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

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cashman also said:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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There will be Yankees baseball this week. It might be on Friday instead of Thursday because of the weather, but there will be Yankees baseball this week.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. The rotation is set. It’s poorly set, but it’s set. It will be Gerrit Cole, followed by Corey Kluber and Domingo German. Not only did the Yankees keep scumbag German through his actions, his suspension and the public backlash and criticism, but he’s now the No. 3 starter to open the season rather than the expected No. 5 starter! Yankees baseball!

The Yankees claim they want to bring Jameson Taillon along slowly, which makes no sense, considering he has barely pitched in two years and will be pitching on April 7 rather than April 4. A whole three-day difference! The Yankees are so ridiculous, it’s sickening. They truly believe they can prevent injuries, yet they set the all-time single-season record for players placed on the injured list in 2019 and followed that up with an injury-filled 2020 and have followed that up by losing Zack Britton, Justin Wilson and Luke Voit for the start of 2021.

2. The Yankees’ six-game rotation to open the season is:

Thursday, Apr. 1 vs. Toronto: Gerrit Cole
Saturday, Apr. 3 vs. Toronto : Corey Kluber
Sunday, Apr. 4 vs. Toronto: Domingo German
Monday, Apr. 5 vs. Baltimore: Jordan Montgomery
Tuesday, Apr. 6 vs. Baltimore: Gerrit Cole
Wednesday, Apr. 7 vs. Baltimore: Jameson Taillon

Every game against the Blue Jays and Rays is a big deal. They are the Yankees’ divisional competition. Games against them will be the difference between playing in a one-game playoff or not. Whether it’s April 4 or September 4, or Game 3 or Game 130 they should be treated the same. Unfortunately, that viewpoint isn’t shared by the team I root for.

3. “With Jamo, we feel like he’s in such a good spot physically,” Aaron Boone said. “We just want to be mindful of building these guys up properly.”

Boone rarely makes sense, and that answers as to why Taillon is pitching in the sixth game of the season makes no sense at all.

“I’m totally on board with it,” Taillon said. “We’ve discussed not putting a hard innings limit on me.”

Of course Taillon says he’s on board with it. What else is he going to say? “I completely disagree with the idiotic strategy my new team is implementing.” That’s what he should have said, but I don’t expect Taillon to go full J.A. Happ on us before he has even pitched a real game for his new team.

4. If Taillon doesn’t think there’s a hard innings limit on him, he must not be the brightest bulb. The Yankees have the hardest of innings limits on him, whether or not they have told him or will ever tell him. I mean they’re holding him back three days because they think that will make a difference in protecting a two-time Tommy John recipient. The only thing that can protect Taillon’s right elbow is to never throw a baseball. Like any pitcher, Taillon can get hurt any time he throws a baseball overhand. The strategy should be to get as much out of him as you can before he potentially breaks down again. Not try to pitch him the least amount possible.

5. Deivi Garcia lost the competition to be the fifth starter, though it was only a competition in name since he was never going to win it, no matter how well he pitched in spring training.

“We continue to be really excited about Deivi and the strides that he’s continued to make in his craft,” Boone said. “The message to him that I tried to convey was, ‘Stay ready, we’re going to need you. You’re going to be a big part of this. Make sure you’re handling your business down there as far as putting yourself in line to be the guy we go to.”

Boone is so excited about Garcia that he only wanted him to pitch the first inning of Game 2 of the 2020 ALDS before going to Happ to ruin the season. What Boone should have said was:

“The message to him that I tried to convey was, ‘Listen, it’s nothing you did, we kept German despite being a scumbag, so we have to have him on the major league roster or it will look even worse that we kept someone who did what German did.”

6. After losing Britton and Wilson, spring training wouldn’t have been complete without the Yankees losing an expected everyday starter before Opening Day. Voit will begin the season on the injured list after tearing the meniscus in his left knee and needing surgery. As of Saturday, Voit was expected to perform no baseball activities for three weeks and then rejoin the Yankees in May. That seems like a very generous timeline given the Yankees’ handling of injuries since the start of 2019.

Voit has been a sneaky injured player as a Yankee. All the attention (and rightfully so) goes to the injuries suffered by Aaron Judge, Giancarlo Stanton and Aaron Hicks, but Voit has also had his issues. In 2019, he got hurt unnecessarily going for two in London against the Red Sox and was hitting .280/.393/.509 at the time. He missed two weeks, came back for two-and-a-half weeks and then missed a month. For the last month of 2019, he hit .200/.319/.338 and was left off the postseason roster. Now he’s going to miss at least one month of this season and most likely closer to two (or even more) months.

7. The Voit injury opened the door for Jay Bruce to make the team and play first base every day. Bruce will now have at least a month of real games to prove he isn’t finished as a major leaguer. He will give the Yankees some lineup balance as a left-handed hitter and maybe the magic of putting on the pinstripes will do for Bruce what it has done for so many other former star players trying to save their career. I want Bruce and Dietrich on the team over Mike Tauchman and Tyler Wade, but apparently that wasn’t going to happen if Voit didn’t get hurt. There’s still a chance Wade won’t make the Opening Day roster though I think that chance is small. Like as small as Boone not batting Hicks third in the lineup.

8. With Voit out and Bruce in, this is the lineup I would use:

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

This is the lineup Boone will use:

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

9. Unfortunately, Hicks is going to bat third. Boone already said that weeks ago. The Yankees think Hicks is Bernie Williams, so he’s going to continue to be treated like he’s Number 51, and not a guy with a .734 career OPS. And it would be very Boone to bat Bruce ahead of Torres, Frazier and Sanchez. For Bruce to go from not making the team before Voit’s injury to batting ahead of those three is exactly the kind of decision Boone makes. We’re talking about the same manager who would use Miguel Andujar to pinch hit in the ninth inning of a game with the game on the line in 2020 and then send him down after the game, and the same manager who used Mike Ford as a pinch hitter in a postseason elimination game instead of Frazier or Sanchez. The same Ford who wasn’t good enough to be on the major league roster in September.

10. This is it. The last Yankees Thoughts of spring training. The next Yankees Thoughts will be a week from today after the Yankees have played their first three games and first series of 2021. The weather doesn’t look promising for Thursday, but if there’s Yankees baseball on Thursday, it will be 174 days since their 2020 season-ending loss to the Rays in Game 5 of the ALDS. I’m ready for what should be a seventh-month grind to begin. Yankees Thoughts will be posted after each of the Yankees’ 52 regular-season series in 2021 and after each postseason game.

Subscribe to the Keefe To The City Podcast. New episodes every Monday and Thursday during the offseason.

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

Two weeks. That’s it. Two weeks until Opening Day.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. We are past the point of spring training baseball being exciting because it’s baseball. It’s time for the regular season to start. Two more weeks of games for the Yankees to potentially suffer more injuries isn’t ideal. I would be astonished if the Yankees went the rest of March without an injury. That’s just what I have come to expect for the third straight season marred by injuries.

2. There were three “competitions” coming into spring training. They were the fifth spot in the rotation, the last bench spot and the last bullpen spot. The Yankees have wanted Domingo German to win the fifth spot in the rotation, they have wanted Mike Tauchman to be the last man on the bench and they have wanted to give the last bullpen spot to either Michael King or Nick Nelson. With two weeks to go, there’s now some good clarity on the three roster battles.

3. The Yankees have gotten what they wanted entering spring training and that’s scumbag German pitching well, so they have a built-in excuse for sending Deivi Garcia down to begin the season. The Yankees were always going to put German in the rotation to start the season. They didn’t keep him around after his actions and they didn’t sit through his suspension and deal with the public criticism and backlash to not pitch him at the major league level. He has pitched very well in spring training, but I don’t know how anyone could be rooting for him to succeed. I want him to fail and fail miserably. I want him to give up six earned runs in the first inning of his starts and have the offense overcome it, so the team doesn’t lose. I don’t how anyone could think differently.

4. There might not only be one bench spot now. The Yankees played Gio Urshela at shortstop this week, and that means maybe they are thinking of not carrying Tyler Wade on the Opening Day roster. I’m all for this. Once upon a time I was a big Wade believer (2017-18) because the Yankees made him out to be their version of Ben Zobrist. The only difference being that Zobrist actually hit major league pitching. A great glove can only go so far, and when you have a career .575 OPS, that glove better be the best glove in the history of gloves. There has always been the idea Wade would hit with consistent playing time, but in his limited playing time, he hasn’t done nearly enough (since he hasn’t really done anything) to earn extended playing time. He’s been as close to an automatic out in the lineup as one can be in the majors and continue to be in the majors. He’s basically been the Yankees’ version of not having enough players for a co-ed softball game in Central Park in which the last spot in the order is then an automatic out.

5. The Yankees’ willingness to play Urshela at short is very bad news for Wade. The one thing Wade had going for him was that he was the team’s only option to play shortstop in the event of a Gleyber Torres day off or Torres injury (knocking on wood). If Urshela can play short than Wade has no business being on the team. No business at all. Give that roster spot to someone who can actually do something other than roll over a ground ball to the right side.

6. All along it’s been sort of a given that Wade would be on the bench with Kyle Higashioka and Brett Gardner. If the Yankees are seriously considering not carrying Wade, that means there are two bench spots available. To me, Mike Tauchman shouldn’t be one of those spots. He’s not good enough (he’s not good at all, outside of a six-week run in his entire career), and he’s a left-handed hitter who plays good defense. That sounds like Gardner (minus the ability to get the occasional big hit). Why have two Gardners on the team? It wouldn’t make sense to. Miguel Andujar is injured, so he’s out. Thairo Estrada could be a possibility, but he hasn’t done anything this spring to stand out. That leaves Derek Dietrich and Jay Bruce, and I think the Yankees are thinking about keeping them both.

7. Dietrich can play the outfield and the infield, while Bruce can play the outfield and first base. LeMahieu can play first, second and third. Torres can play short and second. Urshela can play third, second and short. Dietrich can play first, second, third and the corner outfields. Bruce can play the corner outfields and first. The Yankees are more than covered in the event of an emergency or injury. Dietrich and Bruce give the team legitimate major league bats when regulars get days off, and Aaron Boone will probably start giving days off in the third game of the season. (That wasn’t a joke. The third game will be the team’s first back-to-back and the second game of five game in five days.) No one wants to see Wade playing whenever Torres or LeMahieu need days off.

8. The Zack Britton injury opened an additional bullpen spot. The Yankees are going to have 13 position players and 13 pitchers. Five spots go to the rotation, leaving eight relievers. Aroldis Chapman, Chad Green, Darren O’Day and Justin Wilson are obvious, leaving four spots. Jonathan Loaisiga and Luis Cessa will get two of those spots, leaving two more. The final two spots come down to Michael King, Nick Nelson, Albert Abreu and Lucas Luetge. Whether or not Abreu has an option remaining will determine his roster fate. If he does, he goes to the alternate site for Opening Day. If he doesn’t, I think he makes the team. The Yankees paid Brian McCann $5.5 million to play for the Astros and beat them in Game 6 of the 2017 ALCS, and received Abreu in return. It would be nice if Abreu amounted to something.

9. I don’t want King on the Opening Day. He was awful last season in every role he appeared in and he should have to earn his way up in 2021. Nelson was also bad in 2020, outside of his first career appearance, but I liked him and his stuff much more than King. I want Luetge on the team. A 33-year-old, left-handed journeyman who last appeared in the majors in 2015 (he pitched in one game that season for Oakland) and who has struck out 13 in 6 1/3 scoreless innings this spring? Give me that guy.

10. This is the 26-man roster I would go into Opening Day with:

Gary Sanchez
Luke Voit
DJ LeMahieu
Gio Urshela
Gleyber Torres
Clint Frazier
Aaron Hicks
Aaron Judge
Giancarlo Stanton
Kyle Higashioka
Brett Gardner
Jay Bruce
Derek Dietrich
Gerrit Cole
Corey Kluber
Jameson Taillon
Jordan Montgomery
Deivi Garcia
Aroldis Chapman
Chad Green
Darren O’Day
Justin Wilson
Jonathan Loaisiga
Luis Cessa
Lucas Luetge
Nick Nelson

That’s the roster I would go with. In reality, you can remove Garcia for German, and if Abreu doesn’t have an option remaining, you can probably remove Nelson or Luetge for him. It still seems like the Yankees will take Wade and Tauchman over Dietrich and Bruce, and I won’t believe they aren’t going to until they don’t, but it would be a mistake to pick the two clearly lesser talented players.

Subscribe to the Keefe To The City Podcast. New episodes every Monday and Thursday during the offseason.

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