gotten swept by the Blue Jays.

8. While Chisholm has been so bad he got benched, Heliot Ramos has been so bad that Boone decided to bat him third on Sunday. Ramos went 1-for-4, picking up his first hit since August 7. He’s 3-for-36 as a Yankee. I always thought Austin Kearns in 2020 would go down as the worst trade deadline acquisition, but then Joey Gallo came along in 2011 and then Ramos. Ramos has made the deadline trade for Gallo look like the deadline trade for David Justice.

9. The Blue Jays aren’t any good. They’re four games under .500 and had to rip off a 13-7 run in recent weeks just to get to that poor record. They sold at the deadline and in a normal season would be buried in the standings. But because this isn’t a normal season and because the Yankees failed to end their season this past weekend, the Blue Jays are very much alive and a half-game back for the final playoff spot. It’s a disgrace that a team with an under-.500 record may get into the postseason this year, and right now that team is the three-games-under-.500 Orioles, who the Yankees will play for the next three days.

The Orioles have allowed the most runs in the AL East and the fifth most in the AL. Their pitching staff blew leads of 3-1 and 6-4 on Monday against the Rays. If there was ever a team for the Yankees’ offense to come to life against, the Orioles would be it. The problem is the Yankees were stifled by a crappy version of Shane Bieber on Friday and seven different Blue Jays on Saturday. They have spent more than two months making fringe major leaguers look like Cy Young candidates. I don’t know that there is any pitcher in the league who wouldn’t feel good getting the ball against these Yankees at the moment.

10. Shane Baz gets it on Tuesday in the series opener. Baz is as average as it gets as a major-league starter. He’s also the exact pitcher who will hold the Yankees scoreless for six innings because many like him have done just that this summer.

Rodon will make his first start since June 28 in what was supposed to be him replacing Will Warren in the rotation, but because Fried is now down again, Warren will continue to throw less than five innings and allow five earned runs every fifth day indefinitely. The only way for the Yankees to leave Baltimore with a series win is to score runs. And while “runs” technically means two or more, it’s going to need to be more like four or more for them to have a chance this week.

1. If you thought a four-run inning on Tuesday and a 10-run outburst on Wednesday was the Yankees’ offense finally getting going after 121 games, you must be new around here. The Yankees followed up back-to-back wins against the Mariners by getting shut out in a 1-0 loss in the series finale. As Katie Sharp pointed out, it was the Yankees’ fourth 1-0 loss at Yankee Stadium since 2025 after having zero 1-0 losses at Yankee Stadium in the previous 10 seasons.

2. Max Fried was good (5 IP, 5, 1 R, 1 ER, 2 BB, 4 K, 1 HR) and allowed just a solo home run over five innings, but that solo home run was too much for the Yankees to overcome. The Yankees went 4-for-30 with three walks and 10 strikeouts on Thursday.

3. Trent Grisham was back in the leadoff spot on Thursday after his big game on Wednesday, but even without a big game on Wednesday, he still would have been in the leadoff spot on Thursday. None of his production on Wednesday came leading off an inning, and on Thursday, he led off a game with an out for the 53rd time in 68 games. Since July 3, Grisham hasn’t led off a game with a hit and has led off one game with a walk (July 22). None of his production has come from leading off other innings either. Stop giving him the most possible plate appearances on the team. (Grisham was also called out on Thursday following what should have been a double when he came off the base after his slide.)

4. Ben Rice went 0-for-3 with a walk and another strikeout as his OPS plummets from his mission to swing at every pitch ever thrown to him. Spencer Jones went 0-for-3 with two strikeouts before eventually being removed for pinch-hitter Heliot Ramos, who is making 2010 deadline acquisition Austin Kearns’ post-deadline Yankees tenure (80 OPS+) look like David Justice. Ramos is 2-for-25 with 10 strikeouts as a Yankee. He’s hitless against left-handed pitching, which is a little bit of an issue since he was acquired specifically to hit left-handed pitching.

5. Luis Garcia had half of the Yankees’ hits, and even led off the second inning with a double, but was of course left stranded. George Lombard Jr. had just his second 0-for as a major leaguer and gets a pass with 32 career plate appearances. (I love how Lombard Jr. is already up to batting fifth in the lineup and can’t be eased into his career at the bottom of the order because the roster construction is so poor.)

6. Jazz Chisholm went 0-for-4 with three strikeouts. It was Chisholm’s third strikeout hat trick in the last 15 games, which also includes one Golden Sombrero. He has struck out in every game but one since July 25, and in the one game he didn’t strike out in, he went 0-for-4. He has struck out in every game but one in August. Chisholm is 9-for-60 with 27 strikeouts since saying “basically everybody” on the Yankees has told him he’s “the best in the world.”

7. Jose Caballero got his first start in five days and his second start in 10 days and went 0-for-2 with a walk, and Ryan McMahon also went 0-for-2 with a walk. Ali Sanchez, starting for the first time since August 1 went 1-for-2 before being removed for pinch-hitter Amed Rosario, who struck out.

8. With the loss, the Yankees failed to pull off their first series sweep since the last series before the All-Star break (July 10-12). They have swept two series since the start of June.

The Rays had the day off, so the loss dropped the Yankees to seven games back in the loss column in the AL East, further cementing my recent points and math about the division race being over. The Red Sox ended their five-game losing streak, so the Yankees’ lead over the Red Sox is back down to three games.

9. Up next is a trip to Toronto. The Yankees will play the Blue Jays six times in the next 10 days. Despite being five games under .500, the Blue Jays are only two games out of the third wild-card spot in the putrid AL. The Blue Jays traded away Kevin Gausman, Daulton Varsho and Jeff Hoffman at the deadline, but have managed to go 7-4 since to stay alive in the postseason picture. The Yankees have the opportunity to not only help their own bid for the first wild card during these six games with the Blue Jays, but they can also end the Blue Jays’ season. Burying the Blue Jays and keeping them out of October would be a nice way to avenge the Blue Jays ending the Yankees’ season last October in the ALDS.

10. Gerrit Cole gets the ball to set the tone in the series opener, while the offense will try to get to Shane Bieber, who seemingly everyone has gotten to. Bieber has allowed 71 baserunners and nine home runs in 42 2/3 innings. I won’t be surprised if the offense is unable to hit Bieber since there should be no expectation for this offense to hit anyone, but at the same time, if they can’t be relied on to hit this version of Bieber, who can they be relied on to hit?

1. A day after doing the improbable by scoring four runs in an inning, the Yankees’ offense achieved what was thought to be impossible and scored 10 runs in a game in their 10-5 win over the Mariners. It was the first time since July 9 that the Yankees scored double-digit runs in a game, and the second time since June 17.

2. Trent Grisham went 3-for-5 with a double and two home runs. Grisham struck out to begin the game and has now made an out as the leadoff hitter in the first inning in 52 of 67 games. None of his three hits came as the leadoff hitter in any inning on Wednesday.

3. Ben Rice and Ryan McMahon each went 2-for-4 with a double, Spencer Jones went 2-for-4 with two doubles and George Lombard Jr. also went 2-for-4. Jazz Chisholm and Austin Wells both had hits. The only two starters to not get hits were … you guessed it … the two deadline acquisitions in Luis Garcia and Heliot Ramos. Garcia is hitting .222/.276/.407 as a Yankee and Ramos is hitting .083/.241/.167. The Yankees went 13-for-35 with eight extra-base hits, three walks and eight strikeouts.

4. The Yankees needed a big, unexpected night from their offense because Will Warren was awful once again: 4 IP, 6 H, 5 R, 5 ER, 4 BB, 3 K, 3 HR. The Mariners had scored nine runs over their last seven games and Warren allowed five runs, 10 baserunners and three home runs in just four innings. 

5. Warren put the Yankees in a 3-0 hole before they had an opportunity to bat and when they got one of the runs back in the second, Warren gave up another run in the third. After Warren threw a scoreless fourth, the offense pulled the Yankees to within 4-3 in the bottom of the fourth. Aaron Boone figured he would give Warren a fifth inning to figure it out even though it was evident he wasn’t going to figure it out and Warren walked the leadoff hitter in the fifth. That was enough for Boone as he put an end to trying to steal another inning from Warren. At least Boone didn’t mess around by going to Ryan Yarbrough to eat some middle innings and immediately went to his real relievers.

6. Fernando Cruz, Tim Hill, Paul Blackburn and Brent Headrick combined for four scoreless innings and by the time the ninth inning came, the Yankees had a five-run lead and could give David Bednar the night off. Yerry De los Santos nearly forced Bednar into the game when he put two on in the ninth, but worked around the jam to end the game.

7. The win was the Yankees’ fourth in their last five games and fifth in their last seven. The problem is that going 5-2 in their last seven has lost them two games in the standings to the Rays, who won their ninth straight game on Wednesday. As I have written the last few days, the division race is over unless the Rays suddenly play something like .333 baseball. Because right now, if the Rays play just .500 baseball for the rest of the season, they win 95 games, and the Yankees would have to go 28-14 to win the division.

8. The first wild card is where the focus is now and the Red Sox lost their fifth straight game on Wednesday, so the Yankees’ lead on the first wild card is back up to four games. If we use the same .500 projection from above for the Yankees, they will finish with 89 wins if they play .500 baseball for the rest of the season. The Red Sox would have to go 25-17 to tie them. I don’t see the Yankees playing just .500 for the remainder of the season even if they have been close to a .500 team for three months now. With the schedule softening up and reinforcements on the way, the Yankees should be able to stack wins more easily, especially in September.

9. But first they have to get to September. And between now and the all-important four-game series against the Red Sox in the final weekend of August, the Yankees have one more game with the Mariners, six with the Blue Jays, three with the Orioles and three with the Astros. It would be great if the Yankees had at least a three-game lead over the Red Sox going into that series, so that winning just one game would ensure they leave that weekend with the first wild card spot.

10. On Wednesday, the Yankees have the opportunity to do something they haven’t done since July 10-12 in the final games before the All-Star break: sweep a series. That sweep of the Nationals is the Yankees’ only sweep since June 8-10 (against the Guardians). Max Fried gets the ball, which is an important ingredient in attempting a sweep, but the offense will need to show up and give him some semblance of support.

1. I wasn’t surprised that Tuesday’s Yankees-Mariners game was 0-0 through five innings. I wasn’t surprised when the Mariners took a 1-0 lead on a solo home run in the sixth, and I wasn’t surprised when the Yankees trailed 1-0 in the seventh. I was surprised when the Yankees rallied to tie the game and then take the lead in the seventh en route to a 4-1 win.

2. The four runs the Yankees scored in the seventh inning were more runs than they had scored in 10 of their previous 13 games. It was just the third time since July 27 that the Yankees scored four runs in an inning. To add to the unbelievability of the four-run outburst, the Yankees did it all without the long ball.

3. Luis Garcia doubled to lead off the seventh and Jazz Chisholm followed with a single to put runners on the corners with no outs. George Lombard Jr. — batting sixth for the second time as a major leaguer in his sixth career game — struck out for the first out. Spencer Jones walked to load the bases and Ryan McMahon singled in Garcia and Chisholm with a ground ball through the infield. Austin Wells followed with a bloop single to reload the bases, and Trent Grisham singled in Jones and McMahon with another ground ball through the infield. It’s crazy what can happen when the ball is put in play!

4. Ryan Weathers was very good again (5.2 IP, 2 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 3 BB, 4 K, 1 HR). It was Weathers’ fourth straight strong start and in those four starts, he has this line: 24.1 IP, 15 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 8 BB, 21 K, 1 HR, 0.74 ERA, 0.945 WHIP. Someone is going to have to come out of the rotation when Carlos Rodon is activated and that someone shouldn’t be Weathers.

5. Tim Hill rediscovered his ability to induce ground balls instead of allow home runs and retired all four batters he faced with grounders. Brent Headrick added to his major-league-leading scoreless appearance total with his 51st such appearance (stat from Katie Sharp), and David Bednar closed the door by working around an infield single that should have been ruled an error on Chisholm.

6. Grisham went 2-for-4, but led off the game with an out for the 51st time in 66 games. Rice went 0-for-3 with a walk and three strikeouts, as he’s down to .121/.237/.242 over the last three weeks. Heliot Ramos put up another 0-for, as he’s 2-for-21 with nine strikeouts as a Yankee. (Good thing two prospects got traded and Jasson Dominguez got sent down for Ramos!) Garcia went 2-for-4 and Chisholm went 1-for-3 with a walk. Lombard Jr. singled the other way in his first at-bat, grounded out in his second at-bat, struck out in this third at-bat and grounded out on the 12th pitch of his fourth at-bat, as the quality of his at-bats remains impressive. Jones went 0-for-2 with a walk, McMahon went 1-for-3 and Wells went 1-for-3. It was the most positive all-around offensive performance in weeks.

7. “Been a struggle several weeks now where it’s been difficult for us scoring runs,” Aaron Boone said. “We’ve had to play in a lot of really close games … and don’t do a good job against a lot of good teams winning those games.”

It hasn’t been a struggle to score runs for several weeks, it’s been several months now. And who exactly are the “good” teams the Yankees are beating in close games? The Braves? OK. The Mariners? They are eight games under .500. The Cardinals? They are .500 and sold at the deadline. The Cubs? OK. The White Sox? No. The Phillies? They are currently out of the playoff picture.

“I hope it serves us well in the end,” Boone said about playing close games every day. “I think that there’s value in playing these games and proving we can win in these games.”

I agree there is value in playing in and winning these games, however, it won’t serve them well when Headrick and Bednar have nothing left at the end of the season. If the Yankees as an organization care about whether or not they host the Wild Card series they will inevitably be playing in, then they are going to be playing with a purpose up until the final days of the season. There’s going to be no early clinch and treating the last weeks of the season like the end of spring training. The Yankees are going to be in a battle with the Red Sox for where the Wild Card series takes place up until the end.

8. Fortunately, there is once again some separation between the two teams as the Red Sox lost their fourth straight game on Tuesday. If the regression train and Baseball Gods are coming for the Red Sox’ insane run since the Yankees saved their season at the end of June, then they are due for many more losses. The Yankees once again have a three-game lead over the Red Sox. The head-to-head tiebreaker is going to be crucial in this matchup and the Red Sox currently have a 5-4 edge with a four-game series remaining between the two at the end of August.

Here are the schedules for both teams between now and their four-games-in-three-day series to close out the month:

Yankees: Mariners (2), Blue Jays (3), Orioles (3), Blue Jays (3), Astros (3)

Red Sox: Blue Jays (2), Pirates (3), Diamondbacks (3), Giants (3), Marlins (3)

9. As I wrote last week when the Red Sox tied the Yankees in the loss column, not allowing the Red Sox to officially pass the Yankees in the standings was important. There’s something to be said for the Red Sox having been as hot as they were only to tie the Yankees in the loss column. All of that work never got them past the Yankees. Had the Red Sox gotten past them, I think it would have been the end for the Yankees getting the first wild card.

And getting the first wild card is what it’s all about now. As I laid out yesterday, the math for the division just isn’t there unless the Rays have a monumental collapse, and all the Rays did last night was take an early 6-0 lead and go on to win their eighth straight game. Sadly, the division is theirs.

10. But that’s what happens when you fuck around for the middle two months of the season, like the Yankees do every year and then try to make it all up in the final two months. The math wasn’t in the Yankees’ favor at this time last year, but their easy schedule and the Blue Jays’ late-season slump led the Yankees to tie them with 94 wins, but the Blue Jays held the head-to-head tiebreaker and it changed the course of the postseason. The Yankees are the same six games back on August 12 that they were last August 12, but like last year, they are unlikely to hold the tiebreaker (the Rays need to win one of four against the Yankees to get it) even if everything unfolds their way.