1. On Friday, before the Yankees opened a three-game season in Pittsburgh, I wrote: Anything less than a series win (especially with Paul Skenes not pitching), would be a disappointment. The series wasn’t a disappointment and was successful because the Yankees did win it, but it could have been and (nearly was) so much more if they had completed their three-run, ninth-inning comeback on Sunday and finished the job with a sweep.

2. The Yankees received one strong starting pitching effort in the series and that came from Max Fried on Friday (5.2 IP, 6 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 1 BB, 6 K, 1 HR). It felt like Fried wasn’t even that good, and yet, he allowed one run over 5 1/3 innings. It’s exciting to think about how good Fried will be when he’s “on” in one of his starts, which he certainly wasn’t on Opening Day and really wasn’t against the Pirates.

Fried was the beneficiary of 20 runs from his offense in the second game of the season, and he got more than enough run support again on Friday in the Yankees’ 9-4 win.

“It’s been incredible, especially the early runs,” Fried said. “It takes a lot off me, where I know that I can be a little more aggressive and go after guys.”

Fried is the last pitcher on the Yankees who needs run support. Marcus Stroman, on the other hand, could use all the help he can get.

3. After being bad against the Brewers last weekend (4.2 IP, 5 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 1 BB, 3 K, 1 HR), Stroman was even worse against the Pirates (4 IP, 3 H, 4 R, 4 ER, 3 BB, 3 K). In two starts, he’s pitched 8 2/3 innings, allowing seven earned runs for a nice, tidy 7.27 ERA.

In his start on Saturday, after giving back a two-run lead and then some with four runs against in the fourth, he was saved by a six-run outburst from the offense the following inning. I thought with a four-run lead Aaron Boone would send Stroman back out for the fifth to try to squeeze every last out of him, but instead, he did the right thing and pulled him, preventing further damage and the Yankees were able to coast to a 10-4 win.

I don’t think Boone pulled Stroman because he recognized it as the smart thing to do to win the game. I think he pulled him because the Yankees are going to do everything they can to prevent Stroman’s innings clause for 2026 from kicking in. If Stroman throws 140 innings this season, he is guaranteed $18 million for next season. With 8 2/3 innings through two starts, Stroman is on pace for 139 innings if he were to make 32 starts. For as bad as he has been, there is a very realistic path to him reaching that number even with four- and 4 2/3-innings starts. That means Boone will always have a short leash and an early hook for Stroman this season, and that’s a good thing.

4. Will Warren had himself a Stroman-esque start on Sunday: 4 IP, 6 H, 4 ER, 4 R, 1 BB, 5 K. Warren retired the first eight batters of the game before unraveling in the fourth.

“There was a lot of good in there,” Boone said of Warren, “mixed with little spots where he lost it.”

I would say it was a big spot where he lost it: with two outs and no one on in the fourth. From that moment on, Warren went walk, single, double, single, strikeout, groundout, triple, sacrifice fly, single, double, strikeout. I thought Warren was going to be good and then he walked Isiah Kiner-Falefa (who doesn’t walk) with two outs to start the third-inning rally and let Kiner-Falefa crush a first-pitch, RBI double to the gap in the fourth.

Kiner-Falefa wasn’t the only ex-Yankee to have big day against his former team, keeping up with a tradition that seemingly will never end (except for Nestor Cortes in the second game of the season, though Cortes is now on the injured list with the same injury that kept him out for most of September and most of October last season before Boone decided he was the best option to try to get Freddie Freeman out in Game 1 of the World Series). Joining Kiner-Falefa in the series finale was the pitching trio of Andrew Heaney, Dennis Santana and Caleb Ferguson, all former Yankees pitchers who were all designated for assignment by the team. Heaney had a 7.32 ERA in 35 2/3 innings as a Yankee, Santana had a 6.26 in 27 1/3 innings and Ferguson had a 5.13 in 33 1/3 innings. The trio combined to throw nine innings of one-run ball in the Yankees’ 5-4, 11-inning loss on Sunday.

5. The Yankees’ issues with left-handed pitching have been pronounced through nine games as every opposing manager is doing what he can to throw as many lefties as possible against the Yankees. This isn’t a small sample size issue either. When you can’t hit Heaney (who struck out 10 over seven innings) and Ferguson (who pitched around the automatic runner against the heart of the order in the 10th), it’s a big-time problem.

After staging an improbable comeback down three runs in the ninth, the Yankees were set up to take the lead in the 10th with Cody Bellinger, Aaron Judge and Jazz Chisholm due up. They had used Luke Weaver in the eighth, had him available for a second inning, if needed, and also had Devin Williams available. The extra-inning setup was heavily advantageous for them. And they pissed it away.

With the automatic runner (Paul Goldschmidt) on second to start the 10th, Bellinger got ahead of Ferguson 3-0. If Bellinger were to walk, the Pirates would be forced to pitch to Judge. Bellinger took the 3-0 pitch down the middle and then swung at a slider low, away and in the other batter’s box for strike 2. It was a selfish, undisciplined swing decision from Bellinger. Now at 3-2, he would need to at least put the ball in play to move Goldschmidt to third. He did that, but the Pirates, as expected, sent Judge to first.

Then came Chisholm, who is about the last Yankee you want up in a situational hitting scenario. After putting himself in a hole, Chisholm eventually put the ball in play, but it was a weak flare just past the infield that was easily catchable and too shallow for Goldschmidt to tag up on. Anthony Volpe ended the inning with a groundout.

6. Weaver made quick work of the Pirates in the 10th, but the Yankees couldn’t capitalize on a Pirates error in the 11th with the automatic runner on third and one out. In the bottom of the 11th, the Pirates stole third with one out against Williams, and idiotically Boone let Williams pitch to Tommy Pham, the Pirates one veteran hitter, with first and second base open and Pham hit the ball to left field for the walk-off win.

“It was a little bit of a tough day for us offensively,” Boone said, but what a great rally there in the ninth to get us back into it.”

It was a great rally, ruined by the Yankees’ situational hitting in extras. There’s a reason the Yankees have been one of the league’s worst teams in extra innings since the automatic runner was implemented five years ago: a combination of bad situational hitters and an uninspiring manager. The Pirates stole third with one out in the 11th, knowing they were unlikely to get a hit off of Williams to win the game. The Yankees? They waited around for a hit that never came and wasn’t going to come once Judge was intentionally walked.

7. Williams’ numbers were so good with the Brewers that he had become the best reliever in baseball, at least on paper. But so far, as a Yankee, he has been extremely underwhelming. Maybe that’s because it’s not ideal to have your closer’s best pitch be a changeup. He gets a pass for now, considering his Opening Day debacle was his first appearance with his new team in freezing weather, then he missed time with the birth of his child, and had a long layoff. I expected him to be more unhittable than he has been, and not Tommy Kahnle 2.0.

8. Trent Grisham has been Juan Soto 2.0 through the first week-and-a-half of the season. Grisham is hitting .455/.538/.909 with three home runs, nine RBIs, three walks and only four strikeouts. He homered twice on Saturday and drove in the game-tying runs in the ninth on Sunday. He has already passed Alex Verdugo’s 2024 season in terms of WAR despite this season being only six percent complete and despite Grisham having only started only five of the Yankees’ nine games.

9. After a big first two games as a Yankee, Bellinger is 2-for-19 with six strikeouts sandwiched around missing a couple of games with a stiff back on Friday and Saturday. In the last four games hitting in front of Judge, he’s 2-for-16 with two walks and seven strikeouts. The Yankees are 1-3 in those games. If you’re going to hit in front of Judge, you have to hit, especially since you’re getting pitches to hit.

10. It would be good if Bellinger started hitting in Detroit because the Yankees are going to need him. They are going to need all of the offense they can get (and will continue to need it until Clarke Schmidt and Luis Gil return) as they face Casey Mize (5 2/3 shutout innings in his first start this season), Tarik Skubal (reigning Cy Young winner) and Jack Flaherty (typically tough except for Game 5 of the World Series) over the next three frigid afternoons. They will counter with Carlos Rodon (5.48 ERA in 13 career starts against the Tigers), Carlos Carrasco (I don’t think anyone will ever feel good about him starting) and Max Fried (the Yankees’ only trustworthy starter).

The Yankees struggled with Detroit last season and then the Tigers miraculously made the playoffs, knocked off the Astros and took the Guardians to do-or-die Game 5 before their season ended. The Tigers paved the path to the World Series for the Yankees. (Had the Yankees played the Tigers in the ALCS, I think it would have been problematic given their pitching staff.) This is going to be a tough series.

1. Last July, in the middle of their annual midseason free fall, the Yankees were swept at home in a three-game series by the Reds. It was the first time the Yankees were swept at home by a National League team in a series of at least three games in the history of interleague play. (Another nice highlight for Aaron Boone’s managerial résumé.) On Thursday, the Yankees were faced with the possibility of being swept at home by an NL team for the second time in as many seasons after having never been from 1997 through 2023.

“We don’t get swept at home,” Giancarlo Stanton reportedly told the Yankees clubhouse before Thursday’s series (and season) finale against the Diamondbacks (apparently forgetting about last season’s Reds series). And they didn’t. But their manager, his bullpen management and the back end of their bullpen tried their hardest to.

2. The Yankees took a 3-0 lead in the first inning before making an out, thanks to an Aaron Judge three-run home run. The lead was extended to 4-0 in the opening inning after a Jasson Dominguez single and Trent Grisham double.

Carlos Carrasco gave a run back in the second, but the Yankees got that run back and more when Grisham hit a two-run home run to give them a 6-1 lead through three. Carrasco allowed two in the top half of the fourth, but again the Yankees responded in the bottom half of the inning with a Judge RBI single and a Jazz Chisholm two-run home run to make it 9-3. A six-run lead through four with a well-rested bullpen? Not even Boone could screw this up, but he would try.

3. Carrasco was pulled with one out in the sixth and Adam Ottavino got the last two outs of the inning to preserve the 9-3 lead. In the seventh, the game began to unravel.

Ryan Yarbrough relieved Ottavino for the seventh. He began his night by walking the Diamondbacks’ 8 and 9 hitters. Corbin Carroll followed with a base hit to load the bases with no outs. Yarbrough had thrown 15 pitches and only six for strikes. He had loaded the bases with no outs for the heart of the Diamondbacks’ order. He had faced the minimum three batters and could be removed from the game. Boone decided to stick with the pitcher the Yankees signed three days before Opening Day after he opted out of his minor-league deal with the Blue Jays believing Yarbrough was about to find “it” and turn his night around. Yarbrough allowed a grand slam to the next batter, Geraldo Perdomo.

4. The Yankees’ 9-3 lead was now 9-7 with still no one out in the seventh. Boone decided not retiring any of the four batters Yarbrough faced while allowing four runs wasn’t as bad as it was, so he stayed with him until he recorded a couple of outs. Then Boone called on Mark Leiter Jr. to get the last out of the inning.

The Yankees’ six-run lead had been cut to two, but with a more-than-rested Luke Weaver available, certainly Boone would go to his best (available) reliever (with Devin Williams still on paternity leave) for two innings. Six outs from Weaver would be more than doable since Boone passed on using him in a similar situation on Tuesday and because Weaver hadn’t been used in a week since Opening Day last Thursday.

5. When the eighth began, Leiter Jr. was still on the mound and Weaver was still in the bullpen. Was Weaver hurt and the Yankees weren’t announcing it? Was Boone trying to save him for only the ninth like he regrettably had two nights prior? What the fuck was going on?

After Leiter Jr. allowed a two-out base hit to bring the tying run to the plate, Boone called for Weaver. So Boone was willing to go to Weaver for four outs, but not before Leiter Jr. brought the tying run to the plate. If Boone was willing to go to Weaver for four outs (which he did), why didn’t he come into the game after Leiter Jr. got the second out of the inning? Stealing outs, that’s why. In Year 8 of Boone as manager, he’s still managing like he’s making his managerial debut in Toronto eight years ago.

6. Unsurprisingly, Weaver retired pinch-hitter Gabriel Moreno to end the eighth and then pitched a 1-2-3 ninth to prevent the Yankees from being swept by the Diamondbacks and from falling to .500. (If only Boone had used Weaver two nights early in a situation that called for Weaver rather than a set inning, the Yankees may be 5-1 right now instead of 4-2.)

7. “We never exhale,” Judge said. “We’ve seen that too many times in this game, where you score early and a team answers right back. That’s been our thing at the beginning of this year: Don’t let off the gas.” Keep scoring until you get that final out.”

Judge knows the team can’t exhale with Boone’s bullpen management. No lead is safe with Boone pushing the buttons. This new mantra from the Yankees must be from what unfolded after they took a 5-0 lead in Game 5 of the World Series.

For any Yankees fan who want to blame Yarbrough for the grand slam rather than Boone for sticking with him after he loaded the bases, you’re a fool. This wasn’t Boone sticking with an elite relief option. This was Boone sticking with a reliever who couldn’t get a major-league offer in the offseason and then became a Yankee at the end of spring training because of the litany of injuries to the pitching staff.

8. To Boone’s credit, he did put together a lineup that generated nine runs, even if four of those runs were driven in by Judge and penciling Judge into the lineup is as automatic as Boone stealing outs late in a close game. But Boone did slot Ben Rice in the leadoff spot and he doubled, walked twice and scored two runs, and he played Grisham and he went 3-for-4 with a double, home run and three RBIs.

9. A year ago to the day (April 3), Merrill Kelly pitched well against the Yankees in Arizona (7 IP, 5 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 1 BB, 4 K, 1 HR), but in this one he was atrocious: 3.2 IP, 9 H, 9 R, 9 ER, 3 BB, 2 K, 3 HR. Carrasco was “fine” for Carrasco (5.1 IP, 5 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 2 BB, 5 K) and pitched about as well as any Yankees fan could ask for at this stage of his career. If he can hold the damage to three runs in five-plus innings per start for as long as he’s here, the team will be OK in games he starts. The next time he will get the ball is on Tuesday in Detroit.

Before then, the Yankees will play three against the Pirates in Pittsburgh as part of their first road trip of the season. Thankfully, they’ll miss Paul Skenes in the series (though they will see Tarik Skubal next week).

10. The Pirates are horrible. They are off to a 2-5 start with a negative-12 run differential and it’s highly likely they never see .500 again this season. Anthony Volpe has as many home runs (4) as the entire Pirates roster and the Yankees scored more runs in eight innings last Saturday (20) than the Pirates have scored in seven games (18). This is the type of team contenders beat up on, which the Yankees believe they are. Actually, this is the type of team every team beats up on, as the also-lowly Marlins took three of four from them to begin the season. Anything less than a series win (especially with Skenes not pitching), would be a disappointment.

1. Yesterday, following Tuesday’s first loss of the season, I wrote:

The Yankees can never just lose. By “just lose” I mean get blown out, shut down, shut out, never have a chance in the game. They either win, blow a game late, bring the tying run to the plate in the ninth, have an abundance of blown opportunities to tie or take the lead, or suffer a painful, excruciating loss. Yes, it keeps every game entertaining and means the Yankees are “in” every game, but at the same time, their losses and the way they lose always seem to be extremely detrimental to the health and wellbeing of their fans.

I finished yesterday’s Thoughts with this:

If the Yankees don’t get back in the win column on Wednesday or Thursday, I’m sure it will come as the result of an agonizing loss. That’s the only way they lose.

The Yankees lost a second straight game on Wednesday, and sure enough, it was the type of loss where they drag you back in in the ninth by bringing the tying run to the plate only to lose anyway.

2. For the first eight-and-a-half innings on Wednesday, the Yankees’ 4-3 loss to the Diamondbacks was shaping up to be a “Get ’em tomorrow” kind of game. Carlos Rodon was brutal in the first two innings, staking the Diamondbacks to a 4-0 lead, and Zac Gallen was masterful for 6 2/3 innings, completely stifling the Yankees’ bats, both standard and torpedo.

It was exactly a year to the day (April 2) that Gallen shut down the 2024 Yankees in Arizona: 6 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 3 BB, 6 K. But he was even better against the 2025 Yankees on Wednesday: 6.2 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 13 K. Combine those two lines and you get 12.2 IP, 6 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 3 BB, 19 K. That is a Cliff Lee-against-the-Yankees line.

“It will be a game we will look back on,” Aaron Boone said. “He was just dialed in. He had both breaking balls going. The changeup was working. He was moving the fastball around.”

So based on that summarization, Gallen was … pitching? Using two two breaking balls?! Throwing an effective changeup?! Moving around the fastball?! He was … doing his job? Something Rodon didn’t do in the game until it was too late.

3. Gallen kept the Yankees’ bats off balance the entire night, consistently getting swings and misses on his curveball and changeup. It was frustrating to watch his dominance as he became the first pitcher in history to strike out 13 Yankees without allowing a walk for a win.

The strikeouts didn’t end with Gallen. In 2 1/3 innings of relief, the Diamondbacks’ bullpen added three more for a game total of 16. Add those 16 to the 13 from the previous night and the Yankees struck out 29 times over the last two nights. Twenty-nine! TWENTY-NINE! Over two games, they struck out the equivalent of a full game of outs plus two more outs. That’s the thing about the torpedo bats: they only work when you make contact.

4. Austin Wells was the only Yankee to not strike out, while Aaron Judge, Jasson Dominguez and Ben Rice all picked up hat tricks at the plate. I wasn’t OK with the Yankees’ offensive effort, especially after they mustered only three non-error-aided runs the night before, but I was OK with them losing the way it seemed like they were going to lose rather than giving fans hope they may stage a late comeback. And then they went and tried to stage a late comeback.

5. After making a three-run lead stand up on Tuesday, A.J. Puk took the mound with a four-run lead on Wednesday. Cody Bellinger and Aaron Judge greeted him with singles, but Jazz Chisholm flew out for the first out. Then Anthony Volpe torpedo’d the first pitch he saw just over the wall of the short porch for a three-run home run. Suddenly, the Yankees’ four-run deficit was one.

In that situation I wish Volpe had singled, or walked, or doubled. If Volpe had loaded the bases with one out, or had driven in a run with still two on, I would have liked the Yankees’ chances more. I under statistically that’s wrong, but the math doesn’t account for the human element of Puk having to deal with runners on base and increased pressure. Once Volpe cleared the bases, it allowed a Puk to reset, and he got Wells to pop up and struck out Dominguez to end the game.

6. Never a normal loss. That’s what I wrote after Tuesday’s loss, and it proved true again on Wednesday. The Yankees couldn’t just go down quietly in the ninth. They had to make you momentarily believe they could do to the Diamondbacks what the Diamondbacks had done to them the previous night. They had to make you start playing the “what if” game from the earlier innings. Like what if the Yankees hadn’t stranded runners on second and third with one out in the second? What if Rodon hadn’t thrown 92-mph meatballs in the first two innings? Unfortunately, they did strand those runners, and unfortunately, Rodon was awful in the first two innings.

7. “[Early in the game] maybe it was just a little weather-related, a little cooler and stuff,” Aaron Boone said of Rodon’s performance. “[Rodon] was searching to find the strike zone a little bit there in those first couple of innings, but I thought stuff-wise, once he settled in, he was pretty good.”

YES also talked about Rodon being affected by the weather in the first two innings. Oddly, Gallen didn’t have any issue with the weather. Rodon has spent his career pitching for the White Sox, Giants and Yankees, all teams that are exposed to the elements and all teams that have games at the beginning and end of seasons in poor weather. Gallen has only ever pitched for the Marlins and Diamondbacks, in controlled climates, where weather isn’t a factor.

It’s nice that Boone thought Rodon had “pretty good” stuff “once he settled in.” Once he settled in the Yankees were down four runs against once of the game’s best pitchers. It was the type of performance we have seen from Rodon so many times where he puts the team in an early hole and then figures it out once it’s too late. I guess being able to regrow facial hair wasn’t the key to unlocking the White Sox and Giants version of Rodon.

8. It was a bad night at the plate for everyone other than Wells (single, double, only Yankee to not strike out) and Volpe (three-run home run). I understand Wells hasn’t led off since Opening Day because Boone says the Yankees have faced reverse-split starters since then, but it didn’t seem to matter which hand any of the Yankees used to bat against Gallen on Wednesday. As for Volpe, he has four hits this season and all are home runs. He batted seventh on Opening Day, and then after homering in that game, he has batted fifth since. Being the Golden Boy of the organization is nice.

I could see Wells sitting for the first time of the season on Thursday. I could also see Paul Goldschmidt sitting since Michael Kay said as much on the broadcast, opining, “In all likelihood — he’s played all five games — probably gets tomorrow off,” in regard to Goldschmidt. I’m sure Kay knows something. No Wells and no Goldschmidt would mean the Yankees would need to use a third leadoff hitter for their sixth game of the year.

9. It will be Merrill Kelly against Carlos Carrasco on Wednesday in the series finale. Kelly was good in his first start of the season and was good against the Yankees on April 3 of last year: 7 IP, 5 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 1 BB, 4 K, 1 HR. (It’s crazy both Gallen and Kelly will face the Yankees on the same dates in consecutive seasons.)

I don’t have a lot of confidence in Carrasco. He was good enough to win a roster spot on the team in spring training, helped by the excessive injuries to the Yankees’ staff, but he was horrible in two innings of relief against the Brewers. Do you think Carrasco is the guy who pitched well in fake games in March, or the guy who a 5.36 ERA over his last 401 1/3 innings dating back to 2021? I don’t expect much from Carrasco. I don’t expect anything. I expect Carrasco to make Rodon’s performance from Wednesday feel like Gallen’s based on how I think Carrasco is going to fare on Thursday.

10. Carrasco is pitching for his career at this point. He’s already in line to be a DFA candidate once (if) the Yankees’ pitching gets healthy. Maybe that’s enough for him to turn back the clock five-plus years. It wasn’t when he pitched on Saturday. It needs to be on Thursday, or the offense is going to have to show up after taking the last two nights off. Otherwise, all of the runs, all of the home runs, all of the winning from the weekend will be undone and the Yankees will be sitting at .500.

1. The Yankees can never just lose. By “just lose” I mean get blown out, shut down, shut out, never have a chance in the game. They either win, blow a game late, bring the tying run to the plate in the ninth, have an abundance of blown opportunities to tie or take the lead, or suffer a painful, excruciating loss. Yes, it keeps every game entertaining and means the Yankees are “in” every game, but at the same time, their losses and the way they lose always seem to be extremely detrimental to the health and wellbeing of their fans. Sure enough, they couldn’t “just lose” for their first loss of 2025.

2. It would have been easy to stomach Will Warren getting knocked around by a very good Diamondbacks lineup in his first start as officially part of the Yankees’ rotation. It would have been acceptable if the bats went quiet against Corbin Burnes and never had a chance in the game. But no, Warren was solid (5 IP, 2 ER), Burnes gave up a pair of solo home runs to Jasson Dominguez and Anthony Volpe to allow the Yankees to tie the game, and Josh Naylor, of all players, gifted the Yankees a two-run error to give them a 4-2 lead in the fourth inning.

3. Aaron Boone had it easy in the first three games of the season. On Opening Day, he was able to go from starter to middle relief to Luke Weaver to Devin Williams for a win. Things got rocky with Williams, but if he had blown the three-run lead in the ninth, no one would have faulted Boone as the game unfolded easily for him, presenting the blueprint for a win my four-year-old son could have implemented. Then in the second game of the season, the Yankees blasted the Brewers for 20 runs, and in the third game, another 12. Boone didn’t have to manage or make any difficult decisions for the first three games of the year. Then came Tuesday.

4. Once it was announced Devin Williams would be out of the equation for the birth of his child, you knew the back end of the game would have the opportunity to be complicated for Boone, and it was. After Fernando Cruz gave the Yankees two perfect and dominant relief innings with four strikeouts to keep their 4-2 lead from the fourth, Boone went to Tim Hill with the 8-9-1 hitters due up in the eighth. Torey Lovullo had Randal Grichuk (who kills both lefties and the Yankees) on his bench, and once Hill took the mound, Grichuk went in as a pinch hitter, and immediately rocked a leadoff double to left. Geraldo Perdomo followed with a single down the first-base line, and just like that, the Yankees’ lead was down to 4-3 and the Diamondbacks had the tying run on base with no outs.

Hill retired Corbin Carroll for the first out of the game, and then Boone had a decision to make. He could gamble and try to preserve the lead by getting the next out or two with Hill or another middle relief option to save Luke Weaver for the ninth inning, or he could go to Weaver right then with the tying run on second and heart of the Diamondbacks’ order due up. If you didn’t see the game, you already know which choice Boone made.

5. Boone called on Mark Leiter Jr., who was good in the Brewers series, but has been a disaster since becoming a Yankee. In order to preserve the lead, Leiter would have to get the final two outs of the eighth against the Diamondbacks’ 2-3-4 hitters.

Leiter didn’t get the last two outs of the eighth. He got one, and then gave up a go-ahead grand slam to Eugenio Suarez on a 2-2 splitter that split in the strike zone. After taking a fastball down the middle in the second pitch of the at-bat and swinging through a fastball on the fourth pitch of the at-bat, it was obvious Suarez wasn’t sitting on a fastball from Leiter. Paul O’Neill said as much based on Suarez’s takes on YES. But that didn’t stop Leiter (and Austin Wells) from going away from the fastball on the fifth pitch, and the Yankees were on their way to their first loss of the season.

“Just not his sharpest outing,” Boone said of Leiter. “It just wasn’t a good split, obviously, that he threw there.”

6. You have to love Boone essentially saying the loss was on Leiter. Did Leiter insert himself into a high-leverage situation against the heart of an order on Tuesday? If Williams had been with the team, it would have been Weaver in the eighth and Williams in the ninth, and Boone’s job would have been as easy as it had been on Opening Day. But because Weaver became the interim closer for the night he had to pitch the ninth for Boone. I thought baseball had evolved from set innings for relievers when Terry Francona went to Andrew Miller in the middle innings of the 2016 postseason. I thought the idea of having your best reliever pitch against the heart of the order with the game on the line regardless of the inning was more important than having them pitch in a set inning regardless of which part of the order was due up. Just look in the other dugout where Lovullo did just that.

7. “The Diamondbacks’ closer is Kevin Ginkel and he is out with shoulder inflammation, so they are mixing and maxing with Martinez who we saw in the eighth and A.J. Puk,” Michael Kay said on YES. “The better hitters were coming up in the eighth inning and they had Martinez pitch the eighth and he stuck them out.”

Lovullo went to his best reliever in the eighth with Aaron Judge and Jazz Chisholm due up. All Martinez did was strike out the side and put any hope of a comeback on life support. Puk pitched the ninth and even though Puk typically can’t be trusted, he could be with a three-run lead against the bottom of the order. Puk’s chance at success was vastly improved when the left-handed reliever was given an all-left-handed-batter lane to face in the ninth. How did Puk get that lane? From Boone, of course, who inexplicably pulled Dominguez after his at-bat in the sixth to put Trent Grisham in the game for defensive purposes.

“Taking Dominguez out and bringing in Grisham,” Kay said, “you set up a lane for Lovullo to bring in a lefty and counteract three straight lefties.”

8. Do the Yankees really need Grisham playing one-third of every game for defensive purposes? Do they really think that’s best for the development of Dominguez as an outfielder? All Dominguez did earlier in the game was improve his OPS to .974 on the year with his first home run of the season. (After getting ahead of Puk 1-0, Grisham took three straight strikes to strike out.)

9. Yes, it was just one loss, their first loss. Yes it’s going to happen many more times this season (but hopefully not more than 73 times for my over 88.5 wins wager). Did the Yankees deserve to win? No, it’s hard to win when you score three non-error-aided runs, strike out 14 times and have a manager who continues to be clueless in his eighth season in the position. But the Yankees could have won. They were gifted two runs with a Cy Young-caliber pitcher on the mound and were four outs away from a win.

10. Now it’s up to the two Carloses to prevent undoing everything from the wild opening weekend against the Brewers. If the Yankees don’t get back in the win column on Wednesday or Thursday, I’m sure it will come as the result of an agonizing loss. That’s the only way they lose.

1. I feared Nestor Cortes shutting down the Yankees on Saturday at the Stadium the way so many ex-Yankees have over the years. My fear was all for nothing as Cortes did his best to repay Yankees fans for the Freddie Freeman walk-off grand slam he allowed in Game 1 of the World Series. Cortes will never be able to completely make up that moment to Yankees fans (though the blame is really more on Aaron Boone for using Cortes in that spot after he hadn’t pitched in weeks), but his performance in the second game of the season was a good start.

2. The first three pitches Cortes threw were all hit out of the park. First, it was Paul Goldschmidt, then it was Cody Bellinger, and finally, Aaron Judge. My four-year-old son who was in attendance with me and taking in his second game in the Bronx was stunned. As “X Gon’ Give It To Ya” played again and again and again and the crowd enjoying the 80-degree March weather went wild, my son trying to process what was happening looked at me with an expression of ‘Does this happen at every game?’

Sadly, it doesn’t. But after the back-to-back-to-back home runs had Cortes sitting on an infinite ERA three batters into his season, Austin Wells hit one out three batters after Judge. The next inning, Anthony Volpe did the same. Cortes was removed from the game after facing one batter in the third, and left having allowed eight earned runs, 11 baserunners and five home runs, while recording just six outs.

3. Amazingly, the power barrage didn’t end there. After Cortes was removed for walking Jasson Dominguez, Connor Thomas entered for his major-league debut and allowed a Trent Grisham single then hit Paul Goldschmidt with a pitch. Bellinger singled in Dominguez and Judge followed with a grand slam. Three pitches later with the crowd still celebrating Judge’s slam, Jazz Chisholm drilled a solo homer. The Yankees led 13-3 and had hit seven home runs. It was the third inning.

The next inning, Bellinger drove in another run and Judge hit another home run, his third in as many at-bats. The Yankees led 16-4 and had hit eight home runs. It was the fourth inning.

In the seventh, Oswald Peraza hit the Yankees’ ninth home run of the day, setting a franchise record for a single game.

4. After surviving the ninth inning on Opening Day, the Yankees blasted the Brewers 20-9 on Saturday. In a game that was essentially over in the second inning and had the floodgates blown open in the third inning, it wasn’t a game that lacked criticism for the Yankees. The same type of sloppy defense that we saw throughout 2024 (and have seen throughout the Boone era) was on full display in this one. The Yankees made five errors in the game, had trouble fielding ground balls and throwing to first base. Max Fried wasn’t sharp (4.2 IP, 7 H, 6 R, 2 ER, 2 BB, 4 K), but he got zero help behind him.

5. During the game, the YES booth went into the Yankees’ use of the “torpedo” bat designed by an MIT physicist and former Yankees employee. They explained how the team had developed new bats based on where their players were most likely to make contact with the ball. For players like Anthony Volpe and Jazz Chisholm who were shown using the bat, that happened to be on the label.

The Yankees’ analytics team has finally used their intelligence for good. After years of creating fictional stats to try to sell on the fans on the notion Gleyber Torres is among the best defensive second basemen in the game, that Joey Gallo is worth trading for and that taking on the $53 million owed to Josh Donaldson would be worth it, the brains behind the scenes did something great with the invention of the torpedo. With it, Volpe (.952 OPS) is a major-league hitter and Chisholm (1.667 OPS) is hitting like the left-handed Judge. Bellinger (1.057 OPS) is using some form of it, as is Goldschmidt (1.250 OPS). I love the torpedo bat.

6. Maybe the Yankees were going to destroy Brewers pitching to open the series no matter what. (It’s not like the trio of Freddy Peralta, Cortes and Aaron Civale is anything special.) And maybe with the weather being what it was on Saturday, feeling like mid-June in late March, the ball was going to fly out of the park with 90-mph middle-middle meatballs being thrown. But I would like to think the torpedo bat is what led to this because I want to be proud of the Yankees’ analytics department.

7. After going 4-for-6 with a double, three home runs and eight RBIs on Saturday, Judge, who isn’t using the torpedo bat, homered in his first at-bat on Sunday, which made the wind in the Bronx less annoying as the weather had turned back into what late-March weather is expected to be.

The two-run shot gave the Yankees a 2-1 lead after Marcus Stroman unsurprisingly allowed a first-inning run. The Yankees added to their lead in the second when Ben Rice hit a solo home run, and added more in the third when Chisholm hit a two-run home run. After homering on Saturday and in the third inning on Sunday, Chisholm, the face of the torpedo bat, hit his third home run of the weekend in the seventh inning, and the Yankees went on to win 12-3. Again, I love the torpedo bat.

8. I’m sure by the end of this week (and maybe by Monday’s games) many players throughout the league will be trying out a version of the torpedo bat. When you hit 15 home runs and score 36 runs in 24 innings at a time of year when pitching is supposed to dominate, people tend to notice.

9. Going into this season-opening series I figured Boone would be able to lean on Luke Weaver and Devin Williams more than he normally would with a day off on Wednesday and Friday and Monday. Williams took himself out of the equation for the rest of the weekend with his Opening Day performance and Judge and the torpedo made it so Weaver wasn’t needed for the rest of the weekend as well.

Aside from Williams’ self-created mess on Thursday, the bullpen (including only real relievers and not Carrasco who threw two innings on Saturday) shut out the Brewers. Weaver, Tim Hill, Mark Leiter Jr., Yoendrys Gomez, Fernando Cruz, Brent Hendrick and Ryan Yarbrough combined for this line: 9.1 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 2 BB, 14 K. For a bullpen that lost Clay Holmes and Tommy Kahnle and is waiting on Jonathan Loaisiga and Jake Cousins, that will work.

10. I don’t think the Yankees can count on double-digit runs this Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday night against the Diamondbacks. In the Yankees’ favor is the Diamondbacks having to go from spring training to their indoor home in Arizona to now the freezing Bronx where temperatures are supposed to be postseason-like aside from Thursday. In the Diamondbacks’ favor is the trio of Corbin Burnes, Zac Gallen and Merrill Kelly, who are all scheduled to start. The Yankees plan to counter with Will Warren, Carlos Rodon and Carlos Carrasco. At best, the pitching matchup in the second game of the series is even, otherwise the Diamondbacks have a massive edge on the mound with their three best. But their best has yet to face the torpedo bats.