The Yankees have so many injuries right now it would be unbelievable for any other fan base aside from the Yankees. For the Yankees and their fans, it’s just business as usual. After setting the single-season record for most players placed on the injured list in 2019 (30 players across 39 IL stints), the Yankees haven’t slowed down when it comes to getting hurt in 2020.

Last season, I wrote the Off Day Dreaming blogs on every off day, but this season there aren’t many off days. There aren’t many games. So instead, I have decided to use the Off Day Dreaming format following each series. Yankees Thoughts will be posted after each series this season. There wasn’t a series this past weekend against the Mets, but after the weekend’s injury updates from the Yankees, I thought it would be good to sort through it all.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. I think Luke Voit summed up the Yankees’ injury situation best when he said, “Obviously it’s a part of the game, but it’s crazy that it’s happening again.” He’s right, it is crazy that it’s happening again. It’s unbelievable is what it is. As of right now, the Yankees are missing four of their nine everyday position players (DJ LeMahieu, Aaron Judge, Gleyber Torres, Giancarlo Stanton), their second-best reliever (Zack Britton), a starting pitcher (James Paxton), their backup catcher (Kyle Higashioka) and Aaron Boone’s go-to reliever (Luis Avilan). This is in addition to having lost their No. 2 starter (Luis Severino) and an elite relief option (Tommy Kahnle) for the season. And this doesn’t include all of the injuries the team would have had to play the first half of the season with had the season started on time.

2. Paxton was placed on the injured list with an elbow issue suffered in his most recent start, in which he once again blew a lead to the Rays with a three-run inning. “At first when it happened, I was thinking, ‘This can’t be happening,’” Paxton said. “It just continued to get tighter and tighter. Considering the circumstances, I got very lucky with the injury.” How could Paxton think, “This can’t be happening?” Paxton gets hurt. That’s what he does. He has never made 30 starts in a season and has never pitched more than 160 1/3 innings in a season. Why? Because he gets hurt. He has been on the disablied list/injured list at least once in every season in his career. The Yankees knew who they were trading for and what they were getting when they dealt for the oft-injured left-hander, so none of this should come as a suprise to them. Last season — his first with the Yankees — he missed a month with a knee injury and then hurt his back in his final regular-season start, which eventually led to surgery in February. I’m shocked that Paxton is shocked that he is hurt again.

3. “It should be a short-term thing,” Paxton said. “My goal is to make it back for the end of the season. Hopefully get a few starts in before the postseason begins.” An elbow injury for a pitcher usually isn’t a “short-term thing” in a regular 162-game season, and this elbow injury has come in late August in a 60-game season with 35 games left. Paxton is shut down right now. Then he has to be built back up from basically nothing to the point where he can pitch in a game. I don’t see how it’s possible he could “get a few starts in” with the regular season ending on Sept. 27, which is 35 days from now. And even if he were to “get a few starts in,” who wants Paxton starting a postseason game? He wasn’t deserving of a postseason start before this injury, now he’s going to come back from the injury and suddenly be good enough to be a Top 3 starter on this team? It’s bullpen or nothing for Paxton when he comes back.

4. With Paxton out, there’s an open rotation spot. How should the Yankees handle that open spot? By giving it to Clarke Schmidt. How will the Yankees most likely handle that open spot? By using an opener. Why won’t the Yankees turn to Schmidt? I’ll allow Boone to explain. “[Schmidt] not being on the roster makes it not so simple,” Boone said. “But he’s certainly doing well down there and the reports we continue to get are strong.” Schmidt isn’t an option because he isn’t on the Yankees’ 40-man roster, and putting him on the roster would mean getting rid of someone else and it would also mean starting his service time. In the middle of a championship window, the Yankees aren’t going to put the best possible team together because they might have to cut a reliever undeserving of a 40-man spot and because they continue to operate as if they don’t have endless financial resources. I have a list of names who could be designated for assignment to make room for Schmidt. It’s not hard. Instead, 40 percent of the Yankees’ rotation will be J.A. Happ and an undetermined opener.

5. The good news is DJ LeMahieu is rehabbing this thumb injury. The bad news is what Boone said about LeMahieu’s injury. “I’m excited about how he’s progressed since the injury, because he was in some pretty good pain and had some pretty good swelling in there and lack of range of motion.” So according to Boone, LeMahieu had “some pretty good pain” and “some pretty good swelling” and also a “lack of range of motion,” yet he was evaluated at the plate after the injury and allowed to stay in the game, and evaluated again in the field and allowed to stay in the game. It’s good to know pain, swelling and lack of range of motion aren’t symptoms of someone who needs to removed from a game.

6. Torres is out for two to three weeks after suffering Grade 1 strains to his left quad and hamstring running out a ground ball. So essentially his entire left leg is in shambles from running 90 feet? That is so Yankees it hurts. “The players prepared really well during the quarantine; myself, I prepared really well,” Torres said. “I think injuries just happen.” Torres is right, injuries do just happen, and there’s nothing you can do to prevent them. Unfortunately, the team he plays for doesn’t realize this, and they don’t realize there is nothing that can be done to prevent them from happening even as they continue to records for amount of injured players.

7. “Giancarlo did some running outside on the field, probably about half-speed,” Boone said. “He continues to make really good improvements. Nothing imminent there, but he is making steady progress.” That’s good name for the eventual Stanton biography: Nothing Imminent There: The Giancarlo Stanton Story. I don’t think anyone thought there was anything imminent about a return for Stanton given everything that happened in 2019. Like I have said in all the Yankees Thoughts blogs since Stanton got hurt, I will believe he’s back when he’s standing in the batter’s box in an actual game, and I don’t think that will be happening this season with five weeks left.

8. Judge is expected back on Tuesday. That doesn’t mean he will be back, just that he’s expected back. If you have learned anything from timetables to return from Judge’s previous injuries, then you should know he usually doesn’t meet those timetables. “I felt like I could have been back out there after a couple of days,” Judge said on Sunday. “That’s why I was so adamant about not going on the IL to begin with. … I’m feeling great,” Judge said. “I could run around, I could jump, I could swing a bat, I could throw. Everything that you need to do for a baseball game, I could do.” If Judge was not injured like he claims he wasn’t and was able to play all along, then how did the Yankees know he was banged up in order to remove him from the most recent game he played in? He had just hit a home run and there was no visible injury with him, so clearly he said something to Boone or the training staff, which led to his removal and then to his being placed on the injured list. If Judge was as healthy as he says he was, he wouldn’t have said anything about possibly being injured.

9. Boone talked about the Yankees’ weekend series against the Mets being postponed. “It’s the world we’re living in. We understand that,” Boone said. “It certainly is a little frustrating, especially when we haven’t been infected with it, but that’s the nature of this. We knew what we signed up for and unfortunately it’s happened to us now a couple times. That doesn’t make it ideal, but we also understand that we have to deal with it.” Boone talks like someone who knows any game could be postponed, yet he manages like someone who thinks there are zero days off this season. The Yankees had Friday off. They had Saturday off. They had Sunday off. They are off today. They are off again on Thursday. Every single player and pitcher better be available for a two-game series in Atlanta, otherwise, what’s the point of anything? I’m sure Boone already has scheduled off days for Luke Voit and Gio Urshela this week that were mapped out in July, and he will follow through on them, even if 44 percent of his everyday lineup is out as of right now, and 33 percent of it will still be out if Judge does return on Tuesday.

10. The Yankees trail the Rays by one game in the division. That means the Yankees are currently the No. 4 seed in the AL’s eight-team playoff field, and that means they are currently in line to face the Indians the first round, best-of-3 series. The Rays would face the Orioles right now. The difference between being the 1-seed or the 4-seed is enormous. You can write it down that the Top 7 seeds in the AL will be the Yankees, Rays, Twins, Indians, White Sox, A’s and Astros in some order. The 8-seed will be the Orioles or Blue Jays or Tigers or Rangers or some other horrible team which wouldn’t sniff the postseason race in a 162-game season in a five-team format and might not even finish at .500 this season. Would you rather have the Yankees play a team from the first list of teams or the second list of teams in a best-of-3? If you follow the Yankees’ line of thinking that “just getting in the playoffs” is enough and it doesn’t matter what seed you are, remember that line of thinking when Shane Bieber strikes out 15 Yankees in Game 1 of the first round.

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

The Yankees had a three-game loss-column lead on the Rays entering this recent three-game series and a chance to create some real separation in the standings and essentially end the division race. Instead, the Yankees lost all three games and now trail the Rays by a 1/2 game. On top of that, the Yankees added Zack Britton to the injured list and Gleyber Torres and James Paxton are expected to join him.

Last season, I wrote the Off Day Dreaming blogs on every off day, but this season there aren’t many off days. There aren’t many games. So instead, I have decided to use the Off Day Dreaming format following each series. Yankees Thoughts will be posted after each series this season.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. Three days ago, I wrote about how the Yankees have the deepest team in baseball (which they still do) and talked about how the Yankees could win the division this week (which they can no longer do). At the time the Yankees had DJ LeMahieu, Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton on the injured list and they had a 2 1/2-game lead in the AL East. Today, the Yankees have added Zack Britton to the injured list, will most likely add Gleyber Torres and James Paxton, and their 2 1/2-game lead is now a 1/2-game deficit. First, the perfect 2020 home record went, then the home series unbeaten streak went and then the division lead went. The Yankees lost all three game to the Rays to fall to 1-6 on the season against their only competition for the AL East and they did so with a combination of awful managing, poor pitching and a lack of offense. Did I mention awful managing? Because it was possibly the worst managed series by Aaron Boone since he threw away the 2018 ALDS against the Red Sox. The Yankees had a chance to put the Rays away with 35 games left and instead they gave away their division lead.

2. The Yankees lost the first two games of the series and were clinging to a 1/2-game lead in the division, setting up the series finale to be the biggest game the Yankees have played and might play in the regular season. When the lineup was posted, Mike Tauchman was listed as the 3-hitter. About 12 hours earlier on Wednesday night, Tauchman wasn’t allowed to bat in the bottom of the ninth and was pinch hit for by Miguel Andujar. Andujar struck out on three pitches and was sent down to the alternate site after the game. So Andujar was good enough to pinch hit for someone the Yankees feel can bat third in a lineup, but then following the pinch-hit at-bat wasn’t good enough to be on the Yankees. And Tauchman wasn’t good enough to bat for himself in the ninth inning as the tying run, but was good enough the following day to bat third in the starting lineup. The Yankees have used these players as their 3-hitters this season: Tauchman, Torres, Aaron Hicks, Mike Ford, Clint Frazier and Gio Urshela. Three of the six aren’t everyday players on the Yankees when the team is at full strength, but apparently, everyone gets a chance to bat third for the New York Yankees!

3. The Yankees led the series finale 2-0 before James Paxton had his routine meltdown. Paxton blew the lead in the fifth inning and the Rays went ahead 3-2. In the bottom of the fifth, the Yankees answered with an Urshela two-run home run to go back ahead 4-3. Then the top of the sixth happened. Boone removed Paxton (which was the right move) and went to Adam Ottavino (which was also the right move). Two correct moves in a row for Boone! Clearly, Boone had a predetermined plan of Ottavino for the sixth, Chad Green for the seventh and the eighth and Aroldis Chapman for the ninth since Britton had been placed on the injured list. It was a good plan … in theory. Except plans in baseball rarely work out. The game doesn’t let you perfectly map out your relief situation, and the problem with that is Boone doesn’t know how to deviate from the plan once it goes awry. Ottavino allowed a double to lead off the inning and then walked the next batter. First and second and no outs. Bad Ottavino was clearly in the game, but with the three-batter rule and limited “elite” options, he was going to have to figure it out, and I was OK with him figuring it out. Ottavino got a lineout and strikeout to hold the runners and move one out away from getting out of the self-induced jam. Ottavino got the soft contact every pitcher dreams of, but the bloopiest bloop of all time fell in over Tyler Wade’s outstretched glove to score the tying run. It was unfortunate, but just bad luck. What happened next wasn’t bad luck, it was just plan dumb.

4. Due up for the Rays was the left-handed Joey Wendle. Under no circumstances will Boone allow Ottavino to face a left-handed hitter, especially with the go-ahead run on third and the game on the line. But Boone’s plan of Ottavino for the entire inning and then Green had fallen apart and he needed to adjust. Rather than go to the Yankees’ best reliever in Green like the Rays’ Kevin Cash would have done and has done all season against the Yankees, Boone went to Luis “Everyday” Avilan for a left-on-left matchup to try to “steal” the third out of the sixth. Given Boone’s early-season obsession of Avilan, I knew he would eventually have to lose a game for Boone to lose trust in him. That game came on Aug. 8 in the second game of the doubleheader in Tampa when Avilan let both runners he inherited score and the Yankees lost by two. Or so I thought. Evidently, one disaster for Avilan against the Rays wasn’t enough. Avilan allowed a single to Wendle to put the Rays up 5-4. Boone’s attempt to steal an out had blown up in his face and now because of the three-batter minimum, Avilan had to stay in to face the right-handed hitting Mike Zunino. Zunino crushed a three-run home run to put the Rays up 8-4. Game over.

5. It’s not Avilan’s fault he blew the game. He isn’t very good. He didn’t offer himself a contract with the Yankees and he doesn’t continue to put himself into games for them. Avilan has been on six teams in five years. There’s a reason for that and the reason isn’t because he’s really good at getting out of jams and pitching in high-leverage situations. Green had pitched once and thrown 33 pitches over the last eight days. He could have gotten the last out of the sixth and pitched the seventh and the eighth. But even if Boone didn’t want him to get seven outs, he could have used Green to finish the sixth and then seen what the Yankees’ offense did in the bottom of the sixth (they scored a run). Rather than worry about the next inning or the day next day or the next game, how about worrying about the situation at hand? And guess what? There is no next day or next game right now after a Mets player and staff member tested positive for coronavirus, so it will be at least another few days until Green throws a pitch in a game. The Yankees continue to give their players excessive rest and scheduled off days and keep enforcing their load management strategy when it clearly doesn’t work. After setting the all-time record by putting 30 players on the injured list last season, the Yankees might break that record this season in only 60 games. Every game should be treated with the utmost importance because it’s only a 60-game season and because the next day’s game is always in jeopardy of being postponed by the coronavirus.

6. The problem is the Yankees don’t feel any game is of the utmost importance. They were going to implement their extra rest methods this season even before the postseason field was expanded to eight teams. Now with more than half of the AL going to the playoffs, the Yankees simply don’t care if they win the division or have home-field advantage or play the most possible games in Yankee Stadium in October. They just want to get in, the same way they have just wanted to get in for the last decade, and they have endured the same fate every time they have “just gotten in” over that time: by losing. Boone said as much this week at the Stadium. The Yankees aren’t going to go all out to win the AL East. If they do, great. If they don’t, no big deal. It will be a big deal when they have to travel in October or play more games in a series in Tampa, Oakland or Houston.

7. The Yankees’ current injured list includes:

Zack Britton (hamstring)
Kyle Higashioka (oblique)
Aaron Judge (apparently his entire lower body?)
DJ LeMahieu (thumb)
Giancarlo Stanton (hamstring)

I would be shocked if Torres (hamstring) and Paxton (elbow) aren’t added to the injured list. Luis Severino (elbow) and Tommy Kahnle (elbow) are out for the season. If the 2020 season had started on time, Paxton would have missed the beginning of the season with a completely different injury (back), and Judge (rib/lung) and Stanton (calf) would have missed the first half of the season with completley different injuries than they currently have. And Aaron Hicks (elbow) also would have missed the first half of the season if it had started on time. Excessive rest and load management is working well!

8. The Boone, Avilan and Luis Cessa fans on social media who are pretty vocal whenever any of the three does something positive (it’s rare) were very quiet during and after the series finale. It must have been a scheduled day off for those fans. I don’t think the Yankees are going to move on from Booone after this season when his contract expires. The Hal Steinbrenner Yankees don’t like to upset the apple cart and as long as ownership is making money and turning a profit, they don’t care if the team wins championships or if every member of the team is good at their job. Boone will likely get a three-year contract, the way Girardi did when his initital three-year contract was up. (Girardi got a three-year contract then another three-year contract and then a four-year contract.) Boone was hired because of his communication skills and ability to manage a clubhouse with an even-keeled personality. At least that’s what everoyne says. He clearly wasnt hired for his experience since he didn’t have any before becoming Yankees manager and let’s hope he wasn’t hired for his bullpen management or lineup construction, otherwise that evaluation process needs to be revamped entirely. Boone’s so-called communication speciality though now appears as questionable as his calls to the bullpen after telling lies about Judge’s removal from a game last week and after removing Gerrit Cole was from his start this week.

9. The only glimmer of hope for Boone not returning in 2021 is that Cashman asks the opinions of his players before extending Boone a new contract, because Cole, who will be a Yankee for nearly the next decade, clearly has a problem with Boone. Or at least he does right now. After Boone ended Cole’s winning streak in Tampa a couple weeks ago, he removed him with one out remaining in the seventh this week. Boone motioned to the bullpen before he reached Cole on the mound and then Cole let him have it with his glove covering his mouth, continued to vent in the dugout and then kept going with the media after the game. “I’m just going to keep it at less is more right now,” Cole said after the game, not wanting to say something he might regret about his manager. “I wanted to finish the game. I think the body of work over the course of today and over the course of the last start speaks for itself.” Cole was right. He has earned the right to get out of jams and pitch until he feels his start is over. Personally, I would haven’t even sent him back out for the seventh at 99 pitches because I believe every pitcher’s arm only has a certain number of pitches in it before it breaks down, and there’s no reason to extend Cole in the fifth start into a decade with the team. But once Boone sent him back out there, he should have let him finish the inning. “[Boone] made the move before he even got out there, so it didn’t really matter whatever I said to him on the mound,” Cole said. “Whatever I said to him in my glove, we’ll just leave it at that.” I wish I knew what Cole said to him in his glove because it’s probably similar to many things I have said about him over the last nearly three seasons.

10. The next day, Boone was asked again about Cole and said, “He’s an ace in the sport, and I love the fact that he wants the ball. Sometimes that spills over with some emotion when there’s a lot on the line, so I really don’t have an issue with it.” I like how Boone thinks him having an issue with it would even matter. Boone does a job thousands of people can do. Cole does a job only he and Jacob deGrom can do. No one cares if Boone has an issue with Cole’s reaction or remarks and the Yankees’ front office certainly doesn’t. I wonder who they would side with. The Yankees owe Cole more per start than they own Boone per year and Cole is the the franchise’s most important piece to winning a championship. Boone can’t win championships for the Yankees, he can only lose them, and so far he’s proving he will do that. I’m sure the two are actually fine, but maybe they’re not? Maybe Cole won’t be inviting his fellow Greenwich neighbor Boone over to play catch anytime soon and maybe he will have an opinion if Cashman asks him about Boone at the end of the season.

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Subscribe to the Keefe To The City Podcast. New episodes after every game throughout the season.

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

The Yankees are back to their winning ways. After losing five of seven, the Yankees have now won six straight to improve to 16-6 with an important series over the next three days against the Rays at Yankee Stadium.

Last season, I wrote the Off Day Dreaming blogs on every off day, but this season there aren’t many off days. There aren’t many games. So instead, I have decided to use the Off Day Dreaming format following each series. Yankees Thoughts will be posted after each series this season.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. It sucks to lose your starting right fielder, designated hitter (since he’s apparently no longer an outfielder) and second baseman (late-game, defensive-replacement first baseman) to injuries. It sucks even more when two of those three injuries are mishandled the way nearly every Yankees injury has been mishandled over the last two years. But it sucks a lot less when the replacements for your everyday players would be everyday players on every other team in the majors. The Yankees’ front office deserves a lot of credit for finding Luke Voit, discovering Mike Tauchman, figuring out Gio Urshela and grooming Mike Ford. They have created a roster so deep that the “B” team of the Yankees is better than most “A” rosters in baseball. Even the “C” and “D” versions of the Yankees are better than most other “A” lineups.

2. The Yankees used this lineup on Monday against the Red Sox:

Aaron Hicks, CF
Luke Voit, 1B
Clint Frazier, RF
Gleyber Torres, SS
Gary Sanchez, DH
Miguel Andujar, LF
Thairo Estrada, 3B
Erik Kratz, C
Tyler Wade, 2B

That’s a late-February or early-March spring training lineup. That might even be a road game lineup in spring training. Five of the nine players weren’t supposed to be starting games for the Yankees this season and four of the nine were part of the alternate site within the last two weeks.

3. The Yankees have the deepest team in baseball and Voit said exactly that after Monday’s 6-3 win to complete a four-game sweep of the Red Sox. “We have the deepest team in baseball,” Voit said after homering twice in the win. “Guys are coming up and providing us with innings, at-bats, everything.” Voit led the offense, but Estrada and Hicks also homered, and John Sterling echoed Voit’s comment. “Amazing how they come off the bench and do the job,” Sterling said after Estrada’s home run cleared the wall before finishing his call,. “Thairo Estrada! Thairo … hits one to Cairo!”

4. The Yankees didn’t just beat or sweep the Red Sox, they thoroughly embarrassed them. The Yankees outscored their “rival” (I use that term loosely now since the Red Sox won’t be any good for the forseeable future) 31-13 over the four games to improve to 7-0 on the season against them. The Yankees have now won 10 consecutive games against the Red Sox for the first time since 1952-53. Yankees-Red Sox games are supposed to be four-hour battles, featuring extended at-bats, multiple lead changes and suspenseful drama. Each win in the season series is supposed to feel more like a relief than it is satisfying and a series win is supposed to feel euphoric. These games aren’t supposed to be lopsided with blowout scores in which the game is over before it even starts because the Red Sox are starting Nathan Eovaldi or Ryan Weber or Chris Mazza or Martin Perez or another garbage starting pitcher. I’m not complaining, I’m just not used to it. The days of one team inevitably winning the season series 10-9 are over. I prefer this version of Yankees-Red Sox where the Yankees can pad their win total and the Red Sox and their fans are humiliated. I just wish this season were 162 games rather than 60, so Red Sox fans would have had to sit through this mess for six months. Then again, it doesn’t seem like next year or the year after or the year after that will be any different for the Red Sox.

5. J.A. Happ finally pitched well. I wrote J.A. Happ Can’t Start Another Game for the Yankees after his most recent start and I stand by it. I don’t care that he pitched well against the worst team in baseball. If given enough chances, he was eventually going to have one good start. It’s like with Aaron Hicks batting first or third. He might go 0-for-25, but then when he hits a home run, I hear about it on social media as if it were some great accomplishment. Hicks is a major league hitter. If given enough at-bats in a premium lineup spot, he’ll eventually come through. If you tell your kid to clean their room every day for two weeks and they don’t, and then in the third week they finally do, it’s no great achievement and shouldn’t be rewarded. The same goes for Happ. He pitched well. Great. That’s his job. And he has rarely done his job since the start of the 2019 season. He should still be removed from the rotation and his spot should be given to Deivi Garcia or Clarke Schmidt. One good start against a Red Sox lineup wishing the season would end shouldn’t buy Happ several more starts. Each start of his should be treated as though he’s pitching for his job.

6. Happ was asked about the Yankees skipping a start of his because of his vesting option which is either tied to innings or starts and hasn’t been made public. “That is a subject that I think I am going to stay away from right now,” Happ said. Apparently, the left-hander had two conversations with Aaron Boone, one of which was good in Happ’s mind and one which wasn’t. “One of them went very well and the second one I didn’t think went very well,” Happ said without going into details. Happ didn’t need to go into details for anyone to decipher what was said. The conversation that “went very well” was clearly about Boone telling Happ the Yankees need him and he’s a big part of the team and an important piece in what they’re trying to accomplish and blah, blah, blah. The conversation that Happ “didn’t think went very well” was clearly Boone telling Happ they were going to skip his turn in the rotation. I’m not sure how Happ could be upset about any conversation he has. He should be lucky to have any conversation with anyone who’s part of the Yankees because he should be lucky to still be a part of the Yankees. You want to pitch every five days and not have your starts skipped and only have pleasant conversations with the manager? Don’t allow 15 baserunners in your first seven innings of the season after pitching to a 4.91 ERA the season before. You want your vesting option to vest and to continue to be a major league starter? Stop failing to give the team length, stop walking the park and stop giving up home runs.

7. On Monday, Giancarlo Stanton spoke about his latest injury, a hamstring strain. “Words can’t really describe the disappointment I’ve had over this,” Stanton said. “You can’t really dwell on it.” Last season, Stanton played in the first three games of the season on March 28, March 30 and March 31 before suffering a biceps strain. While rehabbing the biceps strain, he strained his shoulder and then while rehabbing his shoulder strain, he strained his calf. Stanton didn’t appear in another game until June 18 and only played in 18 regular-season games total. For all the disappointment he’s enduring, fans are enduring the same because they have barely watched him play as a Yankee. The Yankees made him the full-time designated hitter this season to keep him out of the field and to try to prevent his injury-prone body from suffering more injuries, and yet, he still got hurt running the bases.

8. “I have to see what’s in front of me, and that’s still a decent amount of the season and playoffs,” Stanton said. “I was in this situation before. It seems unreal at times, but I can just push forward and root for my guys until I’m back.” Stanton was in this situation before. He was in this situation last season. He played March 28-31. Then he played from June 18-June 25. Then he played Sept. 18-29. He managed to come back in late September and get 34 plate appearances (..286/.382/.571) before the postseason, but then he ended up getting hurt in the postseason as well and only played in five of the Yankees’ nine postseason games, missing Games 2, 3, 4 and 6 of the ALCS. The Yankees are better when Stanton is healthy and in the lineup, but it’s been so long since he was in the lineup every day that even when he’s in the lineup, I’m just waiting for the next extended period of time that he won’t be. I find it hard to believe his hamstring strain will go away in the three to four weeks the Yankees reported it would because of how poorly he has returned from injuries in the past. I don’t expect to see Stanton again this season, and anything he gives the Yankees in 2020 should be treated as a bonus or surprise because that’s what it will be.

9. It’s good that the Yankees have another elite relief option now in Aroldis Chapman because it means less appearances in important situations for Jonathan Holder and Luis Cessa and Luis Avilan. Or at least I hope it does. It also frees up Zack Britton to pitch outside of the ninth inning and outside of the set closer’s role. I believe Britton is better than Chapman and I trust Britton much more than I trust Chapman. Because Boone will only user his closer in a save situation, I would rather have Chapman in that role, so Britton can pitch when the situation calls for him and not the inning. I tweeted before Chapman took the mount with a four-run lead for his 2020 debut on Monday that I didn’t trust him in that spot, especially against the Red Sox, and sure enough he made it interesting, but thankfully got out of it. Britton and Chad Green are the team’s best relievers and now they’re both available to pitch when needed, no matter the inning. Or least they should be.

10. The Yankees can win the division over the next three days. They currently have a 2 1/2-game lead over the Rays and a three-game lead in the all-important loss column. A sweep of the Rays would give the Yankees a 5 1/2-game lead and a six-game lead in the loss column. if the Yankees were to sweep, there would be 35 games left in the season, and if the Yankees were to go only 18-17 in those 35 games, the Rays would have to go 23-11 to tie them. A sweep would be wonderful, but I just want the Yankees to win the series. Take three games off the schedule, take three head-to-head games off the schedule and increase the lead over the Rays by another game. If the Yankees can do that, they will be on their way to winning the AL East and achieving the first goal of the season.

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Subscribe to the Keefe To The City Podcast. New episodes after every game throughout the season.

***

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

The Yankees won back-to-back games against the Braves and are off on Thursday before having the chance to further embarrass the Red Sox this season. But the Yankees might have to do so without their most important player as Aaron Judge is once again hurt.

Last season, I wrote the Off Day Dreaming blogs on every off day, but this season there aren’t many off days. There aren’t many games. So instead, I have decided to use the Off Day Dreaming format following each series. Yankees Thoughts will be posted after each series this season.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. Yes, the Yankees won two games in a row, but let’s start with the most important story: Aaron Judge. On Tuesday night, Judge hit his league-leading ninth home run in the fifth inning and the Yankees had an 8-0 lead after five. In the sixth inning, Judge was removed from the game for Mike Tauchman. Had Aaron Boone removed Judge from the game because it was a “blowout” even though it wasn’t? That was the most likely answer, but still a ridiculous answer since the game was far from over at the time and would be far from over as the Braves would eventually bring the tying run to the plate. Was Judge hurt? This was less likely of an answer since Judge had just hit a home run, and unless he got hurt running the bases following a home run (something I could see Giancarlo Stanton doing), how had he gotten hurt between the home run and being removed from the game? Judge was seen leaning up against the railing in the dugout and laughing and smiling with his teammates after he was removed from the game, so I wasn’t worried. If he had gotten hurt in the game, he would have been in the clubhouse getting treatment or somewhere other than the dugout. After the game, Boone distinguished my fears when he said, “Coming off of four days on the turf and with a little bit of of leverage there, just trying to be smart with these guys. Judgie hasn’t really had that day down. I gave him the DH day and I just want to make sure we’re being smart with everyone.” As expected, Judge being removed from the game was just Boone being an idiot and Judge wasn’t hurt. The amount of times Boone has held a player out and cited himself for “being smart” is comical given how many players eventually do get hurt after he praises himself for being “smart about giving unnecessary days off. The next day, on Wednesday, it became known that Boone wasn’t trying to be “smart” about Judge, instead he was lying about him.

2. On Wednesday, when the lineup came out, Judge’s name wasn’t listed. Boone was asked about Judge not being in the lineup and said, “It’s kind of all over the lower body where he’s dealing with some rigor. The hips and down into the hamstrings and calves. I think it’s a result of the four games’ pounding in three days down in Tampa.” So now Judge was hurt and Boone had lied on Tuesday, and Boone wasn’t trying to be “smart” about Judge when he removed him from the game. Joe Girardi spent his first season as Yankees manager lying to the media and then broke down on the final day of the season because of the way he handled the media and injuries all season. If Judge isn’t actually hurt and can play on Friday then what happened the last two days will be worse for Boone than lying. It would mean Judge can’t handle playing four games and 32 innings over three days (since two of the games were seven innings). It would mean he needs even more time off than he has received and he just had a game off last week in Philadelphia (he pinch hit late in the game), and the Yankees have had an abundance of days off through the first 18 games of the season, including having had Monday off before the Braves series and Thursday off after the Braves series. Maybe the injury really is nothing and Judge will play on Friday, but when it comes to the Yankees’ handling of injuries, you always have to expect the worst.

3. The Yankees’ handling of their injuries since Judge went down with a fractured wrist in July 2018 has been nothing short of ridiculous. The amount of times a Yankees player has been properly evaluated or correctly diagnosed or has returned from injury within the team’s original timetable can be counted on one hand, and you might not even need all your fingers on that one hand to do the counting. Judge hasn’t exactly been the most healthy player in his three-plus seasons as a major leaguer. He was shut down for the final two weeks of the 2016 season with an oblique injury. In 2017, he battled a second-half shoulder injury which cost him the AL MVP (along with Jose Altuve and his teammates knowing which pitches were coming). He missed one third of the season in 2018 after getting drilled by a pitch on his wrist, which certainly was a freak injury, and then he missed two months last season after suffering another oblique injury. Judge missed about 25 percent of the last three seasons due to injury and if the 2020 season had started on time, he wouldn’t have been available until the shortened version of the 2020 season began. Judge is the most important player on the Yankees and not having him for part of any season is an issue, especially in a shortened season. If any injury were to linger or keep him out for significant time this season, winning the division would be in jeopardy and winning the postseason would be extremely hard.

4. Welcome back, Clint Frazier! I have long wanted Frazier to get a chance to be an everyday player on the Yankees, but between Frazier getting hurt every time he’s given a chance or playing horrific defense or underperforming, it hasn’t worked out. But now Frazier has another chance to prove to the Yankees he should be part of the future, and he started his 2020 season off with a home run and followed with a rocket single and crushed double. I get that Mike Tuchman is vaulable for now and has a place on this team, but Frazier has a future. Frazier is 25 and Tauchman is 29. On Opening Day next year, Frazier will be 26 and Tauchman will be 30. Brett Gradner can’t be a Yankeee forever (and with the way he’s playing, he won’t be one in 20201) and the Yankees will need major league outfield depth. Frazier needs to use this opportunity to prove he should be an everyday player when the frail outfield inevitably gets hurt. This might be his last chance to do so.

5. DJ LeMahieu is the best player on the Yankees. Judge is the most important, but LeMahieu is the best. LeMahieu is hitting .431(!) with a 1.048 OPS as a leadoff hitter. (It’s actually unbelievable.) On top of that, he gets a hit every time there are runners in scoring position, is the most clutch hitter on the team and can play all over the infield. He was the team’s MVP last season and will be again this season if Judge can’t stay healthy. LeMahieu is 32, but doesn’t play like it, and the Yankees have to extend him this season or re-sign him after the season. This team needs LeMahieu’s contact, unshiftable bat, and it can’t survive without him.

6. Jonathan Holder isn’t elite and he can’t be trusted to be elite. He’s a good, middle-tier reliever. He’s not someone who should be asked to close out a game with a four-run lead in the ninth. I don’t care that the run Holder allowed on Wednesday was the first earned run he’s allowed all season. A 6 1/3 inning sample size isn’t how I judge Holder. I judge him over his career. Yes, in 2018 he had a crazy scoreless streak, but John Flaherty once had a 27-game hitting streak in the majors. Crazy things happen with mediocre players sometimes. In 2018, Holder also pooped his pants in the biggest game of the season to open a four-game series in Boston with the division on the line when he allowed seven earned runs without recording an out. And last season, Holder had a 6.31 ERA and 4.45 FIP and pitched himself off the team. He’s good enough to be on the Yankees, he’s not good enough to be treated as a trustwothy option when Boone is inexplicably trying to steal outs without using Zack Britton.

7. Luis Avilan (or “Everyday Avilan”) pitched on Wednesday because why wouldn’t he? He has to warm up or come into every game as a Yankee. It’s a rule. Boone loves Avilan and that love will likely carry over into October. In the 2011 ALDS, Girardi used Luis Ayala twice in the series before using David Robertson once. I wouldn’t be surprised to see something similar happen this postseason with Boone going to Avilan before he goes go any of his elite relievers. Remember, Boone doesn’t only try to steal outs in the regular season. He does it in the postseason too.

8. I don’t expect to see Giancarlo Stanton again this season. the recovery time for a Grade 1 hamstring strain is three to four weeks for an average person. Stanton isn’t average in terms of rehabbing injuries and getting healthy. Last season, Stanton had a biceps strain turn into a shoulder strain while rehabbing the biceps strain and that turned into a calf strain. He played in 18 regular-season games and then got hurt in the postseason as well. He would have missed the first half (or more) of this season if it had started on time, and then after 14 games as the DH in this shortened season, he has a hamstring strain. If Stanton comes back and is the player he can be when healthy and going right, it will be a bonus for the 2020 Yankees. I wouldn’t count on seeing him again this season and I won’t believe he will play again in 2020 until he’s actually standing in the batter’s box in a real game.

9. The Yankees got the Rays’ season back on track for them. The Rays have won five in a row and are 1 1/2 games behind the Yankees. The Yankees are off on Thursday and the Rays will most likely beat the Red Sox with the Yankees off, so the lead will be one game. The Yankees need to beat up on the Red Sox this wekend at the Stadium the way they did two weeks ago and the way the entire league has beat up on them this season. Whichever teams beats up on the Red Sox more this season will likely win the division. It’s good to have the Red Sox at the basement of the division. It would have been even better if this were a 162-game season with fans so their fanbase would have had to sit through this miserable season for even longer.

10. The Yankees need to win the divsion and have home-field advantage throughout the postseason. Michael Kay gave a stat the other night that the Yankees have now won 26 straight home series. That’s because the Yankees are built to play at the Stadium with power hitting and power pitching. We saw how badly the Yankees are at the Trop and we know their struggles in Houston and Oakland as well. They need do everything they can to make sure they play the most games possible at the Stadium in October and that means playing their everyday lineup every day. Just getting into the postseason isn’t enough. It hasn’t been enough for a long time.

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Subscribe to the Keefe To The City Podcast. New episodes after every game throughout the season.

***

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

On Friday morning, the Yankees were 9-3 and had a four-game lead in the division. Now they’re 10-6 and have a two-game lead after losing three of four in Tampa. It was a bad weekend against the Yankees’ only competition in the AL East, and it proved the Yankees need to avoid playing as many as games as possible at Tropicana Field in October.

Last season, I wrote the Off Day Dreaming blogs on every off day, but this season there aren’t many off days. There aren’t many games. So instead, I have decided to use the Off Day Dreaming format following each series. Yankees Thoughts will be posted after each series this season.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. Last week when I was criticizing Aaron Boone for his lineup and bullpen decisions in blogs and on podcasts and social media, many Yankees fans were quick to say, “They’re 8-1!” or “They need to rest guys because they have four games in three days against the Rays!” in defense of Boone. Well, now the Yankees are 10-6, having lost five of seven and just dropped three of four in Tampa. It turns out giving away winnable games against the Phillies for no reason isn’t a good strategy. The idiotic decisions of the Yankees manager caught up with the team and the offense was overmatched by the Rays’ bullpen all weekend. Thankfully, the Yankees were able to hold off the Rays’ comeback in the first game on Saturday or the Yankees’ four-game division lead would have been erased in three days.

2. The Yankees’ division lead has been cut in half to two games. Yes, the Yankees are going to the postseason, but in order to win the pennant for the first time in 11 years and get back to the World Series, there is a very good chance the Yankees will see the Rays at some point in October. Now having lost 14 of 23 games at the Trop since 2018, it would be wise for the Yankees to make sure that in a series against the Rays, there are more games at Yankee Stadium than Tropicana Field. Unfortunately, the Yankees have proven over the last decade they could care less about home-field advantage in the playoffs, as long as they get in. After a decade of being eliminated early in the postseason, including four ALCS losses in the decade (in three of them they didn’t have home-field advantage), you would think the Yankees would change their approach to the regular season. They haven’t.

3. Back on May 5, 2009, Joba Chamberlain racked up 12 strikeouts in a start against the Red Sox. YES and many Yankees fans acted as if Chamberlain had joined Don Larsen, David Wells and David Cone in the Yankees’ Perfect Game club. You would have never known from the reaction of the Yankees’ network and fans that Chamberlain allowed eight baserunners and four earned runs in 5 2/3 innings in that game. Yesterday’s James Paxton start reminded me of that Chamberlain start. As soon as Paxton blew the 3-0 lead in the seventh, I was quick to call him out on social media, and either there a lot of Paxton fans on social media or a lot of his immediate family members use social media to defend him. Yes, Paxton looked unbelievable for the first six innings of the game, allowing one hit and striking out 11, and had he only pitched six innings, I would be writing about how Paxton might have figured out whatever was wrong for him in his first two starts. But the seventh inning counts. It’s part of his pitching line. It’s part of the story. It’s the main story. He was unable to finish the job, and not only did he not finish the job, he essentially left early for a two-week vacation without completing what he was working on, leaving his co-workers to handle his tasks while he was out. After Paxton allowed the two-run home run, he should have been removed from the game. His pitch count was at 85 and he had only thrown 41 and 62 pitches in his first two starts returning from back surgery. But if you thought Boone would make the right move or press the right button when it comes to the bullpen, you probably also still think a tiny fairy was the one putting money under your pillow when you lost a tooth growing up. Yes, Paxton looked much, much, much better than he did against the Nationals (1 IP, 3 ER) or the Red Sox (3 IP, 3 ER), but his start against the Rays has absolutely no bearing on how he will fare in his next start. He’s not someone who can be relied on to deliver six innings each time, and he’s not someone who can be relied on to keep the team in the game each start. When Paxton walked off the mound after giving up the game-tying home run, YES showed him staring into the Rays’ dugout after being chirped by opposing players. If you don’t want to get chirped, maybe don’t give up moonshots to Mike Brosseau and Brandon Lowe. On the same day Paxton was unable to get through seven innings, Justus Sheffield and Erik Swanson (two pitchers traded by the Yankees in exchange for Paxton), no-hit the Rockies for seven innings.4

4. Because I’m a nice person, back at the beginning of February, I said I would give Giancarlo Stanton a clean slate for the 2020 season. No sarcasm to start the season, no snarky comments, no “Ladies and gentlemen” tweets on Opening Day. I said I would be positive when it came to Stanton for as long as he let me be positive. Well, he didn’t let me be positive for very long. Stanton is the Yankees’ new Jacoby Ellsbury. After suffering a calf injury in February that would have kept him out of the first half of the season had it been played in full this year, it took Stanton playing in 14 games and zero in the outfield for him to now have an injured hamstring. This coming after he played in only 18 regular-season games in 2019 when he suffered a biceps strain which mysteriously turned into a shoulder strain which unfathomably turned into a calf strain. After hitting home runs in the first two games of the season and having everyone praise him for his new approach at the plate, slimmed-down body and physique, Stanton had turned back into the Yankees’ version of Stanton over the last two weeks. And now he’s hurt, so he’s really back to being the Stanton Yankees fans have come to know.

5. Boone said after Saturday’s doubleheader he expected Stanton to land on the injured list. In the past when Boone has said a player is healthy or fine or dealing with something minor, they have landed on the injured list and at times missed months. For Boone to outright say Stanton is likely to go on the injured list, it most likely means he’s done for the season. Stanton is 30 years old. He missed all of his 29 season, he was going to miss half of this season if it had been 162 games and now he’s going to miss a large portion of it as a 60-game season. The Yankees did all they could to protect him this season by continuing to refer to him an outfielder despite not allowing him to play the outfield for a single batter this season, and he still got hurt. If Stanton is incapable of running the bases as the designated hitter without getting hurt at the age of 30, what’s he going to be like when he’s 31 or 32 or 33 or 34 or 35 or 36 or 37, because the Yankees have him through his age 37 season. (Thankfully, the $10 million buyout for his age 38 season is covered by the Marlins.) Stanton took himself out of the lineup in the ALCS last October, playing in only two of the six games against the Astros. Given his history of being a slow healer, I doubt he will even be available for this postseason.

6. The siutational hitting of the Yankees is abysmal. In Friday’s 1-0 loss, the Yankees had the leadoff hitter on in four of the nine innings, and in the seventh and eighth innings, they had a runner on second with no outs. Clearly, none of those runners scored as the team was shutout, but neither time with the runner on second and no outs were the Yankees even able to get the runner to third with one out. When a fly ball or ground ball to the right side would be enough, the Yankees step in the box with one goal: hit a 500-foot home run. Each swing in an at-bat is bigger than the last, and outside of DJ LeMahieu and Gio Urshela, I’m not sure if anyone on the team changes their approach the worse the count gets for them. On Sunday, it was more bad situational hitting, as the Yankees were stifled by the Rays’ bullpen after Charlie Morton left the game early in the third inning. Unable to expand their 3-0 lead, the Yankees were eventually walked off on in the ninth inning. The only good thing to come from the walk-off single against Zack Britton was that we didn’t have to painfully sit through a 10th inning where the Yankees would have undoubtedly stranded the automatic runner on second with no outs.

7. It didn’t surprise me that Britton blew the game on Sunday. Entering the game, Britton had appeared in six of the team’s 15 games over 18 days. He had thrown only 59 pitches in games since July 23, or an average of 3.3 pitches per day this season. It’s a fine line with elite relievers and closers. They need work, but not too much work. They need rest, but not too much rest. They need just enough to stay sharp. Joe Girardi was very good at toeing the line. Boone isn’t sure where the line is and when it comes to Aroldis Chapman, he has no idea where the line is. We’ll see that soon enough when Chapman returns and Boone gives him a week off between appearances and then wonders why he’s wild in his outings.

8. The Yankees’ bullpen is no longer the best in baseball. Sure, it’s good, but without Tommy Kahnle and Aroldis Chapman it’s just good. And on days when Chad Green is unavailable (like Sunday) or on days when Boone doesn’t want to use Adam Ottavino (also like Sunday) and on days when Boone wants to stay away from Zack Britton (nearly every game this season), there aren’t many options remaining I’m confident in. There can’t be anyone who feels good about the Yankees’ chances in a close game when they see Luis Cessa or Jonathan Holder or Ben Heller or Luis Avilan enter a game. The Rays spent the weekend bringing in their top relievers into high-leverage situations and pitching their closer outside of the ninth inning when needed. Boone spent his weekend letting Holder face the top of teh Rays’ order in the eighth inning while Britton watched from the bullpen becaues Britton’s usage is based on the save stat and not on in-game situation. The bullpen is still better than many others in the game, but it’s nowhere near the Rays’ bullpen. The Rays’ bullpen pitched six scoreless innings on Friday night and another seven scoreless on Sunday. I’m more scared of the Rays than any other team in the AL when it comes to the postseason. They have three great starters in Blake Snell, Tyler Glasnow and Charlie Morton and a shutdown bullpen. Their lineup isn’t any good from a power standpoint, but they seem to get timely hits and hit the big home run when it’s needed. Every Yankees fan should be scared of the Rays come October, especially if they were to have home-field advantage.

9. In a big spot, in order, these are the Yankees I want up:

1. DJ LeMahieu
2. Aaron Judge
3. Gio Urshela
4. Mike Ford
5. Gleyber Torres

The first four, you know you’re getting a good at-bat from. The only way they are putting the first pitch they see in play is if it’s middle-middle and they can hit it hard somewhere. Torres, also normally will give you a good at-bat, except for lately.

10. When it comes to Torres, he needs to bat third. He was the No. 3 hitter on Opening Day, and now two weeks later, he’s batting sixth. A small slump to begin the season shouldn’t be enough to get a player demoted in the lineup, let alone a player like Torres. The Yankees need to stop treating the 3-hole like a merry-go-round and putting anyone on any day there. This weekend Aaron Hicks hit third, as did Mike Ford. The Yankees don’t think Ford is good enough to play every day, but somehow they think he’s good enough to bat third when he does play. As for Hicks, the Yankees need to stop forcing him into a premium lineup spot any chance they get. Please. It’s Torres vs. Hicks. It’s not a competition. When Hicks slumps, he never loses his top two-thirds spot in the lineup. When someone else slumps, Hicks takes their spot. Again, I don’t care that Hicks is a switch hitter. I don’t. Put him and his two good half-seasons in his major league career sixth or lower in the lineup.

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