The Yankees are 4-1 and have the best record in baseball through the first week of the season. They were going to be a postseason team even before the postseason field was increased from five teams to eight. But the goal isn’t to get to the postseason. The goal is to win the postseason, something the Yankees haven’t done in more than a decade.

Before the season, I said I was going to be patient and understanding and wouldn’t get upset with Aaron Boone. I said I was going to accept his managerial ways even if they are at times confusing, frustrating and nonsensical. Well, it didn’t even take five full games for me to scrap my plan. After Boone’s bullpen management in Baltimore, I had no choice.

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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!

After two unexpected days off, the Yankees played again on Wednesday night and won again, beating the Orioles 9-3 to improve to 3-1 on the season. Gerrit Cole wasn’t his dominant self for his second straight start to open the season, but he was good enough, and the Yankees’ power carried the team to another win.

Why was Cole out for the seventh inning at 90 pitches with a six-run lead and nine outs to go to a win? And why is the team not playing the everyday lineup in a season in which they have already had three days off in a week and could have additional days off at any point during this season? Why isn’t the everyday lineup playing every day in a 60-game season after having just had four months off and having not have played real game in nine months? Yes, the Yankees won again, but these are relevant questions for a team that needs to finish first in the American League and get back to and win the World Series for the first time in more than a decade.

At the 10:14 mark, former major league reliever Carter Capps joined me talk to about his baseball career, his famous delivery which caused MLB to implement a rule against it and his post-playing career on the analytics and mechanics side of pitching.

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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!

For as good as the Yankees were and are expected to be this season, Saturday night proved why I still have my doubts about them in the postseason. Without Luis Severino this season, the Yankees need James Paxton to be a front-end starter and they can’t afford for him to have many other starts like his first.

Paxton was awful on Saturday with diminished velocity and no put-away pitch. Six of the nine batters he faced reached base, including all five in the second inning. He left the game with two runs in and the bases loaded and no outs, and for him, it’s a miracle his ERA wasn’t ruined for the shorteneed season in the second inning in what is a free agency year for the left-hander. The Yankees’ decision to open the season with a bullpen game in the third game meant that Paxton needed to give them length in the second game. He didn’t and now the Yankees are scrambling to make roster moves and get fresh arms to the majors for the third game of the season.

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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!

Yankees baseball returned with a 4-1 win over the defending champion Nationals. It wouldn’t have been the first baseball game of 2020 without it being shortened due to rain. But it was a real, meaningful baseball game and the Yankees won.

Scott Reinen of Bronx Pinstripes joined me to talk about the Yankees’ season-opening win over the Nationals, Brett Gardner batting fifth in the lineup, Gerrit Cole’s Yankees debut, the new-look Giancarlo Stanton, Tyler Wade’s best game in the majors and the expanded postseason field.

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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!

The 2011 Yankees’ starting rotation wasn’t exactly built to last. After the team missed out on Cliff Lee, Andy Pettitte retired (for the first time), and the Yankees were forced to ressurect Bartolo Colon’s career and give the reinvented and old Freddy Garcia a chance. Add in A.J. Burnett who was pitching his way off the team, and the rotation was a mess. It’s no surprise that by June 15, the Yankees were looking for someone to start for them, but it’s a surprise that the someone was a 32-year-old, outfielder-turned-pitcher with zero career major league starts.

Former Yankees pitcher Brian Gordon joined me to talk about transitioning from the outfield to the mound after a decade in the minors, how Nolan Ryan helped him change positions, his first call-up the majors as a reliever with the Rangers, his unbelievable 2011 season in Triple-A, the June 15 opt-out that allowed him to be a Yankee, making his first career start in Yankee Stadium, playing in the KBO in Korea and what his post-playing career has been like.

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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!