1. The Yankees had to win at least two games at Tropicana Field this week. Anything worse and their division chances would be in peril. They took care of business in the most Yankees way possible by doing the bare minimum and winning two of four against the first-place Rays. It was ugly as the offense struck out 45 times with just two walks across the first three games before exploding for 12 runs in the series finale — the first time they scored more than five runs in a game dating back to June 17.

2. As currently constructed, the way the Yankees are going to have to win in the postseason is how they won the first game of the series: get a dominant starting pitching performance that hands the ball off to one reliever and hit the ball over the wall. The offense went 3-for-30 with two walks and 17 strikeouts, but those “3” were all home runs (a three-run shot from Jose Caballero and a pair of solo home runs from Caballero and Ben Rice), and Cam Schlittler provided eight innings of one-run ball. The Yankees don’t make enough frequent contact to score by stringing together consecutive base hits, and that’s against non-postseason starters. Once they get into the postseason and see only elite starters and relievers, the odds of them scoring in ways other than with home runs will drop precipitously. The win on Monday is how they have to win this fall. The losses on Tuesday and Wednesday are how they will lose this fall. The win on Thursday (in which they scored 12 runs on 14 hits) was an outlier, as noted by their inability to score more than five runs in a game in more than three weeks.

3. Unfortunately, this all holds true if or when Aaron Judge returns. Brian Cashman showed his face at the Trop on Thursday and said Judge would be re-imaged during the All-Star break. He also said he doesn’t expect that imaging to come back clean.

“I don’t think we’re anticipating it’s coming back clean,” Cashman said. “I think we’re anticipating and hopeful that it’s showing the healing process.”

It’s likely that if Judge returns he will have to play with and through this injury and because the Yankees are built around one single bat, not having that bat at 100 percent is problematic. Yes, Judge at even 50 percent is better than the majority of players in the league, but when you have as much dead wood as the Yankees have in their lineup, you need Judge to be as close to 100 percent as possible and that now seems impossible for the remainder of 2026.

4. Cashman also discussed Giancarlo Stanton who hasn’t played since injuring his calf on April 24. The day after that injury, Stanton said, “I feel better than yesterday. I’m going to give it 24 hours, maybe [Sunday] see where we’re at and decide what to do. Stanton got hurt in the 26th game of the season. Friday will be the 94th game of the season.

“He had a new injury, which kind of resets the whole thing,” Cashman said of Stanton’s recent setback. “It’s an unfortunate circumstance. Certainly, we’d love to have him in that lineup.”

Cashman says a lot of outlandish things, like calling the 2023 Yankees that went 82-80 “really fucking good” or defending Anthony Volpe’s performance or continuing to support Aaron Boone (like he did again Thursday), but Cashman’s November 2023 comments on Stanton continue to hold up: “He’s going to wind up getting hurt again more likely than not because it seems to be part of his game.” (Stanton’s agent Joel Wolfe should have to issue an apology for his retaliatory comments toward Cashman over Cashman’s remarks.)

5. Even if Judge comes back and is close to his normal self and Stanton comes back and is his normal streaky self, those two don’t solve the Yankees’ swing-and-miss issue (and likely make it worse) and they don’t remove all of the remaining bad hitters from the lineup. I thought a super rotation of Schlittler, Gerrit Cole, Max Fried and Carlos Rodon could make up for the team’s offensive and bullpen deficiencies, but Cole has been shaky (as expected returning from Tommy John surgery) and both Fried and Rodon are on the injured list. Will Warren is back to his old ways of being consistently bad, Ryan Weathers is the latest failed young controllable starter acquired by Cashman, and the Yankees decided to go with a bullpen game on Thursday in their most important game of the season to date rather than sit through another Elmer Rodriguez grind or a Brendan Beck debacle.

6. It’s hard for me to believe that Thursday was anything other than an anomalous offensive performance. You have to be the biggest Yankees homer to think it was the start of something after the way the team has performed over the last three weeks. The Yankees got to a starter they never get to with one big inning and then tacked on against the Rays’ versions of Camilo Doval and Jake Bird and got to face a position player in the ninth inning (who they were unable to score against). As of now, Thursday was nothing more than a much-needed win to keep the division within reach at five games in the loss column.

7. Thursday was the most important game of the season to date and before that it was Wednesday and before that it was Tuesday and before that it was Monday. Going back to Monday, in what was then the most important game of the season to date, Anthony Volpe was on the bench. The Yankees won and he was on the bench again on Tuesday even with a left-handed starter going for Tampa Bay. He started on Wednesday and then was on the bench again on Thursday. The two games the Yankees won in the series had Volpe on the bench.

I’m sick of Volpe. It’s not anything he has done. It’s what he represents. He represents the Yankees’ arrogance, smugness and their we’re-smarter-than-everyone attitude that has tarnished this era. I don’t understand what the Yankees see in him after four years and more than 2,000 plate appearances other than not wanting to admit they were wrong in their evaluation of an all-time bust. I really don’t understand fans who still want to see him play every day. There is nothing he does well. He doesn’t hit for contact and has no power. He’s not a good baserunner or basestealer. His footwork at shortstop looks like his ankles are tied together and his arm is a disgrace for the position. There’s not a single part of baseball he does well and there’s not a single part of the game he has improved upon since his debut. He has one home run (May 26) and eight extra-base hits in 42 games this year. His OPS this season is .664. It was .663 last year and .657 the year before. This is who he is! What more do you need to see? Another 2,000 plate appearances and a litany of errors on routine plays?

If Volpe played second base and batted ninth, he would still suck and it would still suck that he was an everyday player for the Yankees, but the way he was viewed by the fan base would be much different. But he doesn’t play second base. He only plays shortstop when he’s not the best shortstop on the current roster. And he doesn’t bat ninth. He hasn’t batted ninth since June 23, nearly three weeks ago. During that time in reverse chronological order, these are the places in the order he has batted as a starter: 6, 5, 5, 6, 5, 6, 8, 7, 6, 5. In those games, he went 5-for-36 with one extra-base hit and 10 strikeouts. The Yankees went 1-9 in those games.

8. It’s not that I think Caballero is a star or going to be a star. Caballero pretty much is who he is at this point too, but he makes the routine plays at short look routine, he’s a pest in the batter’s box, has pop and provides big hits. There isn’t a single thing Volpe does on a baseball field better than Caballero. The only thing Volpe has ever done (and it’s not even something he did) was be a first-round pick, and the Yankees for whatever reason are unwilling to succumb to the idea that they misevaluated him or were unable to complete his development.

I don’t want to have to keep caring about who is the day’s starting shortstop. No team with a shortstop problem is winning the World Series. The only way out of this mess is for George Lombard Jr. to return to playing at Triple-A and return to mashing the way he was before his finger injury. Lombard Jr. is the resolution to ending the Volpe experiment and providing the Yankees with stability at the position for the future.

9. This weekend — meaning the weekend leading into the All-Star break — has been a problem for the Aaron Boone Yankees. The Yankees seem to go through the motions this weekend annually like they are breaking the monotony of spring training to head north. These games this weekend against the Nationals are immensely important, not only because every game of the season is immensely important, but because when you piss away nearly a month of games it enhances the importance of the remaining games.

10. The Nationals are a problem. They lead the majors in runs and are above .500 this late in the season for the first time in years. They would be a problem for the Yankees if the Yankees were at full strength and with the Yankees in their current state, they’re a terrible matchup given their ability to put up crooked numbers of runs and the Yankees’ inability to put up crooked numbers of hits let alone runs.

The series opener will be Ryan Weathers against a left-handed opener in Carson Palmquist. I have no idea which version of Weathers will show up. Will it be the pitcher who has the ability to throw seven scoreless innings or the one who allows five earned runs and can’t get through the fifth inning? If it’s the former, it still may not be good enough given the state of the Yankees’ offense. If it’s the latter, they won’t have a chance, the Boone Swoon will continue and it will be another year the Boone Yankees limp to the break. If Thursday’s win over the Rays was really the start of something and the end of this edition of the Boone Swoon, we’ll know on Friday.

1. After getting their asses kicked by the last-place Red Sox all weekend at Fenway Park, the Yankees returned home and the ass-kicking continued with a 7-3 loss to the Tigers, a team that entered the game with a 12-28 road record. The final score wasn’t indicative of the Yankees’ latest pathetic effort, as their starter lasted 1 2/3 innings, the offense had one hit through 7 1/3 innings and the defense committed two more errors.

2. But this is what the Yankees do, baby. They love this. They eat this up. It’s a sickness. Right, Aaron Boone? The only thing sick about Monday night’s blowout at the hands of the Tigers was that people (like yours truly) watched the game.

Following Sunday’s crushing defeat to the Red Sox to cap off a four-game sweep, Boone said (after his “eat this up” and “sickness” rant), “The bottom line is we didn’t play well this weekend and we gotta do better.” In their first attempt to do better, the Yankees were down 5-0 in the second inning and 7-0 in the the fourth inning and didn’t score a run until the game was essentially over.

3. Ryan Weathers turned in his worst start of the year, unable to get through two innings. The latest failed controllable starter acquired through trade by Brian Cashman allowed seven hits and a walk in 1 2/3 innings. Maybe the next controllable starter Cashman trades for will finally be the one who works out after 28 years of misses.

4. The offense took another night off. After getting exactly three hits in each of the last three games against the Red Sox, the Yankees accomplished the feat again with just three hits on Monday. Four straight games with exactly three hits. Who says the Yankees aren’t consistent? They had one hit in the game until there was one out in the seventh inning. During the Boone era, the Yankees have set a lot of franchise records, taking down 100-plus-year-old records of humiliation, and during this June, they seemingly have done something every game the franchise hasn’t done since being called the Yankees. Over the last four games, the offense has 38 strikeouts, 12 hits and eight walks, a feat no Major League Baseball team has done since at least 1898 (thanks to Katie Sharp for the stat). It was also the first time in franchise history the Yankees had three hits or fewer in four straight games (another stat from Katie Sharp).

5. Ben Rice and Cody Bellinger have officially disappeared. Rice went 0-for-4 with three strikeouts on Monday and hasn’t had a hit since last Wednesday. He hasn’t driven a run in since Father’s Day. Bellinger went 0-for-4 with a strikeout and has two hits since Father’s Day. He hasn’t driven a run in since June 17.

6. Austin Wells got to start another game because why wouldn’t he? Despite being the worst hitter in all of baseball, Wells has been treated better than Jorge Posada was at the end of his career, when Posada posted a a .714 OPS and 90 OPS+ in his final season at age 40. Wells would do anything to have a .714 OPS and 90 OPS+ right now in his age 26 season, as he’s sitting on a .493 OPS and 39 OPS+. (Yes, he’s been 61 percent worse than league average offensively.) Wells would be a more effective offensive player at this point if he were go to the plate without a bat. But he keeps going to the plate with a bat and keeps striking out. Wells went 0-for-2 with two strikeouts on Monday and added another defensive miscue with a passed ball. Over the weekend, Boone said of Wells, “I feel like he’s moving the needle right now, believe it or not.” Wells is 1-for-13 since the weekend and 2-for-23 since coming off the injured list.

7. When things are going badly, Boone likes to talk about how “he believes in the guys in the room because of their track records.” (We are likely to hear this cliché for the first time in 2026 as early as this week.) Well, Boone’s favorite player in Anthony Volpe has found the back of his baseball card. After his “hot” start upon his undeserved call-up, Volpe’s track record has played true and his OPS is back down in the 600s at .690. It won’t be long before it’s at his career mark of .665.

8. Jose Caballero made a throwing error at third base because he’s not a third baseman and the great defender that is Bellinger dropped a fly ball in left field. If Bellinger is going to start playing Boone ball in the field, the Yankees might as well pack up the bats and balls for 2026.

9. The only thing the Yankees and YES have right now to discuss is moral victories. Michael Kay mentioned how Wells is happy as long as the pitching staff is doing well because it means he’s contributing defensively, and he’s only saying that because you could pick someone out of the right-field bleachers to bat for Wells and they would have the same chance at reaching base. Late in the game, Paul O’Neill talked about how the Yankees need to have good at-bats and take something from an at-bat into tomorrow. The Yankees have lost five straight and their AL East lead is now a three-game deficit in the loss column. How about the focus being on actual, tangible results like wins and losses, which are the only two things that matter?

10. “We are going to start playing better,” Weathers said. “We are going to win some more ballgames. Every team goes through a little rough patch.”

Does every team go through the same rough patch at the same exact time every season? The Yankees have lost five straight and nine of 12. At what point does a “little rough patch” become something more? I think we’re at that point. There is no help on the way in the immediate future. The lineup you see, the rotation they have and the bullpen they roster are what they’re going to be for weeks, if not a month or more. The Yankees that can’t hit or defend or protect leads are the Yankees for the indefinite future. And to stop this free fall, they get to face Tarik Skubal on Tuesday.

1. I thought this season could be different. I thought maybe the annual Boone Swoon wouldn’t happen. Not because I thought the clueless manager would get a clue in his ninth year on the job or that the “Run It Back” offense would be better than it was last year or that the piss poor defense that has defined this Yankees era wouldn’t constantly piss itself or that the bullpen would be trustworthy enough, but because I thought this rotation wouldn’t allow it to happen. What I didn’t account for was the manager, offense, defense and bullpen overpowering the rotation in baseball and making it irrelevant.

2. This weekend was bad. Very bad. The Yankees went from having the division lead to now being two games back of the Rays in the loss column. They were humiliated by a last-place Red Sox team that has had nothing to feel good about all season, and the Yankees gave them the four best days of their season. They lost a Cam Schlittler start in which they didn’t allow an earned run, they were dominated by Payton Tolle again, they lost a Gerrit Cole start because Cole can’t beat the Red Sox whether Rafael Devers is on the team or not and then came the grand finale: the worst loss of the season on Sunday night. The Yankees scored eight non-automatic-runner runs in four games at Fenway Park. They had three hits in each of the last three games of the series. They blew a two-run lead with Schlittler on the mound in the opener and then blew a two-run lead in the 10th inning in the finale, further improving their record and reputation as the worst road extra-inning team since the automatic runner was implemented.

3. The Yankees have now lost eight of 11. Their lead in the AL East has become a deficit for the second time this season. I thought the worst part of the weekend for Aaron Boone would be him walking onto the field in the 10th inning on Sunday with an infield glove for Amed Rosario to use with the winning run on third and one out and the current at-bat already in a 1-0 count. But then Boone sat in his office at Fenway Park and gave one of the most tone-deaf, disturbing postgame press conferences of his nine-year tenure.

“We got a really good freakin’ team,” Boone said. “We played crappy on this trip, feels bad, kind of pissed off.”

There’s nothing the Yankees love more than telling you how good they are when things go badly. Brian Cashman said the 2023 team that went 82-80, had the worst record by a Yankees team in three decades and missed the postseason entirely in a format in which 40 percent of the league gets in was “really fucking good.” After the 2024 World Series disaster, they spent the offseason telling us how good they were to win the AL pennant, never mentioning their path to a pennant was the AL Central road of the Royals and Guardians. Boone told us the 2025 team was “the best he ever managed” and that team had to play in the Wild Card Series and won one game in the ALDS. The front office decided to run it back with the same roster that got run out of the postseason, and now they want you to know how good they are after getting swept in a four-game series by the last-place Red Sox in a year in which there are two other teams in the AL above .500 and one of them is the White Sox.

4. At full strength, the Yankees have a good team. Not a “really freakin’ good” team and nowhere near a great team. After all these years, their lineup is still reliant on one bat, the rotation isn’t as sound as it’s made out to be, the bullpen has one truly trustworthy arm and after nine seasons, the manager continues to show why hiring someone who never coached, let alone managed at any level should have never been given the keys to a team coming off a Game 7 defeat with a chance to go to the World Series. He continues to speak like someone who has never won anything at the major-league level, wanting people to believe he knows what it takes to win when all he has known is postseason failure.

5. How could he only be “kind of pissed off?” He was more pissed about Jazz Chisholm bringing a lollipop out to second base (an antic he supposedly didn’t even know took place until after the game) than he was about losing four straight to a last-place team, losing eight of 11 and once again losing the division lead to the Rays. The weekend was ugly and these last two weeks have been uglier.

With no date in sight for Aaron Judge to be re-imaged and Giancarlo Stanton only going through “low-volume workouts,” the offense you see is what you get. Ben Rice and Cody Bellinger have failed miserably to carry the offense when it was needed the most. Rice is hitting .114/.139/.200 over the last nine games and Bellinger is hitting .135/.273/.162 over the last 11 games. The Yankees had a top-heavy lineup with Judge and Stanton and Trent Grisham in it, without them, they need Rice and Bellinger to not be the zeros they have been these last couple of weeks and to pray the clock doesn’t strike midnight on Paul Goldschmidt’s renaissance.

6. I have given up thinking Jazz Chisholm will do anything this season other than hit the occasional solo home run and then take 49 seconds to jog around the bases. Chisholm led off for the first time as a Yankee on Sunday night and was eventually ejected after arguing a check-swing call and throwing his helmet like the baby he is. When Chisholm isn’t sucking on lollipops at the plate or in the field or telling the media he’s going to hit 50 home runs and steal 50 bases or that the Yankees are going to win the World Series, he’s leaving every runner in scoring position stranded and flailing at breaking balls low and away. With each game that comes off the schedule, we are that much closer to the end of Chisholm as a Yankee.

7. I couldn’t sleep after Sunday’s loss and I found myself searching for the worst single-season OPS for a regular player in major-league history with Austin Wells now at .499. The players who finished a season with a lower OPS than Wells all played in the early 1900s. Barry Bonds had four seasons with a higher OBP than Wells’ current OPS. Despite Wells being the undisputed worst offensive player in all of Major League Baseball, over the weekend, Boone said, “I feel like he’s moving the needle right now, believe it or not.” Wells went 1-for-11 in the series and is 2-for-21 since coming off the injured list. We are now in the second half of the season as Sunday was the 83rd game and Wells has two doubles, four home runs and 10 RBIs. Stanton has six doubles, three home runs and 14 RBIs and last played on April 24.

8. The Yankees called up Oswaldo Cabrera because he had been red-hot in June and hitting left-handed pitching extremely well. The Yankees faced three lefties in a row from Thursday through Saturday and Cabrera was on the bench all three games. Then they had him play against a righty on Sunday night after having not played in any game at any level over the previous four days.

9. Every game Anthony Volpe plays shortstop for the Yankees is a game they choose not to field their best team. Volpe’s arm is a disgrace for the position at the major-league level. I watched Bobby Witt Jr. finish turning an inning-ending double play on Sunday afternoon purely on arm strength that would have never been possible for Volpe and would have led to the inning being extended. Yes, it’s unfair to compare the best shortstop in baseball to the worst everyday player in baseball since his 2023 debut, but my point is that Volpe doesn’t defend well enough to justify his hitting, and if you haven’t noticed, his little hot streak is over and he’s back below the league-average line offensively. It’s only a matter of time until his season OPS is in line with his .665 career OPS. And when it is, we will still be watching him play every day for the Yankees as we remain trapped watching the same season unfold each year.

10. Last Monday, I listed the the tough opposing probables for the next 10 games and they are 2-5 in the first seven games of the 10-day stretch. Now they get to face Casey Mize and Tarik Skubal again to close out June before beginning a July littered with games against the Rays, Dodgers and Phillies, and also the .500-or-better Cubs, White Sox, Nationals and Pirates.

With no expected return date for Judge or Stanton or Max Fried and no immediate help for the bullpen, the offense and bullpen are going to have to hit and pitch better, the defense is going to have to play major-league-caliber defense and the manager is going to have to put the best team on the field as often as possible or this swoon will make previous swoons look like a walk in the park.

1. If I told you Cam Schlittler would throw five innings and allow no earned runs with nine strikeouts and the bullpen would throw four innings without allowing an earned run in the series opener against the Red Sox, you would have likely asked how many runs the Yankees won a shutout win by. But they didn’t shut out the Red Sox. They didn’t win. They lost 6-3 as the Yankees’ defense combined to allow six unearned runs in what was an unmitigated defensive disaster.

2. “We just didn’t do a good job taking care of the ball tonight,” Aaron Boone said. “It’s just not up to the way we’ve been playing.”

I disagree. The defense during the Boone era has always been questionable at best, and of late it has been very bad. Four errors on Thursday, one on Wednesday, two on Monday, two on Sunday, one on Saturday, one on Friday. What are you talking about, Boone?

The four errors were the most the Yankees have committed this season. It was the first game the Yankees allowed six or more unearned runs and no earned runs since 1913. The Boone era is full of memorable history.

3. Austin Wells made an error with another catcher’s interference, Schlittler threw a pickoff attempt to second base away, Amed Rosario let a ground ball go through his legs and Yerry De los Santos had a fielding error. Add in a couple of pop-ups that dropped in and the defense was even worse than the box score indicates.

4. Schlittler went to a lot of deep counts in the game in what was the first time the Red Sox have ever challenged him, but if Rosario fields the grounder that went through his legs in the fifth, the Yankees turn an inning-ending double play. Instead, that miscue led to four unearned runs in the inning and a 2-0 Yankees lead turned into a 4-2 deficit. Boone said the ball Rosario couldn’t handle was “in fairness, absolutely lathered,” which was an embarrassing comment. It’s the major leagues. It’s a play that has to be made. It’s a play that Ryan McMahon and Jose Caballero make. It’s a play that Miguel Andujar makes.

“Definitely a play there that I’ve just got to make,” Rosario said. “I take responsibility there.”

Who else would take responsibility?

5. The Rosario miscue led to the first run and the Red Sox tied the game on a sacrifice fly when Jose Caballero couldn’t make an accurate throw home on a shallow fly ball. The Red Sox don’t try to score there if Cody Bellinger is in left field there, but when you have an infielder playing the outfield, that’s what you get, and the Yankees love nothing more than to have their best shortstop not play shortstop.

6. Rosario was in the lineup because the left-handed Connelly Early started. But it made no sense that Rosario was allowed to hit against the just-entered Garrett Whitlock to lead off the eighth inning. The Yankees had two left-handed options on the bench and Boone inexplicably stayed with Rosario. He struck out swinging on four pitches.

7. Offensively, it was another poor showing. The Yankees struck out 10 times, which is bad, and yet it’s not as bad as they’ve been at making contact of late. Rosario, Cody Bellinger, Anthony Volpe and Austin Wells all struck out twice. Ben Rice went 0-for-5 and Bellinger went 0-for-4. It’s going to be hard to win when those two don’t produce. Add in the inability to make major-league plays defensively, and you get the kind of result the Yankees experienced on Thursday.

8. “It’s always tough when we lose,” Caballero said. “The good thing is, there’s always tomorrow.”

Spoken like a player under Annie Boone. There’s always tomorrow … It’s only a day away.

9. Tomorrow in this instance is Friday and it will be Will Warren against Payton Tolle. Tolle dominated the Yankees for six innings in his April 23 start against them at Fenway Park. This is how the first four of those six innings went:

Strikeout
Strikeout
Strikeout
Strikeout
Groundout
Strikeout
Groundout
Flyout
Single
Walk
Single
Strikeout
Flyout
Strikeout

The Yankees finally broke through in the fifth inning when Jazz Chisholm hit the first pitch of the inning around Pesky’s Pole to tie the game at 1. Tolle pitched a 1-2-3 sixth inning and left with a 2-1 lead. The Yankees then went to work against the Red Sox’ bullpen in an eventual 4-2 win.

10. Tolle is really good, and against a lineup that is missing the right-handed bats of Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton, it’s easy to envision him mowing the Yankees down like Early did on Thursday. Warren is going to have be really good and the defense is going to have to avoid producing six unearned runs for the Yankees to avoid a second straight loss to the last-place Red Sox.

1. A day after Jazz Chisholm was ridiculously playing defense with a lollipop in his mouth, the outspoken, 50/50 chaser with a .731 OPS stopped the Yankees’ three-game losing streak with a two-run, go-ahead home run in the sixth inning against the Tigers.

“I was looking for the pitch all night,” Chisholm said. “I missed it earlier in the game, so I was on it.”

The Yankees were able to overcome an early 2-0 deficit to take a 4-2 lead and hold on for a 4-3 win in Detroit.

2. Monday marked the second time this season Chisholm played in a game with a lollipop in his mouth, after taking an at-bat with one earlier this season. Aaron Boone claims he didn’t know about Chisholm batting with a lollipop in his mouth and also wasn’t aware Chisholm played defense with one either until after the game. Instead of defending Chisholm like Boone has with every opportunity (including the idiotic baserunning decision on the infield pop-up in Miami last year), Boone said Chisholm playing with a lollipop “pissed him off” and that he spoke to his second baseman about it.

“He can have all the lollipops he wants now,” Boone said after Tuesday’s game.

3. The home run was Chisholm’s sixth in June and 12th of the year, putting him just 38 away from his goal of 50. (He’s 27 stolen bases away from his goal of 50 steals.)

The Yankees needed the Chisholm home run because Carlos Rodon turned in a poor start: 5.1 IP, 6 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 2 BB, 5 K. It was the eighth start of the season for Rodon and the fifth time he failed to go at least six innings. (He has yet to get more than 18 outs this season.) Yankees starters have only gone at least six innings in two of the last seven games.

4. A day after going 7-for-34 with two walks and 12 strikeouts the Yankees went 9-for-35 with two walks and 13 strikeouts. Every Yankee struck out at least once on Tuesday, Ben Rice and Jasson Dominguez both struck out twice and Spencer Jones struck out three times.

5. Fernando Cruz, Brent Headrick and David Bednar combined for 3 2/3 scoreless innings and the defense played a clean game. It was a much-needed win in a game against a really tough opposing starter in Casey Mize. With the Rays losing to the Royals, the Yankees are now two games up in the loss column in the division.

6. Austin Wells provided an RBI double in the sixth inning that ended up being the difference in the game. It was Wells’ second double of the season. Yes, you read that right: his second double of the season in the 78th game of the season.

7. Rice is 0-for-9 with four strikeouts in Detroit and his OPS has dipped under 1.000 as he’s no longer one of two players in the majors with an OPS of at least 1.000. Yordan Alvarez stands alone at the moment. (Rice is now third in the majors behind Alvarez and Nick Kurtz.)

8. The first thing I do when I see a series against the Tigers coming up is figure out if the Yankees will see Tarik Skubal. Unfortunately, they will on Wednesday (and again next week At Yankee Stadium). Skubal missed more than six weeks after needing elbow surgery and has been OK, but nowhere near his Cy Young-winning, dominant self since returning. That doesn’t mean he won’t be that version of himself against the Yankees.

9. There has been a lot of talk about the Yankees going all out for Skubal at this year’s deadline. If it takes some combination of Will Warren/Elmer Rodriguez and other starting pitchers, sure, go for it. If it involves George Lombard Jr., no thanks. Yes, Skubal at his best is the best pitcher in baseball, but he’s not at his best, had surgery last month and can be had for just money after the season. As a Scott Boras client, Skubal is going to free agency no matter what happens between now and the end of the season, so him going to the Yankees and pitching well or enjoying his time there won’t matter. Any team could use Skubal, even with one with the Yankees’ starting pitching, but they don’t need him to win a championship. Starting pitching won’t be the reason the Yankees don’t win the World Series.

10. Ryan Weathers gets the ball in the series finale and will look to build off his most recent dominant start against the White Sox. The last time Weathers was coming off a strong start he proceeded to have three starts in a row allowing five-plus earned runs, so there’s no telling what version of Weathers will show up on Wednesday. For as good as the Yankees’ rotation is and has been, right now, aside from Schlittler, there’s no telling what any of the other four starters will give you. But with Skubal on the mound, Weathers will need to be as good as he’s been all year for the Yankees to win this series.