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.

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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.

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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.

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The Yankees’ season-long, three-city, 10-game road trip ended with a 7-3 record, three series wins and three straights wins. Now it’s back to the Bronx, where the Yankees will play the best team in the American League: the White Sox.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. I’m happy with the road trip. I wanted a 7-3 road trip and the Yankees provided it, winning all three series. They managed to play .700 baseball despite only outscoring the Rays, Orioles and Rangers 37-35. They were able win seven of 10 because they won a 3-1 game, a 1-0 game and two 2-0 games.

The offense is still a problem, and it’s going to continue to be a problem because one-third of the expected everyday lineup is currently injured (Giancarlo Stanton, Aaron Hicks and Clint Frazier), and while Frazier isn’t on the injured list like the other two, he hasn’t played since Monday. Gary Sanchez was removed from Tuesday’s game, Gleyber Torres just returned, Gio Urshela is dealing with a lingering knee issue and Aaron Judge seems to always be dealing with something.

2. Remember when the Yankees overhauled their entire training staff following 2019 and hired Eric Cressey and he was going to prevent the amount of injuries the Yankees had recently suffered? So much for that. That isn’t a knock on Cressey either. He was hired to do an impossible job: keep the Yankees healthy. It’s impossible because the Yankees’ roster is full of injury-prone and soft players. There’s no fixing that. Cressey notably changed the offseason workout routines of Judge and Stanton, and Judge has already missed four games due to injury and held out of others for fear of getting injured, while Stanton had four personal day off to prevent injury and still ended up on the injured list with a quad issue. The Yankees aren’t quite to the level of the 2019 Yankees when it comes to injuries, but they are on their way.

Because of the injuries, Brett Gardner, Rougned Odor, Mike Ford, Tyler Wade and Ryan LaMarre (until he was also injured) have become somewhat everyday players. It’s 2019 all over again with replacement players placing, minus the consistent production from the replacement players.

3. Given the Yankees’ disappointing loss in the series opener in which Gerrit Cole looked like Nick Nelson, I thought the Yankees were headed back to where they were in April. Instead, the Makeshift Yankees came through with a five-run rally on Tuesday to overcome the most recent deficit Jameson Taillon has put his team in, got a no-hitter from Corey Kluber on Wednesday and a combined shutout from Scumbag Domingo German, Chad Green and Aroldis Chapman on Thursday.

Cole had easily his worst start as a Yankee (5 IP, 7 H, 5 R, 5 ER, 2 BB, 7 K, 2 HR) and likely what will end up being his worst start of 2021 (at least I hope it is). When Cole is on (like he mostly is), it’s hard to envision any team ever hitting him, let alone the way the Rangers did with five extra-base hits in five innings. Cole gets a pass because of how good he is and because there’s no way (just knocked on wood) he will have back-to-back bad starts. He laid an egg and it’s over with. Now he gets the best team and best lineup in baseball on Saturday afternoon, and a chance to get back on track.

4. You know who doesn’t get a pass? Taillon. He has run out of passes. Another start in which he was unable to go five innings (five times in eight starts). Another start in which he allowed four earned runs (four times in eight starts). Another start in which he aallowed a home run (seven of eight starts). Another start in which he couldn’t put away hitters with two strikes.

Taillon is Phil Hughes. He looks like Hughes, throws like Hughes and can’t put anyone away with two strikes, allowing countless two-strike fouls, like Hughes. His stats also resembles Hughes’. Taillon has a 5.73 ERA, a 1.274 WHIP, has allowed nine home runs in only 37 2/3 innings and batters have an .806 OPS against him.

The season is more than a quarter complete at 27 percent and Taillon has been had for essentially all of it. I know, I know, he hasn’t pitched in two years. And yes, that’s a valid excuse, but there’s no time for excuses because of the Yankees’ horrific start to the season they are still trying to undo and because the top four teams in the AL East are all separated by one loss. The Yankees can’t wait around for Taillon to figure it out, and the same goes for Jordan Montgomery. They have to figure it out now, or the Yankees need to give Deivi Garcia a chance to.

5. Kluber has figured it out.

Back on Jan. 7, before Kluber became a Yankee, I wrote a blog titled Corey Kluber Is Perfect Low-Risk, High-Reward Candidate. In that blog, I wrote:

What I do see is the Yankees signing Corey Kluber. Rather, I want them to sign Kluber. I will go pick him up if needed.

Kluber faced three batters in 2020 before going down for the season. In 2019, he only threw 35 2/3 innings because of injury. But from 2014 through 2018 he was the best pitcher in the American League, pitching to a 2.85 ERA and 1.016 WHIP, while averaging 218 innings per season and 10.1 strikeouts-per-nine innings.

If the Yankees sign Kluber and he’s his 2018 self (20-8, 2.89 ERA, 0.991 WHIP, 9.3 K/9), well then they have Gerrit Cole, Kluber and potentially Luis Severino as their 1-2-3.

Over his last five starts, Kluber has looked every bit like his 2018 self. The Yankees have won all five of his starts, he has given the team length going at least 5 2/3 innings in all five starts and has pitched to this line: 35.1 IP, 21 H, 7 R, 7 ER, 9 BB, 36 K, 1 HR, 1.78 ERA, 0.850 WHIP.

I have never been worried about Kluber’s performance, just about his health. Even when Kluber didn’t look like himself early in the season, I still had an odd sense of confidence and comfort when he was on the mound, always thinking he would figure it out.

It took him nearly a month, but he has figured it out, and so far, the Yankees have hit on their low-risk, high-reward candidate.

6. After Cole’s clunker, I thought the Yankees could be looking at potentially getting swept by the last-place Rangers. The Yankees had once again only scored two runs in a game on Monday, and Aaron Boone put out this lineup on Tuesday:

DJ LeMahieu, 3B
Brett Gardner, CF
Aaron Judge, DH
Gio Urshela, SS
Rougned Odor, 2B
Gary Sanchez, C
Miguel Andujar, LF
Mike Ford, 1B
Ryan LaMarre, RF

That’s an early-March spring training lineup. Taillon put the Yankees in a 3-0 hole, but a shocking (mostly) two-out rally in the fourth inning saved the game.

With one out, Judge singled and Urshela doubled in Judge. Then with two outs and Urshela on first, Sanchez doubled in Urshela, Andujar singled in Sanchez, Ford singled, LaMarre walked and LeMahieu doubled in Andujar and Ford. The Yankees batted around in the inning, and Gardner made two of the inning’s outs.

7. The next night, the offense didn’t show up again. I thought there was a real chance Kluber could throw nine no-hit innings and the Yankees would eventually lose in extra innings because of the offense’s inability to do anything against Hyeon-Jong Yang. Thankfully, a Kyle Higashioka single and Tyler Wade triple, yes triple, gave the Yankees the lead. I didn’t know Wade was capable of hitting a line drive into the gap because he has never done it before in any of his five seasons with the Yankees. It was a more improbably feat than Kluber throwing a no-hitter, and I would bet a Yankee throws another no-hitter before we see Wade barrel a ball again.

8. The Yankees entered Thursday’s afternoon, getaway day game with an 0-5 record in weekday afternoon games and a 2-7 record in getaway day games, and for the first six innings we saw why. The Yankees hit into a couple more double plays to increase their league lead, ran into a couple of more outs on the basepaths, as if they think they have to be pegged by the ball to be out on, and also made Dane Dunning look like a star, allowing him to throw six shutout innings. With the Yankees’ offense enduring a season-long slump and missing one-third of its expected everyday members (Stanton, Hicks and Frazier), Boone decided to give Judge and Urshela the day off. Judge had only DH’d the previous two games, so he was getting a day off from only batting, and Urshela was just given Friday off, before being needed to hit a pinch-hit, three-run home run.

9. Urshela was needed again on Thursday after being unnecessarily given the first six innings of the game off for the second time in seven games. And for the second time in seven games, he delivered a go-ahead pinch-hit. With a 1-0 lead and Sanchez on second and Urshela on first, Boone then called on Judge to pinch hit. He singled in Sanchez to give the Yankees a 2-0 lead. It’s a good thing Urshela and Judge both had the first six innings of the game off with the offense in its current state and the amount of everyday major leaguers available on the roster.

10. This weekend is going to be tough. The White Sox are the best team in the American League with a deep, balanced lineup and a strong rotation. All offseason I wrote and said the White Sox would be the Yankees’ biggest obstacle to reaching the World Series (aside from Boone), and that has proven to be true through the first nearly two months of the season. 

The Yankees will see Carlos Rodon (1.47 ERA), Dylan Cease (2.41 ERA) and familiar for Dallas Keuchel (4.44 ERA) this weekend. (Keuchel doesn’t scare me the way he once did after the Yankees finally solved him for good in the 2017 ALCS.) The Yankees will send Montgomery, Cole and Taillon to the mound. Their best starter sandwiched between their worst two. I expect Cole to pitch well, especially after his most recent start. I don’t expect much from either Montgomery or Taillon, and will be surprised if they are able to successfully navigate their way through the White Sox’ lineup.

The Yankees are 19-8 in their last 27 games and are 7-0-1 in their last eight series (and 7-0-2 if you count the two-game series against the Braves). It won’t be easy, but I want the Yankees’ current unbeaten series streak continue this weekend. That means winning two of three against the best team they have played this season.

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The Yankees won another series. Another series they had a chance to sweep and didn’t, but another series win nonetheless. The Yankees took two out of three in Baltimore and are 6-0-1 in their last seven series.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. The Yankees keeping putting themselves in favorable situations to sweep series, but aside from their sweep of the Tigers, they keep failing to win each series finale. I understand the old adage “It’s hard to sweep,” but it shouldn’t be when you have a multi-run lead or when you have possibly the best pitcher in the world on the mound or an elite reliever entering a game. Those are the situations the Yankees have had in the last three series in which they were one win away from a sweep, and each time they came up short.

The Yankees won the first two games against the Astros two weeks ago, had a 3-1 lead in the third game and were nine outs from a sweep with Cole on the mound and Chad Green then coming in when they blew it. Two series later, they won the first two games against the Rays in Tampa and then scored one run in the series finale (in the ninth inning). They had a 4-0 lead before Jordan Montgomery took the mound on Sunday, and he gave it all away in three innings.

The Yankees lost a lot of winnable games in April and they have had many opportunities to erase all the bad they did last month, yet they keep blowing each chance. Yes, they have won 16 of 23. It could have and should have been more.

2. Gio Urshela won Friday night’s game with a three-run home run in the seventh inning. It was his first at-bat of the game as he pinch hit for Tyler Wade. Why was it his first at-bat of the game? Because Aaron Boone felt it would be best to give Urshela the night off due to knee soreness. The “night” turned into six innings and Urshela was brought off the bench to prevent the Yankees from losing a second straight game.

Urshela produced a nine pitch at-bat in which he would off tough, near-perfect cutters away until he finally got one he could put in play and he crushed it for an opposite-field home run. The at-bat proved Urshela didn’t need the night off if he was capable of putting together an at-bat of that caliber and able to hit a home run and not just a home run, but an opposite-field home run. It was completely unnecessary for Urshela to not start the game, and had he, maybe the Yankees aren’t trailing in the seventh inning and in desperate need of a three-run home run to take the lead.

3. The unnecessary rest didn’t end there. Aroldis Chapman was unavailable to pitch in a one-run game despite having had the previous day off. Why? Because he had pitched two consecutive days prior to that day off, and he had pitched in two of the three days before that. So Boone made Chapman unavailable in a one-run game.

To recap Chapman’s last week-plus:

Thursday: Didn’t pitch
Friday: Didn’t pitch
Saturday: Pitched
Sunday: Pitched
Monday: Didn’t pitch
Tuesday: Pitched
Wednesday: Pitched
Thursday: Didn’t pitch
Friday: Unavailable

4. To make matters worse, Boone decided to go batter-to-batter in the ninth inning. He let Wandy Peralta start the inning even though Jonathan Loaisiga was ready. Peralta gave up a leadoff single to put the tying run on base, and then Boone went to Loaisiga. Why not go to Loaisiga to begin the inning? Why does Boone always have to try to get cute and think he’s so damn smart and smarter than everyone else? It shouldn’t be this hard to beat the Orioles. It shouldn’t be this hard to write out a lineup card and to properly manage a bullpen with the Yankees’ roster.

5. On Saturday, the Yankees jumped out to a three-run led in the first and made it 5-0 in the second. In the sixth it was 8-0 and they went on to win 8-2. It was a nice, easy, comfortable win. It’s the kind of game the Yankees should have against the Orioles.

After homering twice on Friday, Judge homered again on Saturday, and then again on Sunday. He has five home runs in his last 25 plate appearances and six games and has 12 on the season, while hitting .298/.399/.611. He’s been awesome.

My criticism of Judge has never been about his ability. I love Judge. My criticism has been about his inability to stay healthy and his seemingly need to go to Boone with any little ache or pain that then puts him on the bench for a couple of days. Judge is great and easily the Yankees’ best player when healthy and most important part of their lineup. Health has always been the issue with him. He’s been mostly healthy in 2021, though he has needed a few unnecessary days off. I’m sure he will get at least another one off in the final four games of this season-long, 10-game road trip. Thankfully, he’s healthy enough to play, unlike his fellow oft-injured teammates.

6. Aaron Hicks going down with a tear in his wrist at the same time Giancarlo Stanton went down with quad tightness was almost too perfect given the amount of time those two have missed since 2019.

I’m not surprised Hicks is hurt again. He has been injured his entire career. For a player who missed so much time in his 20s, giving him a seven-year extension to take him through his mid-30s was ill-advised. He’s going to be 32 in 2021 and has missed time as a Yankee with injuries to both obliques, a hamstring strain, shoulder bursitis, a strained intercostal, he’s playing with a surgically-repaired elbow, and now might have a surgically-repaired wrist to go along with it. And oh yeah, he missed the third two months of 2019 after suffering a significant back injury. If it seems like Hicks’ body is being held together with Elmer’s glue, Scotch Tape and Silly Putty, it’s because it pretty much is. At least he’s only signed for another four years after this one and then in 2026, the Yankees will pay him to not play for them. Jasson Dominguez better tear through the minors.

7. As for Stanton, no surprise there either. I’m more surprised when Hicks and Stanton are healthy than when they aren’t. The Yankees have now played 40 games and Stanton has had four of them off for personal rest and has missed three due to quad tightness. So he has already not played in 18 percent of the season. Good thing Aaron Boone gave Stanton those four days off as it prevented him from getting injured.

At the same time Boone announced Stanton would be out with quad tightness, he said he had been recently thinking of putting Stanton in the outfield. BULLSHIT, cough, cough. Of course, Boone says this at the same time he announces Stanton has a quad issue. Because now there’s no way Stanton will play the outfield and Boone will use this latest injury as the reason. Boone was never going to put Stanton in the outfield. Never.

8. If you thought Jordan Montgomery might have taken a step toward becoming more than what he has been in his career with his dominant performance against the Rays, well, Sunday’s disaster against the Orioles was a good wake-up call. Montgomery was given a four-run lead before he ever took the mound on Sunday, and immediately, he gave two runs back. When he took the mound in the third inning, he had a three-run lead, and he erased that too with a pair of doubles, a single and a walk. He lasted only three innings, allowed five earned runs and eight baserunners, and his ERA is up to 4.75 this season. “Crooked Number” Montgomery appears to be back. Don’t let that one start at the Trop fool you.

9. Gary Sanchez continues to quietly turn his early-season slump around. His two-run home run in the first inning on Sunday prevented the Yankees from destroying yet another bases-loaded, no-out situation. It was Sanchez’s third home run in 26 plate appearances, and he now has a .351 OBP and .885 OPS in May, reaching base safely in eight of the nine games he has played this month. 

Meanwhile, for Kyle Higashioka, who briefly became the “full-time” catcher, he has only played in three of the last nine games, as he’s hitting .077/.200/.231 over his last 30 plate appearance, and that slugging percentage is only that high because of his solo home run off Max Scherzer. Higashioka isn’t an everyday catcher. Apparently, it took Boone nonsensically taking away at-bats from Sanchez to realize that.

10. The Yankees are now 4-2 on the road trip, and once again, it could have and should have been more. I’m happy with them winning two out of three in Tampa, but blowing a four-run, first-inning lead in Baltimore is unacceptable. Six runs against the Orioles should be more than enough to get a win, and that’s a game the Yankees likely wish they could have back. Then again, there’s been a lot of games through the first 40 I’m sure they wish they could have back.

Now it’s off to Texas, where the last-place Rangers await, who have lost six straight. The Rangers suck. They are already seven games back in the AL West and their season is over and it’s the middle of May. This is a team the Yankees should easily handle, and with Gerrit Cole on the mound in the series opener, it’s hard not to once again think about the potential of a big series in terms of wins.

The Yankees should return home having gone no worse than 7-3 on this road trip. Anything less than winning three out of four in Texas will be an enormous disappointment.

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