Back on May 4, I wrote The Yankees Are Even Better Than They Have Played. Back then, the Yankees were 22-10. Here I am today, writing once again how the Yankees are even better than they have played. Yes, the Yankees and their Major League-best 42-19 record are better than they have played.

The eight reasons why the Yankees were actually better than they had played I gave nearly six weeks ago were:

1. Giancarlo Stanton hasn’t been anywhere close to his 2017 NL MVP self.
2. Gary Sanchez was basically an automatic out for the first two weeks of the season.
3. Brett Gardner continuing to bat leadoff despite having a lower on-base percentage than Austin Romine.
4. Neil Walker getting regular playing time even though he is batting .171/.233/.195.
5. Sonny Gray being bad and not lasting more than 4 2/3 innings in four of six starts.
6. Greg Bird playing zero games so far.
7. The bullpen being untrustworthy for three weeks.
8. The injury bug running through the Yankees.

A few of those reasons are still reasons, while most of them have been fixed. But yes, a team with a .689 winning percentage that is on a 33-10 run can be better than they have been. Here’s how that’s possible.

1. Giancarlo Stanton hasn’t been anywhere close to his 2017 NL MVP self. Yes, that was a problem in the May 4 edition and it’s still a problem now. Stanton is batting .244/.322/.487 with 15 home runs and 34 RBIs. Those aren’t the numbers I expected from the reigning NL MVP through 38 percent of the season. Stanton is on pace to finish the season with 40 home runs and 90 RBIs, which is a far cry from his 59 and 132 last season. Sure, there is an adjustment period for a new player on a new team in a new league facing new pitchers, but Stanton has been a huge disappointment for the most part this season. Everyone keeps saying “wait until he gets hot”, and now hat the weather is finally going to be warm consistently and he is growing accustomed to the pitchers in the AL, maybe the hot streak we are all waiting for is coming soon. But back on May 4, I thought the his two home run game against Dallas Keuchel and the Astros was the start of a hot streak and since then he has hit .248/.328/.496 with eight home runs and 15 RBIs in 134 plate appearances. To think, this team is 42-19 without the reigning NL MVP playing anywhere near his abilities …

2. Gary Sanchez was basically an automatic out for the first two weeks of the season, or the equivalent of about one-third of the games the Yankees had played when I wrote the May 4 edition. Not much has changed for the Yankees catcher. He has had his share of big moments like his game against David Price in Boston or his walk-off against Fernando Rodney or his three-run home run that led to Ken Giles punching himself in the face. But for the most part, Sanchez has continued to be an automatic out, and it’s not just bad luck like when he lined into a double play to end Sunday night’s loss to the Mets. It’s his approach at the plate, which continues to look lazy and undisciplined as he swings at every breaking ball low and away as if he hasn’t changed anything since he was exposed in the postseason. I have a hard time believing that Sanchez, who hit .283/.353/.567 with 53 home runs and 132 RBIs in his first 177 games in the majors, is now a .190/.291/.430 hitter. The Gary Sanchez we saw in 2016 and 2017 and against Corey Kluber and the Astros bullpen and at times this year is in there. Sanchez just needs to make the adjustments to find him. To think, this team is 49-12 despite the best catcher in baseball being non-existent for more than one-third of the season …

3. The last holdover from the May 4 edition is the injury bug. Earlier in the season, injuries forced Shane Robinson and Jace Peterson to not only be Yankees, but to start games for the Yankees. It sent Aaron Hicks and CC Sabathia, Jordan Montgomery, Adam Warren, Tommy Kahnle, Luis Cessa, Brandon Drury and Billy McKinney to the disabled list, and it prevented Greg Bird from opening the season with the team and Clint Frazier from being called up before any other outfielder. (It has also supposedly kept us from watching Jacoby Ellsbury play for the 2018 Yankees, so it hasn’t all been bad.) Every team has injuries, and thankfully, the Yankees have had the depth to cover up their injuries, but that depth is growing thin. Now that Montgomery has undergone Tommy John surgery and won’t be available until the second half of next season at the earliest and Masahiro Tanaka incredibly strained both of his hamstrings running the bases to go on the disabled list, the Yankees are in desperate need of starting pitching. Domingo German went from being day-to-day on having a rotation spot to being the No. 4 starter, leaving the Yankees with limited Major League-ready starting pitching options. To think, this team is 42-19 with so many injuries …

4. In the May 4 edition, I cited Greg Bird not yet playing as a reason the Yankees were better than they had played. But now it’s not about Bird playing, it’s about the way he is being used. Actually, it’s about the lineup as a whole. Since May 4, Brett Gardner has become Brett Gardner again, hitting .333/.408/.552, so his leadoff spot I questioned back then is no longer in jeopardy. Aaron Judge should continue to bat second because he has been the best hitter on the team for the second straight season. And now here’s where things need to change. Bird hasn’t done anything to prove he should bat third. Yes, he was good as a rookie back in 2015, and he was good at the end of last season and in the postseason. But Bird did miss all of 2016, nearly all of 2017 and the first two months of 2018, and since he has returned, he has hit .191/.255/.426. Maybe he is the best hitter on the team when he’s healthy like Judge has said, but right now he isn’t and it shouldn’t matter that he bats left-handed, he shouldn’t bat third. Put Stanton third and Sanchez fourth. Let the three big bats of Judge, Stanton and Sanchez bat 3-4-5. Give those three more than a game here and there to bat consecutively in the lineup. And stop batting Gleyber Torres ninth. And certainly stop batting him ninth AND HAVING A PITCHER BAT IN FRONT OF HIM. The kid is hitting .297/.356/.559 with 11 home runs in 42 games. To think, this team is 42-19 with the lineup being poorly constructed …

5. Speaking of the lineup, how is Aaron Hicks always batting sixth, and when Gardner gets a day off, how is Hicks batting first? Let me make this clear: Aaron Hicks isn’t good. I don’t know how many times I can say that and I’m running out of ways to say it. He’s a 28-year-old career .233/.318/.378 hitter, who is treated like he’s Bernie Williams. If the Yankees don’t want to let Gardner play center regularly and have Frazier play left then OK, let Hicks be your center fielder. But treat him like the light-hitting, no-power center fielder he is. He should be the one batting ninth every game and not Torres. I can’t believe Torres and Miguel Andujar continue to bat below Hicks in the lineup. To think, this team is 42-19 with Aaron Hicks being treated like he has more than four non-inside-the-park home runs this season …

The Yankees are already the best team in baseball. What are they going to be if their best players start playing to their career numbers and their lineup starts logically getting built? I want to find out.

Here is my annual “I Enjoy the Subway Series” proclamation. I do enjoy it. Over the course of 162 games with 19 of those games against the lowly Orioles, Rays and Blue Jays, it’s important to have some “meaningful” series. Not that the series against the Mets counts more than any other series, the way some baseball fans want you to believe that games in September count more than those in April. But it’s meaningful in the way that it breaks up the daily grind against the usual teams, especially in a season in which five teams are currently on pace to lose at least 100 games.

The Subway Series is fun. Maybe it doesn’t have the same appeal that it did when it started in 1997, but it’s still fun. Anyone who thinks otherwise should skip it and wait for the next time the Yankees play one of their opponents they already play 19 times.

The first half of this season’s Subway Series went well with a series win. But the Yankees were very close to losing all three games against a Mets team that looks like it might just go through the motions for the rest of the season. Two out of three is two out of three, but it was a little worrisome of how the Yankees won those two out of three with the offense disappearing for most of the weekend.

FRIDAY
Jacob deGrom as a Yankee is one of the only trades worth making to give up top prospects or Major League-ready players to bolster the rotation. Outside of Madison Bumgarner, who most likely won’t be available, deGrom is the next-best starting pitcher, who most likely won’t be available and most likely will never be available to the Yankees for as long as he is a Met.

deGrom showed why he is the Mets ace (8 IP, 4 H, 3 R, 2 ER, 2 BB, 8 K, 1 HR), not the always-injured Noah Syndergaard, and why he could be the difference-maker in the AL playoffs. I don’t think the Yankees need a difference-maker to win the AL East, I think they can easily win it with the team they have now. But winning the AL East isn’t the goal, and as it stands right now, the Astros have Justin Verlander, Gerrit Cole, Dallas Keuchel, Charlie Morton and Lance McCullers Jr. in some order waiting in an ALCS rematch. The Yankees as of today have Luis Severino, CC Sabathia, Sonny Gray and Domingo German. I don’t think an ALCS rematch would go seven games again with the disparity in those rotations.

deGrom shut the Yankees down for the first 7 2/3 innings, allowing an unearned run on an error by Adrian Gonzalez (I wonder if he took the blame for it or blamed God like he did for the Red Sox’ September 2011 collapse). But with two outs and no one on in the seventh, a Gleyber Torres single followed by a Brett Gardner two-run home run gave the Yankees a 3-1 lead en route to their eventual 4-1 win.

deGrom has made 13 starts this season. He has won four of them. He took the loss on Friday against the Yankees despite going eight innings and allowing two earned runs. He has four no-decision in starts in which he pitched seven innings and allowed one run or less. And he has another no-decision from a start in which he went 7 1/3 innings, allowing three earned runs with 12 strikeouts. He is 4-1 this season with a 1.57 ERA in 13 starts. I would feel bad for him if he wasn’t on the Mets.

He might not be on the Mets by July 31. The best thing the Mets could do is to trade both deGrom and Syndergaard and restock their team and minor-league system. The Mets 2015-16 window is closed, and while the Nationals’ window is also closing soon, the Braves and Phillies aren’t going anywhere for a while. The next time the Mets are ready to contend (if they ever are), deGrom and Syndergaard will be long past free agency and likely old men. Unfortunately, the Mets would rather not see the Yankees win or see their homegrown ace win with the Yankees than ever win themselves, so a trade is near impossible.

Masahiro Tanaka opposed deGrom, and aside from the leadoff home run to Brandon Nimmo to start his night, he was solid (5 IP, 1 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 1 BB, 8 K, 1 HR). Tanaka would have stayed in the game for the bottom half of the six if he didn’t get scoring from third like Chien-Ming Wang, injuring both hamstrings in the process and landing on the disabled list for at least a month. I’m very against pitchers still batting in Major League Baseball because of how ridiculous it is to ask a person, who likely hasn’t hit since their childhood, to try to do something that everyday hitters have a hard time doing. I’m not against it because pitchers get hurt running the bases, or just Yankees pitchers get hurt running the bases. It’s kind of embarrassing for a professional athlete, pitcher or not, to strain both hamstrings running the bases. Actually, it’s embarrssing for any person, not only a professional athlete. And not only that, but Tanaka also twisted his ankle stepping on home. Has he ever run before?

Gardner’s go-ahead home run was just another example of Gardner’s big-moment prowess. (Giancarlo Stanton’s insurance home run was just another example of his tack-on prowess.) Gardner has always been the streakiest hitter I ever seen, and this year has been no different:

March 29-April 16: .276/.391/.379

April 17-May 3: .100/.230/.100

May 4-June 10: .333/.408/.552

When Gardner is hot, he’s unstoppable, and when he’s cold, it looks like he should bat ninth or that the game has passed him by. In the eight inning against deGrom, he once again showed by he can always be trusted with the game on the line.

SATURDAY
Domingo German’s rotation spot was in jeopardy after he laid back-to-back eggs against the A’s and Rangers. But respectable starts against the Astros and Tigers kept him in the rotation, and now with Tanaka landing on the disabled list, he has a rotation spot for the foreseeable future.

The problem with German has been one inning in nearly every start (aside from his first start when he no-hit in the Indians for six innings). Against the A’s, he gave up five runs in the fifth inning and one run in his other four innings. Against the Rangers, he was just bad. Against the Astros, he gave up three runs (two earned) in the second and one run in his other 4 2/3 innings. Against the Tigers, he gave up two runs in the fourth and two runs in his other 5 2/3 innings. On Saturday, it was the first inning when he gave up three runs on two home runs.

After the three-run first, German settled down, like he usually does after a bad inning, pitching five shutout innings. The untouchable Gleyber Torres hit a solo home run off Steven Matz in the third to make it 3-1, and the he-better-not-get-traded Miguel Andujar continued his battle for AL Rookie of the Year with his teammate (now that Shohei Otani is likely done for the season) with a two-run home run in the sixth to tie the game. Aaron Judge broke the tie in the eighth when he hit former Yankee Anthony Swarzak’s first pitch for a solo home run. Like many former Yankees relievers, Swarzak owes his former team a few games, and the first of those was on Saturday night.

SUNDAY
It was understandable that the Yankees had to grind their way to a win against Jacob deGrom. It was somewhat understandable that they had to do the same in a game started by Matz. But with Luis Severino on the mound, going against Seth Lugo with an off day on Monday, it was completely unacceptable to lose the series finale.

Severino wasn’t at his best (5 IP, 5 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 7 K, 1 HR) on Sunday night, but giving up two runs over five innings with the offense facing Lugo should have been enough for the Yankees to overcome. Instead, they managed just two hits (their only two baserunners) against Lugo in six innings, one hit against Robert Gsellman in two innings and one walk against Swarzak in the ninth. It was a very uninspiring performance from a team that had nowhere to travel other than their own homes after the game with an off day on Monday and a homestand on Tuesday awaiting them.

It would nice if Aaron Boone would pencil in the best possible lineup for one game. But if he’s not going to move Torres out of the 9-hole, can we at least get the best nine hitters in the lineup for two consecutive games? Judge was given the night off on Sunday against Lugo, only to be used a pinch hitter in the eighth. Judge didn’t play baseball on Tuesday. He didn’t play baseball on Thursday. The team has a day off today, and yet, he didn’t play baseball on Sunday until he was used as a pinch hitter. I understand the need to give guys rest, but Boone is taking it to another level. Maybe get a comfortable lead in the division before you start giving guys regular rest.

Even with the loss on Sunday, the Yankees won the series and took the first half of the Subway Series, and because of it, once again, I want to thank the Good Lord for making me a Yankees fan.

Last Friday, I wrote I’m Sick of Sonny Gray. Since then, I haven’t been sick of Sonny Gray at all.

Gray has made two starts since I wrote how his performance was not only keeping the Yankees from running away with the AL East, but also eventually going to force them to give up more prospects to acquire another starting pitcher as a result of his incompetence. The Yankees won both of those starts with Gray pitching to this line: 14 IP, 6 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 2 BB, 14 K, 1 HR.

The first of those starts was a 4-1 win over the Orioles (6 IP, 4 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 0 BB, 6 K, 1 HR) and the second was a 3-0 extra-inning win over the Blue Jays (8 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 2 BB, 8 K). That start against the Blue Jays was Gray’s best as a Yankee, and his first shutout of eight innings or more since July 28, 2015. (He had four shutouts of eight innings or more that season and two of them were complete-game, nine-inning shutouts.)

I, just like every other Yankees fan, really want Sonny Gray to be Sonny Gray again, and maybe this two-game resurgence that helped lower his ERA from 5.98 to 4.81 is an indicator that the former A’s ace, who the Yankees traded to slot behind Luis Severino along with Masahiro Tanaka, is really back to being his old self. Then again, the Orioles are 19-41 and the Blue Jays are 26-35.

Gray has been very good against teams under .500 in seven starts this season: 40 IP, 32 H, 14 R, 14 ER, 17 BB, 35 K, 3 HR, 3.15 ERA, 1.225 WHIP.

In five starts against teams .500 or better, he’s been very bad: 23.2 IP, 31 H, 20 R, 20 ER, 13 BB, 23 K, 4 HR, 7.60 ERA, 1.859 WHIP.

With plenty of teams following the tanking blueprint made successful by the Cubs and Astros, there are way more mediocre and bad teams in the league than there are good ones. Gray’s five starts against teams .500 or better have come against the Red Sox, Astros, Indians, A’s and Angels. The only other good AL team is the Mariners. So most of Gray’s starts, and any pitchers starts for that matter, will come against bad teams this season. That’s good news for the regular season, but the Yankees are going to the postseason. There’s no jinxing that. They are 40-18 with a .690 winning percentage and have already played all of their games this season against the Astros and Angels. Their second-half schedule is why I believe they will run away with the division.

Before the season, the Yankees didn’t know that Jordan Montgomery was going to go down with an elbow injury and need Tommy John surgery. They didn’t know that Masahiro Tanaka would build off his inconsistent 2017 season by being inconsistent once again in 2018. And they didn’t know that Gray would get off to the worst of his career and essentially be the worst starting pitcher in all of baseball to continue to get regular turns in a rotation. Even without knowing all of this, the Yankees still tried to add starting pitching in the offseason, so they aren’t going to stop now. But Gray can stop them from making a trade that could potentially cost them Cling Frazier or Justus Sheffield or other top prospects if he can build off his last two starts and completely turn his season around.

The Yankees got Gray because of his front-end starting pedigree and his career 3.42 and because he was under team control for the rest of 2017, all of 2018 and all of 2019 and because Michael Pineda was lost to a season-ending injury, Masahiro Tanaka and CC Sabathia were inconsistent and untrustworthy and Jordan Montgomery was a rookie. But they also go him for his postseason experience, pitching to 2.08 ERA in two starts and 13 innings against the Tigers in the 2013 ALDS. They need the Sonny Gray they traded for and not just against the Orioles and Blue Jays and Royals. They need him against the contenders as well.

I’m no longer sick of Sonny Gray. But we’re a long way from October, and until he proves he can’t beat teams with realistic postseason chances, I won’t be fully cured of him.

I was ecstatic when the Yankees traded for Sonny Gray. Brian Cashman was able to add a front-end starter, who had pitched to a 3.42 ERA over 705 career innings, and more importantly had pitched to a 2.08 ERA in two career postseason starts. In exchange for the A’s ace, the Yankees had to part with a 2015 first-round pick, who had pitched just 29 1/3 minor-league innings (James Kaprielian), a top prospect whose status had begun to fade (Jorge Mateo) and an outfielder who had suffered an unfortunate and potentially career-damaging injury (Dustin Fowler). The Yankees had added an All-Star and postseason-proven pitcher for three players that might never make the majors. (Thankfully, Fowler did this season to overcome his awful injury.)

As a Yankee, Gray wasn’t as good as he had been in 2017 before the trade and he was nowhere near his 2013-2015 self (2.88 ERA in 491 innings), but he was solid. His offense and defense let him down in most of his starts as he either got a loss or no-decision in four starts where he went at least five innings, allowing two earned runs or loss. But after the Yankees won the wild-card game, and Gray was announced as the Game 1 starter of the ALDS, his regular season didn’t matter. This is what the Yankees had gotten him for: the postseason.

Gray was bad in Game 1 of the ALDS (3.1 IP, 3 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 4 BB, 2 K, 1 HR). Very bad. But it didn’t matter much because the Yankees’ offense was shut out in the 4-0 loss. Gray’s poor ALDS performance took him out of favor for the start of the ALCS, and he was pushed to Game 4 for a chance to redeem himself for the egg he laid in Cleveland. He was much better against the Astros (5 IP, 1 H, 2 R, 1 ER, 2 BB, 4 K) and helped the Yankees tie the ALCS 2-2. Gray didn’t get a chance to pitch again in the postseason, but after what I had seen during his time with the A’s and his short time with the Yankees, I was excited for the future. If the Yankees had lost the AL East by just two games in 2017 and were now going to have a full season of Gray (along with NL MVP Giancarlo Stanton and not Chase Headley and Starlin Castro and Michael Pineda) then 2018 was going to be a lot of fun.

For the most part 2018 has been a lot of fun (minus the 9-9 start, Stanton’s never-ending slump and Aaron Hicks continuing to be treated like Bernie Williams). But the biggest issue of 2018 has been Gray. He hasn’t been bad. He’s been awful. He’s been worse than awful. What’s worse than awful? Terrible? Whichever of those is the worst, that’s what Gray has been.

I hate the stat “quality start” because why should a pitcher be rewarded for what could be a 4.50 ERA (6 IP, 3 ER), but using some so mediocre as the “quality start” to measure Gray, he has only pitched four of them in 10 starts. He has only gotten an out in the fifth inning in five of his 10 starts, and he has put 90 baserunners on in 49 2/3 innings. How could a starting pitcher have only pitched 49 2/3 innings over 10 starts on a team with championship aspirations? That’s not a rhetorical question. I’m actually asking how it’s possible.

The Yankees are 4-6 in Gray starts and 31-11 in all other games. He has been the weakest member of the Yankees’ rotation, and basically the weakest starting pitcher to continue to start in all of baseball. But it’s not just his actual numbers that suck, it’s the collateral damage it has caused, and I don’t mean keeping the Yankees virtually tied for a share of the division lead.

Despite the Yankees’ unwillingness to have personal catchers (and rightfully so), Gray has essentially demanded to only work with Austin Romine. No other Yankees pitcher has an issue throwing to Gary Sanchez. Luis Severino didn’t mind pitching to Sanchez when he threw a complete-game shutout on the road against the defending world champions. No one had a problem when the Yankees came within one game of the World Series with Sanchez catching in his first full season in the majors. No one minds because they want the best hitting catcher in the world in the lineup on days they pitch. But Gray’s whining ways have led to Romine catching him no matter what, which sets a horrible precedent if the Yankees reach the postseason and need Gray to start.

But what might be worse than Gray’s record for a team that gives him an average of 5.38 runs of support in his starts or his 5.98 ERA or his 1.711 WHIP is the complete lack of accountability he has had for his embarrassing season.

On Saturday, Gray was destroyed by the Angels. He was given a 4-1 lead through the second and made it disappear almost as quickly as he got it. His line for the night: 3.2 IP, 7 H, 5 R, 5 ER, 3 BB, 7 K, 1 HR.

After the game, Gray said the following about his performance:

“I thought I commanded my two-seam well. I think it was my four-seam that every time I threw it, it kind of leaked back over the middle of the plate. Slider was good. Yeah, I think the stuff was good.”

In 3 2/3 innings, Gray put 10 runners on base, walked three, allowed seven hits, allowed three extra-base hits, walked Kole Calhoun (.160/.195/.199), walked in a run and hit a batter. But he thought his “stuff was good”! What does a Sonny Gray start look like when he doesn’t have his good stuff? I’m afraid to find out.

Domingo German is in the Yankees’ rotation because of Jordan Montgomery’s injury, and because of a lack of major-league ready pitching in the farm system due to injury and inexperience, the Yankees’ only current option to replace Gray in the rotation would be to let A.J. Cole start, and the reason he is on the Yankees is because of how bad he was as a starter. And thanks to all of the postponements, the Yankees’ off days are quickly becoming day games and doubleheaders, so a phantom injury for a figure-it-out-with-bullpen-sessions disabled list stint isn’t even an option. The Yankees are stuck with Gray every five days.

The Yankees were looking for starting pitching in the offseason even when they had Gray, Severino, Masahiro Tanaka, Jordan Montgomery and CC Sabathia penciled in for their rotation. Now because of Montgomery’s injury, Tanaka and Sabathia’s inconsistencies and Gray being unable to get through the fourth inning, the Yankees are most definitely going to trade for pitching. The depth of the farm system and future of the Yankees, which was somewhat compromised to get Gray last season, will be further compromised because of him again this season.

The only thing that has held the Yankees back from running away with the division so far has been Sonny Gray and his “good stuff”. He better find his “great stuff” or Miguel Andujar or Clint Frazier or Justus Sheffield will realize their potential in the majors with another team. Or worse, Yankees fans will have to sit through another wild-card game this fall.