The Yankees were supposed to go on the road and return home with their season back on track after beating up on the Indians and Orioles. Instead, they return home in last place and three games under .500.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. The Yankees’ eight-game road trip was an enormous disappointment. After starting the trip 3-0 against the Indians, the Yankees lost three of the last five to finish 5-3. That’s not good enough. It’s not nearly good enough. You can’t have barely-winning road trips against the worst teams in the league if you’re going to get embarrassed every time you play the Rays and Blue Jays, like the Yankees have. With a 3-9 record against the Rays and Blue Jays, the Yankees can’t afford 5-3 road trips against the Indians and Orioles. They have to demolish those teams. They have to win six or seven or all eight games in this instance. For loser Aaron Boone, the 5-3 trip was considered a success. 

“Obviously, you go out on a road trip and have a winning record like that,” Boone said, “Certainly, that’s good.”

No, it’s not good. It’s not good when it’s April 30 and you’re in last place in the division and three games under .500. The season is 25 games in and 15 percent complete and Friday’s game against the Tigers is the last game of April, and Boone is still trying to act as though everything is fine with his team, the team that was the preseason favorite to represent the American League in the World Series.

2. “We gotta continue to play better,” Boone said, “And keep it moving.”

To “continue” to do something, you have to already be doing it. The Yankees aren’t playing better. They just lost two of four to the Orioles. Prior to that, they had to come from behind in the first three games against the Indians and blew a three-run lead in the fourth game against them. The Yankees just scored 33 runs on their eight-game trip. They scored 17 runs in four games at Camden Yards, the most hitter-friendly venue in the majors. 

This was going to be it. This 11-game stretch was going to be the 11 games to erase the previous 11 games in which the Yankees went 3-8 against the Rays, Blue Jays and Braves. Eleven games against the Indians, Orioles and Tigers were going to save the Yankees’ season. They would have the chance to beat up on the Indians, who now have the second-lowest payroll in the league by essentially admitting they don’t care to be competitive, they could continue their dominance over the Orioles at  while miraculously missing John Means in a four-game series and finally they would get to see the Tigers, who boast the majors’ worst record and run differential. By the end of play on May 2 and after a month of bad baseball, the Yankees’ season would be in a disappointing, but acceptable place. Unless, they sweep the Tigers this weekend (which is something a good team would do), they still won’t be in an acceptable place.

3. The Yankees opened their series in Baltimore by getting shut down by Matt Harvey. One hit against Harvey in five innings and no runs off him until the sixth. It was easily the lowest point of the Yankees’ season and I wrote on Tuesday I don’t think there can possibly be a lower point. I take that back. If they lose to the Tigers on Friday, it will be the new low point. John Sterling likes to say “you can’t predict baseball,” but if the Yankees can’t beat the Tigers at home with Gerrit Cole on the mound then they are even worse than I thought they are, and I think they suck. If the Yankees lose on Friday, maybe just pack up the bats and balls and we’ll see you in 2022.

4. It’s easier to name good Yankees than bad ones right now. There’ Cole, Aroldis Chapman, Darren O’Day, Chad Green, Jonathan Loaisiga, Michael King and Kyle Higashioka. That’s it. To me, Gleyber Torres has been the biggest disappointment since I don’t expect Aaron Hicks to be good, don’t expect Giancarlo Stanton to be clutch, don’t expect Rougned Odor to make contact, don’t expect Gary Sanchez to hit middle-middle fastballs, don’t expect Brett Gardner to catch up high-velocity pitches at this point in his career, don’t expect Aaron Judge to stay healthy and don’t expect the rotation after Cole to do anything.

Torres had three hits in the first game in Cleveland. He then went 7-for-23 (.259/.333/.370) the rest of the road trip. The one positive is that he has doubled in three straight games. He has five extra-base hits, all doubles, in April. He’s one game away from not homering in the entire month after hitting three home runs in the two-month 2020 season.

5. “He’s close and the power will happen, Boone said. “But at least encouraged by the way that he’s moving this last week of at-bats.”

I’m tired of hearing about things that “will happen” from Boone. The offense will hit. The starting pitching will get better. Judge will play regularly. Boone saying it’s going to happen doesn’t mean it will, and nothing he has said will happen has happened yet.

Torres hasn’t homered in 103 plate appearances this season. He has 14 home runs in his last 444 plate appearances, including the postseason. I’m not expecting him to be a 38-home run hitter like he was in 2019 since those numbers are a joke, considering Brett Gardner hit 28 with the baseball from that season, but how is Torres no longer a 20-home run hitter? With each passing day, I’m more and more worried about Torres.

6. I’m no longer worried about Sanchez. He was supposed to be the team’s everyday catcher and also catch Cole this season. He has caught Cole once and now he’s been benched with Higashioka taking over the majority of playing time.

Even though I have always liked Sanchez, I’m not defending him. He hasn’t been good. But no one has been. Yet he’s the one getting benched and being made a scapegoat for the team’s problems for the second straight season because he isn’t one of Boone’s favorites.

Hicks was supposed to be benched for two games. He was benched for seven games. Why hasn’t he had his playing time taken away? Oh, that’s right, Boone and the Yankees think he’s Bernie Williams 2.0. Why hasn’t Torres been benched? He’s only been promoted to bat third. Why hasn’t Odor been benched? He continues to play every day and force a three-time Gold Glove-winning second baseman to first base. Why hasn’t Stanton been benched when he’s going bad? Because he gets built in personal off days anyway or because he’s owed a billion dollars or because of his historic season four years ago?

Only Sanchez and Frazier (who was named the team’s starting left fielder and then benched after seven games) have experienced a reduction in playing time. In Frazier’s case, Gardner has been so bad that Frazier is now an everyday player again. Sanchez is going to need Higashioka to fall apart for Boone to turn on one of his favorites.

7. Judge’s injuries are a joke, and in turn, he’s becoming a joke. I wrote about this at length here.

8. The Yankees were 12 outs away from a win on Thursday when Boone let Jordan Montgomery face Trey Mancini to lead off the sixth inning despite Chad Green being warmed up and ready to go. In Boone’s latest attempt to steal outs with his starter, the Baseball Gods gave him another reminder of why that’s not a viable strategy as Mancini took Montgomery deep.

Boone was asked about his latest backfiring decision that cost his team a win and why he didn’t go to the dominant Green.

“Just, frankly, long, long season where you gotta lean on starters during everyday stretches,” Boone said. “You can’t just run to the best matchup in the bullpen in the middle of the game every time.”

Another nonsensical answer from the Yankees manager. He did run to Green. As soon as Mancini’s homer cleared the wall, Boone pulled Montgomery from the game. So if he was willing to go to Green in the sixth, why didn’t he start it? His response makes zero sense. Zero.

9. “I want these starters to be able to push themselves through some situations,” Boone said. “Especially on days where we have score leverage, not just running to the bullpen and to matchups all the time in the middle of games.”

“Score leverage?” You mean you have the lead. Why does he feel the need to make everything seem scientific? You had a lead, not “score leverage,” you idiot. And if you want starters to work through things, why did we see so much Nick Nelson with the bases loaded before he was sent down? No one contradicts their own actions like Boone.

10. The offense is lost, and I don’t know if it will be found. It was one thing after the season-opening series or the first two, or the first week. We’re now four weeks into the season. This isn’t a small sample size and it’s not early.

“You’re not always gonna get the big hit in the big situation,” Boone said as if the Yankees ever get the big hit in the big situation. “We gotta build on some of the positives that are starting to happen offensively.”

Nothing is happening positively offensively. Try to think of one positive. I’ll wait.

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Exactly.

“We’re not all the way where I know we’re going to get to offensively,” Boone said after apparently looking into the future. Maybe he can let me know the winning numbers for Mega Millions for this week while he’s at predicting the future.

Maybe the offense will break out this weekend at home against the Tigers. Maybe the Yankees will sweep the worst team in Major League Baseball. If they don’t, don’t worry, they will just say they will break out next week instead.

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The Yankees won their first series in nearly three weeks, taking three out of four from the Indians. Yes, it was nice to see the Yankees win again, but the issues the team had when they landed in Cleveland are still obvious as the team arrives in Baltimore.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. The Yankees won the four-game series, but it could have and should been even more than that. It should have been a four-game sweep of the Indians, who have one elite hitter (Jose Ramirez) and only one other hitter who should scare you (Franmil Reyes), though I know the Yankees have always had problems with Roberto Perez (the way they do with every team’s catcher).

After winning the first three games of the series, Aaron Boone mailed in the series finale on Sunday, sitting one-third of his current everyday lineup and putting out this lineup:

Brett Gardner, CF
Giancarlo Stanton, DH
Aaron Judge, RF
Rougned Odor, 2B
Gleyber Torres, SS
Gio Urshela, 2B
Mike Ford, 1B
Gary Sanchez, C
Mike Tauchman, LF

No DJ LeMahieu, no Aaron Hicks and no Clint Frazier. If you want to give guys the day off for a day game after a night game on a Sunday getaway day, you can’t be 9-11 on the season (as the Yankees were before Sunday’s loss) after having started 6-11. That’s something great teams can do. Teams that are well above .500. The Yankees aren’t even a good team right now and they are acting like they had the kind of start and have the kind of division lead the Dodgers have. You’re 9-12. Act like it.

The A’s had a 13-game winning streak come to an end on Sunday in Baltimore and they weren’t happy about it.

“You do want to win the series, but you also want to get greedy,” A’s manager Bob Melvin said. “We’ve been greedy here recently. It’s about winning every game that you go out there and play.”

The A’s were 0-6 and now they’re 13-7. They had won for two straight weeks and were upset their ridiculous streak ended. The Yankees won their first series since April 5-7 and entered Sunday acting like they just had a 13-game winning streak of their own. Boone would never manage with the mentality Melvin talked about.

2. On Thursday, the Yankees trailed 3-0 after the first because of more sloppy defensive plays. It didn’t help that Boone chose to bat Gardner first, Ford fourth and sit Stanton.

Gardner led off two games this weekend. It’s 2021. Gardner is now batting .194 with a .560 OPS. Frazier hasn’t been good, but Gardner has been just as bad. Frazier is the one with the future, and he needs to play. Enough is enough with Gardner. He’s not an everyday player anymore and hasn’t been for a while now. He needs to stop being forced into the lineup nearly every day. When he does play, he can’t be hitting anywhere other than ninth. Not first, not third. Ninth.

Ford got called up upon Jay Bruce retiring. The same Bruce, who the Yankees thought Ford wasn’t better than on April 1. That didn’t stop Boone from batting Ford sixth in his first two games up and then fourth on Thursday, despite having done nothing in the majors since 2019.

As for Stanton having Thursday off, it was the 22nd day of the season and the 18th game of the season. The Yankees had already had four scheduled days off and it was the third time Stanton was being given a personal day off. He doesn’t play the field, is the Yankees’ highest-paid position player and entered the season having played 51 games since the start of 2019.

3. The Yankees came back and won on Thursday because the Indians are very, very bad. On Friday, the Yankees again went down 3-0 to the Indians in the first and had to come back to win. The Yankees have scored one run in the first inning in 21 games this season. One. O-N-E. A Judge solo home run against he Blue Jays on April 14. Of all the upsetting stats regarding the Yankees’ offense this season, that is the worst one.

The Yankees won three of four in Cleveland, but they barely look any better than they did before the series began. They scored 16 runs in the four games and had to come back in the first three games of the series before blowing a three-run lead in the fourth game.

“Our at-bats are getting better,” Boone said after his team managed only three runs and six hits in Sunday’s loss. “I feel like as far as where are right now as a club, I feel like we’re in a good spot to hopefully go out and continue to play well.”

“Right now as a club,” the Yankees are 9-12. And “to continue” to do something you have to already being doing that thing. For the Yankees “to continue to play well” they would already need to be playing well, which they’re not.

4. If you thought Torres finally broke out with his three-hit night on Thursday, he followed it up by going 3-for-13 with a walk and seven left on base; Sanchez’s first two games of the season seem like they never happened as he is now sitting in his all-too-familiar spot below the Mendoza line (.196); Judge keeps getting on base via walks, but he has one extra-base hit in the last nine days, hasn’t homered in 12 days and hasn’t hit a non-solo home run in 20 days; Stanton had a two-home run night on Friday, but has been awful overall and is still close to the last person I want up in a big spot; Frazier remains lost; Gardner is an automatic out; even with three home runs, Hicks has a .602 OPS and is batting .172/.274/.328; Odor is exactly the player the Rangers paid to go away as he will run into one every once in a while and do nothing in between the times he runs into one.

The Yankees might have a better wining percentage than they did before going to Cleveland, but the problems that got them off to a 6-11 start haven’t moved any closer to being resolved.

5. Gerrit Cole dominated on Saturday in a true pitcher’s duel against Shane Bieber. Cole has been outstanding this season and one of five bright spots on the 26-man roster, along with Kyle Higashioka, Chad Green, Darren O’Day and Aroldis Chapman. However, I have as much to do with Cole’s success as Higashioka does. Cole and Higashioka have been together against the Orioles, Blue Jays, Rays and Indians. Aside from the Blue Jays, none of those other teams can hit. If Cole is the one requesting Higashioka to catch him, then OK. It would be sad that someone of his stature needs a personal catcher, but OK. If it’s not his doing, then the first time he doesn’t pitch well, and the magic of Higashioka isn’t there, it needs to be Sanchez.

6. Boone has said in the past he and the Yankees don’t believe in players being hot. Hicks homered on Friday and Saturday and wasn’t in the lineup on Sunday. Yet Odor, who also homered on Friday and Saturday was in the lineup and batting fourth. FOURTH! So Hicks being hot couldn’t get him in the lineup on Sunday, but Odor being hot was good enough to bump him up four spots in the batting order. Boone is truly the guy at the Blackjack table that hits on 16 with the dealer showing a 7 sometimes and stays in the same exact situation other times.

Boone said Hicks was experiencing back tightness and that’s why he didn’t play on Sunday. Since it’s hard to believe anything Boone says, Hicks either wasn’t in the lineup because the Yankees don’t believe in a player being hot, or Hicks is actually hurt (again). If you recall, Hicks missed the first seven weeks of the 2019 season after injuring his back on a 35-minute bus ride in spring training, so back injuries are nothing new with him. (There isn’t an injury that would be new for Hicks.) Hicks was never going to make it through the season without some sort of ailment since he has never played single season without missing some amount of time due to injury. I’m actually surprised he made it through 20 games before we heard about something.

When asked after the game if Hicks was available to play today, Boone said, “We would have had him possibly late, yes.” So Hicks was able to come into the game, but didn’t play in the game.

7. The Yankees’ roster clearly has an issue playing through the minor aches and pains that come with a six-month baseball season. Whenever someone on the roster has a minor issue, they’re out of the lineup because of Boone’s precautions. But how does Boone know about every minor ailment? It’s because the players are making it known they are dealing with something, no matter how minor it is. So Hicks (like Judge a few weeks ago) went to Boone and let him know he couldn’t go. Remember that when you get a quote about always wanting to play.

8. The Yankees scored first on Sunday, scoring three runs in the top of the fourth inning. It took four batters in the bottom of the fourth for the lead to disappear and for the Yankees to trail.

Jameson Taillon once again didn’t make it into the fifth inning, blew a three-run lead immediately after he was given it and allowed four earned runs in four innings. How did Boone think he pitched?

“I thought he regrouped and finished strong that (fourth) inning,” Boone said. “I thought the stuff was good throughout.”

Surprise, surprise! Boone thought his starting pitcher had good stuff! A starting pitcher who allowed four earned runs in four innings, blew a 3-0 lead and gave the team no length. You know who had good stuff? Cole on Saturday. That’s good stuff. Not what Taillon produced on Sunday.

In the bottom of the fourth, Taillon went single, single, single, home run to blow the lead and put the Yankees behind 4-3. He retired the next three hitters to end the inning, which is the “regroup” Boone is talking about, but the stuff was not good throughout. No one allows a four-spot in a game with good stuff.

Taillon is a problem. Sure, he looks great at times, but so did A.J. Burnett. Like Burnett, Taillon can look unhittable one second and before you can go to the fridge and get back to your couch, he has unraveled. In four starts, Taillon has made it through five innings once and has only made it into the fifth twice. Through 17 1/3 innings, he hasn’t really walked anyone (2), but he has allowed four home runs. The Yankees have lost three of the four games he has started.

9. Taillon was out of the game after the fourth. Trailing by one run with five innings of at-bats left, the Yankees were very much in the game. That was until Boone decided to bring in Nick Nelson to hold the deficit.

There is a contingent of Yankees fans who think Hicks is Bernie Williams. There’s the contingent who want Higashioka to be the starting catcher over Sanchez, like there was the contingent who wanted Austin Romine over Sanchez. But there’s no one, and I mean no one worse than the weirdos in the contingent of Yankees fans who think Nelson is good.

Here were Nelson’s five appearances this season before Sunday:

April 1: Enters in 10th inning on Opening Day, allows the runner on second with no outs to score and the Yankees lose.

April 7: Pitches 1 1/3 scoreless innings in a loss to Baltimore.

April 9: Enters with the bases loaded, immediately gives up a two-run double and ends up allowing four earned runs in 1 2/3 innings.

April 16: Is inexplicably used an opener against the Rays and allows the first three batters of the game to reach, giving up two runs in his only inning of work.

April 21: Enters with the bases loaded and two outs and walks in a run on four pitches.

The Yankees lost all five games Nelson pitched in entering Sunday, and they lost on Sunday as well after he came in and allowed three earned runs in two innings.

Yes, Nelson has a lot of strikeouts (15) in 8 1/3 innings. He has also allowed a lot of hits (11), walks (5), baserunners (17, including a hit-by-pitch) and earned runs (9). He has a 9.72 ERA and 1.921 WHIP.

Thankfully, Nelson was sent down after the game. Of the Yankees’ 12 losses this season, he has had a huge hand in five of them. Now you know why all spring training I feared his place on the roster after the injuries to Zack Britton and Justin Wilson.

10. If you had asked me what I thought the Yankees needed to go during their recent 11-game stretch against the Rays, Blue Jays and Braves, I would have said 7-4 and would have been upset with 6-5. Well, they went 3-8, so that 6-5 would have been really nice.

The Yankees are currently in the middle of an 11-game stretch against the Indians, who they just went 3-1 against, the Orioles (four games) and the Tigers (three games). Anything less than 8-3 here would be an enormous disappointment, considering they always play well in Baltimore, they are miraculously missing John Means in a four-game series (as he pitched on Sunday), the Orioles aren’t good and the Tigers are the worst team in baseball (7-15) with the worst run differential (-37) and have lost nine of their last 10.

If the Yankees aren’t at least .500 at 14-14 at the end of play on Sunday, it’s going to be bad.

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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.

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

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

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.

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

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