The Yankees did what they rarely ever do by beating the Rays on Tuesday and Wednesday this week. Not only did they beat the Rays, but they won a series against them at Tropicana Field.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. The series opener in Tampa was the best start of Jordan Montgomery’s career. The Yankees needed a big performance from someone other than Gerrit Cole, needed to set the tone for the three games and needed to beat the Rays. Montgomery was great, allowed only one run (a Mike Zunino solo home run since Zunino has to homer in every series against the Yankees) and struck out a career-high nine. He avoided the crooked number inning which has been a staple of his career, didn’t give up a lead (another staple of his career) and gave the Yankees six great innings. His next start comes on Sunday in Baltimore against the Orioles, who he has pitched well against in two starts this season (11 IP, 10 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 1 BB, 8 K, 1 HR, 1.64 ERA, 1.000 WHIP), so I expect him to have another big day at Camden Yards.

The only thing that worries me is Sunday will be the sixth game in six days for the Yankees as part of this season-long, 10-game road trip. A Sunday getaway day game before going to Texas for four straight games means we are going to see something resembling a spring training lineup from Aaron Boone in the series finale in Baltimore. Montgomery better have his “A” stuff because he might not get much run support.

2. No Yankees starter is really getting any run support. The Yankees scored five runs in the three games in Tampa (1.7 per game). The series prior they scored “11” runs against the Nationals, but three of those runs were a result of the automatic runner at second base in the 10th and 11th innings, so they really only scored eight runs in that series (2.7 per game). Even against the Astros, three of their 17 runs came on an Alex Bregman throwing error.

The Yankees’ offense is nowhere near having arrived in 2021. They are fourth in the division in runs (only ahead of the last-place Orioles by five), and only ahead of the Orioles and Tigers in the entire American League.

3. “I’m not worried about our offense,” DJ LeMahieu said after Thursday’s loss. “We’re in a good place.”

Three “everyday” Yankees are below the Mendoza line in Gary Sanchez (.197), Aaron Hicks (.194) and Clint Frazier (.141), as are Brett Gardner (.182), Rougned Odor (.164) and Mike Ford (.095). Miguel Andujar doesn’t have a hit in 13 at-bats and Luke Voit doesn’t have one in six.

LeMahieu himself is only hitting .264 with a .716 OPS. He has three home runs on the season and two of them came in the same game. Aaron Judge has been inconsistent, Giancarlo Stanton’s crazy two-week run has ended, Gleyber Torres has been mostly bad and Gio Urshela has been pretty good, but is hurt again, and probably won’t play on Friday.

Ronald Acuna has a league-leading 12 home runs. That’s two more home runs than LeMahieu, Frazier, Ford, Torres, Andujar, Gardner, Voit and Tyler Wade have combined. Even if you had in Jay Bruce (who retired after playing in 10 games and still has as many home runs as Torres) and Mike Tauchman (who was traded to the Giants two weeks ago), Acuna still has one more home run than all of those players combined.

The offense was supposed to be a sure-thing in the regular season until the lineup only faces elite pitching in the postseason, and the starting pitching was supposed to be the team’s biggest concern (it was, but it’s been much better of late). It’s been the opposite through 37 games and 22 percent of the season.

4. Cole has never been a concern. Cole dominated the Rays on Thursday to clinch the three-game series for the Yankees with eight shutout innings and 12 strikeouts. If not for the magical catching powers of Kyle Higashioka, I don’t know that Cole would be capable of the season he’s having, currently leading the league in wins (5), FIP (1.11), WHIP (0.684), walks per nine (0.5) and strikeouts per walks (26). Somehow, even with a 1.37 ERA over 52 2/3 innings, the Yankees are only 5-3 in his eight starts, and had to win 1-0 in his most recent start.

The offense has scored 31 runs in Cole’s eight starts (3.9 per game) and 10 of those came in one game (10-0 win on April 30 against the Tigers) when he only needed one run to work with because of his six shutout innings. Take away that game, which is the only time the Yankees have scored double-digit runs this season, and it’s 21 runs across seven games. If any other Yankees starter was given the run support Cole has been given, the Yankees would be much worse than the 5-3 they are in Cole’s starts.

5. In theory, Jameson Taillon is good. He’s 6-foot-5, 230 lbs., a former second-overall pick, throws hard and has a devastating curve. On top of that, he’s an easy guy to root for given his health and injury history. In reality, Taillon hasn’t been good as a Yankee. Sure, he’s only made seven starts, but he hasn’t given the team length (four of seven starts have been less than five innings and six of seven have been five innings or less), and the performance has been mediocre at best (5.40 ERA and 4.45 FIP).

I didn’t expect more from Taillon. He’s giving me what I thought he would as a guy who has barely pitched in two years. To me, he’s Phil Hughes. He looks like Hughes on the mound, throws exactly like Hughes with his new short-arm delivery and can’t put away hitters with two strikes, just like Hughes couldn’t. If this is what Taillon is going to be full time, then OK, he’s a solid No. 5 starter. However, that’s not what he was advertised as or traded for to be.

6. Luke Voit made his 2021 season debut on Tuesday. He played on Tuesday and on Wednesday. On Thursday, he wasn’t in the lineup. Why? A planned day off, according to Boone. A planned day off after having had already had the first month-plus of the season off. To make matters worse, the Yankees faced a lefty in Rich Hill and could have used Voit’s right-handed bat in the middle of the order.

There is no medical fact or any science behind giving a player a day off after playing two games following knee surgery. The only way to prevent a player from an injury is to not play. Ever. Does Voit having Thursday make it any less likely he won’t get hurt on Friday or Saturday? Of course not. All it did was make it so he wouldn’t get hurt on Thursday. If the Yankees have solved injury prevention as an organization then why do they hold the single-season record for most players placed on the injured list and why do all of their players keep getting hurt?

7. Aaron Hicks wasn’t in Thursday’s lineup because of wrist soreness, requiring an MRI. This comes after Hicks was held out of Tuesday’s lineup because he fouled a ball off his leg on Sunday. (He was healthy enough to play through the foul ball and finish the game on Sunday, and healthy enough to be in the original lineup on Tuesday, though not healthy enough to actually play on Tuesday.) As a Yankee, Hicks has had every injury imaginable, and this wrist issue is the latest to be added to the long list. There wasn’t an update on Hicks following the game, which isn’t good, and I expect to him at least go on the injured list. It wouldn’t be baseball season without Hicks landing on the IL at least once.

8. Gary Sanchez is quietly coming out of his slump. He’s 4-for-13 with a double, two home runs and three walks in his last four games. His average still sucks (.197), however, nearly Yankees batting average sucks.

Sanchez’s on-base percentage is up to .351 and he has walked in 15 of the 24 games he has played in, including six of the last seven. Even in Sanchez’s 33-home run 2017 season, his on-base percentage was only .345 and in his 34-home run 2019 season, his on-base percentage was .316. The power hasn’t completely been there (though four home runs in 24 games is a 27-home run pace over 162 games), but we are seeing good things out of Sanchez at the plate.

9. Meanwhile, Higashioka who briefly took over the majority of the catching duties is hitting .087/.192/.261 over this last 26 plate appearances. Thankfully for him, one of his two hits in that time was a home run (the one off Max Scherzer), otherwise his .453 OPS would be even worse than it is, and it doesn’t get much worse than that.

Again, I like Highashioka. But he’s not a starting catcher and he’s not better than Sanchez. He doesn’t have magical powers that make starting pitchers better, and he has zero to do with Cole being one of the best two or three pitchers in the world, if not the best pitcher in the world. It was only a matter of time until Higashioka gave way to Sanchez again, and it happened even faster than I thought it would.

10. The Yankees have won 14 of 20 and are 5-0-1 in their last six series. If they continue to play like they have over their last 20 games, they will be where they want to be at the end of the season and that is as AL East champions with the best record in the AL and home-field advantage throughout the playoffs.

The easy way to achieve that is to beat up the bad teams in the AL, and there are a lot of them. The Yankees have gone 7-3 against the Orioles and the Tigers this season, which is good, but not good enough (because of their play against the Rays and Blue Jays), considering they are only 4-3 against the Orioles. This weekend in Baltimore presents another chance for the Yankees win another series and beat up on a bad team before going to Texas for four games against another bad team.

The hard part of the 10-game road trip is over and the Yankees did what they needed to do in Tampa. A 5-2 record in Baltimore and Texas isn’t too much to ask. It shouldn’t be too much to ask.

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The Yankees are very fortunate to have won two of three against the Nationals. They were very close to being swept by the struggling Nationals, and on their way back under .500. Instead, they’re riding a two-game winning streak after back-to-back walk-off wins as they head back to Tampa.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. On Friday, I wrote the following:

I think the Yankees have turned their season around. Normally, I would be hesitant to make a claim like that, but I saw enough of a change out of the team this week to believe their level of play in the season’s 25 games is behind them and they will continue to be the team they were expected to be in 2021. (Now watch them get swept by the Nationals this weekend.)

I take that one back, and yes, the Nationals were very, very close to sweeping the Yankees. They beat the crap out of the Yankees on Friday, were three outs away from holding on to a dominating Max Scherzer performance, and were able to embarrass Aaron Boone’s bullpen management on Sunday.

The team really hasn’t turned it around like I thought they might have, and it all has to do with the offense. The Yankees have scored 36 runs in eight May games. Two of those games came against the Tigers, and they only scored eight runs total in those two games. The team’s best offensive output of May so far has been the seven runs they scored against the Astros on May 4, and three of those runs came on a bases-clearing throwing error by Alex Bregman. The Yankees have scored 15 runs over their last four games, and two of those runs came because of automatic runners placed on second base in extra innings. The Yankees have actually scored 13 runs over their last four games, and only scored nine “real” runs in three games against the Nationals.

2. Outside of Giancarlo Stanton for the last two weeks and DJ LeMahieu for the last week, the offense has continued to be abysmal. Aaron Hicks went 1-for-the weekend. Gary Sanchez went 1-for-the week, but did hit first home run since April 3 and his first extra-base hit since April 7. Aaron Judge is 5-for-29 in May with 15(!) strikeouts and no home runs, and three of those five hits came in one game on May 1. Gleyber Torres hit his first home since October. Clint Frazier is 2-for-May (20 at-bats). Mike Ford is 4-for-the season, and won’t be good enough to be a Yankee when Luke Voit is activated, but is good enough to bat sixth when he is a Yankee. Kyle Higashioka’s average and on-base percentage are quickly falling to his career averages (.192 and .242).

3. “It’s not always going to be easy,” Boone said after the team’s win on Sunday. “You’re not always going to just have your way with a team but you’re going to have to win these tough ones every now and then.”

When exactly has it been easy? When is it going to be easy? The Yankees have 18 wins. Four of them have been easy. The 7-0 win over the Orioles on April 5, the 7-2 win over the Orioles on April 6, the 7-0 win over the Orioles on April 28 and the 10-0 win over the Tigers on April 30. Four easy wins in 34 games and they are all against the Orioles and Tigers.

The Yankees don’t have “to win tough ones every now and then.” They have to win tough ones every single time they want a win and aren’t playing teams destined for 100-plus losses.

So yes, the Yankees still have the same offensive problems they had a week ago, and the week before that, and two weeks before that, and all the way back to Opening Day. The team has scored double digit runs just once this season 10-0 win on Apr 30 over Detroit. The Red Sox scored double digit runs three times last week in six games.

4. I also wrote this on Friday:

Loaisiga has gone from unpitchable in high-leverage spots in October to now being the most trusted active member of the bullpen behind Chapman. I wanted Loaisiga in the eighth inning on Thursday, but understood why Boone went to Green.

Jonathan Loaisiga backed up my words and followed up Chad Green’s meltdown on Thursday with one of his own on Friday. It wasn’t just a meltdown, it was a Jonathan Holder-like meltdown. Loaisiga had given up two earned runs in 18 1/3 innings before Thursday and then managed to give up four earned runs while recording only one out. He entered  a 3-3 game and by the time he was done, and by the time Luis Cessa was done making sure Loaisiga’s ERA took as big of a hit as possible, the Nationals led 9-3 after sending 12 batters to the plate in the eighth.

The Loaisiga who had no business pitching in high-leverage spots in 2020 appeared for the first time in 2021, and it better have been an anomaly. Because with Zack Britton still out and Darren O’Day now out, the elite, trustworthy options in the bullpen are dwindling. The Yankees can’t afford to have the clock strike midnight on Loaisiga. Not if the offense is going to have trouble scoring runs the way they have for the first 21 percent of the season.

5. If the Nationals fall out of it, and I expect them to, when they make Scherzer available, the Yankees need to do everything they can to acquire him. Will they? Probably not. Instead, they will probably let him go to the Astros the way they let Justin Verlander, Gerrit Cole and Zack Grienke and then they can see Scherzer twice in the ALCS and we can see another easy 14 strikeouts from him against this lineup.

6. Boone did everything he could to lose on Sunday. Why was Scumbag Domingo German was allowed to try to go through the Nationals’ lineup a third time? It’s something Boone rarely lets Cole do, and he might be the best pitcher in the world, let alone Scumbag German who is barely in the majors. Rather than make the move he always makes, Boone decided with Scumbag German, he could get a seventh inning out of him and steal some outs and give his bullpen a lighter workload.

Scumbag German gave up a double on the first pitch of the inning to Josh Bell. With one out and Bell at second, Boone let German stay in to face Kyle Schwarber. Four pitches later, Schwarber his a missile to the second deck in right field to tie the game. Then, once the lead was erased and the game was tied, Boone went to Michael King for the first time in 11 days and second time in 23 days.

7. Where was Lucas Luetge to face Schwarber? Where was Wandy Peralta? What I’m about to say next is very scary.

Luetge was most likely unnecessarily unavailable on Sunday. That means Peralta was the only left-handed option for Boone in the bullpen. Boone was saving Peralta for Juan Soto’s late-inning plate appearance no matter what. No matter what situation might come up before Soto’s late-inning trip to the plate (like the actual one we saw with Schwarber) and no matter what the score was by the time Soto stepped into the box or what situation he was stepping into the box in, Boone was saving Peralta for that. I wish it weren’t true, but it is.

That’s who manages the Yankees. Someone that dumb and idiotic that they allowed the game to be tied by letting Schwarber face a righty, while representing the tying run. They say you might see something you have never seen before whenever you go to a baseball games, well each day I see something I have never seen before from Boone, and it’s never a good thing.

The day before, on Saturday, Boone asked Ford to sacrifice bunt in the 10th inning. The last time Ford had a sacrifice bunt was in 2012 in the Cape Cod League. Nine years ago. That’s who manages the Yankees.

8. I had to do a double take to make sure that was really Michael King wearing number 73 in the game on Sunday. It was King’s first appearance in 11 days and second in 23 days. Good use of a roster spot! The Yankees have played 34 games over 40 days (counting Monday’s day off) and King has appeared in four of them. The Yankees should continue to hold him out for that one time a starter gets hurt early or is getting knocked around and they need a long man. More Cessa, please.

9. Just a nice little Sunday off for Judge. Drive to the Stadium, put on the Yankees uniform, take in the game from the best seat in the place and make around $62,000 for the afternoon.

Why did Judge not start on Sunday before his pinch-hit walk in hte ninth? Because the Yankees have Monday off and having Sunday off and Monday off give him two days off. Why does he need two days after having only started 29 of 34 (85 percent) games this season ? Because the Yankees are playing at the Trop the next three days and the Trop has turf and Judge needs time off before playing on turf. I wish I were being sarcastic and making it up.

Starting on Tuesday, the Yankees are going to play 13 games in 13 days. Three at Tampa, three at Baltimore, four at Texas and then three back home against the White Sox. Expect to see some spring training lineups beginning this coming weekend in Baltimore. The lineup you will see on getaway day Sunday in Baltimore and getaway day Thursday in Texas are going to be all-time Boone lineups. I look forward to Rougned Odor coming back lead off. Maybe Tyler Wade will stick around and bat third. Why shouldn’t he? Everyone else has gotten a chance to.

I want a 7-3 road trip to Tampa, Baltimore and Texas. If the Yankees have really turned their season around, they’ll accomplish it.

10. This three-game series in Tampa is enormously important. One, because the Yankees have won 12 of 17 and are two games above .500 and seem headed in the right direction. Two, because the Yankees have been embarrassed by the Rays during the Boone era the way the Rays used to get embarrassed by the Yankees in the late-‘90s and early-2000s. Three, because the Rays aren’t very good and the Yankees should be able to beat them (the Rays are 5-1 against the Yankees and 14-16 against everyone else). And four, the Yankees are missing Tyler Glasnow this series (or at least they’re supposed to). Enough is enough with getting embarrassed by the Rays. The Rays! 2004 me can’t believe I wrote that.

I want a 7-3 road trip to Tampa, Baltimore and Texas. If the Yankees have really turned their season around, they’ll accomplish it.

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The Yankees’ season has been defined by letting opportunities slip away. Whether it’s leaving the bases loaded, not putting a hitter away with two strikes, losing a game in which they led or not winning a game they had countless chances to win, it’s been a theme for 2021. The series against the Astros was no different.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. The Stadium was rocking the entire series and it’s hard to believe it was only at 20 percent capacity. I missed hearing that sound and that noise and that atmosphere. The “Fuck Altuve” chants for three days and “Fuck Your Birthday” chants on Thursday were magnificent. It’s too bad the birthday chants got ruined by his go-ahead home run in the eighth inning off Chad Green in the series finale.

2. Entering Tuesday’s series opener against the Astros, I would have gladly signed up for winning two out of three and simply winning the series. But now that it actually happened, it feels like a letdown, the same way it felt like a letdown going 3-1 against the Indians or going 8-3 in the recent 11-game stretch. It could have been more and should have been more.

When you win the first two games of a three-game series and have Gerrit Cole going in the third game, and have a one-run lead with six outs to get, and you lose, it’s going to feel like a letdown. The same way it was in Cleveland when the Yankees won the first three games of the four-game series, had a three-run lead in the fourth game and blew it. The same way it was going 8-3 against the Indians, Orioles and Tigers.

3. The Yankees have a weekday afternoon game problem. (They also have a problem winning games started by Cole as they’re now 4-3 in his starts.) They lost on April 1 (Opening Day) to the Blue Jays (3-2 in 10 innings). The Rays came from behind on April 9 to beat them 10-5 at the Trop. The Blue Jays walked off on them on April 14 (5-4). The Orioles walked off on them in 10 innings on April 29. And then on Thursday, the Astros came from behind to beat them 7-4. The Yankees are now 0-5 in weekday afternoon games. Most of the time you can attribute it to Aaron Boone mailing it in with a lineup reminiscent of a mid-March spring training game, but not on Thursday. On Thursday, the Yankees had their best possible every lineup (just not in the right order), and they lost.

4. My current Bullpen Level of Trust (Scale of 1-10):

Aroldis Chapman: 9.8 (No one has been this high since 9.9 Mariano Rivera)
Darren O’Day: 8.6
Jonathan Loaisiga: 8.4
Chad Green: 7.9
Lucas Luetge: 7.6
Wandy Peralta: 5.0
Michael King: 4.9
Justin Wilson: 2.6
Albert Abreu: 2.3
Luis Cessa: 1.9

5. I have never felt this good about Chapman before. No one has. My confidence in a Yankees lead being protected in the ninth hasn’t been this high since Number 42 was on the mound.

I really, really, really trust O’Day, and it’s crushing he’s currently on the injured list with a rotator cuff (never want to hear that term) issue.

Loaisiga has gone from unpitchable in high-leverage spots in October to now being the most trusted active member of the bullpen behind Chapman. I wanted Loaisiga in the eighth inning on Thursday, but understood why Boone went to Green.

When Green walked the leadoff hitter, facing the bottom of the order, I had a bad feeling. That feeling came true. I still trust him, but I have seen him do what he did on Thursday one too many times to trust him more than the names above him.

Peralta gets a 5.0 starting position as a new member of the bullpen. I think there’s a very good chance he becomes this team’s version of Everyday Luis Avilan from last season and Boone goes to him too much and in too big of spots and it backfires, but so far so good from the lefty.

King hasn’t allowed a run in three appearances and 11 innings this season, but I’m not a fool. That’s not enough to trust him after his 2020 overall performance. I’m not a fool, like those who thought Nelson was suddenly going to be David Robertson in 2021 after his 2020 overall performance.

Wilson is the same pitcher he was six years ago with the Yankees, Abreu hasn’t pitched enough for me to get a feel for him and Cessa will never not be the least trustworthy member of the Yankees bullpen unless Nelson is called back up.

6. I think the Yankees have turned their season around. Normally, I would be hesitant to make a claim like that, but I saw enough of a change out of the team this week to believe their level of play in the season’s 25 games is behind them and they will continue to be the team they were expected to be in 2021. (Now watch them get swept by the Nationals this weekend.) The Astros are the best team the Yankees have played this season and they handled them in the first two games and had a lead with Green and Chapman lined up to get the final six outs.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m still scared of the Astros. With or without George Springer, Justin Verlander and Cole, I still wouldn’t want any part of the Astros in a postseason series. I didn’t want any part of the Angels in the 2009 ALCS after what happened in the 2002 ALDS and 2005 ALDS. I didn’t want to see the Tigers in the 2012 ALCS after what happened in the 2006 ALDS and 2011 ALDS. There are only team I ever feel confident about seeing in the postseason: the Twins and the A’s.

7. It took Rougned Odor going on the injured list to get him out of Boone’s lineup, and if Odor hadn’t been injured on Tuesday, you can bet your ass he would have been playing on Wednesday and Thursday, forcing DJ LeMahieu off second base where he is a three-time Gold Glove winner. I would think once Luke Voit is back (and how is he not already back given his performance in Scranton?) that Odor is a full-time bench player and Tyler Wade is back off the roster. That is unless the Yankees sign Albert Pujols since he won’t cost them anything and there’s nothing the Hal Steinbrenner Yankees like more than acquiring free players. I’m kidding, but only half kidding. I could easily see Pujols batting fifth as protection for 4-hitter Odor. That’s something these Yankees would do. In all seriousness, this should be the lineup once Voit is back:

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

I said that’s what the lineup should be. If you think Hicks is ever hitting any lower than sixth, you haven’t been paying attention. Boone would bat Urshela (his current cleanup hitter) ninth before he ever bats his personal favorite Hicks ninth. This will be Boone’s lineup with Voit:

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

8. If Boone moves Stanton out of the 2-hole, he’s an even bigger idiot than I already think he is, and I’m not sure that’s possible.

I have (like most Yankees fans) heavily criticized Giancarlo Stanton for the majority of his Yankees tenure, and rightfully so. Overall, Stanton has been a bust for the Yankees. He has barely played since the start of the 2019 season and now he’s 31 and relegated to being a full-time designated hitter and his contract is on the brink of becoming an albatross. With Stanton, it’s a matter of staying healthy, and given everything that has gone on with him the last two years, I hold my breath watching any movement of his in the box and on the bases. But what he’s done over the last 12 games is why I and most Yankees fans have been so hard on him. Because we know this level of him exists.

Since April 23, Stanton is 25-for-52 (.481/.509/.904) with four doubles, six home runs and 11 RBIs. He’s not only getting hits at a ridiculous rate, he’s getting big hits as well, something he has rarely done as a Yankee. In the 2020 postseason, everyone saw what Stanton is capable of when he’s healthy, and we’re seeing that player again right now. This is the player I thought the Yankees traded for prior to the 2018 season. This is the player who I thought would put the Yankees over the top.

9. The Kyle Higashioka Starting Catcher train is slowing down. I would say it’s already stopped, but with Boone running the team it’s going to make much more than the three-week slump Higashioka is in for him to lose the job, even though it took Sanchez with an actual career resume less time this season to lose the job. That’s the difference between being a Boone favorite and not.

Higashioka is 5-for-34 going back to April 14, hitting .147/.275/.382 in his last 40 plate appearances. The job was never going to be his forever, and he lost his grip on it faster than even I thought he would.

Jameson Taillon pitches Friday and is coming off his best start of the season, which Sanchez caught. Then Corey Kluber is pitching on Saturday and coming off his best start of the season, which Higashioka caught. Boone doesn’t believe in hot like the idiot he is, but he does believe in personal catchers. I think Sanchez plays on Friday and Sunday and Higashioka plays on Saturday. This could be the beginning of Sanchez regaining his job. I hope it is.

10. The Yankees are now 16-15. They have won five of six and 10 of 14. It’s good, but they have a long way to go to undo the damage they did in April and the first 25 games. This weekend is going to be tough. The Nationals can’t hit, but with Patrick Corbin and Max Scherzer on Friday and Saturday, it won’t be easy, though it never is for these Yankees, not even in two out of the three games they played against the Tigers.

After the Nationals, there’s a day off on Monday and then it’s three more against the Rays. I wanted a 6-3 homestand and three straight series wins. (It could have been even more than that if not for Thursday’s collapse.) I still do. Take two of three this weekend and I’ll be happy, even if I will have a hard time accepting only taking two of three, like I always do.

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The Yankees erased their embarrassing 11-game stretch against the Rays, Blue Jays and Braves in which they went 3-8 by beating up on the Indians, Orioles and Tigers to go 8-3. Now the schedule gets tough again, and we’ll find out if the Yankees turned their season around or just beat some bad teams.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. Don’t let the weekend fool you. The Yankees swept a bad Tigers team. Not just a bad team, the worst team in baseball. The Tigers are 8-21 with a .276 winning percentage and -62 run differential. “Good” teams are supposed to beat a team like the Tigers. The Yankees are supposed to be a “good” team.

Outside of Friday’s win (10-0), it’s not like the Yankees easily handled the Tigers either. They won 6-4 on Saturday and 2-0 on Sunday. Two two-run wins, needing to use elite relievers in both games. That’s not all that encouraging given the Tigers’ lineup or their starting pitching. A win is a win and the Yankees got three of them against a team whose season is already over.

2. It’s scary to think where Gerrit Cole’s career would be without Kyle Higashioka since Higashioka is the reason for Cole’s success. That’s what everyone on YES and in the mainstream media wants fans to believe. Cole dominated the Tigers (6 IP, 4 H,0 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 12 K) and lowered his ERA to 1.43 on the season. He has now faced the Blue Jays twice, Orioles, Rays, Indians and Tigers, allowing two earned runs or less in every start. He has been awesome and it hasn’t mattered who was behind the plate. Jorge Posada could be catching him and he would still be awesome. I don’t mean Posada in his playing days, I mean current 50-year-old Posada, who retired nearly a decade ago.

3. Aaron Judge returned to the lineup on Friday and hit two home runs, including a grand slam. It’s miraculous how his “lower-body stuff” and soreness from traveling disappeared! Thankfully, Judge must have experienced ideal traveling conditions on the way back to New York from Baltimore to keep him healthy and allow him to play against the Tigers all weekend. Let’s hope he sat on the couch Sunday night and all day Monday and is able to arrive at the Stadium on Tuesday without any further travel complications.

4. Why does Aaron Hicks bat left-handed? (The bigger question is why is Hicks a Yankee or why did the team give him a seven-year, $70 million extension). He’s not any good at it. Hicks is batting .250/.300/.607 as a right-handed hitter this season and .115/.236/.180 as a left-handed hitter. He has a .715 career OPS as a lefty and a .760 OPS as a righty. Maybe he just can’t switch hit anymore?

A .300 on-base percentage (which he has as a righty) isn’t good, let alone for a guy whose only skill is supposedly getting on base, but at least as a righty he hits one out every once in a while, like he did on Friday. If you’re Hicks and you’re batting .139 with a .499 OPS like he was entering Friday’s game, and you hit a home run, you can’t be staring at it and flipping your bat.

5. Rougned Odor is very bad, though for some reason he bats third and fourth in the Yankees lineup. Why? Because he bats left-handed, of course! Odor has four home runs in only 67 plate appearances and still has a .642 OPS. That’s how bad he has been. He only has six other hits as a Yankee, all singles.

Odor went 1-for 10 on the weekend, but did hit a solo home run on Friday as the 9-hitter, so that allowed him to bat third on Saturday and fourth on Sunday. Aaron Boone is such an idiot. He really is.

Odor has now batted third (1), fourth (4), fifth (1), sixth (2), seventh (3), eighth (1) and ninth (6). He shouldn’t be in the lineup ever (he shouldn’t be on the Yankees). If he must be, then he needs to bat ninth. Only ninth.

6. Jameson Taillon won a game for the first time in two years on Saturday. He still only gave the team five innings, but I think that’s all he will ever give the team at most The Yankees seem to want to keep him around 80 pitches per start (74, 84, 80, 82, 79), and with trouble he has putting away hitters with two strikes, it’s always going to take him that many pitches to get through five innings. He has now had two good starts, one OK start and two bad starts as a Yankee. He’s been about what I thought he would be.

7. Corey Kluber was great again, however, everything from the weekend needs a disclaimer because again it was against the Tigers. Kluber was OK against the Blue Jays, awful against the Rays, bad against the Blue Jays, blah against the Braves, great against the Orioles and outstanding against the Tigers. He now has a 3.03 ERA on the season thanks to his last two starts.

Were his last two starts against the Orioles and Tigers Kluber getting back to being his old self after not pitching in basically two years? Or was it two starts against two bad teams? I hope it’s the former and not the latter.

His next few starts won’t be against the hardest of offensive competition either as he is lined up to face the Nationals, Orioles and Rangers his next three starts. He will see the Blue Jays at the end of May, so we will have a better idea then if the Yankees hit it big on his one-year deal.

8. The Yankees went 8-3 in the 11-game stretch against the Indians, Orioles and Tigers. It could have been more and should have been more, but it did erase the 3-8 they went in the previous 11-game strech against the Rays, Blue Jays and Braves. They are fortunate the Rays and Blue Jays both got off to nearly as bad starts as they did.

Have the Yankees really turned their season around? I want to believe they have, it’s just to hard to trust them given how bad April was and how they only went 5-3 in their last eight games against the Indians, Orioles and Tigers.

9. The Yankees will be tested over the next 10 days with nine games against the Astros, Nationals and Rays. The Astros have had the Yankees’ number for three years straight (since they didn’t play in 2020), the Nationals have managed to stay afloat at .500 without Juan Soto and Stephen Strasburg and the Rays are 5-1 against the Yankees this season despite being 10-14 against everyone else.

The Yankees wasted April. With the Blue Jays (14-13) and Rays (15-15) both struggling, they had a chance to create early-season separation from their two competitors for the division. Instead they’re in fourth place in the East and half-game out of last.

10. The Yankees have been managed like they had built a five-game division lead in the first month of the season and they played some of the worst baseball any Yankees team has played in a long, long time, including the 2013 Yankees. That can’t continue. I don’t think it will on the playing side, though I’m sure it will on the managerial side.

They have six games against the Astros and Nationals then an off day and then three games against the Rays. The best possible version of the everyday lineup needs to play in these games. There have been enough personal days off through 28 games and look where it has gotten them.

The Yankees were given a gift to not be buried in the division and spending the next few months trying to climb out of a deficit. They’re at .500 with new life and they can’t afford to screw it up this time because the Rays and Blue Jays might not give them another chance. The Yankees have five months to be the team they were expected to be, and it begins on Tuesday.

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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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