The Yankees swept the Rays and their current winning streak is now at seven. They have won 14 of their last 15 games and have a 14-game home winning streak as well. It’s going to be a fun, relaxing, enjoyable summer as the Yankees are running away with the AL East.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. There might as well be some sort of symbol in the standings denoting the Rays have been eliminated from the division race. At 12 games out, like the Red Sox (who were never actually a threat) and Orioles (who never had a chance), the Rays are done in terms of winning the AL East.

The Yankees swept the Rays despite only scoring eight runs on 12 hits in the three games. They beat the Rays at their own brand of baseball, which uses elite pitching and timely hitting to scratch out wins. The Rays no longer own the Yankees. They can’t. Not since the Yankees went and created an enhanced version of the Rays.

2. On Tuesday, the Yankees won 2-0, scoring one run on an Isiah Kiner-Falefa single and the second run on a throwing error on that single. The inning in which those two runs happened was extended and made possible by an error.

On Wednesday, the Yankees had just three hits. One of them was an Aaron Judge solo home run and the other was a three-run home run from Kyle Higashioka.

On Thursday, the Yankees had only four hits. One was Anthony Rizzo’s single to tie the game and another was Rizzo’s walk-off home run in the bottom of the ninth.

In recent years (the Aaron Boone era), the Yankees would have maybe won one of those games, and quite possibly would have been on the other end of the sweep. But now they have the starting pitching and bullpen to match the Rays that they don’t need to rely on their offense.

3. The Yankees are 47-16 and 31 games over .500 because of their starting pitching, the back end of their bullpen and Aaron Judge. What has made this team and this season special to date has been the ability of the other lineup members to have a big moment or a big game when Judge doesn’t.

“I think this team can do a lot of great things,” Nestor Cortes said after his latest great start on Wednesdat (5.1 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 3 BB, 4 K). “The way we carry ourselves in here translates out there. Night in and night out, there’s always a different guy stepping up to the occasion.”

On Tuesday, it was Kiner-Falefa. On Wednesday, it was Higashioka. On Thursday, it was Rizzo. Jose Trevino has had his games. DJ LeMahieu and Giancarlo Stanton have had theirs. Josh Donaldson and Gleyber Torres have been wildly inconsistent and they have still had their moments. The only two Yankees fans are really waiting on are Aaron Hicks and Joey Gallo, and even they both his hit important game-tying home run with in the last two weeks. (That’s not to say the Yankees don’t need to upgrade their roster. They do.)

Even when things don’t go their way, like Luis Severino being scratched from his Thursday start due to illness, Clarke Schmidt steps in and gives the Yankees three scoreless innings. And they call up journeyman Ryan Weber, whose major-league career has been atrocious, and he gives them 3 2/3 innings of one-run ball. If this isn’t a special, magical season that ends with a championship, something will have gone terribly wrong along the way.

4. “It feels like Judge and [Giancarlo] Stanton are always just hitting them over the fence,” Higashioka said after his big home run on Wednesday (that I was in attendance for and told my wife he wouldn’t even put the ball in play prior to the home run). “But there’s some days where other people are going to have to step up. We have the kind of team where guys can do that.”

The pitching has remained the one constant through the first 39 percent of the season, but the timely hitting of the offense has played an important role. The Yankees don’t need to score five or six or seven runs to win games. It would make things easier if they did, but the Yankees’ magic number is 3. Score three runs and they will win, as they are 39-4 (.907 winning percentage) when they score at least three runs. Score three runs and it’s goodnight, game over.

5. I get on Boone for just about everything. Everything he does is bothersome because he’s not good at his job and undeserving of it. Unfortunately, I’m stuck with him as this is Year 1 of his new three-year deal, which also carries an option for a fourth year. Barring some disastrous collapse this season or next season, Boone is here to stay for a while. And I’m fine with him staying as long as it means a disastrous collapse doesn’t happen.

I want to like Boone. I want to not have to worry that come October, he’s not going to go to Ron Marinaccio in the seventh inning of a one-run game only to have him put two runners on and then go to Michael King, who could have just started the inning. I don’t want to have to worry about that. But I do. I also have to worry that he’ll bat Aaron Hicks leadoff in the postseason or start Higashioka over Trevino. I have to worry about these things because we have four seasons of decisions of his prior to 2022 that suggest come October he’s not suddenly going to understand basic logic. In an ideal world, every Yankees game would consist of the starting pitching going seven innings and then turning the ball over to King and then Clay Holmes, completely taking Boone out of the equation. Unfortunately, we don’t live in that world.

6. Despite my dislike for Boone (the manager), I do like his postgame comments of late. He’s not celebrating minor victories or wins like he has in seasons past. He’s not getting ahead of himself by thinking that just because he wears the interlocking NY on his hat and jersey that he’s magically going to experience success.

“It’s an awesome number; an awesome record at this point,” Boone said this week. “But I also think we’re all very aware that we’ve got a long way to go. We’ve got 100 of these left. This is just a drop in the bucket — it’s a good deposit.”

Every win is just a “drop in the bucket” until the Yankees have won their 11th game in the postseason. And they better only need 11 wins. They better win the division and receive a bye to the ALDS. Losing the division at this point would be horrific. Not finishing with the best record in the American League (of which they have an eight-game lead) would also be unacceptable. Not finishing with the best record in the majors (of which they have a six-game lead) would also be really, really bad.

7. The Yankees still need roster upgrades for the postseason. Their current record doesn’t change that. Because the Royals, Orioles, Cubs, Tigers and Angels won’t be an opponent in October. Every game the Yankees play in the AL postseason will likely come against either the Rays or Blue Jays or Astros, and at-bats and outs can’t be given away like they are now with the bottom of the Yankees order (mainly from two of their outfielders).

You can live with Kiner-Falefa in the 8- or 9-hole in October. He can’t be batting seventh (like he has been of late) come the playoffs. Not when he will either bat just ahead or behind whichever starting catcher Boone lets start that day. (If the Yankees are facing a lefty, you can bet the farm it will be Higashioka.) Either Hicks and/or Gallo will come around or they can’t be a part of the August, September and October plans.

Hicks and Gallo were both going to be given seemingly endless opportunities to figure it out not matter how the Yankees had performed until now, but given the Yankees’ success, record and lead, they are going to continue to play to see if they can turn it around. Each time it seems like it might be the game where they get going, it isn’t.

8. The same can be said for Donaldson. Because of his career success, and because the Yankees took on the entire $48 million owed to him between 2022 and 2023, he’s not going anywhere. But he desperately needs to get going. Donaldson has less (5) home runs than Matt Carpenter (6), who plays about once a week. He’s hitting an abysmal .232/.330/.387 given his name, reputation, past performance and salary. I don’t think anyone would have signed up for a .717 OPS from Donaldson through mid-June.

Like Hicks and Gallo, the Yankees’ historic start has allowed his underachieving to be passed over and rarely discussed. That’s what I’m here for.

Donaldson was one of the most feared hitters in the league against the Yankees for me before joining the Yankees. Now he’s a free-swinging, antsy hitter who seems to either strike out on three pitches or ground out to third. He’s become Kiner-Falefa when prior to the Yankees I knew his plate appearance would result in him hitting the ball hard, and I just hoped he hit it at a fielder.

9. I would move Judge to the leadoff spot for good. I want him getting the most at-bats possible, even if the difference between batting first or second over the course of a season is a minimal difference, it’s still a difference.

Give me this lineup 1 through 5:

Aaron Judge
Anthony Rizzo
Giancarlo Stanton
Josh Donaldson
DJ LeMahieu

10. The Yankees’ goal this weekend is to win one game in Toronto. Win one game, and you leave Toronto still up nine games on the Blue Jays with three head-to-head games taken off the schedule, leaving just seven between the two teams for the rest of the season.

The Blue Jays are barely hanging on to their division-winning dreams and a bad weekend against the best team in baseball will eliminate them as well. If the Yankees go to Toronto and take two of three or sweep the Blue Jays, well, you can put that same symbol used to denote the Rays’ elimination next to the Blue Jays in the standings.

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What an adventurous week. The Yankees overcame poor starts from Jameson Taillon and Nestor Cortes and the worst start of Gerrit Cole’s career to take two out of three from the Twins. Then they got a taste of what life would be like if they played in the NL Central and got to face the Cubs 19 times a year, sweeping them in the Bronx and outscoring them 28-5 in three games.

I’m combining the Thoughts from both the Twins and Cubs series into one Super Thoughts with a different format in which I will respond to mentions and comments to me from social media over the last week.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

Kyle Higashioka literally makes John Flaherty look like Johnny Bench. He is a dreadful baseball player.

1. Sometimes I think John Flaherty thinks he was Johnny Bench with the way he talks about his approach to hitting on YES. Now Flaherty wasn’t a complete zero at the plate (he did have respectable years in 1996, 1997 and 1999) like Higashioka is, but he wasn’t who he portrays either.

Higashioka doesn’t belong on the Yankees. He’s not a major-league player. But for some reason the Yankees have stood behind his poor career production and let their manager choose him as the team’s regular catcher at various times over the last few seasons (and in the postseason) and even planned on him being their regular catcher in 2023.

The Yankees acquired Jose Trevino less than a week before Opening Day and had Ben Rortvedt not gotten hurt in spring training, Trevino might have started the season in Triple-A and still be there. The Yankees were smart to sign Trevino. They lucked into his breakout season saving them from a disaster in which Higashioka is playing even more than he already is. And Higashioka is playing a lot.

Despite Trevino’s All-Star-worthy season, Boone has continued to divide the starting catching role 50/50.

June 12: Higashioka
June 11: Trevino
June 10: Higashioka
June 9: Trevino
June 8: Higashioka
June 7: Trevino
June 6: Trevino
June 4: Higashioka
June 3: Trevino
June 2 (Game 2:): Higashioka
June 2 (Game 1): Trevino
May 31: Trevino
May 29: Higashioka
May 28: Trevino
May 27: Higashioka
May 26: Trevino
May 25: Higashioka

And so on.

2. During Friday’s game, Higashioka came to the plate the first time against the left-handed Wade Miley, and the YES broadcast booth talked about how Higashioka was in the lineup because of his ability to hit left-handed pitching. David Cone brought up Higashioka’s horrific numbers before saying there could be a “positive regression to the mean” for Higashioka, as if his season has been a product of bad luck. Higashioka struck out on three pitches.

In his second plate appearance, he flew out to center field. In his third, he struck out on three pitches again. In his fourth, he lined out to center. In his fifth, he flew out to left. When his sixth plate appearance came up in the bottom of the 13th, Aaron Boone pinch hit Trevino for him. Higashioka has been pinch hit for a lot this season, but it has always been for the regular, everyday player on the bench getting unnecessary rest. For the first time, Boone pinch hit for Higashioka with Trevino. A catcher for a catcher. It was the first time Boone has ever done anything that would present Higashioka in a negative light. Trevino came through with the game-winning single, but Boone doesn’t deserve credit for the move since Higashioka should have never been starting in the first place.

On Sunday, Trevino was a late scratch from the lineup due to a minor injury. Higashioka got the start and went 3-for-5 with two home runs. One of the two home runs came against a 35.1-mph pitch from a position player. It was Higashioka’s best game of the season, even if it deserves an asterisk the size of the Armitron clock atop the scoreboard next to it. With the “big” day, Higashioka is still only hitting .172/.225/.280 on the season. (He was hitting .148/.206/.193 before Sunday). Trevino is hitting .309/.356/.505 and has been the superior defensive catcher as well, and it’s not even close.

The 50/50 divide can’t continue. Higashioka is as close to an automatic out at the plate as there is in baseball since no one with his numbers would continue to get regular at-bats.

Boston’s offense is red-hot now. I’m very intrigued the next time Gerrit Cole faces them.

3. The Yankees’ starting pitching has been the collective MVP of the team this season and the reason why they are 41-16 with the best record in baseball. Aaron Judge’s actual MVP season and the combined performance of Clay Holmes, Michael King and Clarke Schmidt have also played a major role in the Yankees’ success over the first one-third of the season, but it’s the starting pitching that has been the most important aspect of the team.

Gerrit Cole is supposed to be the sure-thing in the rotation. Through two months, he has been the Yankees’ worst starter. That’s not to say he’s actually the Yankees’ worst starter, but in a little more than one-third of the season he has been. The Yankees’ two worst starts this season have come from him with the first being his April 19 debacle in Detroit and the second being Thursday night in Minnesota.

Cole’s performance on Thursday was the worst of his career, and one of the worst I have seen in my life, and I was in Fenway Park the night Chase Wright gave up back-to-back-to-back-to-back home runs on Sunday Night Baseball to the Red Sox nearly 15 years ago. Cole began his night by allowing back-to-back-back home runs, and in 2 1/3 innings, he allowed five home runs and seven earned runs. Anyone pitching that badly would be startling, but for someone like Cole it was hard to believe. For who he’s supposed to be and his status, pedigree and reputation, it was one of the worst starts of all time for a pitcher of that caliber.

Cole is supposed to be an ace. In theory, he is, but in theory, he isn’t letting the entire Twins lineup go into the second deck off him. Cole is an ace … when he’s facing the league’s worst teams. If he’s on the mound against a weak team like Kansas City or Baltimore, he’s who you would expect him to be. If he’s on the mound against Boston or Tampa Bay or Toronto or Minnesota, well, he’s anything but an ace.

Here is Cole’s line this season against the Red Sox, Blue Jays, White Sox, Rays and Twins (four teams expected to reach the postseason):

24.1 IP, 24 H, 17 R, 17 ER, 8 BB, 31 K, 9 JR, 6.29 ERA, 1.315 WHIP

And here is Cole’s line this season against the Tigers, Guardians, Royals, Rangers and Orioles:

42.2 IP, 31 H, 10 R, 10 ER, 9 BB, 53 K, 2 HR, 2.11 ERA, 0.984 WHIP

4. The difference between the two is appalling. Cole won’t see a team from that second group in October (unless the Guardians have a miracle summer). And everything is about October, especially since the Yankees are 44-16 and are headed to October.

Cole will undoubtedly get the ball in Game 1 of any series. Cortes could finish with a sub-1.00 ERA and be on his way to a unanimous Cy Young vote, and he still won’t get the ball in Game 1 of the playoffs. (If that did happen, the Yankees would cite Andy Pettitte always being a Game 2 starter as the reason why Cortes isn’t starting before Cole in a playoff series.)

It will be hard to trust Cole in October. I didn’t trust him last October, and four batters into his wild-card game performance, the Yankees were down 2-0 and never recovered. (Hamstring issue or not, he took the ball and there are no excuses if you take the ball.) His inability to pitch well against the teams the Yankees are likely to see in October is upsetting, and he needs to be better. A lot better. His next start will come against the Rays next week at the Stadium, and while he pitched well against them a couple of weeks ago at the Trop, he still let a missed third strike call ruin his day as he unraveled and gave away the game after that.

Cole dominating teams from that second group is supposed to be a given. Pitching well against teams from that first group is also supposed to be a given.

I’m surprised Hicks knew it was gone. How does he remember what a home run looks like?

5. Aaron Hicks hit a two-run, game-tying home run on Thursday night against the Twins in what was his biggest moment of the season. The home run was his second of the season, so he now has the same amount as Higashioka (in 83 more plate appearances), one more than Tim Locastro (in 172 more plate appearances), three less than Trevino (in 83 more plate appearances) and four less than Matt Carpenter (157 more plate appearances).

Hicks has one double to go along with his two home runs for a grand total of three extra-base hits in 2022. The season is 60 games and 37 percent complete. The man who went out of his way to say he wanted to be a 30/30 player in 2022 is on pace for 5.4 home runs and 13.5 steals. So I guess he could be looking at joining the 5/14 club, an exclusive club of which they are only a few thousand members.

How has Isiah-Kiner Falefa been really bad? What metric?

6. Umm, every metric? Let’s take a look at Kiner-Falefa’s offensive breakdown:

OK, not every metric. He’s really fast (86th percentile) and doesn’t strike out (97th percentile). But he can’t square up pitches (1st percentile), doesn’t hit the ball hard (9th and 12th percentiles), swings at pitches outside the strike zone (14th percentile) and rarely walks (33rd percentile).

Add in his fielding in which he struggles to make routine plays and has me trusting him as much as I did Gleyber Torres at short, and I’m beginning to wonder if the Yankees would be better off putting Torres back there and making Kiner-Falefa a bench player. Because that’s what Kiner-Falefa should be: a bench player. Maybe the Angels will completely fall out the face and the Yankees can re-acquire Bronx native Andrew Velazquez. He’s not going to give you anything at the plate, but he will make every play in the field, so at least he will do one thing really well, which is more than Kiner-Falefa gives the Yankees.

7. The Yankees need a better shortstop, but unfortunately, they aren’t likely to get one. They will likely play the entire season out with Kiner-Falefa at short and watch him weakly put balls in play and botch simple, routine plays in the field. At times it seems like Kiner-Falefa’s goal at the plate is to make an out as quickly as possible, and he’s really, really good at it. Normally, his at-bats are over after one or two pitches and after he grounded out to the left side or popped up in the infield or to the shallow outfield. In the field, I trust him at short as much as I trusted Torres and the Yankees were willing to screw up their entire roster construction and future plans to move Torres off short.

There’s a reason why the Rangers didn’t want to Kiner-Falefa at short or second, committing nearly a half-billion dollars to Corey Seager and Marcus Semien in the offseason. And there’s a reason why the Twins were so quick to trade him as long as Josh Donaldson’s money was attached to him … so they could use the freed up salary from Donaldson to sign Carlos Correa, a real shortstop.

The Yankees chose Kiner-Falefa as a 2022 stopgap to get them to Oswald Peraza or Anthony Volpe in 2023. (Peraza is hitting .204/.280/.343 in Triple-A, and Volpe is hitting .224/.320/.401 in Double-A, so that plan isn’t exactly going as hoped.) The Yankees need to upgrade short, but it’s unlikely they will.

Are you ever happy?

8. Yes, I’m always happy. I don’t know why people think I’m negative or pessimistic. Again, I’m a realist. If I tweet Aaron Hicks’ slash line (which is an embarrassment), I will get a reply that I’m being negative and should be happy the Yankees are 44-16 when all I tweeted was a simple slash line.

I’m sorry numbers hurt people’s feelings in the same way David Ortiz said he was he hurt people’s feelings for buying supplements during his 2009 performance-enhancing drugs press conference. If you’re upset about stats because the player in conversation is producing poor stats, maybe take off the Yankees pajamas you’re wearing and look at the team with less of a homer-ish view.

Relax, Neil. The team will be fine.

9. Unless Hicks or Joey Gallo completely turn around their seasons, the Yankees would need to upgrade an outfield spot. They can’t honestly think they are going to go into October with the possibility of Higashioka, Kiner-Falefa, Hicks and Gallo all in the same lineup. Then again, this is a team managed and run by the same people who thought the 2019 Yankees needed no upgrades or additions at the trade deadline.

Fans who believe the Yankees don’t need to do anything because they are 44-16 are foolish. The Yankees are 25-5 against the Orioles, Cubs, Guardians, Tigers, Royals and Angels. None of those teams will be playing in October. (I guess there’s a crazy outside chance the Guardians could make the playoffs, but does anyone truly think they are going to hold off the Twins or White Sox in their division, or the Blue Jays, Rays or Red Sox for a wild-card berth?)

The Yankees have been really good. They have the best record in baseball. They have the best run differential in baseball. They have the best pitching staff in baseball. They have also played one of the easiest schedules to date in baseball. That matters. They have also played an incredibly weak schedule to date. To their credit, they have taken care of business against the weak portion of their schedule, but in a short series, would any Yankees fan feel confident or comfortable against Toronto, Tampa Bay or Houston? I think the Yankees are much closer to being on equal footing with those teams than the standings would have you believe.

Yes, they will be “fine” in terms of playing baseball in October. The Yankees are going to October. At this point, if they played .500 baseball for their remaining 102 games, they would win 95 games. They could play 10 games under .500 (46-56) and win 90 games. The position they have put themselves in is remarkable. They are 28 games over. 500 with an eight-game loss column lead on the Blue Jays.

10. My biggest fear for the Yankees remains the offense disappearing in October, like it did in 2021 wild-card game, Game 5 of the 2020 ALDS, Games 2 through 6 of the 2019 ALDS, Games 3 and 4 of the 2018 ALDS, and all the road games in the 2017 ALCS. The Yankees have the best starting pitching they have had in years, and even without Aroldis Chapman, Jonathan Loaisiga and Chad Green, they still have the best bullpen in the league. It’s the offense that worries me.

Sure, the Yankees could upgrade Hicks, Gallo, Kiner-Falefa and Higashioka and still go to October and have their offense perform its annual disappearing act. That can’t be planned for. But what can be planned for is that the Yankees use the trade deadline to put themselves in the best possible position to be successful in October. They had the chance in the offseason and they failed to, so they have another opportunity between now and August 2 to enhance the roster and for the postseason. Being in first place in mid-June is great. Being in first place at the end of October is the goal.

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The Yankees swept the Angels and then swept the Tigers. They have won six straight, haven’t lost in June and have a seven-game lead in the loss column in the AL East.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. The Yankees once again did what they need to do against a soft part of their schedule with back-to-back sweeps and six straight wins over the Angels and Tigers. The Angels suck, having lost 11 straight to fall a game below .500 and nine games in the loss column behind the Astros in the AL West. The Tigers are flat-out awful at 12 games under .500 with a minus-64 run differential and the worst offense in the majors.

With this latest six-game winning streak, the Yankees have maintained having the best record in baseball. At 39-15, they are on pace to win 117 games and can play under-.500 baseball for the rest of the season and still win 92 games, which is what their win total was set at prior to the season. They will blow past that number even if Aaron Boone takes his ridiculous load management strategy to an unforeseen level for the entire second half.

2. Since the start of the Angels series, the worst start the Yankees received was Jordan Montgomery’s on Sunday against the Tigers: 6.1 IP, 5 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 1 BB, 5 K. When the worst start you get in two series is two earned runs over 6 1/3 innings, it’s easy to see why the Yankees have been so good this season.

The Yankees are where they are for four reasons: the starting pitching, three relievers, Aaron Judge and some other bats at various times. All five starters have No. 1-like numbers; Clay Holmes, Michael King and Clarke Schmidt have been dominant; Aaron Judge is the AL MVP, and every everyday hitter other than Aaron Hicks and Kyle Higashioka has helped win at least one game for the team at some point. (Even Joey Gallo had a big two-run home run on Sunday to tie that game at 2.)

3. Even with his game-tying home run on Sunday, Gallo is still a big problem, as are Hicks and Higashioka. The trio is extremely fortunate the Yankees are off to one of the best starts in franchise history through exactly one-third of the season because if the Yankees didn’t have the separation they have in the AL East, the Stadium boo birds would be even louder for them than they already are, which seems impossible.

There are Yankees fans who are unwilling to discuss the fact there are days when the team has four players in the lineup who are below league average in Gallo, Hicks, Higashioka and Isiah Kiner-Falefa. These fans think that since team is winning, why change anything. You change things to make sure the team keeps winning. Being in first place on June 6 is great, but the goal is to be in first place on October 6. The Yankees won’t see teams like the Tigers, Orioles or Royals in October. (Or even the Angels at this rate.) No other October team will boast three players with sub-.600 OPS and four with a sub-.650 OPS. No other team will be giving up one third of their outs in playoff games to less-than-replacement-level bats.

4. The Yankees had a helpful bat on their roster as recently as a few days ago before they decided to once again send down Miguel Andujar. This poor decision by the Yankees was the result of past poor decisions by the Yankees, and resulted in Andujar asking to be traded.

I’m happy Andujar requested to be traded. He’s getting screwed from receiving a major-league salary and major-league service time since he’s a major-league player being forced to play in Triple-A because of bad contracts, bad trades and money owed. That bad contract and money owed would be the Hicks extension and that bad trade would be the one for Gallo.

5. The Yankees’ regrettable decision to extend Hicks has backfired into a worst-case scenario. Since the moment Hicks received that extension he has been either injured or unproductive. But because he’s under contract for this season … and next season … and the season after … and the season after that … and then will be bought out the season after that … he’s not going anywhere.

Hicks’ offensive metrics are abysmal. He’s in the 18th percentile for average exit velocity and the second percentile of barrel percentage. That means 98 percent of players in Major League Baseball square up pitches better than Hicks, and yet, he was the planned everyday center fielder for the 2022 Yankees.

Hicks’ 2021 season was cut short due to needing wrist surgery and other players who have had the same operation on the sheath of their wrist claimed mentioned needing a full year for power to return. So Hicks has a built-in excuse for 2022, like he did in 2020 and 2021 coming off a back injury and elbow surgery. I’m sure he will suffer another injury in 2022 to use as a built-in excuse for 2023 and keep his roster spot safe since that’s what he seems to do

Hicks does two things well: he doesn’t chase pitches (94th percentile) and he walks (96th percentile). But his walks number is misleading as Hicks goes to the plate looking to walk and praying to not have to swing. His entire goal in the box is that the pitcher will throw four pitches outside the zone wildly enough that he won’t have to swing. He’s not going to battle in an at-bat and foul off tough pitches to draw a walk. He’s either going to walk because the pitcher has control issues or he’s going to strike out or weakly put the ball in play.

The thing is, Hicks’ power isn’t necessarily the problem. It’s not like he’s barreling the ball and it’s just dying because of a lack of power. He’s simply not barreling the ball (again 98 percent of the league is barreling the ball better than him).

On Friday, Hicks drove in his first run in 19 days and 46 plate appearances. It was his third RBI in over a month. On Sunday, Hicks produced hit latest 0-for-game with an 0-for-4 and a strikeout. Through one-third of the season, the player who went out of his way to state his goal for 2022 was to hit 30 home runs and steal 30 bases, is about as close to accomplishing that goal as I am, as Hicks has one more home run than I do this season. He also has one more double than me this season.

I have referred to Hicks as the worst player in Major League Baseball and relative to his contract, his salary, his everyday playing status and the team he plays for, he truly is the worst player in the majors. No other true contender has a player as bad as Hicks in their everyday lineup. But somehow not only is he consistently in the lineup, he has been used as the leadoff hitter in 22 percent of the Yankees’ games. Yes, please give the most possible at-bats on the team to a player that has the same amount of home runs and doubles as Kevin Plawecki.

6. Gallo has been put in a position to get the least amount of possible at-bats on the team. The Yankees traded four prospects at last year’s deadline for one-and-a-half years of Gallo to get Gold Glove defense in the field and the three true outcomes (strikeout, walk and home run) at the plate. They are now getting shaky defense in the outfield and mostly one outcome at the plate (strikeout) and have relegated to being their everyday 9-hitter. In that role, he bats behind Hicks, Kiner-Falefa and at times Higashioka. This is the same player who was penciled in as the team’s 2-hitter upon becoming a Yankee.

Because of what the Yankees gave up for Gallo, they are going to try to salvage this season with him in hopes he can be a productive player for them or good enough that they can trade him at the deadline and actually get back a living, breathing player in return. He’s not going anywhere for at least another two months, and likely isn’t going anywhere then either.

Gallo hit a two-run home run on Sunday. It was his sixth home run of the season and first in exactly three weeks. It also allowed him to pass Hicks in RBIs, as Gallo now has nine and Hicks has eight.

7. The situations with Hicks and Gallo have resulted in Andujar back in Scranton where he has absolutely nothing left to prove as his bat is wasting away in meaningless games. I hope his request is granted and he gets an everyday opportunity somewhere else, while the Yankees continue to employ and play two near-automatic outs.

Between now and the postseason, the Yankees have two things to worry about: health and upgrading the lineup.

There’s not much they can do from a health perspective other than pray for good health. All of the unnecessary rest, planned days off and load management isn’t going to keep them healthy, so this is out of their control. They can upgrade the lineup and they need to. They can’t think they are going to run

An upgraded lineup means more runs and more runs means less close games and less close games mean less Boone. If the Yankees aren’t going to outhit and outscore their own manager, they are going to have a really tough time winning come October. As we saw on Sunday (which we see at least once a series it seems like), when Boone has to get involved in games, the Yankees’ chances of winning drastically decline.

8. In the series finale against the Tigers, the Yankees led 3-2 entering the eighth. Clarke Schmidt had come on in the seventh and preserved the Yankees’ lead and would start the eighth as well. After allowing a leadoff double, Schmidt got the first out of the inning on a flyout. The Tigers had the tying run at second with one out and the heart of their order due up.

Schmidt had thrown 24 pitches in the game. In the last week, he had made one appearance, throwing 25 pitches. Aside from Holmes and King, he has been the Yankees’ only other trustworthy reliever. As a right-hander with three righties due up in Jonathan Schoop, Miguel Cabrera and Javier Baez, Boone had three legitimate options to choose from. He could keep Schmidt in, or he could replace Schmidt with King or he could go to Holmes for a five-out save. (The third option of using Holmes for five outs was never going to be a true option, but it was still one of only three logical, sensible choices.)

So which option did Boone choose? None of them. He instead relieved Schmidt and brought in Miguel Castro, arguably the least trustworthy and effective option in the Yankees’ bullpen.

9. If a move was going to be made (which it didn’t have to be), the move was to go to King. Prior to Sunday, this was King’s recent usage:

May 22: Not used
May 23: Not used
May 24: 21 pitches
May 25: Not used
May 26: Not used
May 27: Not used
May 28: 20 pitches
May 29: Not used
May 30: Day off
May 31: Not used
June 1: Day off
June 2: Not used in either game of doubleheader
June 3: Not used
June 4: 7 pitches

In the previous 14 days and 13 games, King had been used three times, throwing 48 pitches. Boone’s decision to not go to King made me think King was unavailable because of an injury since that’s how little sense it made to not use him.

Sure enough, Castro coughed up the lead and by the time he was done, the Tigers led 4-3. Fortunately, the Tigers turned into the Tigers in the bottom of the eighth and gifted the Yankees a run to tie the game.

When the game went to the 10th inning, King was brought in. So he was available to pitch. Boone would rather use King in the 10th inning of a 4-4 game than in the eighth inning of a game the Yankees lead by one run with the opponent’s 2-3-4 hitters coming up.

In actuality, what Boone did was try to steal the remaining two outs of the eighth inning with Castro. He would never admit it, but what he was hoping was that Castro could get him through the eighth and maybe the Yankees would tack on some insurance runs in the bottom of the eighth and he could avoid using King and Holmes and give them yet another day off followed by the team’s scheduled day off on Monday. Either that or he was hoping Castro would get through the eighth and he could use King in the ninth to close out the game, even though the situation in the eighth (runner in scoring position with 2-3-4 due up) was the more crucial situation and needed the better reliever. Whatever his thinking was, it was idiotic and nearly cost the Yankees the game and would have if not for the Tigers’ error-filled eighth.

10. After health, Boone remains the Yankees’ biggest threat to a championship. It’s moves like the one on Sunday in which he chooses the wrong pitcher, or manages for the future and a situation that may never arise, or his obsession with letting a pitcher stay in one (or even two or three) batters too long before recognizing the severity of a given situation that could ruin the Yankees’ season yet again. His in-game management is atrocious and has not progressed the slightest in now five years on the job.

The Yankees need more wins like Friday when they just destroyed the Tigers (13-0), or like Saturday (3-0) when the starting pitching was so good, the ball can just be handed to King and then Holmes and the win is secure. Games like those two are Boone-proof. He doesn’t have to do anything other than sit on his perch, obnoxiously chew his gum and adjust his oversized watch.

Unfortunately, those games rarely happen come October. In October, Boone will play a big role in the result of nearly every game, and no matter how many games the Yankees win during the regular season, the idea of that is what will keep me anxious until this season and every season he manages ends.

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The Yankees went to Tampa and did what they needed to do in winning two of the four games. Then they returned home after a day off and handed the Angels their sixth straight loss. They have done all of this with about one-third of their expected everyday lineup and without one-third of their expected bullpen.

Yes, these Thoughts are late because of Memorial Day Weekend. And because of that, it will cover both the Rays series and the first game of the Angels series.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. The Yankees’ goal was to go to Tampa and win two of four. That would take four head-to-head games against the Rays off the schedule and keep the Rays at four games back in the loss column, where they were before the series started. The Yankees accomplished that goal and they did so with lineups that rival 2013 and 2014 in terms of embarrassing, but the series could have and should have been so much more for the Yankees.

Yes, I said I would be happy if the Yankees split the four-game series in Tampa, especially with the state of the Yankees’ lineup and bullpen, but that was before the Yankees won the first two games and before they blew leads in both the third and fourth games of the series. The Yankees had an opportunity to bury the Rays in the AL East over the weekend, and create eight games of separation between them. Instead, a combination of a makeshift, spring training-looking lineup, Gerrit Cole and Aaron Boone settled for a series split.

2. Cole has been the Yankees’ worst starter in 2022. It’s a small sample size of not even two months of starts, but it’s true. He’s still going to get the ball in Game 1 of any postseason series the Yankees play in, but that doesn’t mean he’s the team’s best starter or ace. That’s been Nestor Cortes through the first nearly one-third of the season.

Cole pitched well on Saturday before melting down over a missed third strike call that would have gotten him out of the inning, and let that missed call snowball into a Yankees deficit. The Yankees’ rotation has been so good that Cole doesn’t need to put the team on his back every fifth day and pitch them to wins, but I’m sure he doesn’t like not being the perceived ace of the team. I’m sure he doesn’t like needing 25 pitches in each first inning he pitches, and I’m sure he doesn’t like never seeming to get the job done against the Red Sox, Blue Jays or Rays.

3. I have written and said it many times, but the more close games the Yankees play in, the more games they will lose simply because of Boone. He’s incapable of correctly managing the bullpen in close games, and unwilling to change his approach from going batter-to-batter with his starter or trying to “steal” outs in the late innings. How Ron Marinaccio is in a one-run game at the Trop on Sunday with the bullpen completely rested is so irresponsible and inexcusable it’s hard to believe a supposed baseball lifer like Boone could make such an egregious mistake. Marinaccio is a fine arm. He’s also that last man in the bullpen who the Yankees deemed not good enough to be in the bullpen before Chad Green, Aroldis Chapman and Jonathan Loaisiga all went on the injured list. He can’t be pitching in a game on Sunday’s magnitude.

4. Every game the Yankees play against the Blue Jays and Rays are of the utmost importance. It’s a three-team race for the AL East, and head-to-head games against your direct competition for the division should be treated as postseason games in the regular season. Theres’ no doubt in my mind Boone was OK with not going all out to win on Sunday, even though it represented a two-game swing in the loss column in the division, and even though the Yankees had a day off scheduled for the following day. “Lose the battle to win the war” has been Boone’s motto as Yankees manager, except he has lost too many battles resulting in one division title in four years and has lost all four wars as well.

5. If Matt Carpenter doesn’t get another plate appearance as a Yankee, his time with them will have been well worth it. The Yankees gave Carpenter a major-league deal out of nowhere after he tore up Triple-A this season with the Rangers, and it’s possible the in-depth hitting evaluation he recently went through actually worked. Carpenter homered in his second game with the Yankees in Friday’s 2-0 win over the Rays and then homered again on Tuesday off Noah Syndergaard. Joe Maddon and the Angels were so worried about Syndergaard facing Carpenter a second time that when his spot in the lineup came up in the third inning, Maddon removed Syndergaard from the game for a left-handed long man. A week ago, Carpenter was in Triple-A wondering if he would ever play in the majors again. On Tuesday, he was hitting a two-run home run off Syndergaard while wearing pinstripes and chasing Syndergaard from a game.

6. Carpenter’s two home runs are now double Aaron Hicks’ season total of one. With each day, game and series that goes by, Hicks remains stuck on one home run and one double on the season. The season is now 30 percent over for the player whose goal was to hit 30 home runs and steal 30 bases, and Hicks has half of the home runs of Carpenter despite having 129 more plate appearances and one-third of the home runs of Jose Trevino despite having 64 more plate appearances.

Trevino had another awesome night at the plate on Tuesday, going 3-for-4 with two runs and a two-run home run. His OPS is up to .717 on the season, which is higher than Isiah Kiner-Falefa (.603), Joey Gallo (.601) and Hicks (.559). He also picked off a runner on a throw down to first. He is what the Yankees continue to think Kyle Higashioka is, when in reality, Higashioka isn’t a major-league player.

7. Miguel Andujar is a major-league player, but he’s likely to get screwed again once Stanton and Donaldson are healthy. I think it would be a mistake to send Andujar down again and not play him. He’s hitting .281 in nine games and his contact approach at the plate is something the Yankees greatly need.

There’s too many holes in the lineup and too much dead wood on the roster getting playing time because of money owed and not because of recent performance. Andujar is more deserving a roster spot than Gallo or Hicks or Tim Locastro. Andujar’s outfield defense is much improved, and even if it were as bad as it once was, I don’t care. The Yankees’ defense is strong enough at the other positions that they can afford an adventure in left field in exchange for Andujar’s bat.

Let Andujar play, and see what he can do for the first time since the end of 2018. Otherwise, the Yankees will eventually lose Andujar to another team who will play him every day, while the Yankees continue to give endless chances to Gallo and Hicks or roster Locastro.

8. I’m not ready to apologize to Gleyber Torres for asking for him to be traded and no longer a Yankee prior to and even during this season. Torres’ power has returned as he has matched his home run total of 2021 of nine in less than one-third of the plate appearances. His OPS+ and wRC+ are better than league average, even though he’s only hitting .250/.287/.474. He’s on the right track and his career is in a much better place than it was a year ago, but his defense is still not trustworthy and Baseball IQ on the bases remains a disaster. On Tuesday, Torres thought he hit his 10th home run of the season and went into his homer jog after hitting first base, only to realize the ball hit the wall. He then picked it up and went for what would have been a stand-up triple if he had been running hard out of the box, but was thrown out after oversliding the base. After picking up another hit in his next at-bat, he was thrown out trying to steal second. Two of the Yankees’ first seven outs on Tuesday were made by Torres … on the bases.

I’m not about to retract my blog ‘When Will Yankees Say Goodbye to Gleyber Torres?’ yet. Not after seven weeks following what we saw from him in 2020 and 2021. I want to like and appreciate Torres again, and we’re getting close to that, but I’m going to need a little more time.

9. The Yankees’ ability to not just stay afloat, but beat good teams without DJ LeMahieu, Giancarlo Stanton and Josh Donaldson, and without one-third of their Opening Day bullpen is impressive.

This was the Yankees’ lineup on Thursday against the Rays:

Aaron Judge, CF
Anthony Rizzo, 1B
Gleyber Torres, 2B
Miguel Andujar, LF
Joey Gallo, RF
Isiah Kiner-Falefa, SS
Jose Trevino, C
Matt Carpenter, DH
Marwin Gonzalez, 3B

If you told me on May 26, Torres would be batting third, Andujar at cleanup, Kiner-Falefa up from ninth to sixth, Trevino above to people, Carpenter on the Yankees and Gonzalez starting at third, I would have assumed the Yankees were battling the Orioles for last place in the division. I would have also assumed I would need some new hobby or activity to get me through the summer. Instead, it’s June 1 and the Yankees have the best record in baseball, a five-game loss column lead on the Blue Jays and a six-game loss column lead on the Rays with the Red Sox closer to having the No. 1 pick in 2023 draft (six games) than they are to the Yankees (12 games).

10. The Yankees are in a great place. A great, unexpected place. But they’re not safe. Unfortunately, they don’t play in the AL Central or NL East where they would be just be counting down the days until the postseason with a bye to the division series. They still have to worry about the Blue Jays (who have won six straight), and the Rays (who have followed up their series-salvaging wins over the Yankees on Saturday and Sunday with back-to-back losses to the Rangers). They will likely have to worry about them all season long.

The Yankees are the best team in the American League and the best team in baseball, but these are the things (in order) that will prevent them from reaching the World Series:

1. Health
2. Aaron Boone
3. Their offense
4. Rays/Blue Jay
5. Astros

The Yankees are going to the postseason, though that’s not an accomplishment when 40 percent of the league makes the playoffs. An accomplishment would be winning the AL East, having the best record in the league and getting home-field advantage throughout the playoffs.

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The Yankees won yet another series, taking two of three from the Orioles, even though it seemed like their season might snowball out of control. And it still might, but for now, there is some stability. “Some” stability.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. After losing Monday’s series opener, the Yankees had lost three straight, four of five, and the last two games they had played against the Orioles going back to the previous Thursday. They would go into Tuesday with Jordan Montgomery starting (who the offense weirdly never gives run support to) and facing Bruce Zimmermann (who the offense never seems to score against). After that it would be JP Sears on Wednesday making his first major-league start followed by a four-game series at the Trop. Things were set up for the Yankees to piss away their hot start and their unexpected division lead in a single week. Fortunately, they were able to overcome blowing a three-run lead on Tuesday to win in 11 innings and hold on in a minuscule two-run effort on Wednesday to provide some stability given their recent play and the litany of injuries ruining the roster.

2. That litany of injuries started out as Chad Green needing Tommy John surgery. Then after allowing runs in five straight appearances, Aroldis Chapman landed on the injured list with an Achilles issue. We may now know why Jonathan Loaisiga has been less ineffective than Chapman this season as he joined Chapman on the IL with a shoulder problem.

The injury bug hasn’t just gone after the bullpen. Joey Gallo, Kyle Higashioka and Josh Donaldson have all ended up on the COVID IL in recent days. DJ LeMahieu was scratched from Tuesday’s lineup with wrist discomfort that required a cortisone shot and also kept him out of Wednesday’s lineup. Giancarlo Stanton was pulled from Tuesday’s game in what was reported as a calf strain, but after undergoing an MRI that came back clean, his diagnosis was changed to ankle inflammation. What? Are we really doing this again with the Yankees and their inability to properly diagnose injuries? I thought they cleaned house with that medical team?

3. In 2019, Stanton played in 18 regular-season games after suffering a biceps strain, that while on the IL turned into a shoulder strain, that while on the IL turned into a calf strain. During 2020 spring training (prior to the pandemic), Stanton suffered a calf injury that would have kept him out for months if the season had started on time. Given the mysterious nature of this current injury that has included a clean MRI and a misdiagnosis, I would not plan on Stanton returning when he’s first available to be activated. Hey, it could happen (like all the crazy, impossible things that happened in those ’90s McDonald’s commercials), but I wouldn’t bet on it. Not given Stanton’s lengthy injury history and his ability to return on time from injuries just like this one.

4. Stanton’s injury combined with other injuries to the roster and the Yankees’ lack of offense has opened the door for Miguel Andujar to once again be an everyday player for the Yankees. After he was Wally Pipp’d by Gio Urshela in 2019, he was forced to learn the outfield, and then was blocked in the organization by Stanton, Aaron Judge, Aaron Hicks, Mike Tauchman, Clint Frazier and even Tyler Wade. But now Stanton is hurt, Hicks is unplayable, Tauchman is in Japan, Frazier was released for nothing and Wade is on the Angels. The path has been cleared and an opportunity has presented itself for Andujar to play every day like he last did in 2019.

I often wonder what would have become of Andujar if he wasn’t unnecessarily off of third base on March 31, 2019 and needed to dive back to the bag to avoid being out, tearing his shoulder in the process. That dive cost Andujar his 2019 season and essentially his career to this point.

Prior to that dive, Andujar was coming off a rookie season in which he hit .297/.328/.527 with 27 home runs, 92 RBIs and 47 doubles. If not for 2018 also being the rookie season for Shohei Ohtani, Andujar would have won the American League Rookie of the Year, but instead had to settle with finishing second to the modern-day Babe Ruth. Even during his five-game debut in the majors the season before in 2017 Andujar proved he could hit, going 4-for-7 with two doubles in five games. If not for the money owed to Chase Headley and Jacoby Ellsbury, Andujar should have been the designated hitter in the 2017 playoffs, and maybe the Yankees’ World Series drought wouldn’t be going on 13 years this season.

The problem with Andujar has always been his glove. Position-less has been the most common word to describe him. But now on this Yankees team in which injuries and underperformance have put the roster in a serious predicament, Andujar is going to play and he should. Defense or no defense, the Yankees need his bat in the lineup as he’s off to a 4-for-13 start in four games this season. The Yankees have to be willing to sacrifice defense for offense even if it means experiencing an adventure in the outfield with Andujar to get another major-league quality bat in the lineup. Though it’s not like he can be much worse defensively than both Hicks and Gallo have been this season.

I have always been an Andujar fan. I have always appreciated his offense. Defense grows on trees. A bat like Andujar’s doesn’t.

5. Injury hasn’t been the only thing to ruin what I called the greatest bullpen ever. Performance has done as much damage to the bullpen as injuries have. Both Chapman and Loaisiga were painful to watch before landing on the IL, and the high walk rate for Miguel Castro has finally caught up to him. The only true trustworthy reliever remaining is Clay Holmes (since Aaron Boone only uses Clarke Schmidt once a month) now that Michael King has turned back into pre-2022 Michael King.

King couldn’t protect a one-run lead on Wednesday after Boone decided to go batter-to-batter with Montgomery and it resulted in a leadoff home run in the seventh inning. King gave up three runs of his own, producing a stinker in his second straight outing and in three of his last six. Thankfully, the bottom of the Yankees lineup erased King’s horrendous performance and the Yankees went on to win in 11 innings in what will forever be known as the Jose Trevino Game, as the light-hitting (and I mean light) catcher went 3-for-4 with a home, a game-tying single in the seventh, an important two-out walk in the ninth that Aaron Hicks did nothing with and the game-winning, walk-off single in the 11th.

6. It should come as no surprise that Hicks did nothing to win the game on Tuesday, and nearly cost the Yankees the game on Wednesday. He has to go. He has to. I have been saying this for years, and now it seems like the Yankees might finally be moving in that direction. I don’t think it will ever happen, but it should. Between Hicks’ inability to hit (he has one double and one home run with a .582 OPS), defend (his routes and first steps on balls combined with his lack of urgency to get to the ball or get it in is disturbing) or run the bases (getting picked off at second in a one-run game on Sunday was completely unacceptable), he provides zero value to the Yankees.

When Hicks was unnecessarily given his regrettable seven-year contract extension, the general consensus was that the money owed would be small enough that the Yankees could cut ties if he failed to stay healthy or produce. Well, there’s been no one less healthy who still has an everyday job in baseball than Hicks since he signed that extension in February 2019, and the last time he was a productive hitter was when the baseball was juiced. That was a surgically-repaired elbow and wrist ago for the now 32-year-old Hicks.

7. Tuesday was the worst game of what has been an MVP season for Aaron Judge, as he went 0-for-5 with two strikeouts and hit into two double plays. Judge was the Yankees offense in the first game of the series on Monday (two home runs) and the Yankees lost. Then he was Aaron Hicks Jr. on Tuesday and the Yankees managed to score seven runs (six without counting the automatic runner run in the 11th) and win. It’s good to know it doesn’t always have to be the Aaron Judge Show for the Yankees to score. I don’t mind if it that show if he’s going to do it for the entire season and the entire postseason.

8. At some point, the other eight bats in the lineup are going to have do something. The Yankees’ success this season has been a combination of Judge and the starting pitching. That can’t continue. Unless the rotation is going to stay this good and this healthy for the next five-plus months and unless Judge is going to have one of the single-best offensive seasons in the history of baseball, others will need to contribute.

And by others, I really only mean a select few in LeMahieu, Anthony Rizzo and Donaldson and Stanton when they return. I don’t expect anything out of Torres, Gallo, Hicks, Kiner-Falefa or the catchers on a daily basis. That’s too many everyday spots to not expect anything out of. Either a few of those names will start producing, or Andujar will step up with his opportunity or within the next two months the Yankees will have to trade for players who can.

9. It’s a bad time for the Yankees to be playing the biggest series of the season to date against the Rays. There’s a good chance Hicks could be leading off this weekend, Torres could be batting fifth and Kiner-Falefa could be one of the most important bats in the lineup.

The Yankees lead the Rays by four games in the loss column, and if they have a bad weekend at the Trop, their hot start could be erased by the end of play in Sunday. It’s not out of the question either. The Boone Yankees have been thoroughly embarrassed by the Rays over the last four years.

10. The Yankees can’t go to the Trop and get run out of the building this weekend. They need to go there and win two of the four games. It will take four head-to-head games off the schedule between the two and will keep the distance between the two in the loss column the same: at four games. They will likely put out a spring training-esque lineup each of the next four days, hoping to scratch across a few runs and praying their starting pitching continues this magnificent run.

The Yankees are going a place they never win in the Trop to play the team they seem to never beat since Boone took over at the worst possible time given the state of their roster. It’s unfortunate, but there’s nothing they can do about it. As Joe Torre used to say when injury situations like these would occur: “No one is going to feel sorry for the Yankees.” Certainly not the Rays.

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