When is it not “early” anymore? Because maybe that’s when the Yankees will start to win games. The season is nearly 10 percent over and the Yankees are five games under .500.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1.The Yankees opened the series with an opener, using the Rays’ revolutionary strategy against the Rays. Trying to be cute and outsmart the Rays like they unsuccessfully did in Game 2 of the 2020 ALDS, the Yankees’ opener strategy backfired. It backfired because they used Nick Nelson as the opener, and Nelson isn’t any good.

This spot made all the sense in the world for Deivi Garcia to start (like Game 2 of the 2020 ALDS), but he was unavailable after having thrown earlier in the week at the alternate site. The Yankees knew this game was on the schedule. They knew they would need a starting pitcher for it, and yet, they had Garcia throw at the alternate site and waste pitches in a meaningless setting rather than at Yankee Stadium against the Rays. Three batters into the game, the Rays had a two-run lead off Nelson and still hadn’t made an out.

2. When Friday’s lineup came out, I figured the front office finally took away Boone’s lineup card privileges. (Once Saturday’s lineup came out, I knew they hadn’t.) For the first time all season, Boone made a somewhat logical lineup:

DJ LeMahieu, 1B
Aaron Judge, RF
Gleyber Torres, SS
Giancarlo Stanton, DH
Gio Urshela, 3B
Aaron Hicks, CF
Gary Sanchez, C
Clint Frazier, LF
Rougned Odor, 2B

3. Aaron Hicks was removed from the 3-hole for the first time in which LeMahieu was also in the lineup. This made me happy, but it also made me question why it was being made. Twelve days earlier, Boone was asked about moving Hicks out of the 3-hole after he went 1-for-12 with seven strikeouts in the first three games of the season.

“It’s one weekend,” Boone said at the time. “Over the long haul, Aaron Hicks is going to be all right.”

Had the long haul ended after just 44 plate appearances in 2021? Or did Boone finally realize Hicks belongs batting third as much as Boone belongs being Yankees manager?

Hicks carried a dismal .179/.273/.282 batting line into the series and went 0-for-3 in the series opener. Apparently, his one-game timeout as the Yankees 3-hitter and his 0-for-3 performance was enough to get him out of the doghouse. Boone couldn’t stay mad at his favorite player for long. Hicks was back in the 3-hole on Saturday and went 1-for-4. Hicks finished the weekend 1-for-11. His OPS currently sits at .476. Maybe there’s a reason other teams use players like Mike Trout, Bryce Harper, Juan Soto, Nolan Arenado, Freddie Freeman, Manny Machado and Jose Abreu as their No. 3 hitter.

4. Hicks wasn’t just bad at the plate. On Sunday, he misplayed back-to-back balls in center field, which erased the Yankees’ first lead in four days. Rather than make it clear defensive miscues aren’t acceptable during this miserable stretch of sloppy games, Boone left Hicks in the game. Boone could have won over the fans and showed enough was enough by pulling Hicks and replacing him with Gardner, but that might cause Hicks to not like Boone or not invite him to the card game at the back of the plane on road trips. I would have completely changed my opinion of Boone if he had removed Hicks from the game. Instead of being the manager first and friend second, Boone made it clear no amount of mental lapses on the field are enough to make an example of someone.

5. Boone’s relaxed Southern California personality that has made these Yankees feel comfortable with losing and accepting of underachieving is part of the reason this team is 52-51 since Sept. 15, 2019. Why would Boone change anything about his team? It’s the same roster he said he was “proud of” after they were eliminated by the Rays in 2020 ALDS, their third straight early postseason exit and second ALDS exit with him as manager. Boone has taken his false positivity and ridiculous excuses in his postgame press conferences to another level this season, and this weekend wasn’t any different.

“We’re going to be successful,” Boone said after Friday’s loss as if things will magically fix themselves, while admitting he held a team meeting to address the team about their second three-game losing streak in 13 games. Unfortunately for Boone, he didn’t check the pitching probables for Saturday before holding the team meeting. Tyler Glasnow would be starting for the Rays. The same Glasnow who had shut down the Yankees in Game 5 of the 2020 ALDS and who had allowed one earned run through his first three starts in 2021.

6. Hicks was back in the 3-hole on Saturday as Torres failed his one-game audition for the spot. Frazier was benched again for Gardner and Odor was back to batting ahead of Sanchez and Urshela. Three-time Gold Glove second baseman LeMahieu was once again at first base instead of second base because the Yankees unnecessarily sent down Mike Ford and had to wait 10 days to bring him back up.

Glasnow inevitably shut the Yankees down, allowing one earned run over five innings and the Yankees lost their fourth straight. The Yankees only managed  three runs and five hits in the game.

“Hitting’s a tough game,” Boone said in defense of his team’s offense, completely disregarding the Rays had no problem scoring 32 runs in the first five games against the Yankees this season. (They have now score 36 in six games.)

Jordan Montgomery only allowed two hits over six innings, but both of them went over the fence. Four earned runs in six innings for Montgomery. That’s a 6.00 ERA. That’s not good. Well, unless Boone is the one grading you.

“I thought he threw the ball well,” Boone said about Montgomery who seems to always allow a crooked number. “Obviously, two mistakes that cost him with the long ball.” Just two mistakes, no big deal. Just two home runs that cost the team the game. Other than that, he was good.

7. Gary Sanchez took a foul ball off his throwing hand on Saturday because for some reason Sanchez continues to not protect his throwing hand behind his back. Boone and the training staff evaluated Sanchez and allowed him to stay in the game. He finished the inning and then hit in the bottom half of the inning. Then while catching warmup pitches the next inning, Boone replaced him with Kyle Higashioka. Letting Sanchez stay in the game and then bat only to then take him out was so irresponsible, but exactly the way the Yankees have handled injuries the last few years, while setting all kinds of injured-list-placement records.

“I’ll play Higgy tomorrow into the off day,” Boone said after the game. Oh yeah, like Boone wasn’t going to start Higashioka with Gerrit Cole before Sanchez got hit on the hand. All the foul ball off Sanchez’s hand did was make it easier for Boone to explain why Sanchez wasn’t catching Cole again.

The 6-3 loss on Saturday wasn’t the only loss Boone would be handed that day. Bryan Hoch of Yankees.com and MLB.com (and Keefe To The City Podcast alum) handed Boone another “L” in the postgame press conference during this exchange:

Hoch: “Tampa Bay has really had the upper hand in this rivalry, not just this year, but the last few years.”

Boone: “Last year.”

Hoch: “5-17 that’s dating back to September 2019.” 

Boone: “Oh.”

It’s now 5-18 after Sunday’s game. Five wins in 23 games against the Rays.

8. Jay Bruce announced he would be retiring after Sunday’s game. Clearly, Bruce realized he wasn’t going to play much, if ever again, as a Yankee and once Luke Voit returns, he would be gone. Rather than be forced into retirement, Bruce dumped the Yankees before they could dump him. He retires having made $103 million in his career. I think he’ll be OK without the Yankees and baseball. Boone couldn’t let him bat instead of Odor in the bottom of the ninth with two outs and no one on and the Yankees down by two? Is there really any difference between Odor and Bruce? Both are left-handed. Both are no longer major leaguers. The only difference is one is retiring because he can no longer do what he once did on the field, and the other is being paid $27 million by the Rangers to not play for them because he can no longer do what he once did on the field. There was no reason Bruce couldn’t have received one last at-bat.

9. With Bruce announcing his retirement to open up a roster spot and with Cole starting, I thought Sunday would be the day the Yankees turn the season around. It didn’t happen. Cole was good, but got no help from Hicks in center field or the offense and took his first loss of the season. After Hicks’ first blunder, Cole gave a look of displeasure. After Frazier airmailed the cutoff man later in the same inning to allow a runner to move into scoring position, Cole gave a look like he might join Bruce in retirement after the game.

It was the sixth time Cole has faced the Rays as a Yankee. His line: 34 IP, 32 H, 16 R, 15 ER, 10 BB, 54 K, 8 HR, 3.97 ERA, 1.235 WHIP. Good, but not great. The Yankees got him to be great, especially against their direct competition in the division.

If the Yankees couldn’t end their losing streak with Cole on the mound, when will they? They have already wasted two of his four starts this season (Opening Day and Sunday) and now he won’t pitch until Friday. The Yankees will play three games between now and the next time Cole pitches.

“Bad series,” Boone said. “Just gotta get better. Period.”

Maybe the Yankees need another team meeting since Friday night’s worked so well. The Yankees are 0-2 with five runs and eight hits since Boone “addressed” them.

10. If you thought things were bad after Wednesday’s loss to the Blue Jays, welcome to a new low. The Yankees are 5-10, have lost five straight, are 1-5 against the Rays, 3-9 against the Rays and Blue Jays, have the worst record in the American League and the second-worst record in the majors. The scary part is this might not even be the low point of the season.

The Yankees’ next two games on Tuesday and Wednesday are against the Braves and they will face Charlie Morton, who dominates them, and Ian Anderson, who embarrassed them in his major league debut last season. If you think things are bad right now, buckle up for the next two days. Most likely, it’s going to get worse before it gets better. If it gets better.

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The Yankees were a game under .500 then a game over .500 then two games under .500 then .500 and now they’re two games under .500 again. That’s a textbook bad team, and that’s what the Yankees are. They aren’t average or mediocre because they would have to be .500 to be that. They flat-out suck.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. I used to hate off days on the Yankees’ schedule. Not anymore. Not with this team. A day off from watching this team is like a vacation. There’s no being frustrated, annoyed, upset or angry over a bad baseball team that is run poorly, managed poorly and plays poorly.

I wish I could go back to life on March 31. Back to the day before this miserable season began when there hadn’t been any games yet, and the idea that this season might be different than the previous three was still a possibility. That’s no longer a possibility as the Yankees are a mess.

2. In the series finale, I didn’t expect the Yankees to win. So when Bo Bichette took Chad Green deep to lead off the bottom of the ninth inning, all I could do was laugh because this team is a joke. In the rubber game of a series against the team the Yankees are directly competing against for the division, and with an off day the following day, Aaron Boone still decided to give both DJ LeMahieu and Giancarlo Stanton the day off. The Yankees played an immensely important game without their leadoff hitter and best defensive infielder and without their cleanup hitter for no reason other than that their manager thought they needed to rest.

Rest from what? Stanton entered the season having played 51 games since the start of 2019. How could he need more time off? The 2021 season has been going on for 15 days. In those 15 days, the Yankees have had three scheduled days off (April 2, 8 and 15). Stanton, personally, has had another two days off (April 4 and 14). In 15 days, he has played 10 games, all as the designated hitter. He has barely exerted any energy. He has scored three runs and one of them was on his lone home run, so he has barely had to run the bases. He has barely been on base with his dismal .233 on-base percentage. He’s also making $179,012.35 per game this season (though the Marlins are paying some of his salary), so Boone may want to have him play sometimes. And by play, I mean walk from the dugout to the on-deck circle, from the on-deck circle to the batter’s box and then maybe walk back to the dugout (strikeout), jog to first (walk or base hit to the outfield), jog the bases (home run), or do something between a jog and run (groundout or flyout).

If you think things are bad with Stanton when it comes to his actual production and the amount of time off he gets, think about what you will be doing six years from now. Because six years from now, the Yankees will be still be playing Stanton. They will either be paying him to be their 37-year-old designated hitter or they will be paying him to not play for them. And eight years from now, they will pay him a $10 million buyout to not play for them.

3. For the first time as a Yankee, LeMahieu has looked off. How would you go about getting LeMahieu back on track? I would think you would want him to play and get at-bats and correct whatever is screwing him up. It’s hard to do that when you’re sitting on the bench, but Boone clearly thinks not getting at-bats is what LeMahieu needs to produce better at-bats. If you’re terrible at cooking, the best way to get better is to simply not cook. Just sit in the living room and look at the kitchen and envision yourself cooking. That’s what Boone had LeMahieu do on Wednesday.

4. I don’t have the energy anymore to fight the Aaron Hicks battle. I’m tired and worn down. The Yankees think he’s Bernie Williams and no lack of production will change their mind. I also have lost the energy to criticize the decision to not add any major-league- worthy left-handed bats in the offseason, so the Yankees continue to force Rougned Odor and Jay Bruce into the lineup. Outside of Gerrit Cole and a couple of home runs from Gary Sanchez two weeks ago, there is nothing else to be happy or excited about with this team unless you’re excited about a scumbag being given the fifth starter spot out of spring training, a tired and overworked bullpen, a lineup that doesn’t walk as much as they used to and can’t hit or a former two-time Cy Young winner who’s making J.A. Happ seem not so bad.

5. Back on Jan. 7, I wrote a blog titled Corey Kluber Is Perfect Low-Risk, High-Reward Candidate. I stand by that. He was the perfect candidate for the back end of the Yankees’ rotation, and if he were to regain his pre-2019 form then the Yankees would have an elite option behind Cole and Luis Severino (once he comes back). I thought he could be a valuable piece as a guy trying to save his career. I didn’t think he would be the piece. I didn’t think the Yankees would be foolish enough to trust a 35-year-old coming off a shoulder injury with a lot of miles on his right arm to be their No. 2 starter.

Kluber has been awful, and if his name weren’t Corey Kluber and the Yankees weren’t paying him $11 million this season, he would no longer be a Yankee. But he’s what they have right now, and what that is is a really bad starting pitcher, who doesn’t give the team length or quality innings, and is ineffective in the small amount of innings he does give them. Here is Kluber’s line in three starts: 10.1 IP, 16 H, 10 R, 7 ER, 7 BB, 12 K, 3 HR, 6.10 ERA, 2.226 WHIP. You can’t even turn to his FIP to try and make it seem like he’s been better than traditional numbers suggest because he has a 7.20 FIP.

6. On Wednesday, Kluber was horrible, yet again. He only lasted four innings, giving up three earned runs and two home runs. No one could say he was any good with a straight face. No one except for Boone.

“Kluber, I still think is close,” Boone said after the game. “I thought the stuff was fine.”

Close to what? No longer being a major leaguer? He’s certainly not close to figuring it out or turning into the pitcher he was in Cleveland. If Kluber ever gets through five innings as a Yankee and records 15 outs, they should stop the game like when a player reaches a historic milestone and have the entire team go out to the mound and hug him. That’s how far away he is.

As for his stuff being fine. What? He put eight baserunners on in four innings. He’s put 23 runner on in 10 1/3 innings this season. That doesn’t seem like “fine” stuff to me.

7. That answer about Kluber’s performance from Boone was expected. Boone is a liar. All he does is lie. He lies about injuries. He lies about performance. He lies about roles on the team. Lie after lie after lie.

At his season-opening press conference at spring training, Boone said Clint Frazier would be the team’s everyday left fielder. At the time, the Yankees’ most recent games had been their seven postseason games in which Boone benched Frazier for Brett Gardner in five of them. Back on Feb. 22, I wrote:

If the Yankees were completely healthy, I still think Boone inexplicably sits Frazier against right-handed starting pitching and plays Gardner in left field those days. He did it in the 2020 postseason, so why wouldn’t he do it again in the 2021 regular season? Nothing has changed since then.

Frazier has started nine of the Yankees’ 12 games, but he’s only started six in left field. I thought “everyday player” meant you play every day, not half of the days. The only reason Frazier has appeared in nine games overall is because of the games Aaron Judge missed due to an injury Boone lied about. If not for Judge’s injury, Frazier would have played in six of 12 games.

8. Frazier’s playing time is tied to every single at-bat. There’s no room for error. An 0-for-4 game will find him on the bench the following day. This past week, when trying to sugarcoat the Yankees’ embarrassing offense, he mentioned how baseball is “a game of failure.” Except, it’s only a game of failure when it fits his narrative. Like talking about why his lineups suck or why Hicks can’t hit or why Gleyber Torres looks like he has completely lost all of his ability to play the sport or why Stanton can’t hit the ball in the air. It’s not a game of failure for Frazier.

Frazier has been playing under unrealistic expectations his entire Yankees tenure and this season has taken it to another level. Meanwhile, Judge and Hicks and Stanton, and even Gardner, are allowed to endure extended and endless slumps with no change in their playing time or spot in the batting order. It’s sickening. It really is.

I wanted Gardner back if he were to finally be the team’s fourth outfielder, not as someone who would once again take playing time and at-bats from Frazier. Through 12 games, Gardner has started as many games in left field as Frazier. At a time when the Yankees desperately need offense, they’re turning to the 38-year-old with a career .744 OPS.

9. Remember when Boone said Cole didn’t have a personal catcher in spring training? If you believed him, you likely believe Severino knew the start time of Game 3 of the 2018 ALDS.

The idea Kyle Higashioka makes Cole good is the most ridiculous thing of all time. All time. ALL TIME. You could pull any professional catcher from any level of affiliated or independent baseball, and he would dominate. The only reason the person would need that level of experience would be to catch his breaking pitches.

So now Gary Sanchez will apparently have every fifth day off no matter the opponent or importance of the game. If the Yankees are to reach the postseason, and I say if at this point because it’s clearly no longer a given, that means Higashioka will play in the biggest games of the season. You could see Higashioka in Games 1, 4 and 7 of a seven-game series. Obviously playing in a seven-game series would mean the Yankees have reached the ALCS or World Series and right now they are about as “close” to that as Kluber is close to whatever Boone was suggesting he is close to.

10. The Yankees will hit. They will. They might not hit when it matters or against elite starters or in October, but over the course of six months they will see enough awful pitching that they will score runs. I’m not worried about the offense long term.

I’m worried about the starting pitching though. I truly don’t think it’s going to get better. Kluber isn’t going to suddenly become a seven-inning, 3.00-ERA guy. Jameson Taillon will never be allowed to give the team length since the Yankees are petrified of him getting hurt, and they would rather have him not pitch than win games or preserve their bullpen. Jordan Montgomery is inconsistent. Scumbag German sucks. Deivi Garcia is being wasted at the alternate site. The Yankees are setting themselves up to desperately need Severino to return this summer and be his pre-injured self, which is unfair to him given the time normally needed after Tommy John surgery to regain peak ability, and it’s just an unrealistic expectation.

The Yankees are in trouble. Big trouble. If they don’t outhit their own pitching, there won’t be a postseason for them in 2021. That’s not what I’m worried about though. I’m worried they won’t reach the postseason, will bring back the same roster for 2022 and retain Boone. That’s what keeps me up at night.

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The Yankees tried their best to get swept by the Rays, doing everything they could to lose all three games at Tropicana Field. They managed to eek out a win in the series finale on Sunday, which was a relief, but not satisfying. How could it be with all the issues this team has?

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. At the beginning of Mrs. Doubtfire, with his marriage falling apart, Robin Williams’ character tells Sally Field’s character, “Come on, Miranda. We’ve got problems, but who doesn’t? We could work them out.”

Field responds, “We’ve been trying to work them out for years.”

Williams answers, “Well, let’s take a vacation with the kids …”

Field rebuts, “Our problems would be waiting for us when we got back.”

When I think about the 2021 Yankees, I think about that dialogue. The 2021 Yankees are the same team from 2020. From the final out of the 2020 ALDS until Opening Day 2021, they went on the vacation Williams’ character suggested, and as Field’s character predicted, their problems were waiting for them when they got back.

The nearly six-month layoff that is the offseason didn’t fix the Yankees’ problems. It didn’t change the fact they brought back the same exact lineup that wasn’t good enough to get past the Rays last October. It’s nearly the same lineup that hit .214/.289/.383 in their six-game 2019 ALCS loss to Houston. It’s basically the same lineup that scored 10 runs in their four-game ALDS loss to Boston in 2018. It’s essentially the same lineup that scored three runs in four road games in their seven-game ALCS loss to Houston in 2017.

The break between 2020 and 2021 didn’t enhance the Yankees’ starting pitching. The Yankees chose to turn Masahiro Tanaka into Corey Kluber and Jameson Taillon. Kluber looks nothing like his old self and has pitched 6 1/3 innings over two starts, while allowing 15 baserunners, and Taillon is being so overly protected by the Yankees that I can’t see them ever letting him go more than six innings, and even going six innings sounds like a pipe dream. The Yankees still have the same problem they had last year when it comes to their rotation and that’s never knowing what you’re going to get on days when Gerrit Cole doesn’t pitch.

These problems have been on display for nearly the entirety of the 2021 Yankees’ nine games and 85 innings. The Yankees’ four wins have been provided by a Jay Bruce two-run bloop single, a Jordan Montgomery gem, a Gerrit Cole gem and a Rougned Odor RBI bloop single. Without those two bloop singles, the Yankees might only have two wins right now. Thankfully, the Yankees were able to win on Sunday and salvage the third game of the series against the Rays, though it’s hard to be happy or in a good mood following the win because they did everything they could to lose the game and because the rest of the weekend was so bad.

2. At Brian Cashman’s end-of-the-season press conference last October, he openly said, “The Rays are a better franchise right now than we are.”

Well, they still are. The Yankees did nothing in the offseason to make themselves better, let alone make themselves better than the Rays. Maybe over 162 games the Yankees will have a better record than the Rays because they may fare better against other opponents, but head-to-head, the Rays are still better than the Yankees, and it’s not particularly close.

The Yankees were able to avoid Tyler Glasnow in this series, and they still only one won game, needing an Odor blooper to fall in in the 10th inning of the series finale. That’s not encouraging.

3. It’s nice that Odor provided the go-ahead hit in the 10th inning of his Yankees debut. But when it comes to Odor, the simple fact that he’s a Yankee is an embarrassment for the Yankees. Odor was unable to make the Rangers in spring training, a team that’s expected to finish in last place, and a team that owes him $27 million. That’s a lot of money. The entire Yankees infield of DJ LeMahieu ($15 million), Luke Voit ($4.7 million), Gio Urshela ($4.65 million) and Gleyber Torres ($4 million) will make $28.35 million in 2021. So the Rangers essentially owe Odor one season of the Yankees’ infield, and they would rather pay him to not play for them even though they have no expectations for this season. The Rangers are going to be very, very, very bad, and if they thought Odor could help them in even the slightest, at that amount of owed money, you bet your ass they would have kept him.

Since 2017, Odor is a .215/.279/.418 hitter, and statisically one of the worst everyday players in baseball over that time. The Yankees owe him nothing. Nothing as in $0. The Rangers are paying his entire salary, so in that sense, it’s like why not have Odor on the team? At least he can run into one every once in a while, which is more than you can say about Tyler Wade. That doesn’t change the fact the Yankees didn’t add a single left-handed bat this offseason or change the dynamic of their offense from being completely right-handed, so now they are forced to pick up players like Jay Bruce and Odor off the major league scrap heap and hope that maybe the magic of putting on the pinstripes will tempoarily rejuevanate their careers. Most likely it won’t, and they won’t get another job in baseball after their time with the Yankees like Kevin Youkilis, Travis Hafner, Brian Roberts, Richie Sexson, Kendrys Morales, Andruw Jones, Vernon Wells, Dustin Ackley, Ike Davis and many others, but that’s the hope.

4. The problem with having players like Bruce and Odor is Aaron Boone loves to divide the right-handed hitters in his lineup. If you were to play for the Yankees tomorrow and you’re left-handed, no matter your ability or skill level, you’re batting in the top two-thirds of the lineup, most likely sixth (since Aaron Hicks automatically bats third). So that’s where Odor found himself on Sunday.

Boone decided to break his lineup into thirds on Sunday, using left-handed hitters as the grocery sticks to separate them. Hicks would bat third and separate Aaron Judge (second) and Giancarlo Stanton (fourth), Odor would bat sixth and separate Gleyber Torres (fifth) and Gary Sanchez (seventh) and Brett Gardner would bat ninth and separate Gio Urshela (eighth) and DJ LeMahieu (first). So Odor who wasn’t good enough to be a Ranger, appearing in his first real baseball game of 2021 was immediately inserted as the 6-hitter on the Yankees, one spot ahead of Gary Sanchez and two spots ahead of Gio Urshela. This came a week after Boone batted Bruce fifth, the same Bruce who was moments away form either opting out of his contract with the Yankees or being cut by them before Voit tore his meniscus. Boone’s lineups rarely ever make sense. The lineups this season have made no sense at all.

Boone clearly builds his lineup based on favoritism. It takes Sanchez months of otherworldly production to move up in the lineup and less than a week to move down. It took Torres two years and two All-Star appearancees to move out of the bottom third of the order. Frazier opened the season as the No. 9 hitter behind Bruce. Meanwhile, Hicks is cemented into the 3-hole, and is always in the top third, and he along with Judge and Stanton never get benched for underachieving.

5. That’s mainly because Hicks continues to bat third. Hicks gets treated as if he’s Bernie Williams. The difference is Williams was a career .297/.381/.477 hitter who hit 287 home runs, a postseason legend, the heart of the order for four championship teams and a borderline Hall of Famer. That’s Williams’ number 51 in Monument Park. Hicks is a career .234/.331/.400 hitter, who has hit 89 career home runs, has been a postseason disaster and is being forced into the heart of the Yankees order because he has collectively had one good season in his nine-year career. (I don’t mean one good season out of his nine, I mean parts of a few seasons, totaling the amount of one season.) The closest Hicks will ever get to Monument Park is by playing on the other side of the wall from it like he does each home game.

Hicks isn’t good. He has moments where he is, but any player given the amount of plate appearances and chances Hicks has been given in the middle of the Yankees order will do something productive once in a while. Even Chase Headley would do something every once in a while because he played every single day.

I don’t hate Hicks. I hate how Boone uses Hicks, trying to make him something he’s not. If Hicks batted seventh or eighth or ninth (ninth is where he should be), I would have no problem with the way he’s used and would rarely even need to comment on his performance. As long as he were to stay healthy (which is his biggest challenge) and play good defense, his offense wouldn’t matter, like any 9-hitter. When you bat third, especially for the Yankees, everything you do in the batter’s box is magnified and Hicks has done close to nothing in the batter’s box as the No. 3 hitter.

6. When Scumbag Domingo German was sent down after his awful performance in the second game of the series, I thought the Yankees had finally come to their senses that German is not a good pitcher, just like he isn’t a good person. In his stars, he has pitched seven total innings, allowing seven earned runs, four home runs and 14 baserunners. Remember when his nine scoreless spring training innings were being praised? It’s almost as if meaningless games in March against mostly minor league players don’t mean anything.

The Yankees didn’t come to their senses. Boone said before Sunday’s game that German would most likely be called up the next time the Yankees need a fifth starter. How is he the first option? Unless Deivi Garcia is hurt and we don’t know about it (which you can never count out when it comes to the Yankees) then he needs to be called up the next time the Yankees need a fifth starter. German has already cost the Yankees two games this season. Two more than he should have ever been allowed to.

It’s a disgrace the Yankees kept him on the team following his actions and stuck by him through his suspension, but they can finally rid themselves of him and not lose anymore games because of him. Letting him start another game for the organization is unfathomable.

7. If Kluber is going to get injured, he’s going to get injured. There’s no preventing him from injury, and even if there were, the Yankees would be the last team in the world to know how to do so. Kluber needs to pitch. He needs to pitch as much as possible because it’s the only way he will ever come close to resembling the pitcher he once was. And at $11 million and as the No. 2 starter entering the season, the Yankees better start letting him pitch.

The same goes for Taillon. Yes, he had two Tommy John surgeries. There’s no way to prevent him from needing a third or suffering some other injury. Pitchers get hurt. That’s what they do. Throwing a baseball overhand isn’t a natural motion, and repeatedly doing it at high velocities and torquing your elbow to make the baseball spin in different ways will never end well. Right now, Taillon is healthy. As healthy as he’s been since 2018. He needs to pitch. There doesn’t need to be some unproven slow progression of a pitch count to keep him healthy or an unproven innings limit to keep him from further injury. The Yankees can get four innings from two of their starters each time through the rotation and destroy their bullpen. Especially when their fifth starter (Scumbag German) only gave them seven inings over two starts and when you don’t know what you’re going to get from start to start from Montgomery.

8. At Boone’s press conference to open spring training, he was asked if he sees Clint Frazier at the team’s starting left fielder. Here’s what Boone said:

“I do. Clint has obviously come a long way in every aspect of his game and certainly earned his place last year when obviously nothing was given to him. He had to earn everything really the last couple of years … Last year really proved he was ready to grab an everyday role on this team.”

I never believed Boone. The last time the Yankees had played (2020 postseason), Frazier wasn’t the team’s starting left fielder. Despite posting a .905 OPS, single-handedly carrying the offense when Judge and Stanton once again missed extended time and when Sanchez and Torres couldn’t hit, and improving his defense to the point he was named a Gold Glove finalist, Frazier rode the bench for both games against Cleveland and the last three games of the ALDS against Tampa Bay. Of the Yankees seven playoff games, Frazier started two of them as Boone started and played Gardner over him. So Frazier “proved he was ready to grab an everyday role with the team” so well last year that he wasn’t an everyday player in the postseason.

The last time the Yankees played Frazier wasn’t the team’s starting left fielder, so how did he suddenly earn the job during the offseason? Were there real, meaningful games over the last four months no one is aware of?

9. The second Gardner re-signed with the team I knew Frazier was screwed. I never believed Frazier would actually be the team’s “everyday” left fielder in 2021. He might play at that position more than any other Yankee this season, not because he’s cemented as the “everyday” player for that position, rather because of injuries. When the Yankees’ outfield is completely healthy like they currently are (since Judge is back playing), Boone will continue to inexplicably sit Frazier play Gardner. He did it in the 2020 postseason, so why wouldn’t he do it again in the 2021 regular season? Nothing has changed since then.

Gardner played over Frazier the last two days, and that trend isn’t going to end. Boone wants Gardner to be his left fielder and any time Gardner does something like make a great catcher or sneak a double in down the line, it’s going to get him more of Frazier’s playing time.

10. The Yankees are 2-4 against the Blue Jays and Rays. They can’t play the Orioles and Red Sox every day, and right now they wouldn’t even want to play the Red Sox. The Yankees now play the Blue Jays (3), Rays again (3) and Braves (8) over the next 10 days. Three difficult opponents, all with postseason aspirations.

I don’t expect the Yankees to change who they are or fix the issues that have hindered them this season and the three previous seasons since they aren’t issues that can be fixed and their roster is what it is for now until Voit and Luis Severino return. I thought maybe this season would be different and the team wouldn’t start off the year in such a discouraging way and hover around .500 for more of April. I was wrong, and I’m mad at myself for thinking 2021 would be different when the team is the same as it was the last four years.

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After a miserable weekend against the Blue Jays, the Yankees got just what they needed: three games against the Orioles. The Yankees beat up on the Orioles the way they always do, winning two laughers (7-0 and 7-2), but they weren’t able to pull off the sweep as they left nearly every baserunner they had on base in the series finale.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. Aaron Judge is hurt. It took five games, and not even five full games for Judge to get hurt. So much for that new offseason workout regimen Eric Cressey implemented. So much for the yoga routine. Four games in right field and one as the designated hitter and Judge is already hurt and has already missed one game due to a potential injury.

On Wednesday, Aaron Boone described Judge as being “sore” on Tuesday. “With the off day tomorrow I don’t want to take any chances,” Boone said.

How does Boone know Judge is sore? Because Judge must have told him. Judge acts like he wants to play no matter what and will play thorugh anything, yet every time he is “sore” or banged up, the manager knows about it. I find that odd for someone who claims to want to be in the lineup every game.

Judge has a history of oblique injuries, which ended his 2016 season early and took two months of his 2019 season. When asked if it is his oblique again, Boone said it’s “general soreness in his side.” Is that not the definiton of an oblique injury? Now we wait. We wait and find out if it’s more than Boone and the Yankees have led on, which it almost always is. It wouldn’t surpise me if it is more and Judge is placed on the injured list or out for an extended period of time since that’s what I have been trained to think over the last few sesaons.

I don’t want Judge to be hurt, but it’s a good thing he is because ifhe was just being given a scheduled day off on Wednesday, I might have been forced to start to root against the Yankees. After giving Giancarlo Stanton the day off on Sunday and Aaron Hicks the day off on Tuesday, when I didn’t see Judge in Wednesday’s lineup, I freaked out. Judge had gone 5-for-8 with two home runs and five RBIs in the first two games of the series, and it would have been irresponsible and unacceptable to give him the day off. If he’s not truly injured or IL-bound and is just “sore” then it’s still pretty ridiculous he didn’t play. You would think Judge would play through anything these days after having missed 138 of a possible 390 games since 2018 and with his free agency looming after 2022. But nope, he’s the same old injury-prone guy. No offseason workout changes or training or medical staff hires can change that.

2. Boone’s early-season catching plans have worked to perfection for him. He had Gary Sanchez catch Gerrit Cole on Opening Day to hide the Cole-Sanchez relationship storyline to begin the season. Then he let Kyle Higashioka catch Cole’s second start, citing it as just a normal day off for Sanchez. But of all the games to give Sanchez a day off, Sanchez got the day off when Cole was starting, and what do you know, having that day off lines up Sanchez to have this coming Sunday afternoon off in Tampa as well. And guess who’s pitching this Sunday afternoon in Tampa, why none other than Cole. What a coincidence! Boone is going to have Higashioka catch Cole as much as possible, and he will cite games like Tuesday when Cole threw seven shutout innings as the reason why. Even though Higashioka’s start and those seven shutout innings came against the Orioles, who could lose 100 games again, and Sanchez’s came against the Blue Jays, who could win the AL East. This storyline isn’t going anywhere. Boone created a monster last season and he continues to feed it.

3. It’s bad enough Aaron Hicks bats third for the Yankees, but it was appalling when Brett Gardner batted third in the fifth game of the season. When Hicks returned the following night, Gardner was moved down to ninth. So Gardner is going to bath ninth when he plays, unless Hicks isn’t playing and then he’s going to bat third? How does that make any sense? It doesn’t. It’s just another nonsensical decision by Boone. There’s no rule stating a left-handed hitter has to bat third. There’s no rule stating one of the team’s weakest hitters has to bat third. It’s just what Boone chooses to do.

Here is a list of some No. 3 hitters in the majors. One of these names is not like the others. Can you figure out which one it is?

Mike Trout
Bryce Harper
Juan Soto
Christian Yelich
Manny Machado
Freddie Freeman
Jose Abreu
Nolan Arenado
Aaron Hicks

4. Hicks batting third (or Gardner batting third on Tuesday) isn’t an organizational decision. It’s a Boone decision. Here’s what Brian Cashman said at his end-of-the-season press conference this past October:

“In terms of the lineup and in-game strategies, those are the manager’s. It always has been and as long as I’m the general manager, it never will be different.”

Boone makes the lineup. Boone makes the calls to the bullpen. Boone gives the scheduled days off. It’s all Boone. There’s the idea Boone is a puppet and every move is made by Cashman and his team, but Cashman denied that at the same press conference this past October, saying:

“I know there’s that narrative about the manager being a puppet and none of that’s true. I’ve never ordered a manager to do anything specifically and Aaron would be able to testify to that as well as Joe Girardi and Joe Torre. They’ve never been directed at any time by me or our front office to do something they didn’t want to do.”

Cashman also said:

“Does he push back? The answer is yes. Not every manager has agreed with suggestions made, but every manager was allowed to plot their own course. I think there is a healthy debate that transpires and an all-in commitment once that decision is ultimately made.”

Maybe it’s time you stop letting him push back. There are thousands of people who can manage the Yankees and manage them as poorly as Boone. If Cashman wants his staff to tell Boone what to do, what is Boone going to do? Threaten to quit? Oh no! What would the Yankees ever do?!

The unnecessary rest only goes for position players though. On Wednesday, Chad Green entered the game in the 10th inning and was removed in the 11th inning. Green has already appeared in four of the Yankees’ six games this season and in three of his four appearances, he has been asked to pitch more than an inning. Good long-term plan by the manager who is supposedly so great at load management and keeping his guys fresh. Everyone except the elite bullpen arms the team will need to win the division and win in October.

5. Gleyber Torres’ defense is a problem. A huge problem. There shouldn’t be a sense of relief when a major league shortstop successfully converts a routine ground ball into an out, but that’s what it’s become with Torres at short. Forget making a difficult play, Torres can’t simply field ground balls hit right at him and throw accurately to first base. His defense was a significant problem for the Yankees last season, but the Yankees attributed it to the unique and odd circumstances of 2020. Well, nothing has changed for Torres. His inability to throw the baseball in the air to first base cost the Yankees the game on Wednesday night. Yes, the Yankees only scored two runs despite having 12 hits and two walks, but it was Torres’ 10th-inning error that allowed the go-ahead run to score. Any ball that is hit at him I assume is going to an end in either a fielding or throwing error. That can’t go on. Either he needs to immediately get better or a drastic change needs to be made.

It’s possible the Yankees could eventually change their defensive alignment. They gave Gio Urshela time at shortstop in spring training, and while he has barely played there in his career, Torres plays as though he has barely played there. There’s no chance Urshela is worse at shortstop than Torres is. It’s hard to envision any everyday major league shortstop being worse. Put Urshela at short, Torres back at second, where he had two unbelievable seasons in 2018 and 2019, move DJ LeMahieu over to third and pray Luke Voit comes back soon, so the Jay Bruce experiment can end.

6. Jordan Montgomery was great in his season debut: 6 IP, 4 H 0, R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 7K. I was waiting for the crooked number to ruin his night at some point since that’s the way Montgomery’s starts seem to go. Four or five scoreless innings sandwiched around a three-run inning is usually the story with Montgomery. That never happened on Monday, and he shut out the Orioles for six innings, giving the bullpen a much-needed rest in the Yankees’ first easy win of the season. Through one turn in the rotation, Montgomery has been the Yankees at worst the Yankees’ second-best starter.

7. Jameson Taillon was good in his first star in 707 days following his second Tommy John surgery. Good, not great. If you heard Michael Kay and David Cone describe his performance on his way to the dugout, you would have thought he was getting pulled in the ninth inning, an out or two away from a complete-game shutout. Kay said, “Taillon gave the Yankees all they could have asked for.” All they could ask for? What?

Here’s Taillon’s line from his Yankees debut: 4.2 IP, 3 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 0 BB, 7 K, 2 HR. I know the Yankees are trying to protect him and avoid using him like the family dining room, which only gets used on holidays and when company is over, but at some point they’re going to have to let him pitch and not fear him get injured.

The same goes for Corey Kluber. The Yankees can’t afford to have two of their five starters only going four and five innings at most each start, or the bullpen will get overused and overworked, and come October, it will be rundown and fatigued.

9. The Yankees needed to see the Orioles this week. After the awful season-opening weekend against the Blue Jays, the Yankees needed some easy wins and to start looking and playing like the Yankees. The Orioles will do that for you. The division is likely going to be won by whichever team beats up on the Orioles and Red Sox the most.

10. Now the Yankees are headed to Tampa on Friday for three games against the Rays — a team the Yankees have had enormous trouble beating in recent years — at the Trop — a place the Yankees never seem to win. I’m sure it’s going to be an intense, frustration-filled weekend in which my heart rate and blood pressure will both hit dangerous levels during the seventh, eighth and ninth games of a 162-game season. But these games are that important to the Yankees winning the division and avoiding the one-game playoff. After attending and sitting through three of those in 2015, 2017 and 2018, I never want to have to sit through one again.

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The Yankees dropped two out of three to the Blue Jays to open the 2021 season and they looked bad doing so. The same fears of Yankees fans that eliminated the team in the last four postseasons were on display all weekend at Yankee Stadium.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. The last time we saw the Yankees play in October, they couldn’t hit elite starting pitching, couldn’t hit right-handed relief pitching and couldn’t drive in runners in scoring position, and so their season ended in the ALDS against the Rays. Well, the first three games of 2021 might as well have been a sixth, seventh and eighth game from that series because the Yankees performed like the same exact team, which wasn’t good enough to get out of the first round of the postseason. And why wouldn’t they? They are the same exact team with the same exact manager. Why would they expect different results. They shouldn’t.

2. Aaron Boone passed his first test of the season when he started Gary Sanchez on Opening Day and allowed him to catch Gerrit Cole. Sanchez was the Yankees’ best player on Opening Day, providing the only offense with a a two-run home, and also adding a single, important walk and threw out a would-be base stealer. Sanchez and Clint Frazier were the only two position players to do anything on Opening Day, and pretty much all weekend. The Yankees scored eight runs in three games against their direct competition for the division and Sanchez’s two home runs, the only two Yankees home runs this season, produced half of the team’s runs. It was a very bad weekend for fans who don’t like Sanchez, didn’t want the Yankees to tender him a contract for 2021 (as if that were ever an option) and want Kyle Higashioka to be the team’s starting catcher.

3. Boone passed his first test by starting Sanchez, but I knew his second test would come on Sunday, and I knew he wouln’t pass it. It would be the Yankees’ first time playing back-to-back games in 2021, and with five games in five days he would undoubtedly look to give regular everyday players a day off. Sure enough, there was Aaron Judge at designated hitter on Sunday, Clint Frazier in right field, Brett Gardner in left field and Giancarlo Stanton on the bench. Stanton entered Sunday having played 50 games in 24 months, an average of about two games per month over the last two calendar years. He played all 50 of those games as the DH. As a Yankee, Stanton has always gotten hurt running the bases. Well, he barely ran the bases on Thursday and Saturday. On Thursday, he went 0-for-5 with three strikeouts, so three times he walked from the dugout to the batter’s box, took a few swings and walked back to the dugout, never needing to run. On Saturday, he walked with two outs and never left first base, flew out, popped out, walked and eventually scored from second on a single and flew out. So in two games, Stanton had to run once, though he somehow needed a day off from being the DH.

4. Weeks ago, Boone said Aaron Hicks would be the No. 3 hitter. That doesn’t make it any better or make it OK. Hicks shouldn’t be batting third. I don’t care about some arbitrary timeline of stats for him. There’s no way with the other hitters on this team he should be batting third. There’s this idea he should lead off, and that’s even funnier than thinking Higashioka should play over Sanchez. (Why would the Yankees want to start every game with only two outs to work with in the first inning?) Hicks had an impressive weekend at the plate, going 1-for-12 with two walks and eight strikeouts. (He did drive in a run when he hit a ball to second base with the bases loaded and one out, trying his absolute best to end the inning with a double play, but the Blue Jays were unable to turn it.) Hicks was as bad as anyone could imaginably be in a three-game span, and his inability to make contact was magnified by the fact that he bats third, which he does because Boone is still trying to prove he’s the smartest baseball mind, even though his 2020 ALDS Game 2 strategy has forever taken him out of that conversation. There will be a time this season when Yankees fans say, “Remember when Hicks was batting third and Gio Urshela was batting sixth?” The same way Aaron Judge started 2017 batting eighth and remained there for most of his should-have-been MVP season and the same way DJ LeMahieu wasn’t even in the Opening Day starting lineup in 2019. Urshla was bad enough in the first two games of 2021 that Boone moved him down for the third game, so it looks like Urshela is on his way to permanently batting where he should: eighth or ninth. As for Hicks, his time to get moved down will come. For as bad as Hicks was this weekend, Aaron Judge was right there with him. Judge single-handedly lost Opening Day and finished the weekend going 3-for-14, leaving 11 runners on base. Judge’s free pass has an expiration date and it’s this season. He has been able to go about his business without criticism for the last three seasons because of what he did in 2017, but that was a long time ago now, and the last and only time he has played a full season.

5. Jay Bruce provided 25 percent of the Yankees’ offense in the series, blooping in a bases-loaded, two-run single on Saturday. If Luke Voit doesn’t hurt his knee at the end of spring training, Bruce isn’t a Yankee right now, which means the Yankees deemed him not as good or as valuable as Mike Tauchman or Tyler Wade. That didn’t stop Boone from batting Bruce fifth on Sunday. Yes, fifth. I thought Bruce might bat around fifth on Opening Day because of his past success against Hyun Jin Ryu (4-for-11 with two home runs), but he batted eighth on Opening Day. Boone waited to move him up until Sunday. He must have been impressed by that two-run bloop single.

6. Like Sanchez, Frazier is the one other position player Yankee you could say had a good weekend. Frazier went 4-for-9 with two doubles and two walks, and it’s not unrealistic to think by the end of the season he could be the Yankees’ best hitter. So there he was batting ninth on Opening Day, three spots behind Urshela and one spot behind Bruce. Yes, he would be the best 9-hitter in the league, however, he has no business batting in that spot. I know someone who would be great in that spot, and he plays center field for the Yankees.

7. In the three games, the Yankees faced right-handed relievers for 42 percent of the series. Here’s the line: 11.2 IP, 6 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 10 BB, 16 K, 2.31 ERA. Two of the runs came after the Yankees were able to load the bases with walks. The Yankees didn’t have trouble getting on base with 16 baserunners in those 11 2/3 innings, but like always, they had trouble getting those runners in. Making contact is the thing these Yankees are the worst at. And no one should preface anything about this weekend with “It’s three games” or “It’s April” because it’s not just three games and it’s not just April. The things we saw from the Yankees this weekend are what has eliminated them from the postseason the last four seasons, and that includes bad starting pitching.

8. It would be cool if Gerrit Cole started pitching like he did as an Astro. That would be fun. Because having to leave in the fifth and sixth inning of starts due to an elevated pitch count isn’t going to work out well when the rest of the rotation is expected to go five innings at most. Cole went 5 1/3 innings on Thursday, Corey Kluber went four innings on Saturday and Scumbag Domingo German went three innings on Sunday. The starters gave the Yankees 12 1/3 of 28 innings against the Blue Jays. The Yankees are already down Zack Britton and Justin Wilson. If the starters continue to do what they did this weekend, the Yankees will be down more than just those two, or worse, Chad Green and Darren O’Day won’t get hurt, they will just get fatigued and ineffective and continued to be used.

9. How about Scumbag German? You would think the Yankees dealt with someone like him because of his elite talent. Instead they kept a scumbag through suspension and public and internal backlash and that scumbag is barely a fifth starter. German lasted three innings in his first start since 2019 and allowed three earned runs and two home runs in those three innings, needing 68 pitches to get nine out. What a loser. To make matters worse, Boone made excuses for his performance in his postgame press conference, and even went as far to say “he looked sharp” early in the game. There wasn’t really an early for German since he was gone before the fourth, but in the first inning he did only allow on extra-base hit, so hats off to him!

10. Boone used the word “cold” several times to talk about his team after losing the series on Sunday. They weren’t cold. This is who they are. I’m sure they will beat up on the Orioles over the next three days (at least they better) because that’s what they do. Beat up on the league’s worst for six months (Baltimore, Boston, Kansas City, Texas), struggle with the few good teams the play (Toronto, Tampa Bay, Houston, Oakland, White Sox) and then get to the playoffs and fold against elite pitching. I thought bringing the same team back in 2021 was a mistake. Cashman gave up on Sonny Gray after 2019, saying, “I don’t feel like we can go through the same exercise and expect different results,” and yet, the Yankees are going through the same exercise in 2021 as they did in 2020, and most of the team was here in 2019 and 2018 as well. So far, the results haven’t been different.

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