1. For the last two seasons I have written a lot of words about Carlos Rodon, nearly all of which have been critical. Those words have been deserved. I don’t need to recite all of Rodon’s shortcomings since signing his six-year deal for which he makes roughly $800,000 per start, but every word I wrote about his lackluster first two seasons with the Yankees was earned.

2. For as bad as Rodon was in his first season and inconsistent in his second with the Yankees, he’s been that good and that consistent this year. Sure, the season is only one-third of the way through and at he could revert to his clean-shaven self, though I don’t see it. It doesn’t mean that I trust Rodon (or will ever, especially in the postseason), it’s that this version of Rodon is different, mainly because he stopped being a two-pitch pitcher.

3. “I just have a good understanding of what I want to do out there,” Rodon said. (Where was that understanding the last two years? I don’t know.)

Rodon has made 11 starts for the Yankees this season and has allowed just 42 hits in 72 2/3 innings. He’s averaging six innings per start and looks like the 2021-2022 version of himself that the Yankees were so eager to give $162 million to.

4. Rodon’s seven shutout innings on Tuesday in Anaheim were nearly for nothing. With a 3-0 lead in the eighth, Jonathan Loaisiga relieved Rodon and pitched a 1-2-3 eighth, but with Luke Weaver down after a recent heavy workload, Devin Williams served as the fill-in closer for the ninth and was every bit as shaky as he was when he was the closer.

Williams gave up a leadoff home run to Yoan Moncada to make it 3-1 and Taylor Ward followed with a single. Williams got Travis d’Arnaud to fly out to center on a ball hit 105 mph with an expected batting average of .900 before Luis Rengifo singled to center, setting up first and third with one out. Jo Adell grounded out to make it 3-2 with the tying run was still on base at first. Williams fell behind Logan O’Hoppe 3-0 and O’Hoppe swung at the 3-0 pitch and popped it up to third in foul territory to end the game.

“At the end of the day, we won,” Williams said, “and that’s all that matters.”

Yes, that’s true, but the inning did nothing to dispel the fear Williams is still broken.

5. The Yankees built their three-run lead with a Ben Rice solo home run in the fourth, an Anthony Volpe RBI single in the sixth and an Oswald Peraza solo homer in the seventh. Runs were going to be tough to come by against a left-handed starter (despite Michael Kay telling everyone still awake and watching how good the Yankees have been against left-handed pitching), especially a lefty like Tyler Anderson. The Yankees only had six hits in the game, but three of them were for extra bases and they drew five walks and caught a massive break when Matthew Lugo misplayed a ball in center.

6. Kay continues to ask the question of what’s going to happen with Rice once Giancarlo Stanton returns, and as of now, there’s no answer. Rice’s bat is worthy of playing every day, but without a position other than first base, it will be even harder than it has been to play him every day. The Yankees’ lineup conundrum continues to be that their best bats all play the same position or have no position and their worst bats are the only options at second base and third base. If Rice were a third baseman, there wouldn’t be a problem. Unfortunately, he’s not. Until Stanton is off of the injured list and available to play in a game, it’s not an issue. And given Stanton’s lengthy injury history and inability to recover without setbacks, it’s a problem not worth worrying about until he’s activated.

7. Jasson Dominguez got the night off against the lefty, but the Yankees are going to face another lefty on Wednesday in Yusei Kikuchi, who always had their numbers as a Blue Jay. Dominguez will be back in the lineup, and I think Trent Grisham will sit since Bellinger has destroyed lefties this season and just had a day off in Colorado.

8. Is this the lineup on Wednesday?

Paul Goldschmidt, 1B
Ben Rice, DH
Aaron Judge, RF
Cody Bellinger, CF
Anthony Volpe, SS
Jasson Dominguez, LF
DJ LeMahieu, 2B
Austin Wells, C
Oswald Peraza, 3B

9. Weaver pitched on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Sunday and Monday, so I think he will be unavailable again on Wednesday (and he should be). Williams may be down also (though no one is sad about that) after throwing 19 pitches on Tuesday. So the “A” arms available will likely be Loaisiga and Mark Leiter Jr. That means there will be some outs in the middle innings needed from Tim Hill, Yerry De los Santos, Brent Headrick and Ian Hamilton. And there will be outs needed in the middle innings because Clarke Schmidt is starting.

10. It would be great if Schmidt could go seven (like Rodon did) and hand the ball off to Leiter Jr. and Loaisiga the way, but Schmidt has just to get an out in the seventh inning this season. I’ll sign up for five strong innings from Schmidt, a big day from the offense and a sweep of the Angels before Thursday’s day off and the Dodgers this weekend.

1. Memorial Day is the unofficial first checkpoint to evaluate the baseball season when the season is roughly one-third of the way through. The Yankees are in first place at the first checkpoint. They have a six-game lead in the loss column in the AL East, have scored the most runs in the AL with 301 (2o more than the next team), have allowed the third fewest and have the best run differential at plus-111 (30 runs more than the next team). When the Yankees left spring training, their win total was set at 88.5 (which yours truly jumped all over), and as of now, the Yankees are on pace for 101 wins. (They have to go 56-53 the rest of the way to hit the over on 88.5 wins.)

2. Overall, the Yankees have had a very successful first third of the season, especially when you consider Carlos Carrasco was allowed to start six games; Will Warren didn’t figure out how to pitch until his eighth start; they lost their starting second baseman before the end of April; have used four different third basemen; won’t receive a start this year from their former ace; haven’t received a start yet from last season’s Rookie of the Year; their closer to start the season couldn’t get anyone out for a month and Cody Bellinger didn’t start hitting until the first week of May. Even with all of the injuries and underperformance, the Yankees have the largest division lead in the majors, have a 90 percent chance to reach the postseason, a 76 percent chance to receive bye to the ALDS and the highest odds in the AL to win the World Series at 15 percent.

3. All of that is possible because Max Fried has been the best pitcher in baseball, Carlos Rodon is having his best season as a Yankee; something has finally clicked for Warren; Ryan Yarbrough has been a Swiss Army Knife; the bullpen has been mostly solid led by Luke Weaver; Aaron Judge is again having one of the single-greatest seasons in history; Trent Grisham and Ben Rice hit like two Juan Sotos for a month; Paul Goldschmidt looks like his 2022 NL MVP self; Bellinger has a 1.024 OPS in May and Jasson Dominguez, Anthony Volpe and Austin Wells have come through with timely hits along the way.

4. Even with all of their early-season success, the Yankees have their flaws, they just have less than the rest of the AL other than the Tigers to date. Aaron Boone will always be a flaw, the bullpen is shaky with its lack of overall velocity, the rotation has used up all of its depth and the two-thirds of the lineup is extremely inconsistent. We saw the inconsistencies of the lineup over the weekend in Colorado and on Monday in Anaheim.

So far on this West Coast trip, the Yankees are 3-1, but outside of their Saturday rout of the Rockies, the lineup has done it’s no-idea-what-to-expect-from-one-game-to-another act. The Yankees mustered just two runs in nine innings against Rockies pitching in elevation on Friday in an embarrassing loss, barely held on to win the rubber game against the worst-team-ever Rockies on Sunday and had one big inning against the Angels and close to nothing else on Monday.

5. After avoiding becoming the first team to lose a series to the Rockies this season, the Yankees arrived in Anaheim to play another bad Angels team. Despite the Angels mediocre-at-best play in recent years, the Yankees haven’t had much success against them, going 3-3 against them last year and 2-4 against them the year before. The Yankees tend to play to the level of their competition, which how you get series like this past weekend against the Rockies, and how the Yankees have managed to lose series to the Rays and Orioles and needed a comeback win to win a series against the Pirates earlier this year. When the Yankees play the Angels, they tend to play like the Angels.

6. That held true for the first three innings on Monday. Facing Jack Kochanowicz and his major-league-worst 1.30 strikeout-to-walk ratio, the Yankees made it easy for him early. They went down on 10 pitches in the first, 11 pitches in the second and seven pitches in the third. Kochanowicz went nine up, nine down to start the game, needing only 28 pitches to get through the Yankees once with two strikeouts and no walks. It was beginning to feel like the Yankees maybe enjoyed their first night Southern California after arriving from Denver on Sunday a little too much. But in the fourth, the good version of the Yankees offense showed up.

7. Trailing 1-0 from the Zach Neto leadoff home run off of Yarbrough, Rice, Grisham and Judge hit back-to-back-to-back singles to begin the fourth. Bellinger drew a four-pitch walk to score the tying run and after Dominguez struck out in the least competitive at-bat of his season, Volpe cleared the bases with a three-run double to give the Yankees a 4-1 lead.

“It’s been everyone, up and down the line, the whole season,” Volpe said. “And tomorrow, it’ll be someone else.”

The score remained 4-1 until the Yankees loaded the bases with no outs again in the eighth, but managed to only plate one run on a Wells sacrifice fly. Unable to break the game open, Weaver was used in the ninth with a four-run lead and after making things interesting in a bad way on Sunday in Colorado, he did the same against he Angels before ending the game and securing the win. Based on Weaver’s recent usage, I don’t think he will pitch again until the Dodgers series this weekend.

8. The Yankees finished the game with six hits and three walks. Four of those hits came in the fourth, one in the fifth and one in the eighth. They went down in order in six innings and made the one big inning stand up. They were able to make it stand up because Yarbrough was awesome once again. Yarbrough has now made four starts this season with each one better than the last.

9. Yarbrough was forced to start on May 3 after Clarke Schmidt was a late scratch and held the Rays to one run over four innings. Then eight days later he held the A’s to two runs over five innings. Ten days after that, he limited the Rangers to one run over five innings, matching Jacob deGrom and against the Angels he held them to one run on two hits over six innings.

“I’ve never been the guy to really blow up a radar gun,” Yarbrough said. “I’ve really had to understand how to get guys out.”

Yarbrough has been outstanding. He has pitched in middle relief, long relief, as a spot starter and now as a member of the rotation. He has dealt with five eight days between starts, 10 days and five days.

10. Carlos Rodon gets the ball on Tuesday against the left-handed Tyler Anderson. The Yankees will also see a lefty in Yusei Kikuchi in the series finale. (Kikuchi seemed to always have their number as a Blue Jay.) Goldschmidt and DJ LeMahieu will be back in the lineup with either rice or Grisham and Jorbit Vivas headed to the bench. It will be another late start, and thankfully, there’s only three of those left this season.

1. The Yankees played a one-run game against the Rangers on Wednesday and … WON! Yes, the Yankees won a game decided by one run, beating the Rangers 4-3. 

A night after Will Warren pitched the best game of his career against Patrick Corbin, Ryan Yarbrough followed it up by matching Jacob deGrom through five strong innings. Before the game, I wrote:

You have to think two runs is the ceiling of what the Yankees can expect as long as deGrom is in the game. Yarbrough needs to match him until the bullpens get involved.

deGrom allowed two runs in the seven innings he pitched and Yarbrough matched him for the five innings he was in the game. Once the bullpens got involved the Yankees came back and won.

2. It was a win that almost wasn’t. Aaron Boone did everything he possibly could with his bullpen management to lead the Yankees to a loss, but the Yankees’ offense over the final three innings was too much for Boone’s incompetence to overcome.

Boone’s nonsense began in the seventh inning. Yarbrough gave the Yankees five innings off one-run ball and Boone went to Jonathan Loaisiga for the sixth. Loaisiga got two quick outs before loading the bases, which led to Boone to ask Tim Hill to get out of the jam and get the final out of the sixth. Hill did his job and the game remained tied at 1 through six.

In the seventh, Boone sent Hill back out despite lefty mashers Jake Burger and Kyle Higashioka due up. If there’s one thing that duo does well, it’s hit left-handed pitching. If there’s one thing Hill doesn’t do well, it’s face right-handed hitting. Lefties are hitting .086/.158/.086 against Hill this year. Righties are hitting .311/.354/.578 against him. Sure enough, Boone’s stupidity backfired and Burger hunted a first-pitch fastball from Hill and hit it into the seats in right-center to give the Rangers a 2-1 lead.

Even though Hill finished the sixth, because he started the seventh, he had to face three batters. After the Burger home run Hill bounced back to retire Higashioka and Josh Smith. The Rangers’ lineup was going to turn over with Sam Haggerty, so who did Boone think was best suited to get the Rangers’ leadoff man? Ian Hamilton, of course! The same Ian Hamilton who couldn’t close out a five-run ninth the night before was now going to face the top of the Rangers’ lineup in a one-run game. Like Burger, Haggerty hunted a first-pitch fastball, got it, and hit it into the second deck in right field. 3-1 Rangers. After allowing another base hit, Hamilton finally got the last out of the seventh.

3. The Yankees got a run back in the bottom of the seventh when Cody Bellinger destroyed a deGrom middle-middle fastball for his eighth home run. The game was back to being a one-run game, and who better to keep the deficit right where it was than Yerry De los Santos, the last man in the bullpen who, in his last appearance, couldn’t close out a six-run lead in the ninth inning against the Mets on Friday. De los Santos allowed two singles, a stolen base and a walk in the inning, but managed to escape his own mess without giving up a run.

In the bottom of the eighth, Bruce Bochy went to left-hander Robert Garcia. Garcia got DJ LeMahieu to ground out before Paul Goldschmidt drew a one-out, pinch-hit walk, Trent Grisham followed Goldschmidt with a walk of his own to put two on with one out. Boone idiotically had Aaron Judge batting third instead of second, so instead of forcing Bochy to go to a righty to face Judge and then the righty would also have to face Ben Rice and Bellinger, Bochy was able to leave his lefty in to face Rice, who hit a weak fly ball for the second out. Bochy then went to his closer Luke Jackson, who got ahead of Judge before throwing a middle-middle fastball Judge smoked to left for a base hit. Goldschmidt raced home to tie the game, but right after he touched the plate, Grisham was thrown out trying to advance to third to end the inning, meeting the Yankees’ quota of at least one fundamental breakdown per game. It would have been nice to have Bellinger up with the go-ahead run on second base, but instead, Grisham thought it would be better if he could get into betting scoring position.

The game was tied at 3 through eight and then Boone showed the world why he can’t be trusted under any circumstance.

4. The old adage is you use your closer in the ninth inning of a tie game at home because there won’t be a save opportunity (though anyone still managing to a statistic in 2025, like Boone, is a complete idiot). Here was Luke Weaver’s recent workload entering Wednesday:

Thursday: No game
Friday: 2 pitches
Saturday: 0 pitches
Sunday: 0 pitches
Monday: 2 pitches

Weaver had thrown four pitches over the last five days. Remember when Boone didn’t use him in the ninth inning of a tie game at home on Saturday against the Mets (and the Yankees lost) because he had pitched on three of the last four days, even though he had only thrown two pitches on Friday? Well, Weaver then wasn’t needed for anything other than two pitches over the next three days.

As rested as Weaver will ever be, it was easy to see Boone pitching him in the ninth and then again in the 10th if the game went to extra innings. But there was Del los Santos standing on the Yankee Stadium mound with Haggerty and the top of the Rangers’ lineup due up in the ninth.

I have documented every nonsensical decision Boone has made since becoming Yankees manager in 2018, and of the thousands of examples, the decision to let Del los Santos start the ninth inning on Wednesday is easily in the Top 10. It may be in the Top 5.

There were two possibilities for Boone’s decision:

1. He was trying to steal outs in the ninth inning of a tie game with the last man in the bullpen against the top of the opposing lineup.

2. He didn’t call down to the bullpen in time to get Weaver ready to start the ninth.

Either Boone was incompetent in that he didn’t have Weaver ready or he was incompetent for trying to steal outs with De los Santos. Either way, he showed he’s incompetent.

YES had shown Weaver warming up earlier, so it couldn’t be the second possibility, which means Boone felt the last man in his bullpen had a better chance of retiring Haggerty than his all-world closer. Haggerty singled to lead off the ninth. It was the best-case outcome. De los Santos wasn’t going to retire Haggerty, but at least he held him to one base. What if Haggerty had put one in the seats like he had against Hamilton and the Rangers took the lead?

Once Haggerty reached base, Boone called for Weaver. It took Weaver six pitches to get three outs against the top of the Rangers’ lineup.

In the bottom of the ninth, with one out, Jasson Dominguez hit the Yankees’ first walk-off home run since 2022 and saved all Yankees fans from having to watch Boone screw up another extra-inning game.

5. I used to joke that Boone as Yankees manager was a social experiment, but now I believe it. There’s no logical reason for his decision to have Del los Santos start the ninth other than he’s fucking with everyone. If you can’t see how in over his head Boone continues to be, I don’t know what you’re watching. The closer the score and the more involved he becomes, the worse off the Yankees are. And his choices aren’t resigned to only the regular season. We have mountains of poor moves in the postseason when the stakes are the highest to evaluate him on, including 2018 ALDS Games 3 and 4, 2019 ALCS Game 2, 2020 ALDS Game 2, 2021 wild-card game, 2022 ALDS Games 2 and 3, 2022 ALCS Games 2, 3 and 4, 2023 … oh that’s right he missed the postseason completely despite 40 percent of the league getting in and 2024 World Series Game 1. Boone is a professional idiot.

6. Judge needs to bat second every game. It doesn’t matter what hand the pitcher throws with: Judge bats second. Boone continues to screw with Judge in the 2- or 3-hole depending on the day’s starter rather than leaving him in the spot that will get him more plate appearances. Grisham and Rice aren’t exactly Johnny Damon and Derek Jeter at the top of the lineup. The place of Judge shouldn’t be impacted by either being in the lineup. (The duo went 0-for-7 with a walk and four strikeouts on Wednesday.)

7. Another two-hit game for Bellinger to extend his hitting streak to 15 games. He’s hitting .377/.441/1.130 over his last 68 plate appearances. This is the guy I used to watch hit at 11:30 p.m. for the Dodgers. The guy that played himself out of the Dodgers’ future plans. I don’t know how long this will last, but it’s a lot more fun to watch this Bellinger than whatever he was from Opening Day through April.

8. Austin Wells went 0-for-2 with a walk and two strikeouts on Tuesday and 0-for-3 with three strikeouts on Wednesday. Over the last two weeks, he’s hitting .129/.256/.290. He has one multi-hit game since April 27 and is down to .200/.269/.443 on the year.

9. Hamilton may want to throw some scoreless innings soon before he finds himself as the odd man out in the bullpen. Here is his line over his last six games: 4.1 IP, 5 H, 8 R, 8 ER, 5 BB, 6 K, 2 HR, 16.62 ERA, 2.309 WHIP. He’s pitching himself off the team.

10. The win on Wednesday clinched the series for the Yankees for their fifth straight series win. They are now 10-3 over their last 13 games and have opened up a five-game loss column lead in the AL East.

If the weather allows for the series finale on Thursday, it will be Carlos Rodon against Nathan Eovaldi. Eovaldi remains my most hated pitcher in all of baseball for what he was a Yankee and what he became with the Red Sox. He has been exceptional this season with a 1.61 ERA, a league-leading 2.18 FIP and a league-leading 0.766 WHIP. He has only allowed 39 hits, eight walks and three home runs over 61 1/3 innings. If the Yankees are going to beat him and sweep the Rangers, they’re going to need Rodon to match him the way Warren and Yarbrough matched Corbin and deGrom. They’re going to need the offense to do just enough and their manager to not screw it all up.

1. On paper, the Yankees went into this three-game series with the Rangers with a distinct starting pitching disadvantage for all three matchups. But so far, through one game, it hasn’t played out that way.

Will Warren had the best start of his career two weekends ago in Sacramento. He followed that up with a career-high nine strikeouts in Seattle. Then on Tuesday, he struck out a career-high 10 in the Bronx with 5 2/3 scoreless innings against the Rangers.

2. “Be aggressive in the zone, I guess,” Warren said. “Like I’ve said, if we execute our pitches, I think we’re going to have success.”

“Like you’ve said?” You mean like I’ve said. Here is what I wrote after his putrid start in Baltimore on April 28:

He needs to attack the strike zone, believe in his stuff and let the ball get put in play. He can’t be afraid to pitch in the zone and he can’t nibble around the edges, which how he gets in trouble with deep counts and walks.

Warren has finally stopped nibbling (three walks in his last three starts combined) and is attacking hitter and trusting the defense behind him. He’s learning he doesn’t have to strike out every hitter he faces, even if he did strike out 10 Rangers on Tuesday.

3. “It’s been fun to watch him grow and develop, especially this season,” Aaron Judge said. “He’s a big piece for us now.”

It wasn’t even three weeks ago when it looked like Warren was no longer going to be a piece and may be on his way out of the rotation. He couldn’t give the Yankees length, the innings he did give provide were rarely ever good and the team was 2-5 in his seven starts. But since getting pulled in the fifth inning against the Rays on May 4, Warren has allowed three earned runs over his last three starts and 18 innings with 26 strikeouts, and the Yankees have won all three starts.

4. His performance against the Rangers convinced Boone to stay with him in the sixth inning with the bases loaded and one out and the Yankees clinging to a 2-0 lead. A walk and a pair of bloop singles had put the tying and go-ahead runs on, but Boone let the rookie face Marcus Semien, and Warren struck him out with a two-seam fastball on his 101st pitch. It was Warren’s 60th strikeout of the season, which is 17 more than any other rookie (stat from Katie Sharp).

“That was awesome,” Warren said. “I’m glad he left me in that situation.”

Mark Leiter Jr. came in for the final out of the sixth, and went on to pitch a scoreless seventh as well.

5. Devin Williams threw another scoreless inning, pitching around a one-out double with two strikeouts in the eighth. Williams has now had six straight scoreless appearances and nine of his last 10 have been scoreless. (The one outlier was the meltdown against the Padres.) The trust level continues to improve as his fastball command has improved. I still don’t trust him with anything less than a three-run lead, but a few weeks ago I didn’t trust him with anything less than a five-run lead, so yes, there’s improvement.

6. The combination of Warren and the long ball led the Yankees to their ninth win in their last 12 games. Ben Rice (getting the start against a lefty) hit a second-inning solo home run into the second deck in right field. The Yankees added a run in the fourth when Rice drove in Judge with a sacrifice fly and added a third run in the sixth on an Anthony Volpe RBI double. In the eighth, Judge broke the game open with a two-run home run to the short porch in right.

7. Those two runs from Judge ended up being needed. Boone sent Ian Hamilton out to get the last three outs of the game with a five-run lead, and just like Yerry De los Santos on Friday against the Mets, Boone ended up needing to go to Luke Weaver to get the final out of the game. And just like Friday, Weaver got the final out with two pitches.

8. The top two-thirds of the lineup went 9-for-22 with all five runs, all five RBIs, a walk and two strikeouts. The 7-8-9 hitters (DJ LeMahieu, Austin Wells and Oswald Peraza) went 0-for-8 with two walks and three strikeouts. Peraza was the only Yankee to not reach base in the game, and the 9-hole, whether it’s Peraza or Jorbit Vivas continues to be the only real hole in the lineup. Once Jazz Chisholm returns, though, that would no longer be the case.

9. Jasson Dominguez didn’t play against the left-handed Corbin, which was odd as Boone elected to go with the three lefties of Rice, Trent Grisham and Cody Bellinger over Dominguez’s right-handed bat. That likely means Dominguez will play against both Jacob deGrom and Nathan Eovaldi. I could see Boone sitting Grisham on Wednesday against deGrom and then sitting Paul Goldschmidt on Thursday against Eovaldi in the day game after a night game.

10. Ryan Yarbrough against deGrom is about as lopsided of a starting pitching matchup as you can have in the majors. deGrom has allowed three runs over his last four starts, and you have to think two runs is the ceiling of what the Yankees can expect as long as he is in the game. Yarbrough needs to match him until the bullpens get involved.

The Yankees have had a tendency this season of getting traffic on the bases early against some of the league’s best starters, but not taking advantage of it and then getting shut down. If they’re able to get early baserunners against deGrom and they don’t take advantage of it, they may not have a chance to score until he’s out of the game.

1. When the Yankees lost out on Juan Soto to the Mets, they signed signed Max Fried and Paul Goldschmidt and traded for Cody Bellinger. On Sunday, the Soto replacements trio led the Yankees to a rubber game win to win the Yankee Stadium portion of the 2025 Subway Series.

Once again, Fried didn’t have his best stuff, and once again, without it, he only allowed two earned runs over six innings: 6 IP, 3 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 2 BB, 8 K. It was Fried’s 10th start of the season and the Yankees are 9-1 in those starts, having only lost his last start in Seattle 2-1 in extra innings.

“It was intense,” Fried said. “Series that feel like playoff series are always good, especially early in the year. It preps you for the kind of baseball you want to play towards the end.”

Goldschmidt led off in the series finale against the left-handed David Peterson and reached in the first inning on a Mark Vientos error. He came around to score on Bellinger’s two-run double and with the Yankees leading by one run in the eighth, he made it two runs with a crucial two-out RBI single.

That hit kept the inning going for Bellinger to eventually come up and break the game open with a grand slam. Bellinger went 3-for-3 with two walks, the double, the slam and six RBIs.

“I feel like his approach is a little better,” Aaron Judge said of Bellinger. “When he gets what he’s looking for, he’s not missing.”

I would say his approach is more than just “a little better.” Since May 3, Bellinger is hitting .377/.450/1.129 with four doubles, four home runs and 12 RBIs in 13 games. Prior to May 3, Bellinger had hit .190/.263/.340 in the first 28 games of the season.

2. If Soto had signed with the Yankees, Fried would be elsewhere and Bellinger would still be a Cub or something else. It’s likely Goldschmidt is the only one of three that would have still become a Yankee and that’s not a certainty, considering after the Yankees signed Carlos Rodon two years ago they did nothing else to improve the roster and after they traded for Soto last year they did nothing else to improve the roster.

Soto went 1-for-10 at the Stadium with three strikeouts and four walks. He was taunted for the entirety of the series as he will be for the duration of his 15-year contract. He failed to drive in a run over the weekend, came up in big spots several times and did nothing and declined being an in-game interview for ESPN after initially excepting.

3. Soto finally met up with Judge before the series finale in the outfield after the two went all of Friday and Saturday without a greeting. Like Soto, Judge contributed little offensively over the weekend. He had had his worst game of the season on Saturday and was unable to come through in a few big moments like Soto. With all of the players mentioning how the atmosphere over the weekend felt like the postseason, I guess it’s no surprise Judge gave us a postseason performance.

4. The Yankees may have won by six runs and the Soto replacements all did their part in winning a fourth straight series for the Yankees, but it wasn’t as easy the final score indicates. For most of Sunday’s 8-2 win, it felt a little too much like Saturday’s disappointing 3-2 loss in that the Yankees blew an early lead and then failed time and time again to come up with a tie-breaking hit.

5. I’m sorry I wrote something nice about Anthony Volpe last week when I wrote how good he looked at the plate of late. I did provide caution though, writing:

Am I ready to believe he is the player the Yankees promised? No. He’s done this before. He has fooled us all into believing he has figured it out several times in his first two-plus seasons in the league.

If you were on the latest Volpe Has Figured It Out train, it came to a stop on Sunday. Volpe was so bad offensively on Sunday he nearly cost the Yankees the game all by himself. Volpe grounded out in the first to strand Bellinger and struck out in the third to strand Bellinger again. In the fifth, Volpe came up with the gamed tied at 2 and the bases loaded with two outs. Peterson had just walked Bellinger four straight pitches. So what does Volpe do? He swings at a first-pitch curveball at the bottom of the zone and hits a weak ground ball to short to end the inning. If your plan is to attack on the first pitch with the belief you’re going to see a fastball with the bases loaded following a four-pitch walk then you better get that fastball and do damage with it. You better not swing at a bottom-of-the-zone curveball like you’re down 0-2 in the count and hit a 66-mph grounder to leave three on.

6. With an 0-for-3 night and five left on already to his name, Volpe came up in the seventh in the same situation: score tied at 2, bases loaded and two outs. Huascar Brazoban had thrown 21 pitches in the inning and was clearly fatigued when he started Volpe out with three straight balls, none of which were close to the zone. David Cone opined on the broadcast that Volpe shouldn’t just take one strike, but take all three since it was doubtful Brazoban would throw three strikes before another ball.

Volpe had other plans. He took a fastball down the middle for strike 1. Then he swung at ball 4 in on his hands and fouled it away to create a full count. Then he swung at ball 5, which was the same pitch and result as the previous pitch to keep the count full. Then he swung at ball 6 and missed it to strike out, end the inning and leave the bases loaded again.

7. Had Volpe gone to the plate for his plate appearance without his bat, the Yankees would have led 3-2 after Brazoban walked him to score a run and the bases would have remained loaded for the Yankees to potentially add to their lead. Instead, Volpe moved to 0-of-4 on the night with eight left on and the score remained tied at 2.

8. It’s hard to believe you can blow a chance like Volpe got in the fifth and get another chance, but he did in the seventh and blew that one too. It’s hard to believe the Yankees would find a way to win after the missed opportunity like the one in the seventh, but in the eighth, Pete Alonso gave them the help they needed.

Jasson Dominguez worked a leadoff walk against Ryne Stanek to begin the eighth and after DJ LeMahieu struck out, Austin Wells doubled to right field. Dominguez didn’t try to steal with either LeMahieu or Wells at the plate and was never even in motion, and and just like the day before, he was unable to score from first on a late-inning double to right field because of it.

9. The Yankees had second and third with one out and Jorbit Vivas at the plate. The Mets brought the infield in and Vivas would need to hit a ball through the drawn-in infield or a fly ball to score the speedy Dominguez and give the Yankees a lead. Vivas battled Stanek, fouling away 100- and 101-mph fastballs before finally hitting the 11th pitch he saw on the ground to first. The Yankees had the contact play on because that’s what they do under Aaron Boone and the only way for the contact play to work when the ball is hit to a corner infielder is for the infielder to bobble the ball or throw it away. And that’s what Alonso did as his throw sailed over the head of Francisco Alvarez allowing Dominguez to score. A god throw wouldn’t have just beat Dominguez to home, it would have been there waiting for him for a couple of seconds as Dominguez was barely in the picture when the ball was approaching Alvarez. The throwing error gave the Yankees a 3-2 lead, and then Goldschmidt provided his RBI single and Bellinger his blast.

10. The Subway Series is stressful. It’s very much like a postseason series and there’s a heightened sense of concern when the Mets get a baserunner and a heightened sense of importance when the Yankees score a run. I wish the Yankees were about to play the Rockies during the week rather than next weekend after the last three games against the Mets. Instead, the stressfulness of the Subway Series will remain as the Yankees host the Rangers on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday at the Stadium and will face a renewed Patrick Corbin (3.35 ERA this season after after a 5.62 the over the last five seasons), Jacob deGrom (1.49 ERA over his last six starts) and Nathan Eovaldi (1.61 ERA this season). The Yankees won’t have Fried for the season and will counter with Will Warren, Ryan Yarbrough and Carlos Rodon. The offense that took down the Mets in the eighth inning on Sunday will need to be present this week against the Rangers.