The Yankees had a two-run lead with one out and no one on in the ninth. They were two outs away from taking a 2-1 series lead in the ALDS. Instead, they will be facing elimination in Game 4.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. Stunned. No, I’m not talking about the feeling that overcame me when the Guardians walked off the Yankees 6-5 in Game 3 of the ALDS. I’m talking about the feeling that overcame me as I watched Aaron Boone mismanage the Yankees to yet another postseason loss. I’m talking about the feeling that overcame me as Boone told unbelievable lies in his postgame press conference to try and cover his ass after he single-handedly cost the Yankees the pivotal game and put his team on the brink of elimination for Game 4.

The loss was the first in Yankees postseason history in which they held a multi-run lead entering the ninth inning. They had been 167-0 before Saturday night. It’s yet another historic moment in Yankees history under Boone to go along with the most lopsided home postseason loss in franchise history which he oversaw in the 2018 ALDS.

2. A day after Boone made it apparent Clarke Schmidt was below Jameson Taillon on the pitching pecking order for the postseason, he changed his mind. In Game 2, Schmidt wasn’t good enough to pitch in a tie game in the 10th inning before Taillon (who had never made a relief appearance in his career), but in Game 3, he was suddenly good enough to enter a game with one out and runners on the corners and the Yankees clinging to a two-run lead.

Schmidt nearly did get out of the impossible situation. With the bases loaded and one out, and the lead down to one run, he struck out Josh Naylor on three pitches. He followed it up by getting ahead of Oscar Gonzalez 1-2 and then threw a really good slider on the outside corner that Gonzalez was able to awkwardly get the bat on and poke up the middle for a two-run, walk-off single.

The Guardians’ high-contact approach produced bloops, grounders and line drives in the ninth, all resulting in the same thing: base hits. They had five singles in the ninth and finished the game with 15 hits to the Yankees’ five. The Yankees sat around and waited for the home run to come, and it did three times, once each by Aaron Judge, Oswaldo Cabrera and Harrison Bader, but nothing else. Just two other hits aside from those three home runs. The Guardians kept putting runners on base, while the Yankees continued to put together mostly feeble at-bats, and eventually the Guardians broke through with their three-run ninth to win the game.

3. Schmidt entered with one out in the ninth in relief of Wandy Peralta, who had entered the game long before in the seventh. Luis Severino was able to grind through 5 2/3 innings despite a rocky first and second inning thanks to some bad luck and some bad infield defense, and then Lou Trivino got one out, Jonathan Loaisiga got two outs and Peralta got five outs before allowing back-to-back singles with one out in the ninth, leading to his dismissal. The ninth should have been Clay Holmes’, but after the game, Boone explained why Holmes didn’t pitch.

Did you have Clay Holmes available?

“No. No. I mean he was down there available.”

Did you know going into the game you didn’t have him?

“It was was more of an emergency situation. Emergency, yeah.”

Just to be clear, there’s nothing wrong with his arm“

“No, just normal soreness, but nothing we’re alarmed at.”

Boone said Holmes wasn’t available and then immediately backtracked to say he was available. He said Holmes was only available in an “emergency situation,” and apparently the ninth inning of Game 3 of a best-of-5 series doesn’t qualify as an “emergency situation.” He also said Holmes had soreness. But Holmes didn’t have soreness. Because minutes after Boone made his comments to the media, Holmes contradicted everything he said.

“I woke up today preparing to pitch … It’s one of those things where I was preparing to do my job … They asked and I said I was good to go, if needed. That’s how the conversation was.”

Holmes went on to say he feels fine, was surprised he wasn’t used in the ninth, and said he was never told he wouldn’t be used on back-to-back days.

Remember when the Yankees hired Boone solely because of his communication skills? The same communication skills that led to him benching Gary Sanchez in the postseason without an explanation to the player. The same communication skills that told the media he didn’t feel like Domingo German needed to address the team coming back from his domestic violence suspension until Zack Britton made it clear German did need to address the team. The same communication skills that led to him and Holmes sharing completely different accounts of the pitcher’s health to the media. The same communication skills that led to his Game 3 starting pitcher questioning his managerial decisions to the media when asked if about Holmes not being used in the ninth.

“He’s our closer,” Severino said. “So of course I’m surprised.”

4. When Severino was removed from the game because Kiner-Falefa couldn’t make a routine play in the sixth inning to extend that inning, the Yankees’ bullpen needed to get 10 outs. If Boone knew he wasn’t going to use Holmes in the game (except in an undefined “emergency situation”) then why did he only let Lou Trivino get one out and Jonathan Loaisiga get two outs? That left seven outs needed to be recorded with only one reliever left from Boone’s bullpen inner circle: Peralta. So Boone had cornered himself into needing to get seven outs from one reliever, and that’s exactly what he tried to do.

Peralta had pitched 2 1/3 innings (which is what he would be asked to do in Game 3) once in 104 appearances as a Yankee. A day after asking Taillon to do something he has never done in his career, Boone would now ask Peralta to do something he had done once, and when Peralta couldn’t get the final two outs of the game, he turned to Schmidt to do something he had never done before. I can’t believe this well-thought-out bullpen plan didn’t work out.

5. The bullpen wasn’t the only mess Boone created. After the Yankees went scoreless for the final nine innings in Game 2, he decided to change the lineup for Game 3. It’s bad enough Gleyber Torres has been batting third for the Yankees, but Boone decided to move him to the leadoff spot, pushing Judge down to the 2-hole. This moved Rizzo from 2 to 3, but kept Stanton at 4. He left Donaldson at 5 because it’s 2015. At 6, he decided to put Isiah Kiner-Falefa and his .642 OPS. He moved Harrison Bader up from 9 to 7, started Kyle Higashioka and had him at 8 over Jose Trevino and moved Oswaldo Cabrera down to 9. (Yes, Higashioka was once again starting a postseason game for the Yankees over an All-Star catcher, and this All-Star catcher just happens to the best defensive catcher in the majors.)

Torres swung at the first pitch of the game and grounded out, completely negating his role as the leadoff hitter, essentially making Judge the leadoff hitter with one less out to work with in the first inning. Torres finished the game 0-for-4. Boone’s new-look 3-4-5-6 of Rizzo, Stanton, Donaldson and Kiner-Falefa combined to go 0-for-15 with a walkm, and Higashioka went 0-for-2 with two strikeouts and a walk. It turns out that rearranging the names of a collective group of mostly bad hitters doesn’t magically generate offense. Who could have known?

6. While Donaldson, Kiner-Falefa and Higashioka were allowed to get a full slate of plate appearances, Matt Carpenter went unused for the entire game for the second time in three games. Boone is purposely not using the team’s second-best hitter, choosing instead to believe in Donaldson as if it’s 2015, believe in Kiner-Falefa as if he’s ever been good and let Higashioka play a complete game for unknown reasons.

Carpenter wasn’t the only the player on the bench who should have played and didn’t. Cabrera was left in left field in the ninth inning despite having Aaron Hicks and Tim Locastro on the bench. And for the second time in as many days, Cabrera let a ball fall in front of him that a more experienced and veteran left fielder would have likely gotten to.

7. Kiner-Falefa’s inability to handle a double play ball in the first inning allowed a run to score and forced Severino to throw 15 more pitches. In the sixth with two outs, when Kiner-Falefa triple clutched before wildly throwing a routine ground ball wide of first, he caused the inning to be extended in which the Guardians sent three more batters to the plate and scored a run.

Kiner-Falefa is the worst everyday player in Yankees history on a team expected to win the World Series. He can’t hit and he can’t field, and yet, he has maintained his everyday playing status despite all of this to the point that Oswald Peraza isn’t even on the ALDS roster. When asked about Kiner-Falefa’s two “errors” in the game (which were both scored hits as the official scorer in Cleveland is a relative of Kiner-Falefa), Boone defended the player he earlier this season called “one of the best shortstops in the game.”

8. While the Yankees were trying to grind out a win to take a 2-1 series lead, the Astros were sweeping the Mariners in their ALDS. The Astros will now have three full days off before Game 1 of the ALCS on Wednesday in Houston. They will be able to set up their rotation how they want it and give extended rest to their bullpen. The Yankees will need to exhaust every pitching option over the next two days just to get to the ALCS. They will then not have Gerrit Cole until Game 3 and likely not have Nestor Cortes early on either if he’s going to appear in a potential Game 5. Their bullpen is already fatigued and now their rotation will be a mess. It was unlikely they were going to beat Cleveland if they had everything set up exactly how they wanted. Now with this mess they have created? They might be better off letting the Guardians go get embarrassed by the best team in baseball. I would rather not watch the Yankees be eliminated by the Astros for fourth time in the last eight years.

9. The Yankees needed to win the 1-seed in the American League to beat the Astros in a potential ALCS matchup. They failed to do that. Then they needed to sweep the Guardians to have a chance to beat the Astros in a potential ALCS matchup. Then they needed to beat the Guardians in four games to have a prayer to beat the Astros in the ALCS. Now? Now they’re screwed for the ALCS if they are somehow able to get there.

If the Yankees reach the ALCS, Boone will undoubtedly be back for 2023. He will likely be back for 2023 regardless of what happens on Sunday or Monday. But if an ALDS loss means the end of Boone, knowing how little chance the Yankees have of getting past the Astros in the ALCS, it’s hard not to think that is better for the future of the franchise. Boone was already allowed to ruin this core’s window of opportunity. Does any Yankees fan really want him overseeing and ruining the next expected Yankees core of Cabrera, Peraza, Anthony Volpe and Jasson Dominguez? I don’t.

10. I do think the Yankees will win Game 4 and force a Game 5, but I don’t know how they will win Game 5 without an available starter and with their bullpen already fatigued after just three games. After the relatively easy Game 1 win in this series, it’s hard to believe the Yankees could be in this position, but I learned four Octobers ago that as long as Boone is the manager of the Yankees, you need to prepare for and expect the worst in the postseason.

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The Yankees blew a two-run lead at home in Game 2 of the ALDS and now go to Cleveland for Games 3 and 4, having given away home-field advantage.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. I left Yankee Stadium just before midnight on Oct. 3, 2006 as River Ave. filled with chants of “SWEEP! SWEEP! SWEEP!” The Yankees had cruised to an 8-4 win in Game 1 of the ALDS against the Tigers, backed by a 5-for-5, two-double, two-home run night from Derek Jeter and a two-run home run from Jason Giambi, and the 56,291 at the Stadium were pouring onto the street making it known how they thought the best-of-5 series would go.

The Yankees had won 97 games, easily winning the AL East by 10 games. Their offense was so ridiculous and overflowing with talent that defending AL MVP Alex Rodriguez was batting sixth, Robinson Cano hit .342 in the regular season and was batting ninth and Gary Sheffield had to learn how to play first base to get in the lineup. Their lineup for that Game 1 win:

Johnny Damon, CF
Derek Jeter, SS
Bobby Abreu, RF
Gary Sheffield, 1B
Jason Giambi, DH,
Alex Rodriguez, 3B
Hideki Matsui, LF
Jorge Posada, C
Robinson Cano, 2B

Unfortunately, Mother Nature didn’t cooperate after Game 1, and the following night Game 2 was rained out and moved to 1:00 the next afternoon, changing the entire series.

In that day game, a rookie named Justin Verlander made his postseason debut, going 5 1/3 innings and allowing three earned runs. The Yankees had a two-run lead that Joe Torre let Mike Mussina blow and then some, and with the Yankees trailing by a run and the October shadows moving slowly over home plate, Joel Zumaya entered and struck out three of the four hitters he faced in the seventh and eighth with fastballs reaching 103 mph. The Yankees went to Detroit with the series tied at 1 and didn’t play another game at the Stadium that season.

2. It was the memory of that game that had me pacing around on Thursday waiting to see if Game 2 of this season’s ALDS would be moved because of rain. Sure enough, it was.

The postponement would mean yet another day off for the Yankees who had played one game in the last seven days and hadn’t played a meaningful game prior to Game 1 in weeks. It meant losing Nestor Cortes as a starting option in a potential Game 5. It meant losing the nighttime postseason atmosphere of Yankee Stadium. It meant a weekday afternoon crowd at Yankee Stadium. It meant the October shadows would come into play against the dominant Cleveland bullpen. It meant nothing good for the Yankees.

And it proved out to be nothing good for the Yankees. Just like they blew a two-run lead 16 years prior in Game 2 of the 2006 ALDS at home, they blew a two-run lead in Game 2 on Friday at home. After plating two in the first on a missed ball 4 call to Giancarlo Stanton that resulted in a two-run porch shot, the Yankees never scored again. Zero runs over the final nine innings of the game.

The shadows I feared accentuated the Yankees’ inability to make contact as they struck out for 15 of their 30 outs to the Guardians’ eight. The annual postseason disappearing act from the Yankees’ offense has become as much a part of October as pumpkin spice and it presented itself in Game 1.

3. But the offense wasn’t the only problem. Cortes was off for one of the only times in 2022, putting nine baserunners on in five innings. And Aaron Boone (like he has been most days as Yankees manager and has been in every postseason as Yankees manager) was at his absolute worst.

Boone’s issues started when he filled out the lineup card for Game 2. Left out of the lineup was Marwin Gonzalez. Now I don’t think Gonzalez should even be a Yankee and should have been released for other options long ago, but he is a Yankee, and he is on the ALDS roster, and if he’s not going to start a game against a starter he’s 7-for-14 with two doubles, a home run and a walk against like he is against Shane Bieber, then what’s the point of him being on the roster? Boone went with the same nine as Game 1, only flipping Oswaldo Cabrera and Josh Donaldson in the 5- and 6-holes.

When it was obvious Cortes wasn’t going to be able to pitch into the seventh inning like Gerrit Cole did in Game 1, it meant Boone would have to make several important in-game decisions in what was a 2-2 game, and the odds of Boone making a handful of successful game-changing moves would be the same as you writing five random numbers between 1 and 100 on a piece of paper and me being able to correctly guess all five in five guesses.

The first decision Boone had to make was whether or not to let Cortes pitch the sixth. He chose not to after Cortes allowed a game-tying home run in the fifth. Boone brought in Lou Trivino and after Trivino allowed a baserunner and recorded two outs, he went to Jonathan Loaisiga who ended the inning. I would have stayed with Cortes for at another inning, but Boone’s two decisions had worked in keeping the Guardians off the board, even if he had already turned to two of his best bullpen arms needing at least three more innings of outs from a depleted and untrustworthy group.

In the bottom of the sixth, with two on and two out, Boone pinch hit for Jose Trevino with Matt Carpenter. The Yankees’ second-best hitter was finally getting an at-bat 15 innings into the series. It was a good time to use Carpenter. The problem is that Carpenter should be starting every game. Force him into a position or tell Giancarlo Stanton enough is enough and it’s time to grab a glove and play the outfield. Carpenter can’t be getting one plate appearance a game. And when Carpenter only gets one plate appearance, it means removing the Yankees’ best catcher and the best defensive catcher in baseball and having to play Kyle Higashioka for the remainder of the game. In this game, it meant four-plus innings of Higashioka. Carpenter struck out to end the inning in his first plate appearance in more than seven weeks.

Boone continued to make quick hooks with his relievers, and while I understand the series would play up to four games in four days, the unwillingness to win the game at hand in the present was startling. Boone removed Trivino after 17 pitches despite having thrown 12 pitches in the previous 17 days. He pulled Loaisiga after 15 pitches. Wandy Peralta’s day was called after 15 pitches as well, and Clay Holmes after 16.

In the bottom of the eighth, after Stanton walked with one out, Boone pulled him for a pinch runner in Tim Locastro. Locastro successfully stole second, but you just knew removing Stanton from the game would come back to haunt the Yankees as that move never works out when Boone makes it. And there was Stanton’s spot in the order leading off the 10th inning in what was then a 4-2 Guardians lead. And there was Boone letting Locastro hit for himself against arguably the best reliever in the majors, choosing to not use Gonzalez or Aaron Hicks as pinch hitters. Again, if either of them aren’t going to be used to bat over Locastro (who is on the roster to run and only run) then what is their purpose? The Yankees purposely left their best all-around shortstop off the ALDS roster in favor Gonzalez and Hicks, and neither of them are playing in situations where they should be playing.

The reason the Yankees were trailing when Stanton’s spot came up in the 10th was because Boone had pulled Trivino, Loaisiga, Peralta and Holmes early, and decided to pitch Jameson Taillon in relief for the first time in his career in the first extra inning. After Taillon was unable to get an out on 18 pitches, Boone then went to Clarke Schmidt, a starter by trade, who has mostly relieved at the major-league level and done an excellent job in relief. The Yankees were down two runs when Schmidt came in as Boone was willing to use him while trailing by two runs and not with the game tied.

Sometimes I think I have seen it all from Boone. His Game 3 and Game 4 pitching decisions in the 2018 ALDS. His relief choices in the 2019 ALCS. His Deivi Garcia-J.A. Happ move in Game 2 of the 2020 ALDS. How long he went with Cole and each subsequent pitcher in the 2021 one-game playoff. All of his lineups over the years. His infatuation with trying to steal outs in important moments. But I haven’t. Taillon making the first relief apperance of his career in the 10th inning of a postseason game and not out of necessity and playing without Giancarlo Stanton, Matt Carpenter and Jose Trevino for a good portion of a postseason game, while Locastro faced Clase is the type of work only one manager in the majors is capable of.

As long as he is the manager of the Yankees, there will continue to be days like Friday. But if the Yankees lose two more games before they win two more, I truly don’t think he will be the manager of the Yankees anymore.

4. You could say the Yankees’ issue in Game 2 was simply not scoring after the first inning, and you would be right. But the Yankees are going to have to win low-scoring games to win a championship, and not every game will be as easy and as Boone-free as Game 1 was. And there was no bigger offensive problem in Game 2 than Aaron Judge.

I gave everyone a clean slate for the postseason, and that means both good and bad. Judge’s slate was wiped clean. I don’t care what type of regular season he had. I don’t care that he’s about to cash in on generational wealth. I don’t care that he broke the American League home run record. None of that matters to me in terms of the Yankees winning in October and none of his regular-season accomplishments matter in October. His all-time regular season has now become an all-time bad postseason through two games. The type of postseason I thought only Mark Teixeira and Nick Swisher could produce.

Judge struck out four times in Game 2 after striking out three times in Game 1. He has put the ball in play in one of his eight postseason at-bats with the other seven resulting in strikeouts. He’s now 2-for-37 with 27 strikeouts in his postseason career against the Guardians. Impossibly bad.

5. He’s not the only one, though he’s the most important one. Oswaldo Cabrera continues to bat in the middle of the lineup, while Carpenter sits on the bench, despite Cabrera being overmatched by postseason pitching. There are no more No. 4 and 5 starters to see. There are no more middle relievers and last and second-to-last relievers throwing pitches. The Yankees are seeing front-end starters and All-Star-caliber relievers and will continue to see only those types of arms, especially in the kind of low-scoring games the Guardians play. Through two games, Cabrera looks like a kid with less than two months of major-league time, swinging through every high fastball at his eyes.

6. Here are some of the 3-hitters left in the postseason:

Gleyber Torres
Jose Ramirez
Yordan Alvarez
Freddie Freeman
Manny Machado

One of those names is unlike the others. Torres.

Torres batting third for the Yankees has always been a joke. Even without Carpenter, DJ LeMahieu and Andrew Benintendi. He had the lowest OPS in all of baseball for a full month this season and outside of a few random hot streaks, was pretty much as bad as he was in 2020 and 2021. Having him bat third is a disgrace, and if Stanton isn’t batting third in Game 3, there is no hope for the Yankees.

Torres’ Baseball IQ and lack of awareness played a role in the Guardians scoring their first run when he threw the ball as hard as possible to Anthony Rizzo from a short distance when he had much more time with Josh Naylor running down the line. Then in the ninth, Torres swung at the first pitch of his at-bat against Emmanuel Clase, grounding out and ensuring Clase would return for the 10th.

7. I didn’t think Judge forgetting how to hit and Rizzo forgetting how to play defense would be two things I would see and have to worry about in the playoffs, but here we are.

8. Josh Donaldson filled his quota of one moronic play per game on Friday, throwing away the ball on Jose Ramirez’s bloop hit in the 10th. In Game 1, it was Donaldson going into his home run trot on a ball that hit the right-field wall, leading to him getting thrown out on the bases. His throw was foolish and unnecessary and rather than have Ramirez on second with no outs to lead off the 10th, he was on third with no outs to lead off the 10th. I can’t wait until Donaldson is no longer a Yankee.

9. Seeing Anthony Volpe in the stands attending the game as a spectator with Peraza left off the roster, so Kiner-Falefa can continue to be the team’s starting shortstop summed up the Yankees under the current management as well as the actual result on the field of Game 2.

10. The Yankees are in trouble. No, they’re not turning to a washed-up Randy Johnson in Game 3 or begrudgingly giving the ball to Jaret Wright in Game 4. But they are going on the road having given away home-field advantage, have no pitching advantage in Game 3, will need to now use Cole again in this series rather than have him lined up for Game 1 of the ALCS, and don’t have a starter for Game 5.

Friday’s Game 2 loss was a bad one. I knew the Yankees would eventually lose a game in the postseason, but losing the way they did in Game 2 was hard to stomach. And now they’re in a bad spot. Not as bad a spot as they were 16 years ago, but not far from it either. This series is now guaranteed to go at least four games, and if the Yankees are able to survive and advance to the ALCS, the extremely difficult task of trying to upset the Astros just got that much harder with Cole being unable to go until Game 3 of the next round. Most importantly, for now, the task of eliminating the Guardians just got that much harder.

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The Yankees needed to win Game 1 of the ALDS against the Guardians with Gerrit Cole on the mound against Cal Quantrill. They did just that.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. As I do every postseason, I gave everyone on the Yankees a clean slate, including Aaron Boone. But in doing so, I figured Boone would muddy his slate as soon as he the Game 1 lineup was announced, which he did. He actually muddied it late the night before when he admittedly stayed at the Stadium on Monday night trying to decide between Oswald Peraza or Marwin Gonzalez on the ALDS roster. He went with the veteran because of course he did, and decided to leave the Yankees’ best shortstop option off the roster.

I predicted this would be the Game 1 lineup:

Aaron Judge, RF
Anthony Rizzo, 1B
Gleyber Torres, 2B
Josh Donaldson, 3B
Giancarlo Stanton, DH
Oswaldo Cabrera, LF
Harrison Bader, CF
Isiah Kiner-Falefa, SS
Jose Trevino, C

This was the actual Game 1 lineup:

Aaron Judge, RF
Anthony Rizzo, 1B
Gleyber Torres, 2B
Giancarlo Stanton, DH
Oswaldo Cabrera, LF
Josh Donaldson, 3B
Isiah Kiner-Falefa, SS
Jose Trevino, C
Harrison Bader, CF

It was close, but Boone did the right thing in batting Giancarlo Stanton ahead of Josh Donaldson. (Stanton should be batting behind Anthony Rizzo as Gleyber Torres serves no protection for anyone.)

2. Boone didn’t do the right thing in playing Isiah Kiner-Falefa. I have spent an inordinate amount of time in 2022 writing and talking about how bad Kiner-Falefa is at baseball, all while Boone has continued to preach how good Kiner-Falefa is as if statistics don’t exist, and at times as if eyesight doesn’t exist. Kiner-Falefa did what he does best in Game 1, booting a ground ball in the first inning, grounding into a double play in his first at-bat and mistiming his jump on a line drive later in the game. He even lined into a second double play in his final at-bat for good measure.

Kiner-Falefa did pick up an opposite-field base hit his second time up that was misplayed and mishandled allowing him to go to third before scoring on a Jose Trevino sacrifice fly. But that one base hit doesn’t erase all the bad he provided in the game, for which there was a lot. It’s one thing to give extra outs to the weak Guardians lineup. If the Yankees are able to advance, and they play the Astros, it will be extremely difficult to beat them as is, let alone if they are playing with more than three outs in an inning.

3. Boone didn’t start Matt Carpenter, choosing to not play the Yankees’ version of Barry Bonds. This has nothing to do with Carpenter having not played in some time, and everything to do with the Yankees not wanting to play Stanton in the outfield, taking the DH possibility away from Carpenter. The Yankees don’t want to play Stanton in the outfield, and they don’t want to play Carpenter in the field, so that means the team’s second-best hitter is relegated to pinch hitting in the postseason. Not great.

4. Gerrit Cole’s night didn’t start out great. He had to pitch around Kiner-Falefa’s error in the first and threw 24 pitches. In the second, he allowed a one-out double, but was able to strike out the Guardians’ 7- and 8-hitters. In the third, he allowed a solo home run to Steven Kwan (who rarely homers) then hit Amed Rosario and gave up a one-out double to Jose Ramirez. After an Anthony Rizzo brain fart resulted in Josh Naylor reaching on a fielder’s choice, the Guardians had the bases loaded with one out. Thankfully, Cole got out of the jam.

Cole needed 25 pitches to navigate through the one-run third and was at 62 pitches through three innings. He was having his typical start with a lot of pitches (the 62 to get six nine outs), a home run (the solo shot by Kwan) and a lot of strikeouts (he had five in the first three innings). But after getting out of the bases-loaded, one-out jam, he settled down, allowing just a walk and a single off Kiner-Falefa’s glove for the rest of his night.

It was a good start from Cole. A much-needed start from Cole. He couldn’t go out and get lit up the way he had for a while, and couldn’t lay an egg at home against a Guardians team that doesn’t hit home runs and just scored three runs in 23-plus innings against the Rays in the wild-card series. He did his job and did it well.

5. All Harrison Bader has done since becoming a Yankee is do his job well. He has played the expected outstanding defense, but the bat that was an enormous worry has been exceptional, especially at the right time. The Yankees have missed the bottom-of-the-order guy who can provide a big hit at the right time (like Scott Brosius or a young Robinson Cano before he became a middle-of-the-order presence), and in his first postseason plate appearance as a Yankee, Bader tied the game with a solo home run off Quantrill in the third. Bader doesn’t belong hitting ninth in the lineup, but given all of the other lineup construction issues Boone has, batting Bader isn’t even the Top 10 problems. Because the Yankees won, the superstitious Boone will undoubtedly run the same lineup out there for Game 2.

6. I understand I’m in the minority of Yankees fans who obsess over the lineup, and as long as the Yankees win, like they did in Game 1, it won’t be discussed the way it should be. And it should be discussed because every aspect of the team should be optimized to the best of its possible ability. The organization employs strength trainers, mental trainers, nutritionists, sleep consultants and everyone and anyone who may help the players perform even the slightest bit better than they are capable. Yet something as important as lineup construction is just glossed over by the front office, manager and mainstream media. I don’t get it. At some point the Yankees won’t win with relative ease (like they did in Game 1) and may not win at all, and the lineup and order of batters will become a focal point of the postseason. It may not happen this series, but if the Yankees advance, you bet it will happen in the ALCS.

7. Overall, Boone had a solid night because he didn’t have to do much. He got a 6 1/3 innings of one-run ball from his starter and then asked his three best available relievers to get the final eight outs, which they did. Those are the kinds of games the Yankees need to have if they want to end their championship drought: games in which Boone isn’t involved once the game starts.

8. Anthony Rizzo’s two-run home run put the game away. I have never felt so comfortable with only a three-run lead in a postseason game, but as I sat in my seat at the Stadium on Tuesday night, once the Yankees took their first lead on the Trevino sac fly, it felt like the game was over. Cole had found his groove, the Guardians only mustered one mediocre rally against Jonathan Loaisiga that Loaisiga ended with a double play, and even knowing that the bullpen would have to get eight outs, I wasn’t worried after the 1-0 deficit became a 2-1 lead.

9. That’s the way it should be for the Yankees against the Guardians. Even with an inconsistent and depleted bullpen depleted, and even with DJ LeMahieu and Andrew Benintendi injured, and even with Carpenter on the bench, and even with the Yankees’ best shortstop not on the ALDS roster, the Yankees and Yankees fans shouldn’t be worried about the Guardians. They reached the postseason by being the best team from the worst division, and swept their wild-card series despite scoring a run every eight innings in it, as they have now scored four runs in 30-plus postseason innings, all via the home run.

10. Things can change. Nestor Cortes could be off in Game 2, or the offense could perform one of its disappearing acts against Shane Bieber. The same could happen when Luis Severino takes the mound in Game 3, or if Cole has to start again in this series. But things shouldn’t change in this series. The Yankees were better than the Guardians for six months. They were better than them when they played them head-to-head in the regular season, and they were better than them again in Game 1 with a less-than-perfect roster and lineup. I don’t expect that to change. I expect the Yankees to be playing baseball next week. I have always expected that. All Game 1 did was reinforce my expectations.

One down, 10 to go.

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The Yankees lost the first two games of their series against the Brewers over the weekend, but on Sunday they produced a comeback win to salvage the third game and Aaron Judge produced his 58th and 59th home runs of the season.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. Aaron Judge is going to win the Triple Crown. Home runs and RBIs are a lock, and now he sits one point (.316) behind Luis Arraez (.317) for batting average. There is no doubt in my mind Judge is going to outhit Arraez (and Xander Bogaerts for that matter) over the final two-plus weeks of the season and complete the single greatest impending free-agent year of all time, and possibly the single greatest offensive year of all time.

I don’t need to hear what CC Sabathia and Phil Nevin think about who is the MVP in the American League. Shohei Ohtani might be the best player in the world, but he’s not the most valuable, not this season at least. Without Judge, the Yankees aren’t a postseason team (or on the wild-card bubble at best) and with him they are the second-best team in the AL, and on their way (as long as they don’t blow it over the final 16 games) to the 2-seed and a bye into the ALDS. The amount of games he has single-handedly won this season is absurd, and while his stats may be unbelievable from afar, if you watch this team every day, his season is even more amazing because you can truly appreciate just how important he has been with nearly every hit and home run being the difference or the only offense in games.

If WAR is what drove Ohtani to his MVP award a year ago, how can it not be used this season? All of a sudden it’s no longer the best indicator of who should win MVP because it doesn’t help the argument for Ohtani? I’m all set with hearing from Sabathia or Nevin or anyone on the MVP debate who doesn’t think it belongs to Judge because it’s not a debate. It’s not Judge or Ohtani. It’s Judge or no one.

2. After losing the first two games to the Brewers by blowing a five-run lead on Friday and then getting shut down offensively on Saturday, the Yankees bounced back with a win on Sunday to salvage the third game of the series. It was nice of Anthony Rizzo to grace the Yankees with his presence on Sunday in the win. Rizzo missed time in early July with back issues, missed a week in early August with back issues and returned on Sunday after three weeks away because of back issues and subsequent headaches caused by an epidural used to treat the back issues.

Rizzo had homered in the last two games he started at the end of August, but without a proper rehab assignment it seemed farfetched to think he would return without missing a beat, but that’s exactly what he did, going 3-for-6 with with a home run. Just seeing Rizzo’s name in the lineup gives the lineup more credibility, and most importantly, it forces a weak bat and fringe major-league bat out of it.

3. It also moved Giancarlo Stanton out of the 2-hole where he has struggled mightily, but had to hit because there is literally no other option on the team. Unless you want Josh Donaldson or Isiah Kiner-Falefa hitting there. (Sorry, that’s not even something to joke about since I’m sure Aaron Boone would love to have either of them in that spot.) Stanton went 0-for-the series (though he did draw one walk), striking out six times in his 14 plate appearances, including a Golden Sombrero (four strikeouts) on Saturday. It was his second Golden Sombrero in his last three games, as he also picked one up in Boston on Wednesday.

Stanton has two home runs since July 15 and one of them came off a position player pitching in a blowout. So he has one home run since July 15, and is hitting .130/.239/.234 since then in 88 plate appearances. When Stanton is unproductive, he hurts the lineup double. He becomes a roster problem because he will bat in an important spot in the order despite being unproductive and because of he Yankees’ unwillingness to play him in the field ( even though he always performs better at the plate when he’s also in the game defensively). he clogs up the designated hitter spot. The Yankees have unsuccessfully tried in the past to keep Stanton healthy by limiting him to being a full-time DH. He has gotten injured whether he’s only playing the game offensively or not, so it’s time to put him back him in the field, and if he gets hurt, so be it. The only way to keep him healthy is to have him not play baseball.

Unfortunately, Stanton isn’t going to play the field again this season. Boone has said there’s no plan to have him play the outfield at this time, and at this time, it’s September 19 and there are 16 games left in the season. Add in Harrison Bader possibly playing in an actual major-league game for the Yankees on Tuesday night at the Stadium, and that’s that for Stanton playing the field. If anything, the Yankees would stick him in the small-ish Yankee Stadium right field with Judge in center. But Bader finally playing means Judge goes back to right, and there’s no way the Yankees are going to have Stanton in the Stadium’s vast left field. That’s why they had Oswaldo Cabrera practicing the position prior to the games over the weekend.

4. I have no doubt Cabrera will play a fine left field. He continues to excel at positions he has little to no experience playing and he’s excelling in it at the major-league level. It’s pretty remarkable. Cabrera went 5-for-10 with four walks over the weekend and is no 9-for-27 with a pair of doubles and a pair of home runs in his last seven games. The bat is starting to catch up to his defense and there’s no way right now he can be removed from the lineup given his production and versatility. I expect he will be the team’s left fielder come Game 1 of the ALDS if Andrew Benintendi doesn’t return.

5. Ideally, the Yankees will have too many players for not enough positions if everyone gets and stays healthy before the postseason. Rizzo is now back. Bader is supposed to make his Yankee debut on Tuesday. Benintendi, DJ LeMahieu and Matt Carpenter are still working their way back. But if those three do return, the Yankees will have the following players for eight lineup spots:

Anthony Rizzo
DJ LeMahieu
Gleyber Torres
Isiah Kiner-Falefa
Josh Donaldson
Oswaldo Cabrera
Andrew Benintendi
Harrison Bader
Aaron Judge
Giancarlo Stanton
Matt Carpenter

Three of those 11 would have to be on the bench. Rizzo and Judge aren’t going to the bench. The Yankees didn’t trade for Benintendi to not play him, and they didn’t give away Jordan Montgomery to not play Bader. Stanton is the highest-paid position player on the team and under contract for 37 more years, so he’s not going to the bench. That leaves LeMahieu, Torres, Kiner-Falefa, Donaldson, Cabrera and Carpenter for three spots. If you read this site or these Yankees Thoughts often, you know which three I’m sending to the bench.

(I didn’t include Oswald Peraza on this list because he’s already on the bench as the Yankees continue to stunt his development.)

6. I think the Yankees want both Kiner-Falefa (at shortstop) and Bader (in center field) in the lineup, which is as regrettable a decision as giving Aaron Hicks a seven-year contract extension. That duo plus Jose Trevino would give the Yankees as weak a 7-8-9 as any postseason lineup could ever have, and they would be trying to win the World Series with one-third of their lineup being essentially three automatic outs against the pitching they will see in the postseason. The last time the Yankees won the World Series in 2009, their 7-8-9 was Robinson Cano, Nick Swisher and Brett Gardner. Cano hit .320 that year with 25 home runs and an .871 OPS. Swisher hit 29 home runs with, drew 97 walks and had an .869 OPS. Gardner was the weakest bat on the team and still had a .345 on-base percentage and a .724 OPS. Trevino has a .682 OPS, Kiner-Falefa a .652 and Bader a .673.

7. I guess we’ll get to the bridge of too many players for not enough spots when we get to it. Hopefully, it doesn’t become a 2006 situation in which the team is having Stanton learn to play first base for the postseason like they did for Gary Sheffield because there was no place to put Sheffield with Hideki Matsui, Johnny Damon, Bobby Abreu, Alex Rodriguez and Jason Giambi at other positions. For now, the return of Rizzo means no more Marwin Gonzalez at first base and the return of Bader should mean the end of Hicks getting playing time (though I’m sure Boone already has a plan mapped out to get Hicks an unbelievable amount of at-bats over these last 16 games.)

8. The Yankees’ improving health isn’t only for the offense. The rotation will get Luis Severino back this week for the firs time since mid-July and it couldn’t come at a better time with Frankie Montas pitching like Javier Vazquez and making excuses like Sonny Gray. (I wrote all about Montas’ disastrous Yankees tenure to date on Sunday.) Montas has been bad (and delusional) and now he’s hurt, so he has been a total zero for the Yankees since being acquired. He’s actually less than zero since they traded JP Sears and Ken Waldichuk for him and could have either used those two arms themselves or used them in another deal at the deadline or another deal this offseason and they gave away Jordan Montgomery because they acquired Montas. Instead they are stuck with Montas for next season as well.

9. Severino is either going to be the Yankees’ Game 2 starter or their Game 3 starter with Nestor Cortes being the other. Gerrit Cole is going to be the Game 1 starter, and I have about as much faith in him pitching well on October 11 at Yankee Stadium as a I do with Boone making logical and sensible lineup and bullpen decisions in the postseason. Cole was once again atrocious on Sunday, giving up multiple home runs and needing 94 pitches to get through five innings.

It’s hard to hear the narrative that Cole “only gave up four hits” or that “he made one or two mistakes” when half of those hits left the park and the one or two mistakes went over the fence. It’s one thing to allow a solo home run here and there, but Cole isn’t doing that and now leads the league in home runs allowed. Guess what kind of teams he will face in the playoffs? Ones that hit home runs. If the Yankees plan on getting out of the ALDS for the first time in three years, they are likely going to have to get by the Astors or Blue Jays at some point to keep their season alive. Cole can’t be “good” against either of those teams. He has to be great because their starting pitching will be against the Yankees.

10. A little over a week ago, the division lead was in serious trouble. The Yankees were on the verge of completing the worst game-lead collapse in baseball history before stabilizing the division lead last weekend. Four days ago, the division lead was once again safe. But after losing two of three to the Brewers coupled with the Blue Jays winning two of three from the Orioles, the division lead, while still stable, isn’t exactly comforting at 5 1/2.

There are only 16 games left on the schedule for the Yankees, which is why Fangraphs gives them a 96.5 percent chance to win division. But it’s hard to believe in the math behind division odds when I watched the Yankees’ 15 1/2-game lead fall to two games in the loss column a little over a week ago.

On Tuesday, the Yankees begin a six-game homestand against the last-place Pirates and the last-place Red Sox. They are set up to put the division just about away by Sunday and render their upcoming three-game series against the Blue Jays meaningless. Judge is also set up to break Roger Maris’ Yankees and AL home run record if he can hit three home runs in the next six games.

This week has a chance to be special all around. Don’t screw it up.

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The Yankees have ended their slide and threat of completing the worst game-lead collapse in baseball history. After sweeping a two-game series from the Red Sox, the Yankees have now won four straight and eight of 10.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. With the Blue Jays and Rays meeting for a five-game series over four days, the Yankees needed to go Fenway Park and beat up on the last-place Red Sox. If they didn’t, they would miss out on an opportunity to gain ground each day over either the Blue Jays or Rays, and would in turn lose ground each day on either the Blue or Rays. Thankfully, the Yankees took care of their own business against the lowly Red Sox (something they have had trouble doing in their last few series against them), and officially put the division away.

I originally wrote the blog titled AL East Race Is Over on June 20. At the time, the math said the Yankees would win the AL East with ease win an 11-game lead. By July 8, the math was playing out exactly as expected, and the Yankees’ lead was up to 15 1/2 games. But over the next two months, the Yankees pissed away everything they achieved in the first third of the season and just a week ago, the Rays had the division lead in the loss column down to two games.

Prior to the last series against the Rays, I wrote:

Right now, I’m moderately worried about the Yankees’ completing the single biggest game-lead collapse in baseball history. I’m a 6.7 out of 10 worried. Five days ago, I was a 9.1. If the loss column lead is zero on Sunday afternoon, I will be a 10, and a 10 is stock-up-on-bottled-water-and-batteries-to-go-into-hiding-level bad.

Thankfully, I didn’t have to go off the grid and spend the next seven months until Opening Day 2023 wondering what happened. The Yankees righted the ship with two wins against the Red Sox after winning an all-important series against the Rays and have now won four straight and eight of 10.

2. Do I think the Yankees are back to being the on-pace-for-122-win team they were at one point this year? No. I never thought the 2022 Yankees were close to being built like the 1998 Yankees despite the endless comparisons between the two and their similar records in late April, May and early June. The Yankees still have enormous flaws and an abundance of question marks that are on display each day and were once again in the two games at Fenway Park.

3. In the first game in Boston, the Yankees needed a pair of game-tying solo home runs from Aaron Judge in the sixth and eighth inning to avoid losing a game started by Gerrit Cole going against Nick Pivetta. When they broke a 4-4 tie with three runs in the 10th inning, they nearly gave it all back, allowing two runs to score in the bottom of the 10th to hang on to win 7-6.

In the second game, they couldn’t solve rookie Brayan Bello, who entered the game with a 5.79 ERA, having allowed an astounding 67 baserunners in 37 1/3 innings. The Yankees finally broke through in the fifth when Gleyber Torres hit a two-out single with runners on first and second and the Red Sox thew the ball around the field allowing the two baserunners to score as well as Torres in what Suzyn Waldman described as a “comedy of errors.” Leading 5-2 entering the ninth, Clay Holmes did everything he could to blow yet another game against Red Sox, allowing a run to score and only managing to get out of the inning by an overturned call when J.D. Martinez thankfully missed stepping on first base on a groundout.

4. In the 18 non-extra, non-automatic runner innings at Fenway, the Yankees scored nine runs. Three of those runs came on the “comedy of errors” play. Two of them came on Judge solo home runs. That leaves four non-error-produced or Judge-produced runs. So the theme with the team remains the same that they can’t score unless Judge is carrying the offense or unless they are helped out by the opposing defense.

The offense the Yankees keep running out there isn’t the offense we expect to see in the postseason, but it could be. There’s no guarantee all five of DJ LeMahieu, Anthony Rizzo, Matt Carpenter, Andrew Benintendi and Harrison Bader will return or will return to the best of their abilities or return be able to play. (I think just about all of them have to come back and have to come back to the best of their abilities for the Yankees to have a chance at winning a championship.) So for now, you have to think the lineup you see on a daily basis from the Yankees is the one you will get in the postseason, until some of those five names return (if they return).

5. If 2018-19 Torres still existed, the loss of those other five worst hurt less. Torres had a big series in Boston, going 4-for-10 with a double and four RBIs, after going 5-for-14 with two home runs and five RBIs in three games against the Rays.

I keep seeing and hearing that 2018-19 Torres is back. No. Just no. This is a five-game sample size. What about the other five months? What about the last nearly three years? This is what Torres does. He has a strong few games and coaxes fans into thinking 2018-19 Torres has returned and then he follows it up with a month-long slump.

Torres stared the season with an .856 OPS through the first week, and there were Yankees fans thinking he had found his old swing. Did his change of positioning  back to second get him going? Did his approach at the plate change? It was neither as Torres then hit .223/.266/.423 over his next 38 games. The following three weeks, Torres went off with a .355/.412/.726 slash line, hitting five home runs in 17 games. Was this the return of old Gleyber? It wasn’t. Torres spent the summer months going hot then extremely cold and from the beginning of August until the beginning of the September (yes, an an entire month), he had the lowest OPS of all players in Major League Baseball, hitting .172/.193/.241 over 119 plate appearances.

So it’s nice that Torres is contributing offensively of late after not for basically the entire season (and the previous two seasons). It’s nice that he has 21 home runs and has somewhat found his power stroke without the juiced baseball. But this is still a player that despite his most recent hot streak (which is just five games), is hitting .244/.294/.429 in 514 plate appearances this season.

I won’t care how bad Torres was in 2020 or 2021 or the majority of 2022 if he shows up this postseason like he did in 2019 when he pounded the Twins (5-for-12 with three doubles, one home run and four RBIs) in the ALDS, or when he (.933 OPS, two home runs and six RBIs) and DJ LeMahieu tried to beat the Astros by themselves in the ALCS. Everyone gets a clean slate come the first pitch of the postseason.

6. That includes Aaron Hicks, though I really don’t see how he can even be on the postseason roster at this point. Despite Boone pulling Hicks from the game against the Ryas last Friday, Hicks is still aBoone favorite and Boone will do everything he can to play Hicks.

Hicks found himself pinch hitting for Jose Trevino on Friday night in the 10th inning, drawing a walk in the process. At the time of the walk, I joked that the walk was enough to get Hicks back in the starting lineup, but it wasn’t really a joke as the following night there was Hicks unbenched yet again and starting in the second game of the series. How did he do? Exactly how you would expect: 0-for-4.

Hicks is now hitting .209/.324/.293 on the season. A slugging percentage that most lower than an on-base percentage is preposterous. He has seven doubles in 408 plate appearances and seven home runs, having last homered on July 9. If you’re surprised, don’t be. This is a player who told The Athletic last month, “If I’m a guy that’s in the lineup, cool. If I’m not, it is what it is.”

I don’t see how Hicks can be on the postseason roster, and the moment Bader, Benintendi or Carpenter return (again, if they do), Hicks shouldn’t see the field again as a Yankee. Not just this season, but future seasons as well. Trade him for whatever you can get, eat whatever money you need, attached a low-level prospect to him or release him. I don’t care. He can’t be a Yankee again in 2023. Seven seasons of him was seven too many.

7. I’m tired of explaining how ridiculous it is that Isiah Kiner-Felafa continues to play over Oswald Peraza when he was supposed to be a stopgap until Peraza was ready, and now Peraza is ready dnd being blocked by the stopgap. If Peraza isn’t going to play (like he hasn’t been) then there’s no point of him being in the majors. Send him down and stop ruining his development.

8. It’s never been more evident for fools and idiots who think Boone doesn’t control the lineup despite repeated public admissions of exactly that by Brian Cashman. How do you think Kiner-Falefa keeps playing over Peraza? How do you think Hicks keeps finding his way off the bench and into the lineup? Why do you think Josh Donaldson continues to be treated like it’s 2015 and he’s the AL MVP? There’s no front office employee of any team in all of baseball dumb enough to make decisions like that. It takes a know-it-all manager and supposed lifer who uses personal relationships and clubhouse loyalty to determine playing time instead of production. Boone has always favored veterans no matter how bad they may be (and Kiner-Faleafa and Hicks and Donaldson are very bad) over rookies or young players.

9. Thanks to the odd days off this postseason (reminiscent of the 2009 playoffs), the schedule works heavily in the Yankees’ favor (like it did in 2009) in terms of their rotation. The Yankees are undoubtedly going to give the ball to Gerrit Cole in Game 1, but after him is anyone’s guess. The Yankees could use Cole in Game 1 and then again in Game 4 on normal rest or in Game 5 with an extra day of rest. The Game 2 starter could also return for Game 5 on three days of rest. The Yankees could get through the ALDS with only three starters, but most likely, they will need four. The four they are clearly hoping to have are Cole, Nestor Cortes, Luis Severino and Frankie Montas in some order. Health will determine who’s available and then I’m sure the opponent will determine the order. If Severino comes back and is his early-season self, he has to be used before Montas. You could even say he should be used before Cortes, but then there would be pushback that Cortes has been the Yankees’ best starter all season, which is true. But if the Yankees made decisions based on actual performance, Cortes would be the Game 1 starter, and players like Kiner-Falefa, Donaldson and Hicks wouldn’t be everyday players on the 2022 Yankees.

10. The Yankees’ lead in the loss column is back up to seven over both Blue Jays and Rays. The Yankees have three games left with the Blue Jays and none with the Rays. If the Yankees win one of their remaining three games with the Blue Jays, they clinch the season series and the head-to-head tiebreaker, which will be used to determine the division winner (if needed).

The Yankees have 19 games left. After this weekend against the Brewers, they will play six straight against last-place teams in the Pirates and Red Sox. The division is safe once again. The remaining 19 games and the next 25 days are about preparing for the postseason, and that means getting healthy. The Yankees aren’t going anywhere in October with the current state of the roster.

Now that the division is safe, instead of scoreboard for the next three weeks, I will be rehab game and injury update watching. That’s more important than what the competition is doing.

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