1. No team blows a 2-0 lead like the New York Yankees. They held a 2-0 lead in the seventh inning on Saturday and lost. They held a 2-0 lead in the fifth inning on Sunday and lost. And they held a 2-0 lead again in the seventh inning on Monday and lost. Not only did they have a 2-0 lead in the seventh inning on Monday, but Ryan Weathers had a no-hitter going in the seventh inning and the Yankees still lost and fell to 0-4 on this nightmarish road trip.

The 3-2 loss on Monday dropped the Yankees to 3-9 in one-run games this season. They are the second-worst team in the majors in one-run games, they are 1-8 against teams over .500, they are 0-2 in road extra-inning games and the worst team in baseball in road extra-inning games since the automatic runner was implemented. But yeah, it’s early! It’s just bad luck! It’s a small sample size! It’s a coincidence! It has nothing to do with the manager, roster construction or history repeating itself.

2. The Yankees wasted six scoreless innings from Cam Schlittler on Saturday and 6 1/3 one-hit innings from Weathers on Monday. They have scored eight runs in the four games in Milwaukee and Baltimore and have lost them all.

Here is what I wrote about the Yankees’ offense on Monday:

The Yankees have a three-hitter lineup (Rice, Judge and Bellinger) no matter who you bat or the order you bat them in the other six spots, so just put those three at the top of the lineup, get them the most plate appearances and hope you score every time their turn in the lineup comes up. It’s the only way this offense can produce. And if they aren’t hitting, well, hope for dominant starting pitching because otherwise the team has no chance of winning.

The Yankees got a two-run home run from Rice and a dominant starting pitching effort on Monday and still lost. They lost because the non-Rice, Judge and Bellinger lineup spots are automatic outs. Those three combined to go 3-for-10 with a double, home run and two walks in the series opener against the Orioles. The rest of the lineup went 2-for-21 with a walk and six strikeouts. Those “2” were a Max Schuemann seventh-inning double and a Paul Goldschmidt ninth-inning single. Schuemann only played because Jose Caballero is dealing with a finger issue and Goldschmidt entered the game as a pinch hitter for Spencer Jones. (I love how Boone has removed Jones for a pinch hitter in two of four games so far. It took him three full years to remove Anthony Volpe for a pinch hitter.) So the regular, everyday starters not named Rice, Judge or Bellinger went 0-for-16 with a walk and six strikeouts.

3. Judge led off the sixth with a double when the Yankees were leading 2-0, but was unable to score after Bellinger moved him over to third. He was unable to score because Jazz Chisholm is the single-worst situational hitter in baseball. There’s no one I want up less than Chisholm with a runner on third and less than two outs. There isn’t a count Chisholm isn’t in an 0-2 hole in, and the combination of him always swinging for the fences and flailing at breaking balls away is maddening. I look forward to the day he is no longer a Yankee, even if that day should have been this past offseason.

For as bad as Chisholm is, Austin Wells is worse. It’s the middle of May and Wells has five RBIs. FIVE! He has one double this season. ONE! Wells needs to be 100 percent right with his challenges and throw out every would-be basestealer to negate how horrific he is at the plate.

4. Wells is awful, and yet, he has a higher on-base percentage than Trent Grisham, the $22 million man who is locked into the leadoff spot no matter how bad he is. Across a season or in an individual game, the leadoff hitter will have more plate appearance opportunities than any hitter on the team. So each day, Aaron Boone is willingly having a player with a worse on-base percentage than AUSTIN WELLS potentially get the most plate appearances on the team. So each game, the Yankees start with one out and no one on in the first inning and take away the guarantee of a first-inning plate appearance for Bellinger. Add in all of the automatic outs at the bottom of the lineup and the Yankees are playing each game with roughly 12 outs to work with offensively instead of the allotted 27.

5. The Yankees’ best chance to score is when Rice is set to lead off an inning because it means Rice, Judge and Bellinger will all bat in the same inning. This happened in the eighth inning on Monday with the Yankees trailing by a run. It was their last chance to tie the game or take the lead. The trio couldn’t have had a less competitive inning as Rice struck out swinging on four pitches, Judge flied out on the first pitch and Bellinger struck out swinging on four pitches against Rico Garcia. Where do other teams find relievers like Garcia when the Yankees are running out Camilo Doval? Oh, that’s right. Garcia was a Yankee last year for one game before being designated for assignment. Opposing hitters are 1-for-57 against him this season. I’m glad they don’t have an arm like that in the bullpen.

6. Garcia has been the Orioles’ closer and best reliever, so Craig Albernaz didn’t hesitate to use him against the Yankees’ best three hitters on Monday even though it was the eighth inning. Get through the eighth and worry about the ninth when you get there is how Albernaz managed. It’s a concept that is impossible for Boone to understand. It’s why you saw Doval face the top of the Brewers lineup in the eighth inning on Saturday instead of Bednar. Because Boone would rather manage to the save stat and not the actual situation, the Yankees lost a winnable game. The closer role is beyond dumb. Use your best reliever when the game calls for it. Maybe Bednar would have blown Saturday’s game. At least Boone would have lost the game making the right call. At least he would have put his players in the best possible position to succeed. Let Bednar face the top of the order in the eighth and worry about the ninth when you get there. Maybe the Yankees would have tacked on, or maybe Doval would have been more successful facing the bottom of the order.

7. After watching the same game unfold on Saturday and Sunday, the Yankees blowing a 2-0 lead once they went to the bullpen was inevitable on Monday. The Yankees failed to tack on, failed to do anything offensively the entire night except for one Rice swing and it was only a matter of time until the Orioles broke through. The breakthrough came on the very first batter the bullpen faced as Brent Headrick allowed a go-ahead, three-run home run to Coby Mayo, who has been so bad this season that he would be the worst hitter on the Yankees. He entered the game with a .495 OPS. To put into perspective how bad that is, J.C. Escarra has the lowest OPS on the Yankees at .567. Even with the three-run home run, Mayo’s OPS is still only .541. So he would still be the worst hitter on the Yankees by 26 points. And yet, he was the difference in the game on Monday.

8. It’s hard to be upset with Headrick for giving up the bomb since he has been overused and overworked. He leads the majors with 22 appearances. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that the most-used reliever in baseball in the first seven weeks of the season has allowed late-game home runs in his two most recent appearances. Headrick is tired and fatigued and when you’re tired and fatigued, the next steps are underperformance and then injury. We’re at the underperformance portion of Headrick’s season.

9. Boone has no idea how to manage a bullpen in Year 9 on the job as we saw on Saturday, but at some point he needs new options. Headrick, Tim Hill, Fernando Cruz and David Bednar are pitching all the time because Doval sucks, Jake Bird isn’t trusted, Paul Blackburn is the supposed long man and Ryan Yarbrough is like a fan who won a sweepstakes and a year-long experience to be a Yankee and just never appear in a game. The ‘Run It Back’ offense was an ill-advised strategy and remains so, but the ‘Run It Back’ bullpen is problematic. The Yankees’ offense isn’t good enough collectively to score consistently against anything other than No. 4 and No. 5 starters and the bullpen isn’t good enough to hold anything less than a three-run lead. They have the best rotation in baseball and they are going to piss it away with Grisham leading off, Chisholm batting fifth, a catching tandem of Wells and Escarra and a bullpen that lacks triple-digit velocity in an era in which every team other than the Yankees seems to have multiple triple-digit velocity options in the bullpen.

10. After a career year in 2025, Trevor Rogers is back to being a mediocre starter this season. But Rogers throws with his left hand, and if you do that, the talent and ability level barely matters when you face the Yankees, given the lack of right-handed quality bats they can run out there. Rogers will go on Tuesday for the Orioles against Will Warren, who is coming off his worst start of the season, and who is clearly going to be the odd man out of the rotation once Gerrit Cole returns with how good Weathers has looked. Warren needs a big performance on Tuesday to pull himself closer to Weathers in the battle to be the fifth starter. But even if Warren has a big performance, will the offense score more than three runs and will the bullpen be able to hold a late lead? So far on this road trip they have proved they won’t.

1. What a shitty weekend. The only positive from the weekend was that Cam Schlittler put up another scoreless start. Other than that it was the most frustrating, annoying and disappointing series of the season, a season which includes a sweep by the first-place Rays in Tampa. And with the sweep by the Brewers, the Yankees are now two games behind the Rays in the loss column in the division.

2. Max Fried was bad on Friday: 6 IP, 6 H, 5 R, 5 ER, 3 BB, 5 K. It was the second time in nine starts this season that Fried has allowed five earned runs. He allowed five or more earned runs twice in 32 starts last year. He has walked three batters in a game four times this season. He did so just five times last season. The Yankees are only 5-4 in Fried starts this year after going 22-10 when he started last year. As you can tell, Fried is nowhere near as good in 2026 as he was in 2025.

The biggest reason for this is his command. He stopped pitching from the windup a few starts ago to combat a lack of command, and while it may have looked like it helped against inferior lineups in Boston and Texas, it was a mirage. Fried stayed out of the stretch against the Orioles and couldn’t give the Yankees a quality start and stayed out of it against the Brewers and produced his worst start of the season.

Fried was bad, but he could have pitched nine innings of one-run ball and it wouldn’t have mattered because the Yankees were shut out. They had no answer for Jacob Misiorowski and they had close to no answer for the entire Brewers pitching staff all weekend, scoring six runs in three games with one of those six runs being the automatic runner in the 10th inning on Saturday. The Yankees struck out a ridiculous 39 times in the series and are now 1-8 against teams above .500.

3. If you think that stat doesn’t matter, you’re kidding yourself. It was just last year that the Yankees racked up 94 wins by feasting on the league’s worst teams from late August through the end of the regular season and then barely eked by an injury-ravaged Red Sox team and were humiliated by the Blue Jays, two teams they couldn’t beat during the regular season. Beating up on bottom feeders for six months is how the Yankees are built, but getting shut down by the league’s best is also how they are built.

The idea the Yankees were unfortunate to draw Jacob Misiorowski, Kyle Harrison and Logan Henderson in a three-game series is silly. The Yankees had Fried, Schlittler and Carlos Rodon going for fuck’s sake. It’s not like they were trotting out Luis Gil, Elmer Rodriguez and Carlos Carrasco. If anything, the Brewers with their lack of power were unfortunate to draw Fried, Schlittler and Rodon. But the Brewers — a team with limited slug that succeeds on making contact and limiting strikeouts — beat up on two of the Yankees’ starters, came back against their best middle reliever, walked off their second-best middle reliever and also walked off their closer. The only way the Yankees were winning a game in the series was if Schlittler pitched a complete-game shutout in the second game because asking the Yankees’ untrustworthy bullpen to preserve a two-run lead with nine outs to go was too much to ask.

It didn’t have to be that way. The Yankees could have won on Saturday if not for a lack off offense, a lack of Baseball IQ (Judge’s baserunning in the 10th and Hills’ decision to throw to third in the 10th), a lack of defense and a lack of a competent manager in the game. Somehow Aaron Boone is making Year 1 mistakes in Year 9. There is only one person in the world who thought Camilo Doval in the eighth inning of a one-run game against the top of the Brewers lineup was the right call on Saturday. Unfortunately, that one person is the person who actually gets to make the decisions.

4. I don’t blame Doval for coughing up the lead in the second game. Doval sucks. He didn’t ask to be traded to the Yankees. He didn’t keep himself on the roster when he couldn’t get anyone out last year. He didn’t put himself on the roster to begin this year and he hasn’t kept himself on it either. Boone had roughly 57 different ways to navigate the late innings on Saturday and chose an option that wasn’t any of those.

If you’re of the mindset “Blame the pitcher, not the manager,” you’re a fucking fool. If I were asked to get through the eighth inning on Saturday and coughed up the lead, would those same fans be saying “Blame the pitcher, not the manager” after the inevitable result? (Let’s be honest: I would have protected the lead.) The only job a manager truly has is to put his players in the best possible position to succeed. Boone fails to do that in nearly every close game the Yankees play. It’s why the Yankees suck in one-run games. It’s why they are the worst team in all of baseball on the road in extra innings. Because it takes strategy, creativity and intelligence to win in that setting. Boone lacks all of those things. He has since the day he was wrongfully given the job.

“We’re really good,” Boone said after getting swept, “like, we had a bad series.”

Oh shut the fuck up. You sound just like Brian Cashman calling his 82-80 Yankees “really fucking good” after the 2023 season. You’re a fake good team, Boone. The same kind of fake good you were last year when you were run out of the playoffs and the same kind of fake good you were in 2024 when you were given a red carpet to the pennant through two AL Central opponents before getting embarrassed in the World Series. If you ever wondered how anyone could have used using Nestor Cortes over Hill in Game 1 of the 2024 World Series, well, it’s games like Saturday that remind you what Boone is capable of.

5. I should have seen Sunday’s loss coming. I’m still upset with myself for thinking the Yankees coming off back-to-back losses with just two non-automatic runner runs in the series would show up on Sunday. I should have known better with Carlos Rodon starting.

If you’re playing in a Major League Baseball game, there are no excuses for your performance. Rodon missed the first six weeks of the season rehabbing from offseason surgery and was deemed ready to start on Sunday. I don’t want to hear that it was his first start of the season. Whether his first start came in March in San Francisco after not needing rehab starts or on Sunday in Milwaukee after needing them, it doesn’t matter. The games all count and all count the same and Rodon was putrid.

Rodon blew a two-run lead, walked five (three on four pitches), hit a batter and allowed three earned runs in 4 1/3 innings. Welcome back!

6. When the Yankees failed to score in the ninth inning on Sunday the game was essentially over and I’m glad it ended it when it did in the bottom of the ninth. If Bednar didn’t give up the walk-off home run in the ninth, then only one of these two endings was going to unfold with Doval warming up as the next reliever to come in.:

1. The Yankees don’t score in the top of the 10th and Doval loses the game in the bottom.
2. The Yankees score one run in the top of the 10th and Doval loses the game in the bottom.

The Brewers could have given the Yankees 25 extra innings to score on Sunday and they wouldn’t have. They had no answer for the Brewers bullpen — a staff full of triple-digit fastballs — while the Yankees only triple-digit arm in their pen is Doval, who has no idea where the ball is going once it leaves his hand. The Yankees’ best relievers are Bednar, a closer whose best pitch isn’t a fastball, Tim Hill, a left-on-left ground ball specialist, Fernando Cruz, whose best pitch is a splitter, and Brent Headrick. The Yankees don’t possess a single arm that can come in and miss bats or miss spots and still succeed because of velocity. Their relievers have to have impeccable command because they all rely on trickery and deception to get outs.

7. Fried and Rodon stunk, the bullpen wasn’t very good, Boone proved he’s still an idiot all these years later, but the worst part was the offense. Ben Rice did nothing all weekend and is 0-for-13 since returning to the lineup and Aaron Judge hit a solo home run on Sunday. When those two have a series like that, it’s always going to be hard to win.

To make matters worse, Jake Bauers hit a home run in Friday’s comeback against the Yankees, Gary Sanchez was in the middle of the Brewers’ comeback rally on Sunday and also gunned down Judge trying to steal second late in the game. Here’s what I wrote before the series started:

Ezequiel Duran had a monster series against his former team (5-for-10 with a double, home run, five RBIs, four walks and a steal) because why wouldn’t he? That’s the Law of Ex-Yankees. Oswald Peraza did it to them last month with the Angels. Carlos Narvaez hit the only home run against Cam Schlittler this season. Randal Grichuk will likely get a big hit against them when they play the White Sox. That’s how it goes. The Brewers employ both Gary Sanchez and Jake Bauers, so get ready for that duo to do something special this weekend.

8. It’s disturbing that Trent Grisham is still batting leadoff for the Yankees. Why would anyone want Grisham to theoretically receive the most plate appearances on the team? Why would anyone not want Cody Bellinger getting a guaranteed plate appearance in the first inning? Again, only one person in the world could believe in the Yankees lineup construction, and unfortunately, that one person is the person who actually fills out the lineup card.

9. This should be the lineup against right-handed starters:

Ben Rice, 1B
Aaron Judge, RF
Cody Bellinger, LF
Jazz Chisholm 2B
Trent Grisham, DH
Spencer Jones, CF
Jose Caballero, SS
Ryan McMahon, 3B
Who cares, C

This should be the lineup against left-handed starters:

Ben Rice, DH
Aaron Judge, RF
Cody Bellinger, LF
Amed Rosario, 3B
Paul Goldschmidt, 1B
Jazz Chisholm 2B
Jose Caballero, SS
Spencer Jones, CF
Who cares, C

Yes, bat Rice leadoff against both, since he hits both. Yes, sit Grisham against lefties. Yes, DH him and play Jones in center field against righties. Yes, pit the catcher ninth, I don’t care which catcher it is, they both suck.

The Yankees have a three-hitter lineup (Rice, Judge and Bellinger) no matter who you bat or the order you bat them in the other six spots, so just put those three at the top of the lineup, get them the most plate appearances and hope you score every time their turn in the lineup comes up. It’s the only way this offense can produce. And if they aren’t hitting, well, hope for dominant starting pitching because otherwise the team has no chance of winning.

10. I’m sure the Yankees will beat the shit out of the Orioles the next three days. Lose to a good team and beat up on bad teams. It’s the Boone era summed up. It’s why he has so many regular-season wins in an era of tanking and limited quality teams. Beating up on the Orioles has been the signature of the Yankees over these last nine years and this week should be no different. Improve the record, inflate the run differential and have everyone thinking being 1-8 against the Athletics, Rays and Brewers isn’t a big deal, when in fact, it’s a huge deal.

1. After Paul Blackburn “opened” Thursday’s series/season finale with the Rangers with a scoreless first inning, the Yankees hit two “triples” in the span of three batters to take a 1-0. lead Paul Goldschmidt hit a defense-aided triple in the leadoff spot, and after an Aaron Judge lineout to third, Cody Bellinger hit a defense-aided triple to right field.

Amed Rosario and Jazz Chisholm both struck out to strand Bellinger at third and from innings 2 through 5 it seemed like the Yankees may have missed their opportunity to get to MacKenzie Gore and take a sizable lead. The Yankees stranded a leadoff double in the second and two runners in the fourth. The Yankees trailed 2-1 in the sixth before Trent Grisham hit a bases-clearing, three-run double off Gore to take a 4-2 lead. They would add three more in the sixth, and another in both the seventh and eighth on their way to a 9-2 win. The Yankees finished the season 4-2 against the Rangers with all six games oddly coming in a 10-day span. The only two losses were in games started by Nathan Eovaldi.

2. It was the Yankees’ sixth straight series win, and because the Rays never lose, the win kept the Yankees a half-game ahead in the division. On a day when the Yankees won once again, it wasn’t all good as Ben Rice was kept out of the lineup for a third straight game, Jose Caballero was held out after getting hit by a pitch on Wednesday and Jasson Dominguez crashed into the left-field wall making a catch to lead off the game. Dominguez suffered a sprained AC joint that will put him on the injured list for some time, but he seems fortunate to have avoided a concussion.

3. Suddenly, the healthy-to-begin-the-season lineup is now without Giancarlo Stanton, Rice has missed three-and-a-half games, Caballero missed a game and Dominguez is headed to the IL. One-third of the Yankees’ Opening Day lineup is injured to some degree and the Yankees’ cleanup hitter throughout this week is now out as well.

4. All of this means Spencer Jones is headed to the majors. The left-handed body double of Judge, Jones has been the minors’ best power hitter for a second straight season, but his power is accompanied by an extreme strikeout rate. I don’t know if Jones will come up and hit a flurry of home runs this weekend in Milwaukee or if he will look like Todd Frazier swinging against Justin Verlander in the 2017 ALCS. All I know is Jones will provide more entertainment and a much higher potential ceiling than if Anthony Volpe or Oswaldo Cabrera — the only other two 40-man position players available — were called up instead of Jones.

5. It’s not ideal that Jones’ major-league debut will come with Jacob Misiorowski on the mound for the Brewers. Given Jones’ biggest flaw (striking out) and Misiorowski’s biggest strength (striking batters out), it’s as bad as a debut matchup as you could ask for. Misiorowski leads the majors with 14 strikeouts per nine innings and 59 in 38 innings this season). Maybe Jones gets missed-spot fastball and puts one in the seats.

6. If I know Aaron Boone, and I think I do as good as any Yankees fan, he will give Jones a soft landing spot in the lineup for his debut. I wouldn’t. I would put him right in the middle of the order. I would bat him cleanup and play him in the outfield.

Ben Rice, 1B
Aaron Judge, DH
Cody Bellinger, LF/RF
Spencer Jones, RF/LF
Trent Grisham, CF
Jazz Chisholm, 2B
Austin Wells, C
Ryan McMahon, 3B
Jose Caballero, SS

That’s the lineup I would use. But we all know there’s no possibility of that happening. It’s probably more likely that Jones hits cleanup than it is that Boone removes Grisham from the leadoff spot.

7. Grisham had a big day yesterday after I wrote the following about him:

I don’t know what it’s going to take for the Yankees to remove Trent Grisham from the leadoff spot, but with each 0-for-4, I would like to think it’s drawing closer. Grisham is hitting .164/.298/.353 on the season, and always seems to do just enough to reset his place atop the order. After a bad week, he’ll hit a ball out or pick up a pair of doubles to maintain his place in the lineup and then suck for the next week and then do something positive, over and over.

Grisham loves to beat up on bad pitching. He had a career year doing it last season, hitting 34 home runs. But none of those 34 home runs came against a pitcher who started a postseason game. He had a big weekend against a bunch of bad Orioles pitchers (5-for-15 with four doubles, a home run and three walks) and then in two games started by Jacob deGrom and Eovaldi, he went 0-for-8. Grisham will always hit bad pitching and then be an automatic out against elite starters, the kind of starters you see in October.

One day doesn’t change how I feel. Grisham did what Grisham does in the series: he went 0-for-8 against deGrom and Eovaldi and then hit the inferior Gore, who entered the game with 4.67 ERA and left with a 5.18 ERA. I want Rice or Judge getting the most possible plate appearances on the team. Not Grisham.

8. For the next three days, not only do Yankees fans need the Yankees to win, they also need the Red Sox to win. It’s a dirty, disgusting place to be, but that’s what’s needed with the Rays hotter than the Yankees. The Red Sox suck. They’re going nowhere. There’s no fear in them winning a couple or a few games against the Rays. The Rays are the real threat and they need to be stopped. After the weekend, Yankees fans can go back to laughing at a team batting Trevor Story’s .528 OPS in the cleanup spot and having Brayan Bello and his 7.44 ERA in the rotation. For now, the Rays need to lose.

9. Ezequiel Duran had a monster series against his former team (5-for-10 with a double, home run, five RBIs, four walks and a steal) because why wouldn’t he? That’s the Law of Ex-Yankees. Oswald Peraza did it to them last month with the Angels. Carlos Narvaez hit the only home run against Cam Schlittler this season. Randal Grichuk will likely get a big hit against them when they play the White Sox. That’s how it goes. The Brewers employ both Gary Sanchez and Jake Bauers, so get ready for that duo to do something special this weekend.

10. There’s nothing like going into a weekend series with Max Fried and Schlittler getting the ball in the first two games. Then in the third game, Carlos Rodon will make his first start of the season. Rodon instead of Luis Gil or Elmer Rodriguez will be a welcome change. Last season the Yankees scored 36 runs in a three-game, season-opening sweep of the Brewers in the Bronx. The year before, the Yankees scored 36 runs in a three-game series in Milwaukee with their only loss coming via a walk-off in Michael Tonkin’s first game as a Yankee. Whenever the Yankees play the Brewers, the bats seem to show up.

1. There was a time when Tuesday’s Yankees-Rangers game would have been over before the Yankees even came to bat. A three-run deficit with Jacob deGrom on the mound used to mean the rest of the game would be a formality. It used to mean game over.

It didn’t on Tuesday. The Yankees erased the three-run deficit, hit two home runs off him and got to him for six earned runs over 6 1/3 innings in a 7-4 win. It was their second win over the former Mets ace in a week.

2. In the series opener, Elmer Rodriguez, making his second major-league start, looked both like a rookie and also a starting pitching facing a lineup for the second time in a week. Known for his control, Rodriguez walked the first two hitters of the game. He then allowed a single on a 1-2 pitch, a sacrifice fly and another single. The Rangers had a 3-0 lead with still two on and just one out. Rodriguez would go on to hit a batter and throw a wild pitch, but managed to get out of the inning with just three runs allowed, despite facing eight batters and throwing 37 pitches.

3. A week ago, the Yankees scored one run in six innings against deGrom and that was good enough in a 3-2 win because Cam Schlittler was dominant. On Tuesday, they got to deGrom right away with back-to-back doubles from Aaron Judge and Cody Bellinger. Bellinger’s double hit the top of the right-field wall, his third such kind of hit in the last week. In the second inning, the Yankees tied the game at 3 after Ryan McMahon hit a game-tying two-run home run. If there was ever a sign that this year may be different for the Yankees it’s McMahon hitting a game-tying, two-run home run off deGrom.

4. Rodriguez settled in and deGrom reverted back to his normal self, and the game remained tied at 3 into the sixth. Jazz Chisholm broke the tie with a solo home run to right. In the seventh, the Yankees scored two more runs (which were charged to deGrom) to take a 6-3 lead. Paul Goldschmidt hit a solo home run in the eighth to make it 7-3 and the Rangers picked up a meaningless run in the ninth.

“We went up against one of the best pitchers in the game and got down early,” Goldschmidt said, “but we found a way to chip away.”

5. Rodriguez threw 3 1/3 scoreless innings after the messy first, Brent Headrick followed with 1 1/3 scoreless, Tim Hill recorded an out, Fernando Cruz got three outs and Boone went to David Bednar for a five-out save. Rodriguez was optioned back to Triple-A after the game with Carlos Rodon expected to take that spot in the rotation the next time through, so it didn’t matter if Rodriguez threw a perfect game or the game he actually threw. The next time he’s needed he should be in a better place now that the major-league debut and Yankee Stadium debut are out of the way.

6. Trent Grisham (please stop giving the most plate appearances on the team to a career .320 on-base percentage), Jasson Dominguez and Austin Wells combined to go 0-for-11 with a walk, but the rest of the Yankees lineup went 9-for-22 with six extra-base hits and three walks. It was the Yankees’ fifth win a row and 15th in their last 17 games.

7. Jose Caballero went 1-for-4 with a run scored and some nice plays in the field, which is important to keep track of because the better Caballero plays, the longer Anthony Volpe remains in Triple-A. Volpe went 2-for-4 with a double on Tuesday in Worcester and George Lombard Jr. went 0-for-3 with two walks. A so-so night in the quest to keep Volpe in Triple-A and eventually get Lombard Jr. to the majors. (Volpe played shortstop and Lombard Jr. played second base.)

8. The Rays won’t go away. They trailed the Blue Jays 2-0 on Tuesday and tied it 2-2. They trailed again 3-2 late in the game and then took the lead in the bottom of the eighth in a 4-2 win. The Yankees are 10-2 in their last 12 games and have lost a game in the standings because the Rays have gone 11-1. The two teams will see each other on Memorial Day Weekend in the Bronx.

9. The Yankees beat deGrom twice in a week and now they will try to beat Nathan Eovaldi who shut them down (again) a week ago. Eovaldi has allowed nine home runs in 30 2/3 innings this year after allowing 10 in 130 innings last year. He shut out the Yankees for seven innings in Arlington, but I think the Yankees’ power and Eovaldi being due for regression could lead to a different result this time.

10. Will Warren gets the ball for the Yankees. The Rangers missed him in last week’s series, so they have yet to face the newest and best version to date of Warren. Warren is still (supposedly) competing for a rotation spot against Ryan Weathers, and with Rodon about to be back, it’s only a matter of time until Gerrit Cole is back too. Warren going out and pitching well again and outperforming Eovaldi will keep him ahead Weathers on the depth chart.

1. Remember that brief moment when it looked like the Orioles may be the team to beat in the AL East for the foreseeable future? That was back in 2023 when the Orioles won 101 games and the division before getting swept in the ALDS. They followed that up with their win total dropping by 10 games to 91 in 2024 and were swept by the Royals in the Wild Card Series. Last season they won 75 games and right now they are on a 69-win pace for 2026.

2. The Yankees didn’t just sweep the Orioles over the last four days, they embarrassed them. The Yankees won 7-2 on Friday, 9-4 on Saturday, 11-3 on Sunday and 12-1 on Monday. It was the type of series the Yankees had against the Orioles in the early Aaron Boone era days when the Orioles were tanking and the only feared hitter in their lineup was Manny Machado. On paper, the Orioles aren’t a bad team, but the Yankees certainly made them look like one this weekend.

3. The Thoughts on Saturday covered Friday’s win, but since then, Ryan Weathers picked up another win, Max Fried had to grind through a start with nearly nothing and Cam Schlittler allowed just one earned run (a surprising bases-loaded walk) as the rotation continues to be far and away the best in the majors. I have come to expect a stellar performance out of the Yankees’ starter every single game. It’s a place the rotation hasn’t been a long, long time.

4. The bullpen has been able to get a lot of rest of late and it was most noticeable in David Bednar’s only appearance against the Orioles. Bednar pitched on Sunday in an 11-3 game just to get some work in after having five days off and was throwing the hardest he has this season. He was forced in to high-leverage situations as a member of Team USA in the World Baseball Classic and then was seemingly pitching in one-run games every night for the Yankees in the first few weeks of the season, and was getting hit like someone running on fumes. With the five days off, Bednar looked as good as he has a Yankee. Here’s to the bats giving him more days off and more appearances where he just needs to get work in.

4. Offensively, the Yankees got everyone to contribute in the four-game series, it wasn’t just Ben Rice and Aaron Judge outscoring the Orioles 39-10. Trent Grisham’s OPS is up to .696, Cody Bellinger up to .859 and Jasson Dominguez is at .833 after a big series from the right side. Jazz Chisholm, Austin aWells and Ryan McMahon even chipped in to the offensive outbursts and Jose Caballero continued his extra-base barrage and defensive gems to send Anthony Volpe to the minors for the first time in his career.

5. Volpe is where he belongs: playing in Triple-A. It’s a move that is three years to late, but I guess better late than never, even if being late in this instance cost the Yankees over the last three seasons. The idea that the Yankees or anyone has to justify why Volpe is in the minors is rather annoying. Of the 103 hitters with at least 1,500 plate appearances since the start of 2023, Volpe ranks last, second-to-last and third-to-last in every major offensive statistic. He’s not a major-league bat and after last year it’s hard to say he’s even a major-league glove. The videos of his defense on his “rehab” stint were alarming and he should have to earn his way back up like every other Yankee has ever had to do. Keep on hitting, Caballero.

6. Can the Rays chill out? The Yankees would have a 6 1/2-game lead in the Central and a 5 1/2-game lead in the West, but in the East they only have a 1 1/2-game lead because the Ryas won’t lose. The Yankees are 8-2 in their last 10 games and have lost a game in the standings because the Rays have gone 9-1. The Yankees have played one game worse than their expected record, while the Rays have played four games better. (That’s the difference between Boone and Kevin Cash.)

7. The AL as a whole is bad. There are three teams over .500. The Yankees, Rays and Athletics. (Let’s forget the Yankees are 1-5 against those two teams and 23-6 against everyone else.) The Yankees have a plus-76 run differential, the Rays are plus-11 and the Athletics are minus-10. If you believe in math, the Yankees should run away and hide with the division at some point. It doesn’t mean it will happen, but it should. After playing the Royals and Guardians in the 2024 AL playoffs, I didn’t think the Yankees could ever have an easier path to the pennant, but this year is shaping up to possibly be that. The best teams seem to be in the NL and if the Yankees win the pennant, they will only have to face one of them.

8. We’re a long way from that, of course. Yes, things have been great the last two weeks, but we’re only three weeks removed from a disastrous week against the Athletics, Rays and Angels. We’re a long way from June and July when the Boone Yankees tend to go on summer vacation. Maybe this team is immune to that because of the starting pitching. If the starting pitching is going to pitch like it has without Carlos Rodon and Gerrit Cole then it’s possible they are.

9. Elmer Rodriguez wasn’t very good in his major-league debut last week in Texas, and now he will face the Rangers for a second time in less than a week, which isn’t ideal. It’s also not ideal his counterpart will be Jacob deGrom, who the Yankees were able to beat last week thanks to a superb effort from Schlittler. Rodriguez vs. deGrom seems like a mismatch, but if I have learned anything as a Yankees fan, it’s you can’t predict baseball …

10. When I stopped writing for WFAN and CBS New York and took Keefe To The City out on its own back in 2012, the first post I wrote was A Sunday with John and Suzyn, a live blog recapping the two calling a game against the Tigers. The first blog on keefetothecity.com wasn’t as much about the Yankees as it was the voice of the Yankees.

John Sterling was the man. A character, an original, a legend. I have missed his voice since he left following the 2024 World Series (after leaving initially earlier that season) and long for him calling games. I miss his stories, his exuberance and his creativity. Who cares if he called a fair ball foul or a flyout a home run every once in a while? It’s baseball. It’s entertainment and he was as entertaining as any voice that ever has or ever will call a baseball game.