1. The Yankees played a good team over the weekend, so if you didn’t watch, you know how it went: they lost two of three and dropped another series. The Phillies blasted the Yankees’ bullpen for a 12-5 win on Friday and rocked Marcus Stroman for a 9-4 win on Saturday before the Yankees managed to salvage the third game by somehow getting to Zack Wheeler for four runs. The Yankees played one error-free game in the series, and guess which one was it was? The one they won. What a coincidence.

2. Going back to May 30, the Yankees have played 10 series against teams with a winning record. Here is how those series went:

Lost two of three to the Dodgers
Lost two of three to the Red Sox
Swept by the Red Sox
Lost two of three to the Reds
Lost two of three to the Blue Jays
Lost two of three to the Mets
Swept the Mariners
Lost two of three to the Cubs
Lost two of three to the Blue Jays
Lost two of three to the Phillies

The Yankees went 1-9 in the 10 series with an 11-17 record. Over that time, they have watched their eight-game lead over the Blue Jays turn into a 5 1/2-game deficit (and it’s really 6 1/2 when you account for the head-to-head tiebreaker).

3. The Yankees have been a bad team for a long time. They were 42-25 after sweeping the Royals on June 12. Since then, they have gone 15-23 and blew a massive division lead. They are now clinging to a 1 1/2-game lead for a playoff berth (though it’s really 2 1/2 games since they hold the head-to-head tiebreaker over the Rangers).

4. Things have been going poorly for the Yankees for nearly two months and now they will be without Aaron Judge for at least 10 days (and possibly more) and when he does return he will only be allowed to be the designated hitter at first. That means for Giancarlo Stanton to play, he will have to play the outfield. That means the Yankees’ defense (which is already a well-known embarrassment) will get even worse.

5. The Judge injury annoys me because not only does it hurt the Yankees’ chances of winning, it creates a built-in excuse for Aaron Boone’s job security if the season ends poorly (and all signs point to the season ending poorly), the same way Judge’s long absence in 2023 served as an excuse for the Yankees’ 82-80 disappointment. No single player in baseball should have as a great of an impact on a team as Judge does, and his absence shouldn’t serve as an excuse for anyone keeping their job if the season spirals out of control (which it has been doing since the end of May). The Yankees were in a bad place while Judge was healthy and playing. They are in a much worse place now.

6. The Yankees finally addressed third base after neglecting to do so in the winter or for 2024 or 2023 or 2022. The last time the Yankees had a solid everyday third baseman was when they had Gio Urshela there from 2019-2021, and he wasn’t supposed to be there, Miguel Andujar was. After trying Josh Donaldson, Oswaldo Cabrera, DJ LeMahieu, Jazz Chisholm, Oswald Peraza and Jorbit Vivas there over the last three-and-a-half years, the Yankees now have Ryan McMahon for this season and the next two.

7. When I wrote about McMahon recently, I wrote that he wasn’t worth trading for because I never thought Hal Steinbrenner would agree to take on his whole salary in order to lessen the prospect cost. I figured the Yankees would have to give the Rockies a real prospect in order to get the Rockies to eat some of McMahon’s money, like the Yankees did to get Anthony Rizzo and Joey Gallo four years ago. Instead, Steinbrenner agreed to take on McMahon’s contract, which is essentially double at the moment because of the Yankees’ luxury-tax penalties.

8. McMahon had a nice first weekend as a Yankee, going 3-for-6 with a double, walk and two RBIs. It’s enjoyable to see him make challenging plays with such ease at third and it’s comical to see his arm make throws from the left side of the infield to first compared to Anthony Volpe. Maybe the pinstripes will enhance McMahon’s performance the way they have for so many over the years. At least the Yankees know who their third baseman will be for the rest of 2025 and 2026 and 2027.

9. Giancarlo Stanton hit two more home runs over the weekend. Cody Bellinger went 1-for-the series. Volpe went 3-for-12, which is about as good as it gets with him. Austin Wells went 1-for-4 with a couple of walks. Jazz Chisholm went 4-for-12. Paul Goldschmidt went 2-for-10 with a walk. Ben Rice went 1-for-9 with a walk. Jasson Dominguez went 2-for-7 and Trent Grisham went 2-for-12 with a walk.

Will Warren was OK, Stroman was bad and Carlos Rodon was blah. The bullpen was an unmitigated disaster and Boone was his usual nonchalant, everything-will-be-fine self. Except everything isn’t fine, hasn’t been fine in two months and is unlikely to be fine over the next two weeks.

10. The Yankees’ next two weeks are daunting. They were going to be that way with Judge, and without him, the next two weeks have the potential to sink the season.

The Yankees play four games at home against the Rays, who are sitting at .500 and three out of the last wild-card spot. (The Yankees could destroy the Rays’ season with a big week here, but we all know that won’t happen.) Then it’s three in Miami against the Marlins, who are red-hot and 20-9 over the last month. Then it’s three on the road against the Rangers, who are 27-15 over the last six weeks and trying to chase down the Astros in the West. Then it’s three at home against the Astros. Thirteen games in 14 days, many of them without Judge, and possibly all of them.

While the Yankees’ schedule from late August through the end of the season is favorable, they have to survive the end of July and rest of August to get there.

1. It’s no longer right in front of them. The Yankees no longer control their own destiny when it comes to winning the AL East this season and potentially avoiding having to play in the best-of-3, wild-card series. After Wednesday’s 8-4 loss to the Blue Jays, the Yankees now need outside help to overcome the four-game deficit in the division with 64 games left to play and only three of those games are against the Blue Jays.

2. The Yankees had their best three starting pitchers lined up for the last three days in Toronto and they still lost the series. They had every position player aside from Oswaldo Cabrera healthy and available and they still lost the series. The Yankees did what these Yankees have always done during the Aaron Boone era and that is lose in the biggest of games in the most remarkable of ways.

With a chance to win the division in 2018 still on the table in early August, the Yankees went to Fenway Park for a four-game series. They were swept after blowing a three-run lead in the ninth in the series finale. In the postseason, they split the first two games of the ALDS on the road against the Red Sox and then suffered the worst home postseason loss in franchise history in Game 3 and were eliminated in Game 4.

The 2019 Yankees hit .214/.289/.383 in the ALCS and lost four of the final five games of the series. They were eliminated in Game 6 after they erased a two-run deficit in the top of the ninth inning only to get walked off on in the bottom of the inning.

The 2020 Yankees lost three of the last four games in the ALDS, and in the decisive Game 5, scored just one run and gave up the go-ahead home run in the bottom of the eighth.

The 2021 Yankees were the odds-on favorite to represent the AL in the World Series, and instead, they finished third in their own division and fifth in the AL and were eliminated in the one-game playoff.

The 2022 Yankees were swept in the ALCS after their manager used the darkest moment in the organization’s history as motivation to come back in the series, all while FaceTiming the man responsible for the darkest moment in the organization’s history.

The 2023 Yankees missed the playoffs entirely despite 40 percent of the league getting in.

The 2024 Yankees were embarrassed in a five-game World Series loss, which included blowing a five-run fifth-inning lead at home in Game 5. The champions spent the entire offseason publicly bashing and laughing at the Yankees’ sloppy, undisciplined brand of baseball. And the Yankees did nothing to change it.

3. The Yankees committed four official errors in their loss to the Blue Jays on Wednesday and that doesn’t even account for J.C. Escarra mishandling a ball in the dirt allowing a runner to advance to second, Escarra being unable to block a breaking ball in front of him to allow runners on first and second to move up to second and third and Cody Bellinger throwing his arms up to indicate he wasn’t going to catch a routine fly ball that led to a one-out “triple” with the game tied at 4 in the sixth inning.

4. “I think we have a very good defensive club,” Boone said with a straight face. “I think it’s here and I think it’s in this building we haven’t played well.”

This isn’t just about the Yankees’ play in Toronto, which has been unacceptable. It’s been their play everywhere. It’s been their play during Boone’s entire tenure. It continues to be their play because there is no accountability for poor play and no consequences for it either.

5. Not only was the defense a mess, yet again, but Max Fried wasn’t good, yet again. Has Fried been great as a Yankee? Yes. Has Fried been mediocre to bad for more than a month now? Also, yes.

Fried has one quality start in more than a month. He blew a lead and the Yankees lost to the last-place Orioles on June 20. On June 25, he shut out the Reds for seven innings to salvage the last game of that series. He pitched poorly in Toronto on July 1, struggled against the Mets in just five innings on July 6, left the game against the Cubs after three innings on July 12 and then pitched poorly in Toronto again on Wednesday.

My biggest fear with Fried has always been how he will perform in the postseason and in big games, since he has been atrocious in October in his career. In 20 games and 12 starts in the playoffs, he has a 5.10 ERA and 1.493 WHIP which is a far cry from his 3.02 career ERA and 1.148 career WHIP. I pray the version of Fried we have seen of late in big regular-season games isn’t the one that is going to show up in the postseason.

Carlos Rodon, Marcus Stroman and Will Warren can’t be trusted and Cam Schlittler has two career starts to his name. The Yankees aren’t going anywhere if Fried pitches in August, September and October the way he has pitched in July. With all of their pitching issues, the Yankees are only going to go as far as Fried takes them.

6. The same goes for Aaron Judge. In the biggest series of the season, Judge went 1-for-10 with two walks and four strikeouts. That one was the game-tying, two-run home run in the sixth inning on Wednesday that momentarily made me think the Yankees may actually win the series and season finale in Toronto. Instead, it was nothing more than a short-lived moment that was immediately destroyed in the bottom of the inning.

It seems like every time Judge hits a big home run, the Yankees end up losing. There was the home run on Wednesday. There was the ninth-inning home run off Garrett Crochet at Fenway Park earlier this season. There was his first World Series home run in Game 5 last year. There was his home run off Emmanuel Clase in the ALCS last year. There was his solo home run in Game 5 of the 2020 ALDS and his two-run home run off Justin Verlander in Game 2 of the 2019 ALCS. If Judge hits a big home run in a big game, the Yankees seem to lose.

7. If Fried is going to be a run-of-the-mill starter and if Judge is going to be merely great and not otherworldly, the Yankees’ chances at the division aren’t just over, their chances at reaching the postseason at all are going to be increasingly difficult. I’ll worry about how the duo performs in October once the Yankees get there. For now, they need to make sure they get there.

8. For a team that once led the Blue Jays by eight games and had a 12-game lead in the loss column over the Red Sox, the Yankees now hold just a two-game lead on a postseason berth. If the Blue Jays play .500 baseball for the rest of the season (30-30), they will finish at 90-72. The Yankees would need to go 35-25 to tie them. So if the Blue Jays — a team that is 18 games over .500 becomes a .500 team for the rest of the season — the Yankees will have to go at least 10 games over .500 in 60 games to pass them. The Yankees are 10 games over .500 through 102 games.

9. It’s very likely the Yankees will end up as a wild-card team and end up in the vaunted best-of-3. It’s something I hoped they would avoid. It’s something that seemed impossible not to avoid at the beginning of June. But I lived through the one-game playoffs of 2015, 2017, 2018 and 2021. I hoped the Yankees would never end up in that one-game playoff when it was implemented in 2012 and they ended up in it more times than any other team in baseball.

10. If the Yankees continue to play the way they have for the last six weeks, I won’t have to worry about the best-of-3, wild-card series because they won’t even be in that and will miss out on the postseason for the second time in three years despite the format allowing 40 percent of the league in. But if the Yankees are going to get in and they play like they did against the Dodgers in the World Series or like they did in Toronto the last three nights then I don’t want them in anyway. Save all Yankees fans from the humiliation. Because a postseason berth guarantees no organizational changes. A missed postseason likely means no changes as well (as we saw in 2023), but it leaves the door open for them. It’s disappointing missing the postseason is even an option again.

1. The Yankees played a good team on Monday, so you know what that means: the Yankees lost on Monday. The good feeling from the five-run comeback win on Saturday and the series-clinching win on Sunday were erased as soon as the Yankees stepped on the same field as a team headed for the postseason. The Yankees lost 4-1 to the Blue Jays and it wasn’t even as close as a one-run effort in a three-run game could be.

2. For all of the complaining about Jacob Misiorowski being an All-Star this season, no one complained about Carlos Rodon being one, but they should have. Rodon took the mound on nine days rest and was in trouble all game. He loaded the bases in the second inning and escaped. He allowed a two-out walk in the third inning and got out of it and left the bases loaded again in the fourth. In the fifth, his playing with fire caught up to him and the Blue Jays’ first three batters went walk, single, double, and while the inning should have ended with Rodon simply blowing the Yankees’ small one-run lead and facing a one-run deficit, it turned into a three-run deficit because of throwing errors on back-to-back plays by Oswald Peraza and Anthony Volpe.

3. Even if Peraza had made a good throw with two outs to end the fifth to keep it a 2-1 game, it still wouldn’t have been a good outing from Rodon. If that play had ended the inning, he still would have thrown 97 pitches in five innings (he ended up throwing 107 in five innings) and the Yankees still would have needed the offense to tie the game and the bullpen to get 12 outs. Rodon’s night was a far cry from the eight innings and turning the ball over to Luke Weaver (since Devin Williams pitched the last two days) I dreamed about. It wasn’t good enough. But that’s who Rodon is in big games: not good enough.

Rodon lasted only five innings in both of his starts against the Blue Jays this season. He lasted only five innings in both of his starts against the Red Sox. He lasted only five innings in both of his starts against the Mets. To be fair, he did make it through six innings against the Tigers … except he allowed five earned runs. He made four postseason starts last year and only once pitched six innings. In the other three starts, he went 3 2/3 innings, 4 2/3 innings and 3 1/3 innings. But that’s who Rodon is: a pitcher who will dominate the weak teams in the league (he has a 2.36 ERA and 0.859 WHIP against teams not currently holding a playoff spot) and will struggle against the league’s best.

4. Rodon’s crappy-but-expected performance would have been easier to stomach if the offense had showed up, but it didn’t, of course. The bigger the game, the worse the offense performs. In this Yankees era, the only bat to consistently show up in the biggest of games has been Giancarlo Stanton, and sure enough, it was Stanton who provided the Yankees’ only run with a solo home run in the fourth inning to give the Yankees a brief 1-0 lead.

Aaron Judge did what he does when the games are the most important: nothing. Judge struck out swinging in the first, was intentionally walked in the third, popped out in the fifth and struck out swinging again in the eighth. Jasson Dominguez, Austin Wells and Volpe all went hitless as well and the Yankees struck out 12 times as a team. (The Blue Jays struck out four times.)

5. The defense did what it does when … well, always. Peraza and Volpe threw the ball away on back-to-back plays in the fifth, which scored two runs for the Blue Jays. Peraza has the lowest OPS in the majors for all hitters with at least 150 at-bats. If you’re going to be the worst hitter in the league, you have to make every play in the field. Peraza was given an opportunity to become an everyday player this year and change his life and stop the Yankees from going out and wasting assets on a third baseman at the deadline, and he has done nothing but force them to do whatever they can to have someone who resembles a major leaguer playing third base by 6 p.m. on July 31.

6. As for Volpe, there is nothing left to say about him. It’s nice he had the big game on Saturday with two home runs to help the Yankees overcome a five-run deficit and win a game, but it didn’t last. He’s 1-for-7 since that game and his at-bats are as bad as they have been all season. On Monday, he flew out to right twice and grounded out to the pitcher. The expected batting average on those three balls were .020, .010 and .250. The ball with the highest expected batting average was a weak, 40.7-mph groundout back to the mound.

Then there’s the defense. Volpe’s fifth-inning error made him the league leader for position players with 12 errors. Congratulations! After the game, Boone was asked about Volpe’s defense on back-to-back questions. He started to get heated answering the first question and then got increasingly annoyed when the second one was asked. Last week, Boone told Meredith Marakovits that Volpe “is fucking elite” when she asked about his poor play. When she asked Boone about Volpe’s poor throw that led to a run on Monday and about him being the league leader in errors, this is what Boone said: “Errors get handed out in a lot of different places in a lot of different ways.” Yes, Boone blamed official scorers around the league for Volpe leading the league in errors and not Volpe.

7. It was the latest moment in Boone’s lack of accountability for himself or his players. If you wonder why the Yankees can’t play one, clean nine-inning game of baseball it’s because it doesn’t matter if they do or not as they don’t have to answer for it. If you’re wondering why the infield throws the ball all over the field or why runners take off for third with no outs in extra innings or why the Yankees had two cut-off men on a play over the weekend and no one covering second base or why they seem to have catcher’s interference called against them every other game, it’s because nothing happens to them for having a lack of fundamentals. After Jorbit Vivas was thrown out at third base by Ronald Acuna on Friday, Boone was asked why he didn’t bench Vivas and Boone said he only benches players who don’t run hard. Except the only player he ever benched for supposedly doing that was Gleyber Torres. Jazz Chisholm ran out a ground ball on Friday as if he had two broken ankles and he wasn’t benched. The Yankees gave the Dodgers three free runs in the biggest inning of last season and they gave the Blue Jays two free runs in the biggest inning of this season.

8. Boone calls Volpe “fucking elite” and considers him “one of the best shortstops in the league” even though both are categorically false and Volpe made a massive error on Monday. Boone refers to his offense “as the best offense in baseball” even though they are third in the majors in runs scored and scored one run on a solo home run and had two hits over their last 22 batters on Monday. Boone recently called his team “the best in baseball” even though they have the ninth-best record in the majors and lost a fifth straight game to the Blue Jays on Monday.

9. “It’s still the middle of July,” Volpe said. “We’ve got so many games ahead of us.”

The middle of July is from 8 a.m. on July 11 through 8 a.m. on July 21, so it’s no longer middle of the July. And there aren’t a lot of games left. Monday’s game was Game 100. There are 62 games left. If the Blue Jays were to play .500 baseball for the rest of the season, they would finish 90-72. The Yankees would have to go 36-26 to finish ahead of them. So if the Blue Jays simply win half of their remaining games, the Yankees have to play 10 games above .500 to pass them. The Yankees are only 10 games above .500 at this moment through 100 games.

10. The Yankees are now four games back in the division. They are one loss to the Blue Jays in the five remaining games against them from no longer controlling their own destiny in terms of winning the division and from not being able to say “It’s right in front of us.” That loss will come on Tuesday if Cam Schlittler isn’t great in just his second career start or if the offense performs yet another disappearing act in a big game.

1. It may not have been the most exciting series of the season and we all know it wasn’t the most well-played series of the season, but in terms of importance, this past weekend in Atlanta was the most important series of the season to date. In terms of importance, it will be immediately replaced by the upcoming series in Toronto. Before the Yankees could think about their last three games of the season north of the border, they had to think and deal with a bad Braves team clinging to life for their season.

2. On Friday, the Yankees opened the “second half” of the season with an opener. The thing about using an opener is that it only works if the opener doesn’t suck. Unfortunately, Ian Hamilton sucks, and the Braves tagged him for three runs in the first inning, going single, double, double to open the game. It was disheartening the Yankees thought using Hamilton to face the few good hitters in the Braves lineup to open the game put them in the best possible position to win. I understand Cam Schlittler was supposed to start the game and was pushed back due to biceps soreness, but how is a plan of Hamilton then recently-signed Rico Garcia, Scott Effross and JT Brubaker the best course of action? If the Yankees feel going with a bullpen game with those names gives them a better chance than Allan Winans or Carlos Carrasco, then why even have them in the organization?

The Braves led 3-0 after the first, 6-0 after the third and 7-0 after the seventh. The Yankees scored three runs in the seventh for one of their patented do-just-enough-to-get-the-manager-to-say-we-showed-fight fake comebacks and lost 7-3. While the Yankees were losing to the Braves, the Blue Jays were busy beating up on the Giants to extend their division lead to three games.

3. On Saturday, the thoughts of being swept by the under-.500 Braves became a real thought. The left-handed Joey Wentz and his 6.32 ERA and 1.703 WHIP shut out the Yankees for four innings, and in the meantime, Will Warren was getting blasted. Warren allowed a long solo home run to Michael Harris and his .550 OPS in the third and then gave up four runs — all with two outs — in the fourth to put the Yankees behind 5-0. Earlier this season, YES liked to opine “If you remove Warren’s start against the Dodgers, he’s been great.” Then it was “If you remove his starts against the Dodgers and Blue Jays … .” I guess now you just need to remove his starts against the Dodgers, Blue Jays and Braves and you have yourself a good, young pitcher you can trust.

After scoring in just one of the first 13 innings of the series, the Yankees scored twice in the fifth to make it a 5-2 game. But Effross and Tim Hill gave those two runs right back in the bottom of the inning and the Braves led 7-2 through five.

4. The Yankees scored four more times in the sixth to make it a 7-6 game, but Jonathan Loaisiga immediately gave one of them back to make it an 8-6 game. Since June 24, Loaisiga has allowed 19 baserunners, nine earned runs and three home runs in 8 1/3 innings. In his best season (2021), he allowed three home runs all season (70 2/3 innings). That best season was a long time ago. Four years in baseball years can be measured in dog years. Loaisiga was OK in 2022, missed nearly all of 2023 and 2024 due to Tommy John surgery and has been bad in 2025. Maybe Loaisiga just stinks now? Maybe a career marred by injuries and the surgery caught up to him? The Yankees are going to have to find out because they are paying him $5 million for this season (with a $5 million team option for 2026) and there is no one else right now. The only two trustworthy relievers in the bullpen are Luke Weaver and Devin Williams. Loaisiga, by default, is the next most-trusted arm? Then Hill? Then no one between Brubaker, Effross, Hamilton and Winans? The Yankees have given an abundance of relievers a chance to be major leaguers and to win important roles and each one of them has sucked. Not just Brubaker, Effross, Hamilton and Winans, but Garcia, Brent Headrick, Yoendrys Gomez, Tyler Matzek, Clayton Beeter and Geoff Hartlieb. (I leave Javien Sandridge out since his chance was sabotaged by Aaron Boone having him face Juan Soto and Pete Alonso as his first two hitters in the majors.) I guess all of those guys just really like living in Scranton and taking bus rides everywhere.

5. The Yankees desperately miss Fernando Cruz, Mark Leiter Jr. and Ryan Yarbrough They even miss Yerry De los Santos. If those four were healthy then Brubaker, Effross, Hamilton and Winans aren’t on the 26-man roster and the bullpen looks so much different and better. The team looks so much different and better.

6. Loaisiga’ latest disappointing effort put another obstacle in the way of a Yankees comeback, but they added a run in the seventh to make it 8-7 and tied the game at 8 in the eighth with Anthony Volpe’s second home run of the game. It was Volpe’s first multi-home run game of his career. It was his first multi-hit game since June 23 and his second multi-hit game since June 13. The two-home run game guarantees he will never come out of the lineup (not that he was ever going to anyway). If Boone was willing to tell Meredith Marakovits that Volpe “is fucking elite” last week, like Michael Kay reported, then he probably thinks he’s a Hall of Famer now after hitting two home runs in a game. But good for Volpe to help the Yankees win a game for the first time since … I don’t know? All season?

7. The game remained tied at 8 into the ninth. With the bases loaded and two outs in the top of the ninth, I feared the game would find its way to extra innings and the Yankees would endure yet another road extra-inning loss to add to their majors-worst record since the automatic runner was implemented in 2020. Trent Grisham put those fears to rest when he hit a go-ahead grand slam off Braves closer Raisel Iglesias to give the Yankees a 12-8 lead. They would go on to win 12-9.

8. Grisham batted in the leadoff spot on Friday and then sixth on Saturday. I figured his two-hit, five-RBI night would have him back in the leadoff spot on Sunday. Instead, he wasn’t even in the lineup. Never change, Boone and the Yankees. Never change. Saturday’s win was so important to keep pace with the Blue Jays (who won again), but also important because with Marcus Stroman going on Sunday it wasn’t unrealistic to expect the Yankees to lose. But Stroman didn’t suck, and the Yankees didn’t lose. Stroman pitched six innings of one-run ball and the Yankees won 4-2.

Here are Stroman’s first three starts of the season in March and April:

9.1 IP, 12 H, 12 R, 12 ER, 7 BB, 7 K, 2 HR, 11.57 ERA, 2.036 WHIP

Here are Stroman’s four starts in June and July since coming off the injured list:

21 IP, 21 H, 7 R, 7 ER, 5 BB, 12 K, 3 HR, 3.00 ERA, 1.238 WHIP

9. The best possible scenario is occurring with Stroman for the Yankees. He missed too much time to have his 2026 salary clause automatically kick in, as long as four of Max Fried, Carlos Rodon, Luis Gil, Will Warren, Ryan Yarbrough, Cam Schlittler or any starter the Yankees trade for are healthy in October then Stroman won’t be needed in the postseason and he’s giving the Yankees winnable starts now at a time when they need him and need him to be good the most. It couldn’t have worked out better.

This four-start run doesn’t mean anyone should feel good when Stroman gets the ball and everyone should be concerned with him scheduled to start against the Phillies at Yankee Stadium next weekend, but for now, Stroman is doing exactly what the Yankees need him to do.

10. The next three games are the most important of the season to date. Three games in Toronto with three games separating the Yankees and Blue Jays in the division. The Yankees have their pitching set up with Rodon, Fried and Schlittler, and all of their rostered position players healthy and available. The bullpen is an enormous weak spot and could potentially ruin this series, but here’s to hoping it doesn’t come to that. How about eight from Rodon to Weaver on Monday and then eight from Fried to Weaver on Tuesday and then six from Schlittler to Hill, Weaver and Williams on Wednesday? Keep everyone else in the bullpen and as far away from the mound as possible and keep Boone’s decision-making to a minimum. That seems like a good plan to me. Let’s go with that plan.

1. The Yankees played a series against a contender, so you know can guess how it went: they lost two of three. To no surprise, the Yankees are 5-11 against the current division leaders this year. (They have yet to play Houston and Philadelphia.)

As currently constructed, the Yankees’ ceiling is likely enduring the same fate they did last year: losing in the World Series (hopefully without the humiliation). And to get there, as of now, they would have to win a best-of-3 against the Red Sox (a team that has won 10 straight and is 5-1 against the Yankees this year) then beat either the Astros or the Tigers in the ALDS, and then likely whichever one of the Astros or Tigers they didn’t face in the ALDS in the ALCS. The road to the 2025 World Series is going to be littered with obstacles. The path isn’t going to be the red carpet the Yankees received last year with Kansas City and Cleveland.

2. With the “first half” complete, the Yankees have the AL’s fourth-best record and the majors’ ninth-best. Despite this, their manager refers to them as the best team in the league. That opinion is shared by the players who talk about how good they are and how good they know they can be (like Will Warren did again on Sunday), but don’t play like it, having lost 18 of their last 29 games.

In that time the Yankees have watched their division lead vanish. Once eight games ahead of the Blue Jays, they are now two games behind them. Once 12 games ahead of the Red Sox in the loss column, that lead is now down to two and they are tied in wins.

3. After beating the Cubs 11-0 on Friday, the Yankees lost 5-2 on Saturday and 4-1 on Sunday. That’s their motto: Win blowouts and lose close games. The offense was no-hit until the eighth inning on Thursday, shut out until the ninth on Saturday and held to one run on Sunday in a game in which they sent the minimum amount of batters to the plate over the final seven innings.

A lot has been made about the Yankees scoring five-plus runs in the first 10 games of July, but they went 5-5 in those games. That’s because their pitching has been atrocious. Inconsistent starting pitching combined with a depleted bullpen and a manager who doesn’t have a clue about how to utilize the relievers he does have has led the Yankees to a 5-7 record this month despite scoring 6.3 runs per game.

4. Carlos Rodon completed eight scoreless innings on Friday with some magnificent help from Aaron Judge in right field. Max Fried left Saturday’s game with a blister on his left hand in what was his shortest and worst start of the season (and he has now been blah to bad in four of his last five starts). Warren put nine baserunners on in 5 1/3 innings on Sunday, but limited the damage to two runs. One good start, one bad start and one OK start. That’s the way it has been going for the Yankees for the last month. Mostly, when they hit, they don’t pitch, and when they pitch, they don’t hit. And when things are going well, their manager hinders their odds of winning, like on Sunday.

5. In the series finale, the game was tied with one out in the sixth. With a well-rested bullpen, 11 outs to get and four complete days off ahead, who do you think was the first reliever out of the bullpen? Ian Hamilton! Hamilton allowed a two-run home run to the first batter he faced, the Cubs took the lead and never looked back.

Paul O’Neill suggested on YES that Boone should have let Hamilton start the inning clean instead of having him come in with a runner in scoring position. Are you new around here, Paul? Stealing outs with the starting pitcher is Boone’s signature move. Whether it’s April or July or September or even the postseason, Boone will stop at nothing to try to get an extra out from a clearly labored and fatigued starter. It’s what he does best.

6. The trade deadline is 17 days away. I wouldn’t give up anything of value for the third base options that have been mentioned. Because the options aren’t worth giving up anything for. You’re either getting a good bat with no defense or good defense with no bat. This team also isn’t a third baseman away from wining a championship. They are a third baseman, a starting pitcher, at least two relievers, a shortstop and a manager away.

Even if the Yankees trade for a third baseman, get a starter and two relievers, Boone will still be in the dugout and Anthony Volpe will still be at shortstop. Brian Cashman likes to say the Yankees went to the World Series with Volpe at shortstop. But when he says that, he doesn’t mention that the Yankees lost the World Series. That they were thoroughly embarrassed in the World Series. He doesn’t mention that Volpe was part of the fifth-inning meltdown. He doesn’t talk about only needing to beat the Royals and Guardians to win the pennant.

7. It’s painful watching Volpe play. He can’t hit for average. He doesn’t have power. He’s a liability on balls hit to him. His arm is weak. His baserunning instincts are poor and his overall Baseball IQ is frightening. There’s not a single positive quality he brings on the field, and his media sessions are every bit as bad as his actual play.

After Sunday’s game, in which he posted his latest 0-for and screwed up two more plays in the field, the media huddled around Volpe to hear him say, “Everything’s in front of us.” I wonder where he learned that line from. From his manger, of course. The same manager who backed Volpe’s ridiculous inning-extending play on Sunday by blaming Jazz Chisholm.

“As a shortstop, you gotta have the freedom to try and get yourself the best hop,” Boone said, “and then, Jazz probably has to turn into a first baseman there where we’re stretching.”

No, it can’t be the Golden Boy’s fault. It can’t be the fault of the shortstop who won’t charge a ball and doesn’t have the arm to make up for his hesitation.

“I feel like we have the makings of a good defensive club,” Boone said, as delusional as ever.

8. Volpe is down to .214/.287/.384 offensively. His .671 OPS is right in line with his .663 career OPS. He’s down to being 14 percent worse than league average with an 86 OPS+. Guess what his OPS+ was last year? 86. There has been no improvement even though Boone told everyone two weeks ago how much he has improved year over year and how “everybody is losing their mind” when it comes to criticizing the Golden Boy’s performance. Volpe is at best the same hitter he was in 2023 and 2024, and now he’s a worse defender and baserunner. But sure, keep telling everyone what they see every single day (since he gets to play every single day the way All-Stars Judge and Jazz Chisholm do) isn’t real and that it’s all an illusion. The Yankees’ internal metrics will tell you Volpe should have been elected an All-Star like Judge and Chisholm. The same metrics that Boone cited when talking about how great Isiah Kiner-Falefa was at shortstop in 2023, only to bench him in the postseason. The same metrics that Boone cited in talking about Gleyber Torres’ 2024 season when he was leading all second baseman in errors, and then when it came time to pay Torres they let him walk.

9. Volpe isn’t the answer at shortstop. He’s likely not an answer at any position, because after 414 games and 1,674 career plate appearances he’s closer to not being a major leaguer than he is to being part of the solution, like Cashman told us last week. He’s not part of the solution, he’s part of the problem. A big part of it.

George Lombard Jr. needs to be part of the solution. The most enjoyable moment of the weekend for the Yankees was happening 900 miles away with Lombard Jr. starring in the Futures Game. Lombard Jr. is the most important person in the organization not currently on the 26-man roster. He needs to work out. He has to work out because Volpe certainly isn’t.

10. I typically hate the All-Star break with no baseball for four days. Not this year. This year I’m welcoming the All-Star break and it couldn’t have come at a better time. The Yankees need a break and I need a break from the Yankees.

Maybe the four days off will reset them before the open the “second half” in Atlanta. Maybe it will cool off the Red Sox who haven’t lost in their last 10 games. Maybe it will serve as tailspin for the Blue Jays who erased an eight-game deficit between Memorial Day and the Fourth of July. Maybe it will be the end of the Yankees’ annual summer swoon and for the rest of July and August and September they will be the team they were in March, April and May.

Here’s to four, Yankees-less, relaxing days this week. I don’t think the next nine-plus weeks won’t be so relaxing.