The Yankees aren’t very good right now. The last time I felt really good about the Yankees was right before Adam Ottavino’s first pitch in Game 2 of the 2019 ALCS. The Yankees had a 1-0 series and had a 2-1 lead in Game 2 over Justin Verlander, but Ottavino gave up a home run to George Springer, and since then, the Yankees have been a disappointment.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. At his end-of-the-season press conference last October following the Yankees’ ALDS elimination, Brian Cashman said the following about the Rays: “They are a better franchise right now than we are.”

Since then, the Rays have gone 8-5 against the Yankees outscoring them 64-37, and have a 4 1/2-game lead over the Yankees in the AL East, so they are clearly still better.

Cashman did nothing to close the gap between the teams in the offseason, either because he didn’t feel the need to or because ownership wouldn’t let him. Either way, the Yankees failed to get any better or change in any way.

Cashman turned Masahiro Tanaka into Corey Kluber (injured) and Jameson Taillon (ineffective), turned Adam Ottavino into Darren O’Day (injured) and Justin Wilson (ineffective) and brought back the same exact lineup that failed to hit in the postseason. And when you bring back the same team, you get the same results.

The Yankees team that went 33-27 in the shortened 2020 season is now 31-26  in 2021. The offense is the second-worst in the AL, having only scored more runs than the lowly Tigers, who just swept the Yankees. On days when the starting pitching isn’t lights out, and I mean lights out as in pitch black and complete darkness, the Yankees lose.

2. The Yankees celebrated Memorial Day Weekend by getting swept by the Tigers and then scored one run in the first game of the four-game series against the Rays. Here are the Yankees’ runs scored by series over their last seven series with the average per game for the series in parentheses:

Tampa Bay: 12 (3.0)
Detroit: 5 (1.7)
Toronto: 7 (2.3)
Chicago: 14 (4.7)
Texas: 13 (3.3)
Baltimore: 19 (6.3)
Tampa Bay: 5 (1.7)

3. The Yankees managed to win a game started by Tyler Glasnow because Glasnow momentarily lost control and walked in a run and then threw a wild pitch to score a second run on back-to-back batters. Without Glasnow handing the Yankees a pair of runs in the second game in the series, things might be even worse than they currently are for the Yankees.

The Yankees’ bullpen helped the Yankees with two games in the series. In the second and third games of the series, the bullpen combined to pitch to this line: 8.1 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 9 BB, 11 K, 0.00 ERA, 1.205 WHIP. Even Luis Cessa pitched one of those 8 1/3 innings with a pair of strikeouts.

After the Yankees won the second and third games of the four-game series, I foolishly thought ‘Maybe this is when they turn their season around.’ Once again, the Yankees made a mockery of wishful thinking.

4. Gerrit Cole turned in his second clunker in four starts, and even if he had been great, he would have had to be dominant because the Yankees only “mounted” (to use one of Aaron Boone’s favorite words) two runs in the game, both on solo home runs, and because you better believe Boone wasn’t going to use Jonathan Loaisiga, Chad Green or Aroldis Chapman in the game.

During the first inning on Thursday, Michael Kay and John Flaherty wondered on the broadcast who would be available for the Yankees out of the bullpen. It would seem impossible everyone wouldn’t be available for a game against the Rays with the Yankees trailing them by 3 1/2 games in the standings, but it was a very logical question to ask with Boone as manager.

Yes, Loaisiga, Green and Chapman had all pitched on Tuesday and Wednesday, but over the last 10 days they had each only pitched three times. None of them pitched from May 24 through May 26, all three pitched on May 27, and then none of them pitched from May 28 through May 31. Isn’t the idea of not pitching them in games the Yankees are losing, so they can pitch in games the Yankees are winning, regardless of whether or not they pitched two days in a row?

5. Two runs against Ryan Yarbrough, the average left-hander, who was supposed to be an opener and ended up throwing a complete game. Yarbrough has now shut the Yankees down in three appearances this season, while being awful against every other team.

Against the Yankees:
17.1 IP, 10 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 2 BB, 14 K, 2 HR, 1.56 ERA, 0.694 WHIP

Against all other teams:
48.2 IP, 53 H, 32 R, 26 ER, 10 BB, 39 K, 8 HR, 4.81 ERA, 1.294 WHIP

6. The next time Cole starts, Gary Sanchez needs to catch. The personal catcher experiment is over. When Cole is allowing five earned runs in two of four starts, to the last-place Rangers and the team that strikes out more than any other team in the Rays, it’s over. Higashioka isn’t hitting even close to enough to get as much playing time as he has been this season, and now the magic of he and Cole has worn out (because there never was any magic).

7. Miguel Andujar hit three home runs in the four-game series against the Rays. So why does he keep batting at the bottom of the order? How are Odor and Brett Gardner not the 8-9 hitters whenever they play? It shouldn’t be hard to fill out the lineup card, yet somehow it is every day.

8. Between Opening Day and May 13, Giancarlo Stanton had four personal days off for extra rest to prevent injury. He got injured anyway because there’s no way to prevent injury other than to not play. So apparently that’s what the Yankees are going to do: not play their highest-paid position player, who is making $179,012.35 per game this season. (Wait until his 2023, 2024 and 2025 when he’s 33, 34 and 35 years old and making $197,530.86 per game).

Since coming off the injured list on May 28, here is how Stanton’s days have gone:

May 28: 0-for-5, 4 K
May 29: Personal day off
May 30: 0-for-3, 2 BB, 2 K
May 31: 0-for-4, 2 K
June 1: Personal day off (0-for-1 as pinch hitter)
June 2: 1-for-3, BB, K
June 3: Personal day off

Stanton is only ever the designated hitter, yet somehow he gets injured more than players who actually play in the field. Considering he has struck out in nine of 19 plate appearances, he has walked to the plate and back to the dugout to sit and wait for his next at-bat 47 percent of the time since returning from the IL. He hasn’t scored a run since coming off the IL, so he has yet to actually round the bases or truly run or run hard.

Stanton doesn’t look like a player who needs to rest, he looks like a player who needs at-bats, having gone 1-for-16 with three walks and nine strikeouts since returning from the IL.

Stanton is having another underwhelming season, hitting .259/.331/.814 and has missed a combined 17 games due to injury and personal days off.

9. Mike Ford is no longer a Yankee … again. Well, he’s still with the Yankees, just not a Yankee in terms of being a major leaguer.

On his last day as his most recent stint in the majors, at 3:45 p.m. the Yankees posted their lineup with Ford batting fifth. Ford entered the game 18-for-131 dating back to the beginning of 2020, but that didn’t stop Boone from batting him in the exact middle of the lineup and ahead of Gary Sanchez, Clint Frazier and Miguel Andujar. Ford went 0-for-3 with three strikeouts in the game, and at 11:55 p.m., the Yankees announced he had been sent down to Triple-A. Good enough to bat fifth for the Yankees at 3:45 p.m., not good enough to be a Yankee at 11:55 p.m.

This isn’t the first time the Yankees have done something like this. Last season, they did it all the time. In a game against the Rays last year, Andujar was used as a pinch hitter for Mike Tauchman with two outs in the bottom of the ninth. Andujar didn’t get on base, and after the game he was sent to the alternate site. Good enough to pinch hit in the ninth, not good enough to be on the team after pinch hitting.

It happened with Ford as well. Ford was sent down at the beginning of September last year, deemed not good enough to be a Yankee for the last month of the regular season. But there was Ford on the postseason roster, and there he was pinch hitting with the season on the line over both Sanchez and Frazier in Game 5. Not good enough to be a Yankee in September, good enough to pinch hit in October.

10. This weekend, the Yankees need to get back on track and need to continue to send the Red Sox where they belong and that’s one place above the Orioles in the AL East standings. The Red Sox have a very challenging schedule coming up, having just played the Astros, they play the Yankees, a make-up game against the Marlins, then the Astros again, the Blue Jays and Braves.

It’s time the Red Sox leave the AL East race and the AL East becomes the three-team race I expected it to be in 2021. The Yankees have the opportunity to do that this weekend.

Do I expect the Yankees to suddenly start hitting and scoring runs at even a mediocre rate? No. But I have no choice other than to think it might happen at some point.

Subscribe to the Keefe To The City Podcast. New episode after every game during the season.

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

The Yankees spent the first three weeks of May erasing all the damage they did to themselves in April. They have spent the last week undoing the first three weeks of May. As June begins, the April Yankees are here.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. If you have watched every pitch of every Yankees game in 2021, well, first, I’m sorry, and second, you have given this horrible team 149 hours and 43 minutes of your life. That’s six days, five hours and 43 minutes you will never get back. I apologize for that realization.

2. The Yankees are in trouble. A lot of trouble. They were allowed a mulligan for their disastrous April because the Rays and Blue Jays also had bad opening months, and no one ran away with the division. That’s no longer the case. The Yankees have fallen apart again, losing six out of seven, and their recent play has coincided with the Rays winning 16 of 17. The Rays are now 5 1/2 games ahead of the Yankees.

The Yankees are very close to playing for a wild-card berth. A 5 1/2-game Rays lead isn’t a mirage, the way it would be if the Red Sox had a 5 1/2-game lead. Even if the Yankees were to win two of the three remaining games against the Rays in the current four-game series, they would only cut one game off the deficit, and three more games would have come off the schedule and three more head-to-head games at that. The math is starting to work against the Yankees and they are a bad rest of the week against the Rays and Red Sox from being buried for good in the division.

3. I would gladly sign up for the second wild-card berth if I were the Yankees right now. To win the division, they will have to outlast the Rays (who already have that 5 1/2-game lead) and the Blue Jays (who are 6-3 against the Yankees). Two of those three teams will be playing for a wild-card berth. Add in the Red Sox, possibly the Indians and one of the Astros and A’s, and that’s five teams for two spots. So yeah, today on June 1, I would sign up for the Yankees going on the road for one game and burning Gerrit Cole for Game 1 of the ALDS. That’s how badly things have turned for the Yankees.

4. Losing two out of three to the Blue Jays last week for the third time this season was bad, but losing all three games in Detroit to the Tigers was simply unacceptable. The Yankees have now scored two runs or less in nine of their last 12 games, which seems impossible to do, but they have done it.

“This is just a bad ending to a terrible weekend,” Aaron Boone said after Sunday’s loss. “And we’ve gotta get better.

Boone repeats himself a lot, but there’s no phrase he has used more in 202 than “we’ve gotta get better.” It was used daily in April and it’s made a comeback here over the last week with the offense’s season-long disappearing act.

No shit the team has to get better. The Yankees have now played 54 games and one-third of the season and have as many runs scored as the Orioles, who have lost 14 straight and are on pace for 110 losses, and 71 runs less than the Rays, who don’t have near the names or payroll for position players the Yankees have. The offense to get better and they have to get better now. I don’t mean “now” in general to the near future. I mean “now” as in today.

5. On Friday, Boone used Aroldis Chapman with the game tied 1-1 in the ninth. Chapman had recently been sick and hadn’t pitched in five days. He threw 14 pitches in a scoreless ninth, but wasn’t brought back out for the fifth. Instead, Justin Wilson came in for the 10th with the Yankees holding a one-run lead. Wilson blew the game, allowing a walk-off home run, his fourth home run allowed in 13 innings.

After the game, Meredith Marakovits asked Boone, “Did you give any consideration to using Chapman in the 10th?”

“No,” Boone bluntly answered.

No? NO? NO?!?!?!? How did you not even “consider” that option? Because it was asking him to throw more than 14 pitches? In Chapman’s previous 19 appearances this season, he has thrown more than 14 pitches in 10 of them. Was it because he would have to sit and then get back up? There’s zero evidence that leads to injury or a drop in performance. Because he was recently sick? So he’s healthy enough to pitch, just not more than 14 pitches because he was recently sick. Is that what the Yankees’ injury prevention strategy book says?

6. After Monday’s 3-1 loss to the Rays, Boone was asked about the offense not showing up again. He didn’t blame his offense for another embarrassing performance, instead choosing to tip his cap to Rays starter Rich Hill.

“Well, first, Hill obviously shut us down and was real pitch efficient there through five.”

Boone had the same compliments for Casey Mize and Spencer Turnbull of the Tigers. He similarly complimented Hill earlier in the year, along with Michael Wacha, Matt Harvey, Joe Ross, Jordan Lyles, Steven Matz and every other starter who seems to always have their best stuff against the Yankees. In reality, they are mediocre and the Yankees make them look great.

The magic number for opposing teams against the Yankees is four runs. Opponents are 20-5 against the Yankees when they score at least four runs because of the Yankees’ lack of offense. The Yankees struggle to scratch across three runs in most games (they have scored runs two runs or less in nine of their last 12 games) and four seems like 10 (they have only scored double-digit runs once in 54 games). The offense has pissed away and has lost four starts from Gerrit in which he allowed two earned runs or less.

The Yankees scored seven runs in three games against the Blue Jays and then five runs in three games against the Tigers. They followed that up with one run in the series opener against the Rays.

7. In The Office, David Wallace asked Michael Scott his business philosophy. Here was his answer:

“My philosophy is, basically this. And this is something that I live by. And I always have. And I always will. Don’t, ever, for any reason, do anything, to anyone, for any reason, ever, no matter what, no matter where, or who or who you are with, or where you are going, or where you’ve been. Ever. For any reason. Whatsoever.”

After losing for the seventh time in 10 games against the Rays, Lindsey Adler asked Aaron Boone what the Yankees’ offensive philosophy is. Here was his answer:

“When you get done with us in a series, you know even if you’ve had success on a given day, or success in a given series where a guy’s pitched really well, you know we want you to feel like it was heavy, it was difficult, it was a lot to get through us.”

There’s no difference in the two answers.

8. What was Boone’s evaluation of Jameson Taillon’s latest loss?

“I thought he threw the ball well,” Taillon said. “I thought overall, I thought he threw the ball pretty well, and I thought stuff-wise was good today.”

The term and stat “quality start” is shit. Three earned runs in six innings is shit. A 4.50 ERA is shit. But if it’s going to be used as a measuring stick then Taillon isn’t coming close to being average. He has gotten an out in the sixth inning in just one of his 10 starts and has recorded one “quality start” in 10 starts. He doesn’t give the Yankees length and the amount of innings he does give them aren’t any good.

How could anyone think Taillon threw the ball well? The Rays had baserunners the entire day. Boone loves to use the word “traffic” to describe runners on base, well, it looked like FDR Drive at a 5 p.m. on a Friday against Taillon. At least, Boone’s streak of thinking his starting pitcher had “good stuff” is still alive.

9. This weekend, Boone offered his opinion on what needs to change to turn things around.

“We haven’t mounted enough and scored enough runs to win ballgames and we’re certainly capable of it,” Boone said. “That starts with me and the coaching staff making sure we’re putting these guys in the best position to be successful.”

It shouldn’t be hard to fill out the Yankees’ lineup card, yet not a day goes by that Boone doesn’t leave his lineup to be second-guessed. One day Rougned Odor will bat second then the next day ninth then the next day out of the lineup. Brett Gardner will bat ninth … or leadoff … or third. Sometimes they will both play against a lefty, sometimes neither of them will. Mike Ford rarely plays, but when he does, he bats fifth. Gary Sanchez bats behind both Odor and Ford. Kyle Higashioka continues to get regular playing time. None of it makes sense.

Boone rarely, if ever, puts his position players in the best position to succeed. The same goes for his bullpen. The only person in the world who thought Wilson should pitch the 10th inning on Friday was Boone. I’m sure Wilson himself wondered what Boone was doing when he was told to start warming up. Boone used Nick Nelson earlier in the season as if he were Chad Green, the same way he used to use Jonathan Holder. He does this because is truly has no idea what he’s doing.

10. Boone continues this player or that player will be fine. He continues to say his team will hit and they have to be better. They are only empty promises with no urgency behind them.

With three games remaining against the Rays this week and then three against the Red Sox, if there isn’t going to be urgency now, there will never be.

Subscribe to the Keefe To The City Podcast. New episode after every game during the season.

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

The Yankees played a series against the Blue Jays, and that means the Yankees lost a series since they can’t seem to beat the Blue Jays in 2021. It was the Yankees’ first series loss in their last 10, but it came as no surprise as the offense once again failed to show up.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. Goodbye, Corey Kluber. After straining a shoulder muscle in his first start following his no-hitter, Kluber won’t throw for four weeks. That brings us to the end of June. Then he will need about four to six weeks to get built up to return. That brings us to the beginning or middle of August. That’s if everything goes right.

Seeing how Kluber pitched one inning last season before suffering a shoulder injury which needed surgery coupled with the Yankees’ history of properly diagnosing, treating and handling injuries and I would say there’s a better chance Kluber doesn’t throw another pitch in 2021 than there that he returns sometime in August. It’s unfortunate because Kluber had looked like his former Cy Young-winning self over his previous five starts, but this was always a risk in signing the 35-year-old Kluber coming off his last two seasons.

2. Kluber’s injury opens the door for Deivi Garcia to join a rotation he should have been in to begin the season. This should be Garcia’s job moving forward. Not Michael King. Not an opener. Garcia and Garcia only. Garcia proved himself last season and the Blue Jays proved on Thursday afternoon what happens when you give your high-end prospects a chance at the major league level: they just might succeed.

3. Alek Manoah became the latest starting pitcher to shut down the Yankees, and he shut down the entire lineup except for Miguel Andujar, who was able to get a broken-bat single and a blooper to fall in. 6 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 2 BB, 7 K.

When the Blue Jays announced they would be calling up Manoah to face the Yankees, there was a story on MLB.com essentially saying that while Manoah had dominated in three Triple-A starts this season, Triple-A isn’t Yankee Stadium. Well, it might as well be. Because you can add Manoah and his 35 professional innings entering his Thursday start to the list of starting pitchers that have stifled the Yankees this season, a list that includes Michael Wacha, Matt Harvey, Joe Ross, Jordan Lyles and Steven Matz.

4. I guess this wasn’t the series the Yankees’ offense decides to show up for good in 2021. Maybe it will be the next series or the series after that or the series after. Most likely it won’t be, but Aaron Boone keeps telling us it’s going to happen!

Seven runs in three games. It was the latest atrocious performance from a lineup that continues to one-up itself with each new series. The Yankees have scored two more runs that the Orioles and 63 less runs than the Rays. It’s embarrassing, but the Yankees don’t seem to mind. They continue to give regular at-bats to Mike Ford and Brett Gardner and Tyler Wade and Rougned Odor.

5. Every day Odor is a Yankee is a day I’m embarrassed to be a Yankees fan. It’s bad enough the Yankees traded for him to be a bench player, but he has been an everyday player for the Yankees, and he’s been about as a good as a player who was released by a last-place team despite being owed $27 million like he was by the Rangers.

In Tuesday’s series opener, Odor went 0-for-3 with a walk and three strikeouts, batting in the 6-hole. On Thursday, in the first game of the doubleheader, Odor was batting second. Second. Second! SECOND! A place usually reserved for Aaron Judge and Odor of all players was batting there. He rewarded Boone for his inexplicable trust in him by going 0-for-2 with a walk and two strikeouts.

6. During Odor’s second at-bat (after he had struck out on three pitches in his first at-bat), YES showed the graphic with his stat line for the season and his abysmal batting average, which led Michael Kay to say the following: 

“Rougned Odor hasn’t hit with the consistency that you’d expect.”

What? Odor has hit .212 in his last 2,008 plate appearances since the start of the 2017 season. So over five seasons he has been a .212/.278/.414 hitter and Kay doesn’t think his numbers as a Yankee (.160/.269/.333) are what should be expected.

6. Estevan Florial was called up for the doubleheader and doubled in one of his three at-bats. Then he was sent down after the game as the Yankees don’t feel he’s ready for the majors. Based on what?

Gardner has one double in his last 51 plate appearances and two in his last 105, has no home runs this season and can’t catch up with fastballs over 92 mph. Odor last hit a home run in April and has two doubles in 93 plate appearances as a Yankee. Wade has barreled two balls in his major league career. Ford has no doubles this season and one home run in the last month. Are any of those guys ready for the majors in 2021?

7. OK, so Florial supposedly isn’t ready for the majors. That doesn’t change the fact the Yankees need a new everyday center fielder, now that it’s official Aaron Hicks won’t play again in 2021. (It was actually official the moment it was announced he had a wrist injury.) It doesn’t matter Hicks is under contract through at least 2025 and then will need to be bought out in 2026. When he was unnecessarily extended for SEVEN years at $10 million per, it was with the caveat that it wasn’t a franchise-crippling amount of money, and they could afford to pay him to go away. The hope was that wouldn’t happen until 2023. It has happened in 2021.

Hicks can’t be trusted for 2022 and beyond, and planning to pencil him as the everyday center fielder in 2022 will be a regrettable decision the Yankees can’t afford to make. The Yankees need to trade for someone between now and the July 30 trade deadline or hope they hit on either Florial or Jasson Dominguez at some point. They will likely have to trade for someone now and hit on one of those two as well.

8. The Yankees had Monday off. They had had Wednesday off. That didn’t stop Boone from playing Gio Urshela in only one of the two games on Thursday. Urshela sat out the first game and the Yankees were two-hit and shut out.

In the second game, Urshela batted fourth and produced an RBI double in his first at-bat. I guess playing 16 innings of baseball is all he could handle in a four-day span. Good thing he couldn’t have played in a second shortened seven-inning game on Thursday. The Yankees might have won, and everyone knows unnecessary rest is more important than wins.

9. The Yankees are now 3-6 against the Blue Jays with 25 runs scored in the nine games. That’s on top of the 3-6 they are against the Rays with 25 runs scored in those nine games. The Yankees are 6-12 against their direct competition for the division and 23-9 against everyone else. Both the Rays and Blue Jays scare the shit out of me, and I think both teams are better than the Yankees, even if only the Rays have a better overall record than the Yankees.

I would sign up for the second wild-card berth right now if I were the Yankees, and yes, that means playing a one-game playoff on the road and losing Gerrit Cole for Game 1 of the ALDS. I just don’t know if the Yankees can outlast both teams in for the division title and then outlast one of two as well as the Red Sox and Astros or A’s for a wild-card spot. With this Yankees offense, the second wild card sounds pretty good right about now.

10. The Yankees have a chance to pick up wins this weekend, and likely three of them. The Tigers are a disaster with the second-worst record in the AL, only to the Orioles (who the Yankees have trouble beating). The Yankees swept the Tigers in New York to open the month and now they have a chance to sweep the Tigers in Detroit to close the month.

After another series loss to the Blue Jays and with a four-game series against the Rays and a three-game series against the Red Sox next week, three games against the Tigers are exactly what the Yankees need.

Subscribe to the Keefe To The City Podcast. New episode after every game during the season.

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

The Yankees swept the team that used to have the best record in the American League. The Yankees had been 1-6 when they had a chance to sweep a series, but now they’re 2-6, having won six straight games with a big series against the Blue Jays up next.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. Going back to last Monday when Gerrit Cole was rocked by the Rangers, I was very scared about the next six games. The Yankees’ offense has been non-existent all season, Cole had just been lit up by a last-place team and wouldn’t pitch again until Saturday, and the 2021 Yankees were starting to look like the 2019 Yankees in terms of injuries. I thought there was a very real chance the Yankees could get swept by the Rangers after Cole lost the series opener and then get swept by the then-best team in the American League in the White Sox.

It looked like this might happen when Jameson Taillon put the Yankees in a 3-0 hole the night after Cole laid an egg, but then the Yankees rallied with a five-run fifth inning and haven’t looked back. Since Cole’s worst start as a Yankee last Monday, the Yankees haven’t lost. They took the final three games in Texas and then completely shut down the White Sox, allowing five runs in three games, and finally closing out a sweep.

2. I said all offseason the Yankees or White Sox will represent the AL in the 2021 World Series, and I still believe that. The White Sox have the better chance since they are a guarantee to win their division, getting to play 78 games against the Indians, Royals, Twins and Tigers. The White Sox’ record is truly a product of an awful, and I mean awful AL Central as they are already 17-9 against. Meanwhile, the Yankees will have to battle the Rays, Blue Jays and possibly the Red Sox all season just to avoid the one-game, wild-card playoff. It’s unfair, but it’s the way it’s set up.

The White Sox are overrated. White Sox fans can whine about not having Luis Robert or Eloy Jimenez, however, they just got swept by a Yankees team that didn’t have Giancarlo Stanton or Aaron Hicks, didn’t have Clint Frazier until the series finale, and had way too much of Mike Ford, Tyler Wade and Rougned Odor in the lineup.

3. Goodbye, Hicks. Hicks opted for surgery to repair his wrist sheath, and we won’t see him again in 2021. There is supposedly a chance he could return very late in the season, but we’re talking about Hicks here, and he has never returned from an injury before or on schedule.

Hicks will be 32 later this year, and if he doesn’t play in another game in 2021 (which he won’t), he will have played in 493 of 870 regular-season games as a Yankee, or 57 percent. He will now have a surgically-repaired wrist to go along with a surgically-repaired elbow, a balky back, and he has had issues with both obliques, a hamstring and his intercostal muscle. The seven-year extension for Hicks was a mistake the second it was announced and it looks like an even bigger mistake now that he has experienced three significant injuries since it was signed: a back injury, Tommy John surgery and now wrist surgery. Even if Hicks is ready to go for Opening Day 2022, this doesn’t seem like an injury that he’s going to bounce back from right away and be fine at the plate. He has barely ever been fine at the plate in his career, anyway.

4. Hicks will be a Yankee through at least 2025 (he will be bought out for 2026), and that’s four more season after this one. For a player who was never healthy in his 20s and hasn’t been in his early-30s, I’m not sure how the Yankees think he’s going to be for his age 32, 33, 34 and 35 seasons.

The Yankees need a center fielder, and no, not Brett Gardner. I mean a real center fielder. Someone who can play against both right-handed and left-handed pitchers, which Gardner can no longer do. I’m sure the Yankees will trade for someone to fill that role this summer, though they need a long-term solution since Hicks can’t be trusted to be that. That’s where Jasson Dominguez comes in, and he better be as good as he’s been hyped to be.

5. Gleyber Torres hit .234/.327/.287 in April. In May, he’s hit .375/.434/.521. The power still isn’t there (just three extra-base hits in 53 plate appearances in May), but his overall approach and offense is there.

This is the player who nearly came from behind to win the 2018 AL Rookie of the Year award and the player who hit 38 home runs in 2021 (even if everyone was hitting 25-plus home runs). This is the player who was supposed to become the Yankees’ No. 3 hitter for years and eventually the team’s best and most important player. I don’t know where he was for the 2020 shortened season and for the first month of 2021, but it’s good to have him back.

6. Aaron Judge played in all 13 games in the last 13 days, starting 12 of them. That’s as good as it will ever get for Judge when the Yankees play 13 games in 13 days. And what do you know? Judge hit .457/.537/.804 with five home runs and eight RBIs in 54 plate appearances and added his first career walkoff with the walkoff walk on Sunday. It’s almost as if Judge doesn’t need unnecessary rest and personal days off. It’s almost as if the Yankees are better with their best overall player in the lineup and in the game (they went 10-3 in the 13 games) than if he’s inexplicably on the bench so he can have preventative rest.

7. When Jordan Montgomery strikes out 11 over seven shutout innings (like he did on Friday) and Jameson Taillon shuts out a team over five innings (like he did on Sunday), you know things are going your way. Having those two going against the White Sox scared me and they combined for 12 shutout innings and 15 strikeouts. Right now, I think this is how the Yankees would set up their rotation for a postseason series:

Game 1: Gerrit Cole
Game 2: Corey Kluber
Game 3: Jordan Montgomery
Game 4: Scumbag Domingo German

I don’t think Taillon would get a postseason start. I also really need Luis Severino to return and be his old self, so that he, Cole and Kluber can pitch Games 1-3 and only one of Montgomery or Scumbag German is needed for Game 4. I don’t trust Montgomery, Scumbag German or Taillon, and I’m not sure when or if I will.

8. It’s time the Yankees send every runner home from second a base hit to the outfield with no outs. I can’t watch the team strand runners at third with no outs anymore, or get nothing from second and third with no outs or nothing from the bases loaded and no outs. It’s always been a problem with these Yankees and it will continue to be a problem with these Yankees because everyone on the team with the exception of DJ LeMahieu and Gio Urshela is trying to hit a 500-foot home run in every at-bat, and they are unable to simply put the ball in play in a productive way. Mostly, when the 2021 Yankees have put the ball in play with the bases loaded and no outs, it has resulted in a double play. The Yankees lead the majors in ground into double plays, but at least it was somewhat evened out with the triple play they were able to turn on Friday when it looked like they were going to give away a winnable game.

The Yankees had Monday off after playing 13 games in 13 days, and now they’ll play another 12 games in 13 days, except these 13 game are doing to be much harder. Sandwiched around three games in Detroit are three against the Blue Jays, four against the Rays and three against the Red Sox.

9. We’re still waiting for the offense to show up in 2021. Sure, there have been a few games where the Yankees will score seven runs, like they did on Tuesday in Texas, or on Saturday against the White Sox, but in the other five games last week, they scored 13 runs total. As of now, the Rays have scored 60 more tuns than the Yankees in two more games played. That’s absurd. The Yankees have become a the glorified Rays with bigger names and a much bigger payroll. They have the same style of play, relying on their pitching and hoping to scratch across three or four runs. I don’t hate it. I would rather the Yankees have better pitching than hitting since we have seen where having an overpowering regular-season offense and mediocre pitching has gotten them since 2004, but this team is supposed to have both.

10. I keep thinking maybe this will be the series the offense finally breaks out, and it keeps not being the series. But maybe this will be the series the offense breaks out since they are avoiding Hyun Jin Ryu and the Blue Jays have lost six straight and seven of 10. If it’s not, I’m sure the Yankees will beat up on the Tigers this coming weekend to end the month like they did to begin the month, and everyone will think the offense has finally arrived, but then on Memorial Day, they begin their fourth series of the season against the Rays and we’ll see whether the offense will be attending the third month of the season after being absent for the first two.

Subscribe to the Keefe To The City Podcast. New episode after every game during the season.

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