The Yankees lost two of three to the White Sox to drop their first series since the second week of the season. Both losses came in a doubleheader in which the Yankees scored one run in 18 innings.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. The Yankees are 29-12. They have the best record in the majors. Up until this week, everything had gone right them. They had taken advantage of an easy schedule to date, they had stayed healthy, when the hitting disappeared the pitching remained constant, when the pitching was short of outstanding the offense came together, and most importantly, the manager was removed from the in-game equation for most of the first six-plus weeks of the season.

After getting swept in a home doubleheader on Sunday, while scoring one run on an Aaron Judge solo home run in the 18 innings, the Yankees have now lost three of their last four games. Certainly, the sky isn’t falling because of a bad few days (thanks to their 28-9 record before the four games), but things aren’t what they were on Thursday morning.

2. Chad Green has most likely thrown his last pitch as a Yankee. After leaving Thursday’s loss to the Orioles with forearm discomfort, Green needs Tommy John surgery and will miss the rest of 2022, and he will be a free agent after this season. He turns 31 tomorrow (nothing like major elbow surgery to celebrate your birthday) and I find it hard to believe the Yankees will be willing to pay him as a free agent when they have been so good at creating relievers just like Green in recent years. Combine that with his dip in velocity and performance, and it’s easy to see why Green won’t be a Yankee in 2023 and beyond.

Green’s 2017 season was magnificent. He pitched to a 1.83 ERA (1.75 FIP) in 69 innings with 103 strikeouts and 17 walks. On a team that had Aroldis Chapman and Dellin Betances, Green was the Yankees’ best and most trustworthy reliever.

His signature Yankees moment (hat tip, Michael Kay) was when he relieved Luis Severino in the first inning in the 2017 wild-card game with the Yankees trailing 3-0 and runners on second and third with one out. Green got the Yankees out of that jam, Didi Gregorius hit a game-tying home run in the bottom of the inning and the Yankees went on to get within one win of the World Series in a season in which they weren’t supposed to sniff the playoffs.

Green was outstanding again in 2018 (stats), but in 2019, after allowing 14 earned runs in 7 2/3 innings in April, he was sent down to Triple-A until mid-May. After his return to the majors that season, he struck out 91 with 15 walks in 61 1/3 innings.

In 2020 and 2021, Green’s effectiveness began to decline. He was no longer a sure-thing for a shutdown inning and after being overworked and overused in the first month of 2021, by midseason he was blowing every lead he was asked to protect. Up until his injury last week, he was doing the same thing this season.

The Yankees got Green (along with Luis Cessa) for Justin Wilson after the 2015 season. They got 272 combined starts, opens and relief appearances from him over 383 2/3 innings with a 3.17 ERA and 1.022 WHIP. When he was at his best he was arguably the best reliever in the majors.

There was a time when Aroldis Chapman was the best reliever in the majors. Unfortunately, he’s still be treated as if he is.

3. Chapman has continued to be the Yankees’ “closer” because of his name, his career history when he was at his peak and the money still owed to him. Not because he’s deserving of the role. Not because he should still be protecting close games in the ninth inning.

The idea that in 2022 baseball teams still manage their bullpen based on the made-up statistic of the “save” is truly hard to fathom. Chapman is asked to pitch the ninth inning of games in which the Yankees lead by three runs or less. At this point, managing like that is archaic.

It’s been a long time since Chapman could be trusted. Even last season when he began the year with 18 straight scoreless outings, any smart Yankees fan knew not to let their guard down because the Chapman we have seen of late still existed and it was only a matter of time until he came out.

Here is Chapman’s line from Opening Day through May 21, 2021:

18 IP, 5 H, 1 R, 0 ER, 7 BB, 36 K, 0.00 ERA, 0.667 WHIP

And here is Chapman’s line for the rest of 2021:

38.1 IP, 31 H, 22 R, 21 ER, 33 BB, 61 K, 9 HR, 4.93 ERA, 1.670 WHIP

Yes, 33 walks in 38 1/3 innings.

Here is Chapman’s line this season:

14 IP, 13 H, 6 R, 6 ER, 10 BB, 15 K, 2 HR, 3.86 ERA, WHIP

Chapman has allowed 11 home runs and 43 walks in his last 52 1/3 innings. He has allowed at least one earned run in five straight appearances. With Green injured and Chapman possibly injured and not pitching well, along with Jonathan Loaisiga not pitching well, the bullpen is suddenly not nearly as strong as it was four days ago.

4. After giving up a go-ahead home run to the first batter he faced in the ninth inning of the first game of the doubleheader on Saturday, Boone went with a trainer to talk to Chapman who talked Boone out of pulling him. After Chapman allowed another run to score, Boone finally pulled him and then after the game it was reported that Chapman is dealing with an Achilles injury.

Maybe Chapman is hurt and that explains his ineffectiveness. But that would only explain his 2022 ineffectiveness. What’s the reason for 2021?

To me, the explanation is easy: Chapman isn’t the same pitcher he was once was. His command and control is the worst it has ever been, he relies too heavily on offspeed pitches and because he no longer throws the ball as hard as he once did with consistency, hitters have an easier time sitting fastball and adjusting to his breaking pitches or vice versa.

Chapman is a real problem because when he’s available, he’s going to pitch and he’s going to pitch as if he’s still the guy the Yankees made the highest-paid reliever. If Chapman is healthy this postseason and is used like it’s October 2019 and not October 2022, he could end the Yankees’ season for third time in four years.

5. I wrote about Aaron Hicks at length on Friday. I finished my thoughts on him by writing:

I want to like Hicks. I want him to be able to make contact with a changeup when hitting from the left side. I want him to get good jumps on balls hit to him. I want him to throw the ball to the right base with runners on. I want Hicks to stay healthy and succeed because I want the Yankees to succeed.

Since then, Hicks misplayed a fly ball in left field, got picked off second base while representing the tying run in the first game on Sunday, failed to drive in a run in eight plate appearances and failed to record an extra-base hit as he still has just one double and one home run on the season, which is now 25 percent complete.

The Yankees love Hicks. Brian Cashman loves him. Boone loves him. Everyone who makes decision that actually impact the Yankees’ on-the-field product loves him, and all Hicks has done in his baseball career is put together a resume that should make no one love him.

Aside from the seasons when the ball was juiced to the point that Gleyber Torres hit 38 home runs and Brett Gardner hit 28 in a single year, Hicks’ career has been a disappointment. He was a first-round pick bust for the Twins that the Yankees thought they could save and solve, and have treated him like Bernie Williams for now seven seasons in trying to unearth some untapped potential that doesn’t exist. Hicks has missed more games due to injury than he has played in his career, and when he has played, he’s underachieved.

Hicks is now 32 and still has three more years left on his contract after this one. For a guy that went out of his way to proclaim his 2022 goal was to hit 30 home runs and steal 30 bases this season (he had never accomplished either in his career), he has one home run and five steals through nearly two months. (He’s been caught stealing at the base twice and picked off once.)

The Yankees have two bad third outfielder options in Hicks and Joey Gallo, and they seem unwilling to give Estevan Florial a serious or extended look in the majors. The Yankees chose to not upgrade their outfield in the offseason and went into yet another year believing Hicks would stay healthy and produce. He’s been healthy, but he hasn’t produced anything other than outs at the plate and on the basepaths, defensive miscues and a whole lot of runners left on base.

6. Leaving runners on base is a common problem for the Yankees. Getting runners on base is also a problem.

The Yankees are lucky they were playing at the Stadium on Saturday afternoon for DJ LeMahieu’s grand slam to be a grand slam, since it wouldn’t have been a home run at any other park in the majors. If not for that home run, the Yankees’ offense would have had a more miserable weekend that it had, and even with that home run it was a miserable weekend for the offense.

My biggest fear about this Yankees team is what my biggest fear has been about every Yankees team since their last championship: the offense. The frequent disappearing act for days at a time isn’t an anomaly when it occurs, it’s a trend. And come October, I fear the disappearing act will lead to another championship-less year.

When the Yankees’ offense has a bad game or games, it’s not like they’re hitting into bad luck. They just don’t hit. There’s no baserunners. There’s no traffic. There’s nothing. On Sunday night, the Yankees were shut out for the fourth time this season. Michael Kopech started for the White Sox and he’s capable of shutting down any lineup in the game, so it was understandable, especially without him having a control issues for a few batters last Sunday, he would have shut them out then too. But to be thoroughly dominated by 2022 Johnny Cueto like they were in the first game of the doubleheader is unacceptable.

7. But that performance from Cueto is one we have seen from many mediocre and bad starters against the Yankees. (That’s not to say Cueto is bad, but he hasn’t been the Cy Young-worthy version of himself in six years.)

Jordan Lyles: 5.1 IP, 1 ER
Bruce Zimmerman: 5 IP, 0 ER
Michael Pineda: 5 IP, 0 ER
Tyler Wells: 5 IP, 2 ER
Yusei Kikuchi: 6 IP, 1 ER
Dane Dunning: 6 IP, 1 ER
Glenn Otto: 5 IP, 2 ER
Jon Gray: 4.1 IP, 0 ER
Kikuchi: 5.2 IP, 2 ER
Dallas Keuchel: 5 IP, 0 ER
Lyles: 7 IP, 2 ER
Johnny Cueto: 6 IP, 0 ER

That’s not including games in which the Yankees were shut down by front-end starters like Kopech or Alek Manoah. Those are just games in which the Yankees were held to minimal to no runs by average to borderline major leaguers starters. In most of those game, the Yankees were held to just a few hits and baserunners, and in a startling amount of those games, they were no-hit through four or five innings.

8. Bad offensive performances are going to happen over 162 games. But for the Yankees, they happen all the time. The Yankees have the record they have because of their pitching. Even in the 13 games in which the offense scored six or more runs, the pitching only allowed 3.8 runs per game. The Yankees are 28-3 when they score three runs. That’s how good their pitching is.

And the pitching was great against this weekend, even if they lost two of three and lost their first series the second week of the season. Nestor Cortes was good and Jameson Taillon (7 IP, 1 ER) and Luis Severino (7 IP, 0 ER) were awesome.

9. The Yankees have the pitching to win in October, which is something they haven’t had in a really long time. If last October lasted more than one game, they were going to have an injured Gerrit Cole, an unreliable Corey Kluber, Nestor Cortes and Jordan Montgomery to navigate through the postseason. (Taillon was hurt and Severino was in the bullpen after his return from Tommy John.) If the Yankees survived the wild-card game, they weren’t going to survive the Rays or Astros.

The Yankees’ championship chances in 2022 come down to health. When healthy, they have the best team in the American League. If the roster was managed and optimized correctly for the entire season, they would undoubtedly be the best team in the AL. A bad weekend against the White Sox doesn’t change that. But it did further prove the Yankees are from perfect and they have flaws that can be exposed in a short series, which is what the postseason is.

10. When in need of a bounceback performance and to prevent a two-game losing streak from evolving into something worse, you either want to play a bad team or have you ace on the mound. Fortunately, the Yankees have both of those as they will open a three-game series at home against the Orioles with Cole pitching.

One loss in the seven games between last week and this week against the Orioles is all the Yankees can afford, and they used that up in last Thursday’s blown game. After Wednesday, the Yankees will play the Rays (their closest competition in the division) in a four-game series, and they will only have six games remaining for the rest of the season against the Orioles. It’s a big week for the Yankees, and adding to the win total before going to the Trop.

Subscribe to the Keefe To The City Podcast.

My book The Next Yankees Era: My Transition from the Core Four to the Baby Bombers is now available as an ebook!

The Yankees have the best record in baseball. It feels like the old days and the old days were amazing.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. The Yankees went to Baltimore and won yet another series, winning three of four against the Orioles to improve to 7-3 on the season against the last-place Orioles.

The Yankees could have swept the four-game series, but blew two different two-run leads in the series finale before getting walked off on. Oh well. Losses like that are going to happen. (I wish they didn’t happen when I have a sizable investment on the Yankees.) At least the Yankees kept their streak alive of only losing winnable games this season. They have yet to lay an egg or get routed and all 10 of their losses have been a game in which they had a chance to win in the eighth inning or later.

2. Everything is going right for the Yankees. OK, not everything. They have the worst offensive catcher situation in the majors, have a shortstop with no power and questionable defense and they may have just lost one of their Top 3 or Top 4 relievers for the season in Chad Green. But none of that is worse than Aaron Hicks. I’m going to change the Thoughts format for this one and focus on Hicks.

3. I’m tired of writing and talking about Hicks. Now in his seventh year as a Yankee, I have Aaron Hicks fatigue. I spend an inordinate amount of time being frustrated with Hicks and even more time being frustrated with the front office and the manager for continuing to treat him like he’s Bernie Williams. Unfortunately, it’s not going to end anytime soon.

Hicks is under contract this year … and next year … and the year after that … and the year after that … and then the year after that he will be bought out for $1 million. So after an enormous extension and a mediocre career, he will get paid an additional seven figures to not play for the Yankees in 2026.

4. When Hicks received his extension, the common response was that it was a fair deal for both the player and the team for a player who was close to free agency. It was a no-brainer for Hicks to sign. A team was willing to give him seven years of security and generational wealth in $70 million despite not being worth the years or the money. It was enough money where it was a sizable investment for the Yankees, but not enough where they couldn’t get out of it eventually if they had to. It wasn’t necessarily an immovable contract, but it wasn’t an albatross deal like the one the Yankees are worried of giving to Aaron Judge.

The Yankees were willing to gamble that a 29-year-old who had spent his entire 20s mostly either injured or underachieving his first-round draft status would be healthy on the other side of 30 and productive through his age 35 season. For an organization that portrays being meticulous about data and sample sizes, everything about Hicks’ career through 2018 suggested not committing to him through 2026. The Yankees did it anyway.

5. Since the day Hicks signed the deal, it has been a disaster. Shortly after agreeing to the extension, Hicks hurt his back on a 29-minute bus ride in late February in spring training 2019, but Aaron Boone said he would be ready for Opening Day. Hicks missed the first six weeks of the season, and after appearing in 59 games, he tore his elbow, which would need offseason Tommy John surgery.

Had the 2020 season started on time, Hicks would have missed the first half recovering from the surgery. Because the season didn’t begin until late July, he didn’t miss any time and played in 54 games.

In 2021, Hicks was named the No. 3 hitter in spring training by Boone. When Hicks went 1-for-12 with seven strikeouts in the season-opening series against the Blue Jays, Boone was asked if he would move Hicks down and sarcastically laughed at the media for asking the question, claiming Hicks would “be fine.” Less than two weeks later he was moved down in the order and after 34 games, he needed season-ending wrist surgery.

From 2016 through 2021, Hicks played in 493 of a possible 870 regular-season games (57 percent). From 2019 (when he got the extension) through 2021, Hicks played in 145 of a possible 384 regular-season games (38 percent). He has experienced just about every injury a baseball player can experience in going on seven seasons as a Yankee.

6. The only time Hicks has missed in 2022 has been due to paternity leave for the birth of his son.

Having a baby is obviously no joke. Whether or not Hicks makes $10 million to play baseball, he still has a one-month-old at home consuming a lot of his time and drastically altering his life and routine. I have a 20-month-old and a one-month-old and every minute of my life I feel like I have the bases loaded with no outs against me and Mike Trout, Juan Soto and Bryce Harper are due up. I get it.

Or at least I would get it if Hicks sucking in 2022 was solely tied to his performance in home games when he’s living and sleeping at home and prone to middle-of-the-night wakings. But Hicks is hitting .229/.386/.314 at home and .177/.297/.194 on the road. He’s been replacement level at home and Kyle Higashioka on the road.

7. Hicks is a problem. He’s nearly always been a problem, though in the past his problem was that he was never healthy and provided mediocre production when he was healthy and the baseball wasn’t juiced. Now he’s healthy, but he sucks, and this is a new level of suck. Hicks went into this season claiming on CC Sabathia’s podcast that he wanted to be a 30/30 guy. Yes, a guy who never stole more than 13 bases in a season and only ever exceeded 15 home runs in a season in 2019 when the ball was juiced and Gleyber Torres hit 38 and Brett Gardner 28 thought he would suddenly become a superstar.

Hicks has one double and one home run this season. In 2021, coming off a shortened season and the elbow surgery, he posted a .627 OPS before the wrist injury. It’s not unfair to attribute to his lack of power to the wrist surgery which ended his 2021 season in May, but it’s not like he’s Isiah Kiner-Falefa and hitting a bunch of singles with no power. He’s just not hitting at all. He’s hitting .196/.331/.237 in 2022 with his one quality being his ability to not chase pitches and draw walks, however, he has now walked once in the last 10 days.

Last year, Hicks was given a pass as he worked on being further removed from Tommy John. This season, his power outage is being given a pass as he works on being further removed from the wrist surgery. By next year, there will likely be some other pass being given for some other injury. Hicks gets hurt. That’s what he does.

8. Luckily for Hicks, like Higashioka, Jose Trevino, Kiner-Falefa, Joey Gallo and Torres a lot of the time, the Yankees are winning. The Yankees aren’t winning because of Hicks. He has done essentially nothing to help the team win and has actively hurt them both at the plate with runners on base and in the field with questionable (and at times appalling) defense. But if the Yankees hit a skid at some point, which they likely will unless they truly are going to challenge the 1998 Yankees in terms of success, the criticism will come for Hicks and the others. It comes with the territory of losses. I’m the most critical person of the Yankees I know on a daily basis, and even I was accepting of a loss like Thursday’s given the team’s 28-10 record. If the Yankees don’t keep winning the anti-Hicks sentiment will increase dramatically. He’s being given a free pass right now to work through his offensive issues, and it would be nice if he takes advantage of this sort of grace period before any regression for the team comes.

9. Like every other Yankee that causes me to lose sleep, Hicks didn’t force the Yankees to trade for them. Didn’t force them to play him every day. Didn’t force them to give him a seven-year extension. Didn’t force them to continue to go into each season believing they will get a full healthy and productive season from him. If Hicks were always batting sixth or lower in the lineup, getting the occasional runner in from third with less than two outs and playing a sound center field, no fan would have a problem with him. But because the Yankees feel the need to bat him first and third and try to make him into something he’s not, he’s prone to the criticism that comes with batting in the top half of the order for the New York Yankees. Couple that with his questionable defense this season and the lack of trust Yankees fans have for him after the oft-injured previous six seasons and you get an unruly fan base spending most of their day dreaming of his release.

I want to like Hicks. I want him to be able to make contact with a changeup when hitting from the left side. I want him to get good jumps on balls hit to him. I want him to throw the ball to the right base with runners on. I want Hicks to stay healthy and succeed because I want the Yankees to succeed.

10. After a successful series in Baltimore, the Yankees still have the best record in baseball (2 1/2 games better than the Dodgers) and have five-game lead in the AL East. To win at the rate the Yankees have and only have a five-game lead is depressing. (The Yankees would have a 10-game lead in NL East.)

The White Sox-Orioles stretch continues. After four games against the White Sox in Chicago and three games against the Orioles in Baltimore, the Yankees will now host the White Sox for three and then the Orioles for three. After that, it’s the much anticipated four-game series in Tampa against the Yankees’ closest division competition. Two more series wins at home before heading to the Trop isn’t an unreasonable expectation. Given the way the Yankees have played and the two opponents they will play, just winning both series seems like too low of a bar to reach.

Subscribe to the Keefe To The City Podcast.

My book The Next Yankees Era: My Transition from the Core Four to the Baby Bombers is now available as an ebook!

The Yankees demolished yet another team with championship aspirations. After taking three of four in Chicago, the Yankees are now 11-5 against the Red Sox, Blue Jays and White Sox this season.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. That was rather easy. The Yankees went to Chicago, took three of four from the White Sox and could have easily swept the four-game series. The one game they lost was to the White Sox’ worst starter (and one of the worst starters in all of baseball) and in that game, they tied the game in the top of the ninth, only to lose in the bottom of the ninth.

As I have written for two weeks, the only way the Yankees don’t win the division is if they don’t stay healthy. (Please knock on all of the wood near you.) They’re far and away the best team in the AL East, and they are proving they are the best team in the AL, and as of now, the best team in baseball.

2. The White Sox entered the season with the best odds of reaching the postseason in the majors because of the extremely weak AL Central. In 2021, the Yankees won 92 games and were forced to play in the one-game, wild-card playoff on the road. The White Sox won 93 games and won their division by 13 games.

The AL Central is an absolute joke. (The Yankees are now 9-1 against the Central in 2022.) Despite the White Sox having a mediocre roster coupled with a 77-year-old foolish manager, they were expected to run away with their division again. That hasn’t happened. Instead, the White Sox are now a game under .500 after getting blasted by the Yankees at home, and they trail the Twins by three games thanks to a -30 run differential. Overall, the White Sox aren’t very good.

They’re not horrible though. They’re not the Orioles or Tigers or Royals. But if the White Sox played in any other division, they would be signing up for one of the now-three wild-card berths in the AL. They might be signing up for that anyway.

3. On Thursday, the Yankees took a first-inning, 2-0 lead on Dylan Cease thanks to a two-run Giancarlo Stanton home run. It was Stanton’s eighth home run of the season, and in the third inning, he would hit his ninth of the season, another two-run shot off Cease. The next night, Stanton gave the Yankees another first-inning, 2-0 lead with his 10th of the year off Vince Velasquez. Stanton went 8-for-16 with a double, three home runs, nine RBIs and two walks in the series. A .500/.556/1.125 slash line. Ridiculous.

What’s even more ridiculous is Stanton is hitting .290/.326/.548 with 10 home runs and 31 RBIs on the season, which is great, but he hasn’t been that great. I’m not knocking his production or his .874 OPS. I’m just saying this isn’t Stanton at his best. He has another gear (and maybe another one after that) that he hasn’t consistently displayed this season. It’s possible the weekend in Chicago kicked off one of his patented hot streaks, and if so, the best place to be getting hot going to is Camden Yards where the Yankees will be for the next four nights.

4. Stanton wasn’t the only one to have a big series. Aaron Judge continued his quest to top Mike Trout’s average annual salary with a .357/.474/1.259 and two home runs over the weekend, and even Josh Donaldson (.294/.333/.706 with two home runs) and Joey Gallo (.286/.444/.714 with two home runs) showed signs of life.

The White Sox offense is the team’s flaw, and it’s their rotation and bullpen that’s supposed to keep them upright. But the Yankees scored 25 runs off White Sox pitching in the first two games of the series, and it wasn’t until Saturday when old nemesis Dallas Keuchel shut them down that the offense cooled off. On Sunday, the Yankees’ offense only provided two hits, but scored five runs because of Michael Kopech’s wildness, and the Yankees’ ability to be patient and wait for walks (something the White Sox don’t and won’t do).

5. The Yankees’ one loss in the series came on Saturday when they couldn’t solve Keuchel even though the entire league has solved him over the last few years. It was like 2015-2017 on Saturday with Keuchel shutting them out for five innings. The only difference is that from 2015-2017 he would have shut them out for at least seven. The Yankees eventually broke through against Joe Kelly and Hendriks to tie the game before losing it in walk-off fashion.

It’s been a long time since I trusted Aroldis Chapman. Even last season when he didn’t allowed an earned run until his 19th appearance (against the White Sox), you couldn’t fully trust him because you knew the Chapman we saw in the ninth against the White Sox still existed and it was only a matter of time until he showed up.

On April 14, with the Yankees leading the Blue Jays 3-0 in the ninth, Chapman walked the bases loaded and was pulled without recording an out. The following night he walked in the game-winning run in the 11th inning in Baltimore. On April 26 against the Orioles, trying to protect a four-run lead in the ninth, he walked two. On May 1 in Kansas City, with a two-run lead, he put two on. Following an eight-day layoff, he put the tying run on base in the ninth against the Rays, and two days later with a three-run lead in the ninth, he allowed a run and brought the tying run to the plate. Then there was Saturday in which he walked his ninth batter of the season in just 11 2/3 innings, allowed two hits and lost the game.

Chapman isn’t the reason the Yankees lost. Their inability to score a single run against one of the worst pitchers in the league is why they lost. But he took the L, allowing three baserunners, while recording just one out, in what was his latest tight-rope walk that ended with him falling off the rope.

6. Chapman can’t be trusted. The Yankees are one bad week from the Rays away from being able to run away and hide with the AL East, and if that happens, Chapman no longer being a trustworthy back-end option won’t matter. He can continue to pitch the ninth in nonsensical “save opportunities” during the regular season, but once the postseason comes, he can’t be used as a traditional “closer.” The “lanes” Aaron Boone often speaks of needs to be properly managed, which I have close to zero faith in Boone properly managing. The Yankees can’t turn over close games in the ninth in the postseason to Chapman because of a made-up stat (save) or because he’s the highest-paid reliever or because of what he has done in the past. That version of Chapman is gone.

My current bullpen pecking order based on trust (not including Clarke Schmidt):

1. Clay Holmes
2. Michael King
3. Jonathan Loaisiga
4. Chad Green
5. Lucas Luetge
6. Aroldis Chapman
7. Miguel Castro
8. Wandy Peralta

Don’t walk batters and I will like you.

7. Nestor Cortes doesn’t walk batters and it’s why I like him. It’s now at the point where me writing about how great Cortes is should be insulting to him. His success should no longer be treated as a shock or surprise. It’s no longer a fluke. This is who he is. And that is one of the best starting pitchers in all of baseball.

After shutting out the Rangers for 7 1/3 innings last Monday, Cortes allowed one run on three hits over eight innings against the White Sox on Sunday. He now leads the league in both ERA (1.35) and ERA+ (270). He has been the Yankees’ “ace” this season, with his “worst” start being a four-inning outing on May 4 in Toronto when he allowed only two runs.

As of today, the AL starter for the All-Star Game is between Cortes and Justin Verlander. (I can’t imagine thinking that sentence in 2019, let alone writing it.)

8. It’s a good thing Anthony Rizzo hit those early-season home runs against the Red Sox and had that three-home run game against the Orioles on April 26. Because since that April 26 game, it’s been Rizzo hasn’t done much.

His last multi-hit game came on April 28 and his last home run on April 29. Since April 30, he’s 6-for-46 with six walks, hitting .130/.259/.196 with two RBIs.

I didn’t expect Rizzo to maintain a 1.000 OPS all season, but I certainly didn’t expect the lack of production he has provided for three weeks now, considering he has continued to hit third in the order, when others like Donaldson and Gallo have seen their batting order place change constantly based on their most recent production. It’s been a lot of nothing from Rizzo since the end of April, but thankfully, the Yankees have been able to keep winning as he goes through this.

9. Congratulations to Kyle Higashioka on his first multi-hit game of the season on Thursday! Yes, I say that in jest because Higashioka has been awful and the Yankees’ catching situation has been awful from an offensive standpoint. I do think the Yankees will address it eventually. They have to. They can’t run out a .424 OPS (Higashioka) and a .427 OPS (Jose Trevino) for a full season, especially come the postseason when outs can’t be pissed away.

The Yankees have played 34 games and Higasioka (11) and Trevino (12) have 23 complete games between them. The Yankees have had to pinch hit for their catcher in one-third of their games. Does anyone think that’s a good long-term plan?

It’s only a viable long-term plan if the Yankees’ pitching continues to keep them in EVERY game. After 34 games, the Yankees have had not been blown out in any game, have had a chance to win every game and in their most lopsided defeated (a 5-0 loss in Baltimore), the game was 0-0 in the eighth.

10. Last Sunday, the Yankees started a stretch of 23 games in 22 days. They have gone 7-2 so far with 14 games in 14 days to go.

The next four days will be in Baltimore. Then it’s home for three against the White Sox. Then the Orioles come to the Bronx for three. Then the stretch finishes with a four-game series in Tampa.

I would have signed up for 14-9 for these 23 games, and to do that, the Yankees only need to go 7-7. The Yankees have done so much winning through the first five weeks of the season that if they were to play .500 baseball for the rest of the season, they would win 89 games. Before the season, the over/under for their win total was 91.5. They are going to crush that.

Subscribe to the Keefe To The City Podcast.

My book The Next Yankees Era: My Transition from the Core Four to the Baby Bombers is now available as an ebook!

The Yankees won another series. They swept a two-game series from the Blue Jays to increase their division lead and improve to 6-3 on the year against the preseason American League favorite.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. After the Yankees went to Toronto and won two of three last week, I wrote Yankees Thoughts: Don’t Be Scared of Blue Jays. In those Thoughts, I wrote:

The Blue Jays’ bullpen isn’t very good overall. We saw that on Tuesday night when they let a 1-1 game turn into a laugher with the Yankees scoring eight runs over the final three innings. Jordan Romano is really the only Blue Jays reliever I’m scared of and he nearly blew Wednesday’s one-run lead for the Yankees and kept their winning streak going.

When completely healthy, I think the lineups are close to equal and the rotations are close to equal. (I actually think the Yankees have a better lineup and rotation than the Blue Jays, but that just might be my fandom.) The biggest difference between the two teams is the bullpen, where the Yankees have an advantage over the entire majors. There’s no bullpen in the majors that could use Jonathan Loaisiga, Miguel Castro, Clay Holmes and Chad Green to close out four innings one night, go to Wandy Peralta, Castro again and Lucas Luetge the next night, and Michael King and Holmes again the following night and pitch 11 scoreless innings. The Yankees won two of three in Toronto and never even used Aroldis Chapman. The Blue Jays scored five runs in the three games.

After these latest two games against the Blue Jays, my thinking remains and has been further proved correct.

2. The Blue Jays are good. Not great. Good. They have as good of a 1 through 4 lineup as any team in the league and they have a solid rotation. But the bottom half of their order is blah. Their rotation isn’t as stable in actual play as it is on paper, and their bullpen is a flat-out mess. You have to try really hard to convince yourself that they are better than the Yankees in any aspect of the game.

That’s not to say the Yankees don’t have their own problems. The offense can disappear at any moment, the rotation is filled with oft-injured arms, the team as a whole has an extended history of injuries and their manager is a moron. The only extremely sound part of the Yankees is the bullpen.

But as I also wrote in those Thoughts: If I learned anything this week, the only thing keeping the Yankees from winning the AL East is health.

As long as the Yankees are healthy, they are the best team in the AL.

3. Gleyber Torres used to pad his stats against the Orioles. That has now changed to the Blue Jays. In eight games (seven starts) against the Blue Jays in 2022, Torres has hit three home runs with 9 RBIs. After driving in all three of the Yankees’ runs in a 3-2 win a week ago in Toronto, Torres drove in all five of the Yankees’ runs in their 5-3 win on Wednesday.

Torres’ production has been limited in 2022, but when he does do something at the plate, it seems to come in a crucial situation. He had the game-tying sacrifice fly on Opening Day. He had the walk-off single in the ninth-inning rally against Cleveland. He had that three-RBI game in Toronto last week. He had the walk-off home run on Sunday against Texas. He had the five-RBI game against Toronto on Wednesday. As crazy as it sounds, you want Torres up in a big spot.

To me, Torres still isn’t good and isn’t worthy of everyday playing time. Maybe his batting average on balls in play will improve, but for now, even with all he has done against the Blue Jays, he’s still hitting .222/.258/.444 on the season, which is awful. On Tuesday, he couldn’t field a routine grounder on a perfect hop to his glove, and on Wednesday he couldn’t complete the transfer in what should have been an easy double play. The bat still isn’t good enough and the glove isn’t close to good enough.

4. The pitching continues to be more than good enough. Through 30 games, the Yankees are 22-8, and they had a chance to win all eight of their losses. They have yet to have a start from their rotation completely take them out of game, and they have yet to be blown out in any game. Their only two losses in May were by one and two runs. Their April losses were by one, three, two, one, five and three runs. In the five-run loss, the game was 0-0 in the eighth, and in their second three-run loss, they trailed 1-0 in the eighth. Their “worst” loss of the season was their 3-0 loss to the Blue Jays back on April 11 when Alek Manoah (their kryptonite) shut them down.

In the first game of the series, Luis Severino was forced to grind through his start. He needed 29 pitches to get through the first and 36 to get through the second. That’s a lot of pitches in a short amount of time for someone who has barely pitched over the last three years because of injury. But as the game went on, Severino got better.

He put the Yankees in a 3-0 hole through two before pitching a perfect third and perfect fourth. In the fifth, he retired George Springer (why couldn’t he have signed with a National League team as a free agent?) and struck out Bo Bichette. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. singled on a ground ball through the right side and Severino was pulled for Miguel Castro. Severino turned what was on the verge of being a meltdown into a respectable 4 2/3 innings with eight strikeouts. He kept the team in the game, and eventually the Yankees won 6-5.

5. Castro coming in for Severino was a fine move by Aaron Boone. Severino had thrown 97 pitches and even if Guerrero Jr.’s single was a grounder, Severino was either at or right near his limit. Given how many high-stress pitches he had to throw in the first and second, it made sense to get him out.

While it was fine in that circumstance, there’s nothing Boone loves more than not giving his relievers a clean inning to work with. (OK, maybe he likes to give his players unnecessary days off more than he likes to bring his relievers in with runners on.) The amount of times Boone tries to steal outs with a pitcher before then going to the next pitcher who is already warm and ready to enter is astonishing. Boone has an abundance of flaws as a manager. Pretty much every managerial quality of his is a flaw. But there’s no bigger flaw than his inability to avoid stealing outs. Going to a reliever or the next reliever one batter too late is the worst thing about Boone.

6. It’s a good thing Giancarlo Stanton and Aaron Judge exist because otherwise the Yankees would have been shut out on Tuesday. Stanton’s game-tying three run home run was a Yankee Stadium special, but Judge’s game-winning three home run was anything but, as it reached the second deck in left field.

After Stanton hit his home run off Yimi Garcia, Garcia drilled Josh Donaldson on a pitch that had zero intent. The Blue Jays are trying to win the division. They are trying to beat the Yankees. Garcia is trying to stay in the majors. That last thing he’s doing in a big spot is throwing at Donaldson to put the go-ahead run on base. That didn’t stop the umpires from ejecting Garcia.

That decision from the umpires was horrible for the Yankees. Garcia’s career has been built around blowing big games. He had blown the game against the Yankees a week ago in Toronto and had just blown another one. The Yankees wanted him in the game, and the umpires took him out of it. That decision brought David Phelps into the game, and the last thing any Yankees fan should ever want is an ex-Yankee pitching or playing against the Yankees. All ex-Yankees do against the Yankees is succeed. So of course Phelps got out of the inning, eventually setting up the Yankees needing that Judge home run in the ninth.

7. Judge got that chance because the Blue Jays’ best reliever Jordan Romano struggled in his second straight appearance against the Yankees. A week ago, he needed a great defensive play from Matt Chapman and an unbelievable scoop from Guerrero Jr. to avoid blowing a ninth-inning lead to the Yankees. On Tuesday, after retiring Isiah Kiner-Falefa, he inexplicably walked Jose Trevino. I don’t know how someone with Romano’s pedigree walks someone with Trevino’s, but it happened. Then he walked DJ LeMahieu as well, bringing up Judge.

Going into that inning, I didn’t think the Yankees had much of a chance. You had to assume Kiner-Falefa and Trevino wouldn’t reach, and then the Yankees would be down to their final out, needing LeMahieu to reach to give Judge a chance at tying the game with one swing.

You shouldn’t have that little faith in two batters in the lineup to possibly reach base, as I do (and I think every Yankees fan does) in Kiner-Falefa and Trevino. I would put the Yankees’ 8-9 combination against any of the other 29 teams as being the worst in the majors. It’s not just Trevino (.175/.233/.200). It’s also Kyle Higashioka (.140/.200/.200), who is somehow worse offensively than Trevino.

I can’t imagine the Yankees plan on going through the entire season with Kiner-Falefa and the Trevino/Higashioka combination making up 22 percent of their lineup. None of the three can hit, and if you want an all-glove shortstop who can’t hit, get an all-glove shortstop who can’t hit. Kiner-Falefa isn’t an all-glove shortstop who can’t hit. He’s a pretty good-glove shortstop who can’t hit. He doesn’t make the routine play look easy like truly elite defenders do and I feel only slightly more comfortable when he goes to field or throw a ball than I did when Torres was making a mockery of the position. Kiner-Falefa isn’t good enough defensively to let his bat slide and operate under the adage that whatever he provides offensively is a bonus because the Yankees are already operating under that adage at another lineup spot in catcher. With Kiner-Falefa’s glove, limited ability to get on base and absolutely no power, it’s just not going to cut it.

And if they Yankees do plan on playing this entire season with that trio playing every day, they better pray the stars in the lineup hit like stars all season, or that the pitching continues to be as good as it has ever been for the Yankees.

8. Jameson Taillon is a big reason why the pitching has been outstanding in 2022. I still trust him the least of the five starts in the Yankees’ rotation, but he’s held down the Blue Jays in back-to-back starts after they knocked him around for 6.23 ERA and 1.308 WHIP in three starts last season.

Taillon has a 2.93 ERA and a 3.25 FIP in 2022 with just three walks in 30 2/3 innings. A big part of his success has been his ability to keep the ball on the right side of the fence, allowing a home run every 10 innings compared to every six innings last season. My fear of traffic on the bases (Boone!) every inning he pitches and watching Phil Hughes 2.0 on the mound has diminished. Taillon has been great in 2022.

9. The Yankees have been great in 2022. The two-game series sweep of the Blue Jays has created some serious separation in the division. Right now the Yankees have a loss column lead of five over Tampa Bay, seven over Toronto, 10 over Baltimore and 12(!) over Boston. The Orioles were never a threat to win the division and you can eliminate the Red Sox as an option as well. (If the Yankees were to play .500 baseball for the rest of the season, they would finish with 87 wins. The Red Sox have to go 76-55 to finish with 87 wins.)

The supposed four-team race is now a three-team race, and the Yankees have an incredible advantage in the race. Their hot start (something they haven’t had in years) and ability to beat up on bad teams (something they haven’t done with consistently in recent seasons) has given them a cushion to play with. Not that they should “play with” their cushion and piss away what they have built, just that they can afford to have the offense disappear or the rotation falter or the bullpen blow a few games and it won’t destroy their season like it did last year.

10. The Yankees’ upcoming schedule is favorable. The next four days will be spent in Chicago playing an underachieving White Sox team that was supposed to run away with the Central and has just gotten over .500 thanks to an abysmal offense. After that it’s back to Baltimore where the Yankees need to avenge their disastrous mid-April series there. Then it’s back home to host both the White Sox and Orioles and then four games in Tampa for the first meeting of the season with the Rays.

That’s 18 games in 18 days (as of now and barring any weather issues). There will be a lot of unnecessary rest over these next two-plus weeks and a lot of questionable lineups. That’s just how Boone and the Yankees operate and given the current lead they have in the division, they are going to take load management and days off to another level.

When this run is over, it will be Memorial Day (a day in which the Yankees inexplicably don’t have a game and don’t have one on the Fourth of July either). By then, with this schedule, their division lead should be even bigger.

Subscribe to the Keefe To The City Podcast.

My book The Next Yankees Era: My Transition from the Core Four to the Baby Bombers is now available as an ebook!

The Yankees won another series, taking two of three from the Rangers at the Stadium. But with just five runs scored in the series, the Yankees’ offense looks a lot like it did prior to their 11-game winning streak.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. The Rangers are a bad team, and like the Yankees have done to bad teams this season (except for that one miserable weekend in Baltimore), the Yankees won the series against them. But like that miserable weekend in Baltimore, the Yankees’ offense was close to non-existent in the three games in roughly 28 hours.

The Yankees’ recent 11-game winning streak came to an end in a game started by the Blue Jays’ Yusei Kikuchi, who the Yankees went into that game with a team 1.078 OPS against him. He allowed one run over six innings in the Yankees’ 2-1 loss.

After three days off (one scheduled and two rainouts), the Yankees were no-hit through five innings by the Rangers’ Dane Dunning, and eeked out a 2-1 win in the first game of Sunday’s doubleheader on a Gleyber Torres walk-off home run in the ninth.

In the second game of the doubleheader, former Yankees prospect Glenn Otto (who was traded to Texas in the Joey Gallo deal) allowed two earned runs over six innings (both coming on a Giancarlo Stanton home run) in a 4-2 Yankees loss.

In Monday’s series finale, the Yankees managed three singles through the first seven innings, until an Aaron Judge single and Anthony Rizzo double broke a 0-0 tie in the Yankees’ eventual 1-0 win.

2. Since the winning streak ended, the Yankees have won two of four games, scoring six runs in those four games. One on a solo home run. One on a sacrifice fly. One on a solo home run. Two on a two-run home run. One on a double. That’s it. That’s the Yankees’ offense over their last 35 innings: six runs.

The Yankees’ offense looks a lot like it did prior to scoring 19 runs in three games against Cleveland (6.3 per game), 27 runs in three games against Baltimore (9 per game) and 21 runs in three games (7 per game) against Kansas City. Even in Toronto, the Yankees scored 12 runs in the first two games of that series before being shut down and fooled for six innings by Kikuchi.

The starting pitching the Yankees faced from the Rangers (Dunning, Otto and Jon Gray) is certainly better than what they faced when they were blowing out those other teams, but it’s not even close to being what they will face later this week against the Blue Jays (thankfully, they are missing Alek Manoah and Kevin Gausman) or the White Sox (thankfully, the White Sox can’t score).

The Yankees were able to score five runs in 26 innings and win twice because their pitching continues to be outstanding, top to bottom. Gerrit Cole was dominant in the first game on Sunday and Jordan Montgomery was excellent in the second game. Nestor Cortes took a no-hitter into the eighth on Monday and outside of Michael King’s first hiccup of the season, the bullpen was lights out the entire series.

3. Aaron Boone loves so Kyle Higashioka so much that after two scoreless outings from Gerrit Cole, he was willing to let Higashioka catch Cole on Sunday. (This kind of treatment happens for only the Boone favorites: Higashioka, Aaron Hicks, Gleyber Torres.) Cole was great again for a third straight start (as once again it clearly has nothing to do with the catcher and everything to do with the opponent), until he gave up a game-tying home run to Kole Calhoun (who is barely hanging on to a job in the majors) in the seventh. That home run came on Cole’s 114th pitch. It was the most pitches thrown by any pitcher in the majors in 2022.

I’m fine with letting Cole for as long as he thinks he can physically go. But in this instance, Boone had gotten King up with Cole having thrown 106 pitches through six innings. It seemed improbable that Boone would let Cole go back out for the seventh in his sixth start of the season on a cold May day in the Bronx with his pitch count already over 100 and King ready to enter the game. But he didm and after striking out Mitch Garver on three pitches, the Yankees’ 1-0 lead was erased on Calhoun’s first home run of the season.

Boone never did bring King into the game. He instead had King sit down (after having already warmed up) and went to Jonathan Loaisiga. As David Cone said on the YES broadcast in Toronto, “You don’t get King hot and then not bring him into the game.” But Boone did just that. And a few hours later, Boone brought King into the second game of the doubleheader and King gave away the Yankees’ lead and then some in his worst outing of the season.

4. When it comes to Higashioka and Jose Trevino and the Yankees’ catching situation, it’s obvious that Trevino is the No. 1 in a duo that really has no No. 1. In the offseason, I wrote several times how the Yankees traded their way into having the worst catching situation in the majors and that has proven true. Trevino is hitting .189/.231/.216 and Higashioka is hitting .146/.208/.416. Neither of them is a playable option and yet one of them is playing every day for the New York Yankees.

Maybe at some point Oswald Peraza will start hitting Triple-A pitching and Anthony Volpe will start hitting Double-A pitching (neither of them doing well in the minors this season isn’t great!) and will force the Yankees to move them up. And maybe then the Yankees would move Isiah Kiner-Falefa (who has caught 73 games in the major) to catcher. It’s probably crazy, but it’s not that crazy. It’s not as crazy as playing the Trevino/Higashioka combination every day.

Yes, the Yankees are winning, and yes, they’re in first place. I want them to stay in first place. Are the Yankees four games (in the loss column) better than the Rays and five games (in the loss column) better than the Blue Jays? Unlikely. The true margin between teams in the AL East is slim, and the Yankees need to optimize every aspect of their team to gain any advantage they can over Tampa Bay and Toronto. Playing with an automatic out at the bottom of the lineup like they’re a coed softball team in Central Park without enough women and forced to have the 9-hole be an out, isn’t going to increase their chances at winning the division.

5. I can’t stand Hicks. I really can’t, and that’s the Yankees’ fault, not Hicks’ fault. Hicks didn’t force the Yankees to give him the seven-year deal, and he doesn’t force them to bat him as high as first in the lineup. They do that on their own.

Yes, Hicks has a high on-base percentage. It’s a product of a combination of mediocre and bad pitchers being unable to throw strikes and Hicks not wanting to swing the bat. Hicks’ plan in each plate appearance is to not swing, hoping four pitches will be out of the zone before three pitches are. He’s not going to go to the plate and grind out a walk with multiple foul balls and close takes, like someone like Rizzo will. The only way Hicks is walking is if the pitcher is shockingly wild and makes it easy for him to walk.

The worst part about Hicks is his inability to drive a runner in from third with less than two out. It’s painful to watch him hit with runners on, always swinging over changeups or popping up balls in the infield. He’s 0-for-16 (that equals .000) with four walks in high-leverage situations this season, and in low- and medium-leverage situations he’s 17-for-52 (.327) with 12 walks. It’s not a small sample size either, it’s in line with his career numbers in high-leverage situations: .211/.315/.351.

The higher you bat in the order, the more opportunities you get to hit. Why would you want Hicks getting more opportunities over Judge, Rizzo, Stanton, Donaldson or LeMahieu? You wouldn’t. If Hicks were to bat near the bottom of the order and performed the way he does, I would have no problem with him. My problem isn’t with Hicks, it’s with the way the Yankees view and use him as if he’s Bernie Williams.

Hicks has 17 hits this season. Sixteen of them are singles and the other was a home run. He has no doubles. None. The Yankees’ season is 17 percent over. I wish for the next 83 percent the Yankees would bat Hicks seventh.

6. The only way Hicks could bat seventh frequently is if Torres didn’t play. As we have seen, that’s not going to happen. Because the catcher has to be the automatic out at the bottom of the lineup, and Kiner-Falefa plays every day and bats eighth, Hicks could bat seventh if Torres were on the bench. But Torres is rarely on the bench.

Torres had the walk-off home run against the Rangers on Sunday nd then went 0-for-6 with a walk the next two days. That’s kind of who Torres is. He will have big moments like he did with the pinch-hit sacrifice fly on Opening Day, the walk-off single against Cleveland, the three-RBI game in Toronto and the walk-off home run on Sunday, and everything in between will be unplayable.

Torres’ batting line is down to .220/.258/.685 this season with four home runs. Not good. Not good at all.

7. I would be happy if either of these lineups were the Yankees’ “everyday” (since they don’t have an everyday lineup because someone needs a day off every day):

DJ LeMahieu, 2B
Aaron Judge, RF
Anthony Rizzo, 1B
Giancarlo Stanton
Josh Donaldson
Joey Gallo
Aaron Hicks
Isiah Kiner-Falefa
Automatic out

Aaron Judge
Anthony Rizzo
Giancarlo Stanton
Josh Donaldson
DJ LeMahieu
Joey Gallo
Aaron Hicks
Isiah Kiner-Falefa
Automatic out

I would even be OK with Donaldson leading off again. I’m just not OK with Hicks leading off.

8. Cortes took a no-hitter into the eight on Monday. In appreciation of Cortes, here is what I wrote about him in my praise of the lefty back in the April 25 Yankees Thoughts:

Here are some things I wrote and tweeted about Nestor Cortes in 2019:

I guess this is a throwaway game. Nestor Cortes is warming up. – May 19, 2019

When it was announced that Nestor Cortes would start (or open) for the Yankees on Tuesday and when the lineup against the Tigers was posted and DJ LeMahieu, Aaron Judge and Luke Voit weren’t in it, I shook my head in disbelief like Lee Trevino in Happy Gilmore. – Sept. 11, 2019

I have no idea how he’s survived a demotion in more than four months, but I guess good for him? He’s been a New York Yankee, making a major-league salary and traveling in luxury nearly all season, earning service time toward his future pension. Good for him. Bad for Yankees fans. – Sept. 16, 2019

Nestor Cortes being on the major league roster for as long as he has is more impressive than Joe DiMaggio’s 56-game hit streak. – Sept. 28, 2019

There are more (many more), but you get the point. I didn’t like Cortes and he didn’t like pitching well.

The 2018 Orioles lost 115 games and they didn’t want Cortes, but the Yankees did. He somehow held a major-league roster spot for nearly the entire season on a Yankees team that won 103 games despite pitching to a 5.67 ERA and allowing 104 baserunners and 16 home runs in 66 2/3 innings. After the season he ended up pitching in Seattle in 2020, put 20 baserunners on and allowed six home runs in just 7 2/3 innings. For some unknown reason, the Yankees wanted him back for 2021, and thankfully they did.

Cortes was outstanding last season for the Yankees, both as a starter (14 starts) and reliever (eight appearances). This season he has been even better, allowing just two earned runs in a two-run home run and seven hits in 15 2/3 innings, while striking out 25. His pitch arsenal and unusual deliveries coupled with his results have made him the most enjoyable part of the season to date. With shades of El Duque, the four days between his starts feel like an eternity.

Cortes’ ERA+ in 2018, 2019 and 2020 was 60, 79 and 29. Last season it was 150, and this season it’s at a comical 323. (For perspective, Mariano Rivera is the all-time ERA+ lead at 205.) He hasn’t just been good or great or outstanding in 2022, he’s been the best pitcher in the league. The same guy who was piggybacking Chad Green as an opener two years ago and allowing at least three earned runs in each relief appearance is currently the best pitcher in the league. Fucking crazy.

Right now, Cortes is one of six pitchers I would say are the current front-runners to start the All-Star Game for the AL at Dodger Stadium. Yes, fucking crazy.

9. What’s really crazy is the Yankees is the play of the rest of the division to date. The Blue Jays have a minus-10 run differential and have played three games better than their expected record. The Red Sox have lost five straight, are nine games below .500 and are two games back in the loss column of the ORIOLES! It might only be May 10, but you can pretty much count the Red Sox out on the division. They will eventually (but hopefully not) get rolling and be in contention for one of the three wild-card spots because just about every non-division winner will be in contention for those, but when you consider this math, you can consider the Red Sox eliminated from the division:

If the Yankees play .500 baseball for their remaining 134 games, they will win 87 games. The Red Sox have to go 77-56 now to win 87 games.

To win 90 games, the Yankees will need to go 70-64. The Red Sox would need to go 80-53.

To win 95 games, the Yankees will need to go 75-59. The Red Sox would need to go 85-48.

Yes, the division is over for the Red Sox.

That means what was expected to be a four-team race to most (I always considered it to be a three-team race with the regression that never came for the 2021 Red Sox coming for the 2022 Red Sox), is now truly a three-team race.

10. The Yankees play one of the two teams beginning tonight against Toronto in what is a weird two-game series in which the Yankees will miss both Manhoah and Gausman, and will get a chance to avenge their sad offensive performance against Kikuchi on Tuesday and face Jose Berrios, who they always seem to hit on Wednesday.

Every game is important, but games against the Blue Jays and Rays are extra important. The Blue Jays have been playing poorly, having lost two in a row to Cleveland, and the Yankees have a chance to create even more separation (currently five games in the loss column) between them and the Blue Jays over the next two days.

Beating up on the bad teams has allowed the Yankees to just need to play .500 against the good teams. But when you miss Manoah and Gausman in a two-game series, it’s hard not to think about playing more than .500 against the Blue Jays.

Subscribe to the Keefe To The City Podcast.

My book The Next Yankees Era: My Transition from the Core Four to the Baby Bombers is now available as an ebook!