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.

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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 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!

The Yankees’ winning streak ended at seven games thanks to J.A. Happ, and the Yankees only won two of their four games against the Phillies thanks to Aaron Boone. Now the Yankees head to Tampa for their biggest series of the season to date against their only true competition for the division.

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 didn’t surprise me when DJ LeMahieu and Aaron Judge weren’t in the lineup on Thursday against the Phillies. That’s because nothing surprises me when it comes to Aaron Boone anymore. Truly nothing. These lines from Stanley Hudson in The Office do a good job of explaining it:

Every day you do something stupider than the day before. And I think, “There’s no possible way he can top that.” But what do you do? You find a way, damnit, to top it! You are a professional idiot!

One day Boone will elect to have David Hale close out a game rather than Zack Britton. Then the next day he’ll allow J.A. Happ to remain in a game for much longer than he should and relieve Happ with low-end relievers to put a seven-inning game out of reach. Then the next day he’ll sit his 1- and 2-hitters in the same game, only to eventually use them as pinch hitters anyway. The only days off from Boone’s idiotic decisions are the days the Yankees don’t play. I wrote back on Jan. 3 that my New Year’s Resolution would be to not get upset with Boone this season, but it only took a few games for me to break that promise and I don’t think I will ever be able to go more than three days without vehemently disagreeing with a decision of his.

2. How absurd was it that Boone needed to give LeMahieu and Judge the day off on Thursday? Consider this:

Oct. 19: ALCS Game 6
Oct. 20 to Feb. 11: Off
Feb. 12 to Mar. 12: Spring training
Mar. 13 to June 30: Off
July 1 to July 20: Summer Camp
July 21: Off
July 22: Off
July 23: at Washington (six innings)
July 24: Off
July 25: at Washington
July 26: at Washington
July 27: Off
July 28: Off
July 29: at Baltimore
July 30: at Baltimore
July 31: vs. Boston
Aug. 1: vs. Boston
Aug. 2: vs. Boston
Aug. 3: vs. Philadelphia
Aug. 4: Off
Aug 5: at Philadelphia (double header of two seven-inning games)
Aug 6: at Philadelphia

How much time off do the Yankees need?

3. You want to give players half a game off on the day of a doubleheader? Fine. Given all the time off I just listed (the Yankees have played 12 games in nearly 10 months) and the fact the doubleheader consisted of two seven-inning games, no regular player needed either game off, but OK, you tried to give everyone a game off. To then follow it up the next day saying you’re “trying to pick strategic days off” for LeMahieu and Judge and your strategy is to give them the same day off? What? What are we even doing here? The Yankees are managing this season as if it’s a 162-game season over six months. I get that the Yankees are a lock for the postseason with the expanded field of eight teams per league, but maybe try to finish with the best record in the American League and in baseball for once? Try to play the most amount of games possible at Yankee Stadium in October. Try to do everything you can to put the team in the best possible position to win the World Series for the first time in more than a decade.

4. Essentially, Boone threw away two of the three games in Philadelphia. He threw away the first game of the doubleheader by letting Happ face the lineup a second time in a seven-inning game and then letting his low-end relievers put the game out of reach, and then he threw away Thursday’s game by not playing LeMahieu and Judge in a game the Yankees would lose by one run. You think six, seven or eight more at-bats from LeMahieu and Judge wouldn’t have resulted in the run that was the difference? I can accept losing when the offense gets shut down or when the pitching just doesn’t have it. Only once this season have the Yankees really lost a game they had no chance of winning and that was the second game of the season against the Nationals. Their other two lossers were winnable games. This weekend the Yankees have four games in three days against the Rays, their only competition to win the AL East. One of the days there’s a doubleheader, so two seven-inning games. If Boone wants to prove things are different, play the everyday lineup in each of the four games against the Rays, create real separation in the division and then give guys days off. Boone is managing his lineup like the Yankees have already wrapped things up because they’re 9-3 when they haven’t won a single thing, at 9-3, they don’t have the best record in the AL or in baseball, and yet, they are handing out days off to guys that have essentially been off since October. The Yankees haven’t won anything with Boone managing and they haven’t won anything with the load management strategy the team lives by.

5. LeMahieu is so good. I have been calling him D(erek) J(eter) LeMahieu since last season because of his ability to hit in the cluch and to consistently produce base hits to right field. He was the Yankees’ best overall player in 2019 and if not for Judge carrying the team to wins for a week straight this season, LeMahieu would have to be considered their best player again. After his pinch-hit single in the ninth last night (good thing he didn’t play the whole game), he’s now hitting .429 with a 1.037 OPS. If he were to go 0-for-20 starting on Friday night, he would still be hitting .290. That’s how good he has been. There’s no other hitter I want up in a big spot and there’s no other player on the field I want the ball hit to. I love LeMahieu.

6. The Yankees have a starting pitching problem. Outside of Gerrit Cole’s three starts, they haven’t received at least six innings from any other starter. Only once in the nine non-Cole games did the Yankees’ starter even get to the sixth inning (Jordan Montgomery’s first start). Despite this, the Yankees have won 9 of 12 because their bullpen has been so good, and because Judge hit late-game, go-ahead home runs for nearly a week straight, but it can’t continue. It’s a recipe for disaster to ask you bullpen to get about 15 outs per night. The Yankees purposely tried to use this strategy in the postseason and look where it got them. It got them a six-game loss to the Astros and Zack Britton speaking out about how tired and overworked the bullpen was in the ALCS. To this point, Chad Green, Adam Ottavino and Britton have barely worked, but even the lesser relievers like Luis Avilan, Jonathan Holder and David Hale will begin to get run down, and with how much Boone loves to go to the lesser arms, it won’t end well if they are fatigued.

7. The starting pitching has to be better. If the Yankees’ only consistent starter is Cole this season then they might as well pack up the bats and balls now and try again in 2021 when Luis Severino is back and maybe the team is ready to give Deivi Garcia and Clarke Schmidt a chance. There’s no way the Yankees can get through the postseason with an additional best-of-3 round with only Cole and a bunch of three- and four-inning starts from their relievers. I do believe Masahiro Tanaka will be fine once his pitch count is back to normal and he’s allowed to go a normal length in a game, but even still, that’s only two starters. Montgomery needs to be better than he was on Thursday because Happ and James Paxton seem like lost causes.

8. There’s nothing left to say about Happ that I didn’t write on Thursday or that I didn’t talk about on Thursday’s podcast. He can’t get another start. The Yankees have options like Garcia and Schmidt at the alternate site in Scranton in the event of underperformance or injury on the roster. Well, here is as good of an example of underperformance as you might ever see. Happ hasn’t been good since the start of 2019, and he’s not going to magically return to the pitcher he was in 2018 between now and the end of September. Even if Happ did miraculously turn into that guy, would you feel confident giving him the ball for a postseason start? The Yankees need to give someone else a chance to join the rotation in Happ’s spot, and they needed to be given that chance the next time Happ is scheduled to pitch. The Yankees are long past the point of giving Happ opportunities to turn it around.

9. Welcome back, Gary Sanchez! After taking a fastball in the left arm on Wednesday with noticeably left the seams indented on his skin, Sanchez was back in the lineup on Thursday and hit a two-run, opposite-field home run to finally look like the Sanchez we have all come to know since historically beginning his career in 2016. Sanchez would fly out in his next at-bat, though it was a much better at-bat than we have seen from him over the first two weeks of the season, so maybe that home run will spark his turnaround. I have never stopped believing in Sanchez and as the President of the Gary Sanchez Fan Club, I won’t stop believing in him. I might be the only member left in the club, but membership is going to start increase now.

10. What’s going on with Gleyber Torres? The Yankees’ shortstop had another 0-for-4 game on Thursday night and is now batting .132 with one home run and two RBIs on the season. (For as bad as Sanchez has been, he has as many home runs and one more RBI than Torres.) I guess the good news is the Yankees are 9-3 even though Torres and Sanchez have been automatic outs, Aaron Hicks is batting .207 and Brett Gardner has six hits (three of them just happen to be home runs). The Yankees have been scoring runs and winning because of LeMahieu and Judge, which is why it’s even more ridiculous they were both out of the lineup in the same game last night. But if the Yankees can win 75 percent of their games with two outs in their lineup, they will be OK. OK for the regular season that is. The offense can’t collectively slump (minus LeMahieu) in the postseason again.

***

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

The Yankees opened Yankee Stadium in 2020 by sweeping the Red Sox, and it doesn’t get much better than that.

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. I have long wondered what it would be like to get a full season from a healthy Aaron Judge. We almost got it in 2017 when he led the league in home runs, won Rookie of the Year and finished second for MVP, but a nagging second-half shoulder injury kept him from having an even better season that year. This year, Judge would have missed the entire first half of the season with the broken rib/collapsed lung injury that went undiagnosed from last September and we would have once again been deprived of a full season from him. But in this shortened 60-game season, we are seeing what a healthy Judge can do and that’s hit six home runs and drive in 14 runs through eight games, with all six of those home runs coming in the last five games. Judge has been the best player in baseball for the first week-plus of the season and is certainly the heavy favorite to win MVP right now (unless the season gets canceled, which could happen at any second). Judge powered the Yankees to a ninth-inning comeback win on Thursday, gave the Yankees the lead for good on Friday, gave the Yankees an early lead on Saturday and hit two go-ahead home runs on Sunday. Not even James Paxton’s horrible pitching or Aaron Boone’s nonsensical bullpen management can prevent the Yankees from winning when Judge is hitting like this.

2. The Yankees have a starting pitching problem. You might not think they do since they’re 7-1, but having every starter not named Gerrit Cole fail to go at least six innings is a recipe for disaster that will eventually catch up with the team and burn out the elite relievers the way it did in the postseason last year. No one is worried about Cole, and I’m not worried about Masahiro Tanaka, who was limited in his only start this season by a pitch count. After those two, it’s Jordan Montgomery, who looked good in his lone start, but it’s one start, and then it’s James Paxton whose fastball has disappeared and J.A. Happ who hasn’t been good since the moment before he threw his first pitch in Game 1 of the 2018 ALDS. Paxton was given extra days off following his outing in the second game of the season in D.C. when he recorded three outs and was pulled in the second inning with the bases loaded and no outs, and while he lasted longer in his second start (three innings), he was just as bad. Paxton allowed two runs in the first and three more in the third (only one was earned), finishing with this line: 3 IP, 7 H, 5 R, 3 ER, 0 BB, 4 K, 1 HR. During his in-game interview ESPN, Aaron Boone told the broadcast Paxton “feels really good” despite the results. I feel really good too and also can’t get out major league hitters. Does that mean I can get a start? Paxton’s next scheduled start would come against the Rays next weekend, and I’m sure he’ll make that start, and I’m sure I’ll be writing something to similar to this about him after it.

3. Here was the Yankees’ starting rotation in January:

Gerrit Cole
Luis Severino
James Paxton
Masahiro Tanaka
J.A. Happ

Here was the Yankees’ starting rotation in February:

Gerrit Cole
Luis Severino: Tommy John surgery
James Paxton: back surgery
Masahiro Tanaka
J.A. Happ

Here is the Yankees’ rotation now:

Gerrit Cole
Masahiro Tanaka
Jordan Montgomery
?
?

I put question marks in the fourth and fifth spots because while they technically belong to Paxton and Happ, we are getting closer to both guys losing their spots in the rotation. If those spots were based on performance and not based on money owed they would already be out of the rotation. But the Yankees feel the need to try to find six to seven mph on Paxton’s fastball and try to salvage the sunk cost that Happ is at this point. The expanded postseason field erased any urgency the Yankees might have been managed with this season (though I think they would have been managed the same way if only five teams from the AL were going to the postseason), and it also erased any urgency the Yankees have when it comes to making drastic decisions like taking two veterans out of the rotation.

4. Thankfully, Montgomery looked as good in his season debut as he did in spring training and summer camp. It seems laughable now that it was Montgomery whose first turn through the rotation was skipped so the Yankees could use an opener and let Paxton and Happ pitch as well. If the playoffs started today, Cole gets Game 1, Tanaka gets Game 2 and Montgomery gets Game 3. I don’t even know that Paxton or Happ should be on the postseason roster if the playoff started today since what purpose would they serve? Let a huge lead dwindle? Let a big deficit grow bigger? In actuality, they would both be on the postseason roster considering Happ was on it last year when he was as bad, if not worse, than the duo has been this season. And how did Happ help out of the bullpen in last year’s postseason? By allowing a walk-off home run in Game 2 of the ALCS.

5. Boone needs to get better at managing the bullpen. In his third season as Yankees manager, he’s somehow gotten worse at deciding which relievers to use and when. Last Sunday in D.C., he was saved by the Yankees’ power after questionable bullpen choices. On Thursday in Baltimore, he let Jonathan Loaisiga pitch an unnecessary third inning with his elite relievers completely healthy and got saved by Judge in the ninth. On Saturday, he let David Hale stay in for a two-inning save because Zack Britton had warmed up too much recently, and Hale allowed the tying run to come to the plate in the ninth before getting saved by Andrew Benintendi being completely lost in the box. And on Sunday, he let Michael King pitch a fourth inning with a fully-rested Adam Ottavino, Chad Green and Zack Britton. King allowed a go-ahead home run to Rafael Devers and then Boone removed him from the game for Ottavino. He would rather have Ottavino pitch with the Yankees trailing by a run than in a tie game. Once again, Boone was saved by his offense.

6. The Yankees need two managers the same way some NFL teams have had a kicker for field goals and a kicker for kickoffs. Boone can be the clubhouse manager who keeps the team loose and pals around on road trips and speaks to the media, and then the Yankees can have an in-game manager, who makes every decision from the lineup card until the final out of the game because Boone has proven he can’t handle in-game strategy and he has less than two months to figure it out before his third postseason as manager. This could also go for general manager as well. Brian Cashman can make all the trades since that has been his forte, and another general manager can handle signing free agents, which Cashman has failed at aside from CC Sabathia and Cole, who were the easiest two free agents ever to sign.

7. Aaron Hicks is not a No. 5 hitter. He’s not a leadoff hitter. He’s not a 2-hitter or a 3-hitter or a cleanup hitter. He’s not even a 6-hitter. He’s not a top two-thirds-of-the-lineup hitter. Hicks belongs in the bottom third of the lineup. I don’t care that he’s a switch hitter. I don’t care that he can bat left-handed against right-handed starting pitchers. Hicks is a .241/.341/.432 hitter in a 1,583 plate appearances as a Yankee. He was outstanding for the first three months of 2017 (before getting hurt, of course), and he was very good in the second half of 2018, but that’s been it. He’s been a Yankee since 2016 and has had the equivalent of one full season as someone worthy of being a top two-thirds bat.

8. This is what the Yankees’ lineup should be, no matter which hand the starting pitcher throws with:

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

The Yankees would never write out that lineup though because they HAVE to separeate the right-handed bats, even if they purposely built a right-handed-heavy lineup, and even if the left-handed bats they would use to separate aren’t that good.

9. With Tommy Kahnle’s season and likely his Yankees tenure over after needing Tommy John surgery, the Yankees have 10 relievers on the roster, and only three “elite” relievers left with Aroldis Chapman still out. The “elite” relievers are Zack Britton, Chad Green and Adam Ottavino, and then there’s everyone else. Here is my bullpen pecking order based on trust and based on one inning:

Zack Britton
Chad Green
Adam Ottavino
Jonathan Loaisiga
Nick Nelson
Michael King
David Hale
Luis Avilan
Jonathan Holder
Brooks Kriske

10. I really like what I saw from Nelson in his major league debut over the weekend. How could you not? Nelson looks like he has the ability to join the elite group at some point and I know it was only one outing and one game, but the stuff and poise are clearly there. He deserves a look in a big spot in the near future, certainly more than Hale or Avilan or Holder.

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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!