Three days ago, the Yankees were barely better than the Orioles. They were barely better than the Tigers or Mariners. They were a .500 team hanging on to the eigth and final postseason spot. After five straight wins, they finally look like the team that was once 10 games above .500 with the best record in baseball.

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. This weekend clinched the Yankees a postseason berth. No, not officially, and no, they shouldn’t start giving multiple players unnecessary rest per game again, but the Yankees are going to the postseason. At 26-21, the Yankees have 13 games remaining. If they were to play under .500 baseball and go 6-7 (.462), they would finish at 32-28. To pass them, the Mariners would have to go 11-3 (.786), the Orioles would have to go 13-2 (.867) and the Tigers would have to go 13-2 (.867) as well. Yes, the Yankees could only win six of their 13 remaining games given their inconsistent play this season, but it’s unlikely with six games left against the Red Sox and Marlins. It’s even more unlikely any of those three teams would win at their needed rates if the Yankees were to go 6-7.

2. The Yankees’ five-game winning streak has them a 1/2 game back of the Blue Jays for second in the AL East and an automatic postseason berth. It has also moved them ahead of the Indians and into seventh place in the AL postseason standings. As of now, the Blue Jays would be the 5-seed and play the 4-seed Twins. The Yankees would be the 7-seed and play 2-seed Rays. I don’t think any Yankees fans needs to be told the difference in magnitude in playing a best-of-3 against the Twins versus playing a best-of-3 against the Rays.

3. It’s still impossible to know which seed to root for the Yankees since the postseason standings change daily, though if I had to rank the seven other AL teams in order of which I want the Yankees to most play to least play, it would go like this:

Twins
White Sox
Blue Jays
Indians
Astros
A’s
Rays

Nothing needs to be said about the Twins. I don’t care that the White Sox are currently in first place in the AL. They’re not the best team in the AL and they’re certainly not the best built or the most feared. They have a solid rotation, an OK bullpen and a free-swinging lineup. The Blue Jays’ pitching sucks. After those three teams, I wouldn’t feel confident against any of the other four.

4. Supposedly, Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton will return next week, in time to get a week’s worth of at-bats before the postseason. How much a week’s worth of at-bats will be is unknown since I could see the Yankees playing them on alternating days as the designated hitter in the organization’s latest attempt to prevent injuries. When asked on Sunday about how the return of Judge and Stanton will affect Clint Frazier, Boone said, “I think Clint is very much in the mix.” What? “Very much in the mix?” Frazier is the mix. He has been the one that has actually played this season. He has been the one that has stayed healthy. He has been the one that carried the offense along with DJ LeMahieu and Luke Voit.

5. As I said last week, if Frazier doesn’t play because two guys who never play finally return, I will actively root against the Yankees. That’s not a joke. I will root as hard as I normally do for them to win, for them to lose. I will go as far as to buy apparel for whichever team they face in the playoffs if I have to.

6. If Judge and Stanton do come back (and I will believe they are back when I see them playing in real games), the Yankees will have some lineup decisions to make. They’re not hard decisions to make. At least not to me. However, I could see the Yankees struggling to make these decisions and inevitably making the wrong decisions.

7. This should be the Yankees’ postseason lineup if the entire offense is healthy:

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

But I think the Yankes will either do this:

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

Or this:

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

A left-handed hitter doesn’t need to bat third. I repeat: A left-handed hitter doesn’t need to bat third.

8. I know it doesn’t mean much, but Gary Sanchez’s at-bats have been much better the last few games. It has nothing to do with his two-game benching since he looked horrible immediately after that. He has looked more confident at the plate, is drawing walks, and the outs he puts in play seem to be rockets lined right at fielders. Sanchez can’t finish the shortened season with respectable numbers. All he can do now is focus on having the best possible postseason he can have because everyone gets a clean slate in October, and a big October from Sanchez will make all of his critics forget and forgive his regular season.

9. It was nice to see Gerrit Cole pitch like Gerrit Cole on Friday. I said on the Yankees Podcast on Friday that Cole needed to go out and pitch all seven innings of the first game of the doubleheader, and he did just (7 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 1 BB, 9 K), dominating the Orioles in a game the Yankees had to win. The win was Cole’s fifth of the season and the seven shutout innings lowered his ERA to a more Cole-like 3.20. It’s going to be tough for him to cover my preseason prediction that he would have a sub-2.50 ERA this season since he will only get two more regular-season starts, but I don’t care about that. I care about him building off this start and continuing to pitch like that before he gets the ball in Game 1 of the best-of-3.

10. J.A. Happ can keep pitching the way he pitched against the Blue Jays and the Orioles and it doesn’t matter, he’s not getting a postseason start. He can’t get a postseason start. Under no circumstances is he getting a postseason start. Shutting down the Orioles is nice. Who would feel good about Happ against the offenses of the White Sox, Astros or A’s? Cole in Game 1, Masahiro Tanaka in Game 2 and Deivi Garcia in Game 3. As of now, that’s what it has to be.

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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 finally won a game. All it took was a 21-year-old starting pitcher who hadn’t appeared in a major league game 12 days ago to prevent the team from falling under .500 for the first time this season.

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. After benching Gary Sanchez didn’t work to end the Yankees’ losing streak and Brian Cashman traveling with the team didn’t work to end the Yankees’ losing streak and a team meeting didn’t work to end the Yankees’ losing streak, it ended up being Deivi Garcia that did work to end the Yankees’ losing streak. Garcia is the Yankees’ best pitcher. That’s not an exaggeration. Right now, he’s the team’s best pitcher. It’s certainly not Gerrit Cole, who has lost three straight starts and has allowed more home run than any other pitcher in the league. You could make a case for Masahiro Tanaka, but he only just started to give the Yankees any length in his starters. And obviously it’s not Jordan Montgomery, J.A. Happ or Michael King.

Aside from watching DJ LeMahieu try to win a batting title, Luke Voit become one of the best hitters in baseball and Clint Frazier finally put his entire game together, Garcia has been the only other part of the Yankees worth watching this season, and he’s only made three starts. In 17 2/3 innings, he has struck out 18 against just two walks and has looked every bit as good as I hoped he would if he ever made it to the Yankees without getting traded first.

If the Yankees reach the postseason (again I can’t believe not making it is a possibiliy), Garcia has to get the ball in Game 3 (if the Yankees are able to reach a third game of the postseason). Cole will get the ball for Game 1 and Tanaka for Game 2, but there’s no other option in Game 3. Screw James Paxton if he comes back. I don’t want him anywhere near the mound in the postseason. He wasn’t good before he got hurt and now he’s being rushed back and will at best could be an opener. No thank you. Montgomery hasn’t been nearly good enough, and Happ and King would be lucky to even be on the postseason roster.

I knew I would be excited to see a new Yankees pitcher pitch every five days in 2020, I just thought it was going to be Cole, not Garcia.

2. Aaron Boone’s genius plan to bench Sanchez didn’t fix the Yankees’ problems, stop their losing streak or help Sanchez. The Yankees benched Sanchez for two games, scapegoating him for their issues, and they still went 0-2 as part of their five-game losing streak. Since Sanchez has come back, he’s gone 0-for-7 with a walk. It’s almost as if sitting on the bench and not getting at-bats doesn’t help a former star player break out of a horrendous slump. Who could have known?

Like everyone, I wish I knew what was wrong with Sanchez other than the fact he clearly can’t catch up to middle-middle fastballs or recognize a breaking ball. If Sanchez had always hit like this, it would be easy to chalk it up as a typical catcher who can’t hit since almost all of them can’t hit. But everyone knows Sanchez can hit, or used to be able to hit. He hit 53 home runs in 175 games over 2016 and 2017, batting .284/.354/.568. After a rough 2018 regular season (.697 OPS), he single-handedly won the only game of the 2018 ALDS that the Yankees won with a two-home run performance. Last season, he struggled to hit for average (.232) and get on base (.316), but he still managed an .841 OPS with 34 home runs. I don’t know that we’ll ever see 2016-17 Sanchez again, but can we at least get 2019 Sanchez?

3. You might never see an inning as bad as the sixth inning on Monday from the Yankees ever again. The Yankees had a four-run lead and all of their “elite” relievers completely rested.

Chad Green entered for the sixth, and for the third time in two weeks, he didn’t have it. After two walks, a single and a Voit error, the Blue Jays had cut the Yankees’ lead to 6-3 and had the bases loaded and one out. Boone pulled Green and turned to Adam Ottavino, and he didn’t have it either. Ottavino faced six batters and didn’t retire any of them. Three singles, two walks and a grand slam later against Ottavino and the Blue Jays had a 12-6 lead in what was a 10-run inning.

Green and Ottavino combined to produce this line: 0.1 IP, 5 H, 10 R, 9 ER, 4 BB, 0 K, 1 HR. The Blue Jays didn’t swing-and-miss at any of their 58 pitches.

4. I was scared the Yankees were going to blow their lead on Wednesday night as well, but thankfully, Zack Britton and Aroldis Chapman managed to pitch a scoreless eighth and ninth respectively to end the five-game losing streak. I don’t trust anyone in the Yankees’ bullpen right now, but if I had to give my Level of Trust Rankings on a scale of 1-10, this would be it:

Zack Britton: 7.1
Chad Green: 6.4
Aroldis Chapman: 5.8
Adam Ottavino: 3.7

That’s it. No one else is even good enough to make this list. I purposely didn’t put Clarke Schmidt as an option because he’s not a reliever and doesn’t belong coming out of the bullpen.

5. I guess Schmidt (the Yankees’ top pitching prospect) is now the mop-up man on this awful team? That’s how Schmidt was used in his second career appearance, asked to clean up the mess left by Green and Ottavino. Rather than let Schmidt start, which is basically all he has known as a professional pitcher, the Yankees would rather continue to start Happ, who should have run out of chances to start a long, long, long time ago, or King who isn’t any good, having allowed eight earned runs in 10 2/3 innings as a starter and never going more than four innings and giving the team length.

You would think by now the Yankees’ rotation would include both Garcia and Schmidt, but nope. The Yankees want to continue to pitch Happ because of money owed and want to continue to let King start because of … I have no idea why they want to continue to let King start. Maybe at some point this season Schmidt will get to show why he’s the top-ranked pitching prospect in the organization and even higher than Garcia. I just hope it’s not too late before he’s given that chance.

6. Mike Tauchman can’t play anymore. He just can’t. For as good as Tauchman was last season for six weeks, he’s been that bad this season, looking every bit like the player the Rockies gave up on. He has a .647 OPS and five extra-base hits (all doubles) in 95 plate appearances. I have the same amount of home runs as Tauchman this season. On top of his lack of production, his baseball IQ is horrible as he frequently makes awful decisions on the bases and at the plate, whether he’s trying to advance a base on balls in front of him or swinging at 3-1 pitches high and away after the pitcher walked the previous three batters.

I’m sick of seeing Tauchman in the lineup. The only way he should play is if one of Frazier, Aaron Hicks or Brett Gardner is injured.

7. This should be the Yankees’ lineup every night with their current roster:

DJ LeMahieu, 3B
Luke Voit, 1B
Gleyber Torres, SS
Clint Frazier, RF
Miguel Andujar, DH
Aaron Hicks, CF
Gary Sanchez, C
Brett Gardner, LF
Thairo Estrada (preferably)/Tyler Wade, 2B

Unfortunately, Boone would never allow for five right-handed hitters in a row at the top of the lineup, and he would never allow for three of the last four hitters potentially being left-handed. He certainly wouldn’t hit two lefties back-to-back if Gardner were eighth and Wade were playing and ninth. But that’s what the lineup should be.

8. If the Yankees ever get healthy, this is what the lineup should always be:

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

9. The Yankees were once 16-6. Now they’re 22-21. They were once in first place in the AL East. Now they’re in third place. They were once the 1-seed in the AL playoffs. Now they’re the 8-seed. The Yankees have fallen apart this season to the point that I’m watching the Orioles’ and Tigers’ scores as much as I’m watching the Yankees. I said the Orioles and Tigers! Do you know ridiculous that is? The Orioles lost 108 games last season and the Tigers lost 114, and somehow a year later, the 103-win Yankees are playing at their level. It’s disgusting.

10. I didn’t think a four-game series in September against the Orioles would be a crucial series for the postseason, but here we are as if it’s 2012. There’s 17 games left, and the Yankees need to win all of them. Had they played with urgency earlier in the season when they were OK with giving away games in Philadelphia and Tampa, they wouldn’t be hanging on to dear life for the final postseason berth in the AL. But the Yankees chose to treat a 60-game season like a 162-game season and the injuries piled up in this 60-game season like they did in last year’s 162-game season and the “Next Man Up” mantra was greatly exposed.

The Yankees have to find a way to hold off the Orioles and Tigers and simultaneously get healthy over the next 20 days. The current team should be good enough to win enough to remain in a postseason spot until the everyday lineup is available. The current team, however, isn’t good enough to compete in October, and if the Yankees don’t get healthy and don’t get Judge and Urshela back (I gave up on Stanton coming back long ago), they aren’t going anywhere in the postseason.

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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!