Last season, from June 13 through June 20, the Yankees lost seven-straight games to the Angels and A’s. Two of the losses were walk-off losses and four of the losses were by one run. After that awful stretch, the Yankees then lost four of their next seven to the Angels, Rangers and White Sox. They weren’t exactly losing to good teams, but even despite their miserable two weeks, after their 4-3 walk-off loss to the White Sox on June 27, they were still 41-34 and only trailed the Red Sox by one game in the AL East.

On June 28, the Yankees called up 22-year-old, highly-regarded prospect Miguel Andujar for his Major League debut. He was penciled in as the DH and to bat seventh in the lineup. In his first at-bat, he produced a two-run single. In his second at-bat, he hit another single, which would have been for a third RBI, but the slow-footed Chase Headley was thrown out at home. In his third at-bat, he grounded out. In his fourth at-bat, he walked. In his fifth at-bat, he lined a two-run double to center field. His Major League debut: 3-for-4 with a double, a walk and four RBIs. With top prospect Gleyber Torres needing season-ending Tommy John surgery from an injury suffered the week before, and with Headley once again struggling, the Yankees might have found their everyday third baseman. Though his defense was still a work in progress, which is why he was the DH for his debut, the kid could mash.

Andujar was sent down after the game and wouldn’t return until September as a mid-September, late-season call-up.

I wanted Andujar to be the Opening Day starting third baseman for the Yankees in 2018, but the late-February trade for Brandon Drury ended that. Despite showing off his bat in the early going of spring training with a home run in seemingly every at-bat, Andujar’s defense was still being questioned and he was sent to the minors to begin the season. But it didn’t take long for the injuries to mount and Andujar was on the Yankees in their first series of the season against the Blue Jays.

Andujar went 0-for-4 with two strikeouts in his season debut, which was the Yankees’ fourth game of the season. He didn’t play again for four days when he made his Major League debut at third, going 0-for-3 with a strikeout. The next day, he was back at DH, and he went 0-for-5 with a strikeout. Andujar was now 0-for-12 with four strikeouts to begin the season.

The following day, Boone put him back at third base and he went 1-for-3 with an RBI and hasn’t stopped. Over his last seven games, all as the starting third baseman, Andujar is 9-for-28 (.321) with four doubles, a triple, a home run, five RBIs, two walks, two strikeouts and .998 OPS. Four of those seven games have been multi-hit games, including the last three. His last at-bat on Tuesday night against the Marlins was a long home run (his first of the season) to left field that prevented the Yankees from being shut out for the first time this season. Andujar has gotten hot, and I figured that the Yankees would plan on keeping him at third until Drury gets healthy (if he does) and have Torres come up to play second for the struggling Tyler Wade. Instead, the Yankees’ plan on Thursday night against the Blue Jays was to not have Andujar in the lineup at all.

Because of the need for Giancarlo Stanton to DH that leaves only third base as an option for Andujar now that Aaron Hicks is back. Ronald Torreyes got the start at third base on Thursday, so that meant the bench for Andujar.

If you Aaron Boone or Brian Cashman or whoever actually makes the Yankees lineup wants Torreyes in the lineup then it has to be at second base for Tyler Wade. It can’t be at third base for Andujar. I have been as high as anyone (though I’m not sure there’s actually many people high on him) on Wade’s ability to be a full-time Major Leaguer, who can play nearly every position. Last year’s .155/.222/.224 in 63 plate appearances was easy to chalk up to Joe Girardi sitting him for weeks at a time, but this year it’s much of the same at .086/.158/.143 in 38 plate appearances. I bought Tyler Wade stock at $7 and it’s now at $0.29. It’s likely that Wade needs to play every day and get consistent at-bats to be productive, but in a season in which the Yankees already trail the Red Sox by 6.5 games, the Yankees can’t afford to have an automatic out at the bottom of the lineup, waiting and hoping he gets going.

Since Torres is playing third base every day in Triple-A, it’s obvious the Yankees’ plan is to have him come up as a third baseman, move Drury over to second where he has played the majority of his career, and have Neil Walker and Tyler Austin as a platoon at first until Greg Bird is back. That would make Andujar the odd-man out since the organization clearly favors Drury over him (though I’m not sure why), and it will likely be Andujar who’s no longer a Yankee at the end of July if the team needs starting pitching help. Once Torres is up and Drury is healthy, it’s back to Triple-A for Andujar to work on his defense and continue to not work on his hitting since there’s nothing offensively he can learn anymore in the minors.

As long as Andujar’s in the majors, he needs to play. He’s a consensus Top 5 prospect in the organization with nothing left to prove in the minors. Having him on the bench is idiotic. Giving him a rest as a 23-year-old on April 19 is absurd. He’s not going to get better playing defensively by not playing, and if you want to pull him for a late-inning defensive replacement, go ahead, that’s what Torreyes is there for it. But not playing him the night after he crushes his first home run of the season and is arguably the hottest hitter on the team is irresponsible.

Yes, the Yankees won on Thursday night. Yes, they’re back over. 500. But Miguel Andujar needs to play. He needs to play every day as long as he’s a Yankee.

When I left Rogers Centre after the second game of the season, I was in the best mood I had been in since I left the Stadium after Game 5 of the ALCS. The Yankees had started the season with back-to-back wins, the pitching was dominant and everyone in the offense was contributing (even Tyler Wade). It wasn’t until I returned home that everything started to unravel.

***

In Game 3 of the 2018 season, Tyler Austin showed that everyone in the lineup could produce, and in games when the top of the order wasn’t producing, others would step up. But Aaron Boone ran into his first real test as Yankees manager and failed miserably.

Tied 2-2 in the bottom of the sixth, Boone took the ball from CC Sabathia and gave it to Adam Warren to start the inning. Aside from Jonathan Holder and Chasen Shreve, Warren is the Yankees’ third-least trustworthy option. A groundout, a walk and a groundout later with the go-ahead run on second, Warren had somewhat done his job, and after just seven pitches, Boone called on the Yankees’ least trustworthy bullpen option: Jonathan Holder. Sure enough, Holder immediately gave up a single to Luke Maile and the Yankees now trailed 3-2.

Austin hit his second home run of the game in the seventh to tie the game once again and Boone brought in Dellin Betances to keep the game tied in the bottom half of the inning.

Betances gave up a leadoff single to Curtis Granderson (ex-Yankee comes through in a big spot against the Yankees) before striking out Josh Donaldson on three pitches. With Justin Smoak up, Granderson got the biggest lead of all time and took off for second and it took possibly the best throw down to second in Major League history from Gary Sanchez to throw out Granderson for the second out. Smoak ended the inning with a groundout.

The Yankees didn’t score in the eighth, so with the game still tied what would Boone do for the bottom of the inning? He could go to Chasen Shreve, the least trustworthy bullpen option remaining, who hadn’t pitched in a game yet. He could go to Chad Green, who didn’t pitch the day before, but did throw 26 pitches on Opening Day. He could go to David Robertson, who threw just five pitches the day before in his first appearance of the season. I’m assuming he didn’t want to go to Aroldis Chapman at all because he had pitched in the first two games of the series, throwing 33 pitches. Boone decided to go with Dellin Betances for a second inning.

Knowing everything we know about Betances since he emerged as an elite reliever in 2014, it’s incredibly risky to ask him to pitch a second inning. On top of that, given the way his 2017 season ended and how he pitched on Opening Day, you would think the Yankees would want him to gain some confidence moving forward. His performance in the seventh inning was a confidence builder.

After falling behind Yangervis Solarte (ex-Yankee alert) 2-0, Solarte, clearly sitting on a fastball got one and didn’t miss it. He crushed it to center field for a go-ahead home run. Betances bounced back to strike out Randal Grichuk and then Kevin Pillar singled. And then Pillar stole second. And then Pillar stole third. And then Pillar stole home. It was a disastrous and embarrassing inning for the most pivotal member of the bullpen and absolutely crushing after his previous inning. Around the single and three steals, he allowed a walk, but did strike out the side. But if his confidence hadn’t hit an all-time low near the end of last season, it certainly had now. The Yankees lost 5-3.

***

The next day, the Yankees had built a 4-1 lead heading to the bottom of the seventh, so with nine outs to go and this bullpen, I figured it was safe to sit down for Easter dinner with my family. It wasn’t.

Green had pitched a scoreless sixth and Boone called on Tommy Kahnle for the seventh. No problem there. Kahnle walked Donaldson to start the inning and then gave up a two-run home run to Justin Smoak. The Yankees’ lead was now 4-3. Kahnle retired Solarte and Granderson, and with two outs and no one on, Boone called on Robertson. He retired Grichuk on two pitches.

In the bottom of the eighth, the Yankees’ lead was 4-3 and Robertson was still on the mound. Russell Martin singled on the first pitch of the inning and then Pillar lined out to center on the seventh pitch of his at-bat for the first out of the inning. Aledmys Diaz doubled to center to move Martin to third, but Devon Travis jumped on the first pitch he saw and grounded it right back to Robertson for the second out. The Blue Jays had second and third with two outs, and Robertson was one out away from holding the lead.

Donaldson came to the plate, serving as the DH because his right arm was so messed up that he couldn’t reach first with throws on Opening Day. Boone and Robertson decided the best move was to intentionally walk Donaldson to load the bases for Smoak, who had already homered in the game. (Donaldson would later go on the disabled list.)

Robertson got behind 2-0 and then got even at 2-2. The fifth pitch of the at-bat was fouled away and the sixth pitch was a ball to move the count full. The seventh and eighth pitches of the at-bat were fouled away. The ninth pitch? The ninth pitch was destroyed to left-center for a go-ahead grand slam. The feeling leaving Rogers Centre after the second game of the season had been erased. Back-to-back bullpen meltdowns had put the Yankees back at .500, and with the way the Easter game unfolded, I thought, That is the low point of the season. Well, I wanted it to be. If the low point were to come in Game 4, at least I knew that the next 158 games wouldn’t crush me the way that one had.

It wasn’t.

***

A week later in Game 10, after dropping two of first three games to the lowly Orioles, the Yankees scored five runs in the first inning to ensure they wouldn’t lose the four-game series. Unfortunately, Jordan Montgomery was unable to get through five innings and the Orioles slowly came back. The Yankees led 6-4 at the end of the fifth, but in the seventh, Boone stuck again.

Domingo German had been called up from Triple-A and he relived Montgomery in the fifth. German threw 11 pitches in the fifth and 24 pitches in the sixth. He allowed one run on two hits with four strikeouts. He had done his job. But Boone wanted him to keep doing his job, so he left him out there for the seventh.

The day before, Boone used Warren (13 pitches), Robertson (20 pitches) and Luis Cessa (10 pitches) in relief of Sonny Gray. The day before that, Boone used every reliever but Warren in the team’s five-hour, 20-minute, 14-inning loss. (It was Jonathan Holder, who lost the game, allowing four runs, three earned in the 14th.)

The bullpen as a whole might have been tired in Game 10, which was partially Boone’s fault for pulling his starters each game with low pitch counts, a trend that had been backfiring on rookie managers around the league, and partially because of the 14-inning game. But that game had happened Friday night into early Saturday morning, and not every reliever was overextended, and it was now Sunday afternoon.

With one on and two outs in the seventh, German had more than done his job, but Boone kept sticking with him, trying to squeeze out with fringe Major Leaguers the way his predecessor Joe Girardi would constantly do. It came as no surprise when Anthony Santander got the green light on 3-0 and hit a two-run home run to give the Orioles a 7-6 lead as they had come all the way back.

The Yankees came back in the seventh on a two-out RBI single from none other than Austin Romine. Boone then went to Betances for a scoreless eighth and Chapman for a scoreless ninth. Apparently, Robertson was unavailable because he went to Shreve for the 10th. I was certain Shreve would give up a run if not more, but he pitched a perfect 10th. Then in the 11th, Boone went to Robertson. So Robertson was available. Boone was willing to lose with Shreve on the mound and Robertson in the bullpen, which means Boone would have had to lie in his postgame press conference and say that Robertson was unavailable because he would have never been able to such a decision.

It wasn’t until the 12th when Adam Warren came in to ruin the game. With Pedro Alvarez on first and two outs, Warren gave up back-to-back singles to Santander and Craig Gentry and the Orioles had an 8-7 lead.

In the bottom of the 12th, Boone let Romine bat for himself, despite Sanchez being on the bench. The only way this is OK is if Sanchez has a broken bone, and if he had a broken bone, he would be on the DL. So if Sanchez is on the bench and not on the DL then he bats for Romine no matter what. Luckily for Boone, Brad Brach was off and walked Romine on five pitches. Brach then walked Didi Gregorius (he had pinch hit for Ronald Torreyes in the seventh) on five pitches. The Yankees had first and second and no one out for the top of their order.

Aside from Nick Swisher, the worst sacrifice bunter in recent memory has been Brett Gardner. Bunt for a hit? No problem. Bunt to move runners over? Disaster. Girardi never learned this and Boone likely didn’t know about it, so he had Gardner do just that. After failing (to no surprise) to get the bunt down on the first four pitches of the at-bat, Gardner bunted again with two strikes(!) and laid it down. Brach was unable to come up with it and the Yankees had the bases loaded with no outs for Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton. The Yankees now had a 75 percent change of winning. The Yankees were going to win the game.

Two pitches later, Judge grounded the ball right back to Brach who throw home to Caleb Joseph for one out and Joseph threw to first for the second out. A 1-2-3 double play. The Yankees now had second and third with two outs for Stanton and a chance for him to erase the early-season Stadium boos and have his first big Yankee moment.

He struck out swinging.

The Yankees were now .500 again at 5-5 and headed to Boston for a three-game series. THAT loss to the Orioles had to be the lowest point of the season.

It wasn’t.

***

In the series opener against the Red Sox, the game was over before it started. Luis Severino gave up one run in the bottom of the first and needed 27 pitches to get through the inning. That one run seemed insurmountable with Chris Sale on the mound, but to put it out of reach for good, Severino gave up three more in the second.

The Red Sox led 5-1 through five, but in the sixth they ended the game. Kahnle started the inning in relief of Severino and this is what happened:

Groundout
Double
Walk
Walk
Double (two runs)
Sacrifice fly (one run)
Walk

Then Chasen Shreve came in:

Hit by pitch
E5 (one run)
Walk (one run)
Home run (four runs)
Groundout

A nine-run sixth inning for the Red Sox made it 14-1 and they would win by that score.

Now THAT loss had to be the lowest point of the season.

It wasn’t.

***

The Yankees routed the Marlins on Monday night because that what good teams and teams with championship aspirations do against bad teams and teams clearly tanking. The Yankees won 12-1 and after beating the Tigers on Friday, they were now 8-7 and maybe ready to go on a run of their own like the Red Sox were.

On Tuesday, Masahiro Tanaka quickly gave up three runs in the first to the Marlins. A Gregorius two-run error was part of it, but Tanaka gave up three singles and a walk around the error, and it’s hard to say anything negative about Gregorius at this point of the season.

In the bottom of the first, Gardner and Judge both walked and looked like the young left-hander Jarlin Garcia might have a little poop in his pants pitching at Yankee Stadium with eight of his first 11 pitches going for balls and Stanton coming up. Nope. Stanton grounded into a double play to ruin the rally.

The Marlins scored again in the fourth to make it 4-0, but even as their lead grew, it felt like the Yankees would come back and win the game. This is a Marlins team whose best player is Starlin Castro.

In the bottom of the third, with one out, Gardner and Judge walked again. Here it is. The moment where Stanton would make the wild lefty pay. Stanton got ahead 3-0 and then swung on 3-0, fouling away what would have been ball 4. He popped up to second on the next pitch.

Tanaka retired the first two hitters in the fifth, but then a slow-roller to third and a walk brought up J.T. Realmuto and he deposited a three-run home run to right field. The Marlins lead was now 7-0.

The Yankees had one last chance to get back in the game when they loaded the bases with one out in the sixth, but Neil Walker and Tyler Austin struck out to end the inning. The Yankees lost 9-1 to the Marlins. A Marlins team that traded away Stanton and Marcel Ozuna and Christian Yelich and Dee Gordon in the offseason. A Marlins team that knows their season is only going to be 162 games for the foreseeable future. A Marlins team that is tanking so hard, Major League Baseball might have to do something to prevent such obvious tanking in the future.

***

If Tuesday’s 9-1 loss to the Marlins wasn’t the lowest point of the 2018 season then I don’t want to know what is. The Yankees are 8-8 after 16 games and already trail the Red Sox in the AL East by six games and the season isn’t even three weeks old.

The Yankees’ next 21 games are against Blue Jays (4), Twins (4), Angels (3), Astros (3), Indians (3) and Red Sox (3). Thankfully, the lowest point of the season is out of the way and now I know that by May 10, when this 21-game stretch is over, if I will have a baseball season to watch this summer or not.

Here is Part I and here is Part II of my three-day, three-game trip to Boston.

I had a little extra pep in my step walking downstairs to the breakfast buffet on Thursday. Everyone else in our hotel seemed to be there for some sort on conference with badges hanging from their necks and looks of fatigue and wanting to go home on their faces. But not me. I felt great. The combination of the Yankees win and the bench-clearing brawl to reignite the rivalry had me walking around Boston like Joseph-Gordon Levitt after he sleeps with Zooey Deschanel for the first time in 500 Days of Summer.

The weather was finally nice in Boston. It had felt like winter for the first two games of the series, but now it felt like spring as we walked around Back Bay. The Yankees would be going for the series win later that night, and the anticipation of the game still several hours away had me pumped.

After a short pregame session at Cask N’Flagon, Brittni and I walked into Fenway, and shortly after game started, it started to rain as the Baseball Gods continued to punish Major League Baseball and its fans for starting the season on March 29. The beautiful day had turned into a disgusting night, and it might not have been as cold as the previous two nights, but the rain was an annoyance.

As the rain rapidly increased, so did Sonny Gray’s pitch count. He only needed 16 pitches to get through the first inning despite a single and hit by pitch that got the crowd’s attention after Wednesday night‘s events. But in the second inning, the wheels came off.

Eduardo Nunez singled to lead off the inning and then Gray walked Jackie Bradley Jr., who does everything in his power to not walk. Gray’s first pitch to Sandy Leon was wild, which allowed Nunez to move to third. Leon singled in Nunez and Bradley moved to second. Gray the  walked Brock Holt, who entered the game batting .077/.294/.077, to load the bases. Mookie Betts drove in Bradley with a sacrifice fly and then Andrew Benintendi drove in Leon with a fielder’s choice. An error on Tyler Wade allowed Benintendi to go to second. Mitch Moreland then singled to score Holt. Gray struck out J.D. Martinez and got Rafael Devers to ground out to end the inning, but the damage had been done. Four runs on three hits and two walks and 33 pitches. The Yankees had their work cut out for them thanks to another egg being laid by Gray.

The Yankees went down 1-2-3 again in the third as Rick Porcello remained perfect through three. Gray followed up his disastrous second by allowing back-to-back doubles to begin the third and make it 5-0. After a pair of strikeouts, a groundout scored the sixth run. The Yankees were down 6-0 after three, the rain wasn’t slowing down and I wanted to be back at the hotel bar eating a burger, drinking a beer and watching this awful game on TV along with the Stanley Cup playoffs.

Giancarlo Stanton got hit by a pitch in the fourth, which led to cheers at Fenway as if the crowd were riled up for Pearl Jam to come out for an encore. Unfortunately, that would be the only baserunner of the inning and the no-hitter was still intact.

Gray gave up a leadoff single to Moreland and Aaron Boone had seen enough. I had seen enough two innings prior, but unfortunately I’m not allowed to make pitching changes for the Yankees (though they would be better off if I were). Domingo German relieved Gray and retired the next three batters to end the inning.

The Yankees went down in order in the fifth and after the bottom of the fifth, the umpires called for the tarp. Great. A rain delay in the middle of a 6-0 game. I wanted to leave, but I also wanted to watch the heart of the order bat again in the event that they could put a rally together. Luckily, our tickets included the Royal Rooters club, so we hung out in there during the 45-minute rain delay.

The Yankees went down in order again in the sixth and now I was worried. Was I really going to  watch Rick Porcello (the worst AL Cy Young winner in history) of all pitchers no-hit the Yankees? I was nine outs away from watching the worst Yankees regular-season loss I had ever seen at Fenway Park.

Thankfully, Aaron Judge doubled to leadoff the seventh and save me from watching the Yankees get no-hit. Stanton followed the double with a single and i started to get excited. But the excitement didn’t last long as Didi Gregorius flew out and then Gary Sanchez and Aaron Hicks struck out to end the inning. It was time to go. The Yankees were down 6-0 with six outs to their name and I was drenched and hungry.

We got back to the hotel restaurant/bar and warmth and were enjoying some beer and food and playoff hockey when the bartender started to change the channel. She changed the channel to the Yankees-Red Sox, which meant something happened or was happening. Did the Yankees come back? Was there another brawl?

Sure enough, the Red Sox had brought in Marcus Walden with a six-run lead in the ninth and he proceeded to walk Judge, give up a single to Giancarlo Stanton and walk Gregorius. Sanchez had just hit a bases-clearing double and was standing on second when the bartender changed the channel. I was excited, but not excited in the event that they did complete a six-run, ninth-inning comeback and I had left early. 

Craig Kimbrel made sure I didn’t regret my decision to trade cold, wet, miserable Yankees baseball for food, beer and warmth. He got Hicks to ground out and the struck out Neil Walker and Wade, to no surprise, to end the game.

The Yankees had lost the game and the series and were now 4 1/2 games back in the division after just 13 games. After three days and three games in cold, wet weather, I was ready to leave Boston and I’m sure the Yankees were too.

Here is Part I of my three-day, three-game trip to Boston.

Tuesday night sucked. And to top off the 14-1 embarrassment, drinking Coors Lights for about five hours straight (and trying one or two of Brittni’s Angry Orchard Rosés) led to a brutal hangover on Wednesday. It didn’t matter that I had pizza from two different places, both near the end of the game and then again after the game. I crushed the breakfast buffet at the hotel and then took an afternoon nap. Then a few hours before the game, we went to Eataly where I had more pizza, and then it was time to get ready for the game.

We had to stop at my friend’s apartment on Comm. Ave. to pick up Brittni’s bag (it only had her whole life in it) that she left there the night before (Angry Orchard Rosé will do that to you) walking over to Fenway Park for the second game of the series.

Thanks to getting stuck by the slowest people in the slowest moving line in the history of event entrances, I was watching on a TV when Brett Gardner led off the game with a single and Aaron Judge walked before Giancarlo Stanton rocked a two-run triple to the deepest part of the park up against the 420 sign. At first I thought Stanton had struck out or grounded into a double play given the crowd’s reaction, but that’s just how many Yankees fans were in Fenway.

In recent seasons, there have been more and more “Let’s Go Yankees” chanting breaking out in Fenway, something I would have never imagined between my first Yankees-Red Sox game at Fenway in 1999 and 2004. Even in the few seasons after 2004, Fenway was still a scary place for Yankees fans to wear Yankees apparel, and the score would determine your safety after the game. But now people openly tell Jackie Bradley Jr. he sucks and yell obscenities at the Red Sox on their home field. It’s beautiful.

Somehow it was even colder than the night before. The wind was whipping around and in Section 34 in straightaway center field (the same viewpoint as what you see on TV), down below on Lansdowne Street, an aspiring musician or a crazy person with a few empty buckets (I’m going with the latter) drummed away the whole game. Drumming is actually not what he was doing, but rather just hitting the drum over and over like a metronome with no beat or rhythm. People in our section were pooling together money to throw down to him to make him stop, but the “drumming” lasted the entire game except for a few momentary breaks.

I didn’t think much of Tyler Wade’s groundout in the top of the third inning other than that maybe Tyler Wade isn’t very good and just an AAAA player. But then Tyler Austin and Brock Holt came together at second base as a result of that groundout and the benches cleared, and the “Yankees suck” chants began right on cue. Austin had slid a little to aggressively for Holt’s liking, and the two players barely hanging on to being Major Leaguers caused the benches to clear and hundreds of millions of dollars of baseball assets sprinting for second base. Both ownership groups were probably happy thinking about what a fight and a renewed rivalry would do for their wallets, while also worried about all of the money at stake in an actual brawl.

Austin had reached base on an RBI single that gave the Yankees a 4-1 lead. It was going to take a much more lopsided score for the Red Sox to throw at Austin if they really felt his slide was over the top. When Gary Sanchez crushed his second two-run home run of the game in the fourth, the Yankees had an 8-1 lead, and the Red Sox had the deficit they needed to throw at Austin.

Austin’s at-bat in the fifth came and went as he struck out against Heath Hembree on four pitches. In the bottom of the fifth, Masahiro Tanaka unraveled as the Red Sox scored five runs, including their second grand slam in as many nights, this one from J.D. Martinez. Suddenly, the lopsided Yankees blowout was now an 8-6 game. I wasn’t thinking about whether or not there would be a fight, I was thinking about how this game would join my list of bad Yankees games at Fenway Park. Losing this game would be the worst Yankees loss at Fenway Park for me since Game 5 of the 2004 ALCS.

Thankfully, the Yankees added two insurance runs in the sixth and Chad Green pitched a shutdown inning in the bottom of the inning to keep the Yankees’ lead at 10-6. Austin was due up in the seventh, but the game was still close.

Joe Kelly is a loser. I thought that long before Wednesday’s game. Wednesday’s game did nothing other than reinforce my opinion about him: loser. In 2015, Kelly told the media he would win the AL Cy Young award. It wasn’t said in jest. It was said in all seriousness and said a few times. Kelly made 25 starts in 2015, pitching to a 4.82 ERA and 1.444 WHIP. Cy Young indeed. He’s basically Nathan Eovaldi. All the velocity in the world and can’t strike anyone out.

Kelly tried to drill Austin, but his command is so bad that he missed, so he tried again, and this time he didn’t miss. Austin slammed his bat on the plate and then went right for Kelly as Kelly stood there with his glove begging Austin to come fight him. Kelly is 6-foot-1, 190 lbs. Austin is 6-foot-2, 220 lbs. Size isn’t everything in a fight, but knowing the demeanors of both, if Christian Vazquez hadn’t pulled on Austin’s jersey to trip him up right before he reached Kelly, Kelly’s career might be over. Luckily for Kelly, Judge came in to play referee and not play enforcer. He put Kelly in a headlock and with the help of Stanton, the two mammoth Yankees moved the entire pile of both teams across the infield.

“Yankees suck” filled the Fenway air as everyone tried their best to see who was throwing punches and who was taking punches. When the dust settled, the umpires took what felt like three hours to sort it all out as the temperature dropped. Phil Nevin came out to argue his ejection as the Fenway played “Let It Go” from Frozen. Brittni, wearing flats in the freezing temperatures, began to look like Anna near the end of Frozen (sorry for the spoiler), and the game still hadn’t restarted.

The game was long from over. Neither team scored in the seventh or eighth and the Yankees were once again scoreless in the ninth. With a four-run lead and desperately needing a win, Aaron Boone called on the highest-paid reliever in baseball to close out the game against the team he is barely ever able to close out a game against.

Here is what I wrote earlier in the season about Aroldis Chapman:

After watching Aroldis Chapman pitch for the Yankees for four months of 2016 and all of 2017, I know there are two Aroldis Chapmans. There’s the Good Aroldis Chapman, who comes in and there is actually a 0 percent chance anyone will reach base and close to a 0 percent chance that anyone might even make contact. Then there’s the Bad Aroldis Chapman, who comes in and need 30 pitches to get through the inning, if he even gets through the inning, as every triple-digit fastball is fouled straight back or hit for a line drive and every slider is sat on or misses the strike zone completely. This appearance was a combination of the two.

Bad Aroldis Chapman was in for the Yankees.

Jackie Bradley Jr., who is on his way out of the majors, singled to lead off the ninth, and then Christian Vazquez doubled to move Bradley to third. Fenway Park was on its feet and I felt like I was going to throw up all over myself. Here is what was at stake with a Yankees loss:

1. A third straight loss to fall to 5-7
2. A second straight loss to the Red Sox
3. Blowing an 8-1 lead two games after blowing a 5-0 lead
4. Losing a game in which the benches cleared twice
5. Watching your $86 million blow a four-run, ninth-inning lead to your rival

(On top of that, I had a four team parlay and the Yankees were the last team I needed to win it.)

Thankfully, Sandy Leon flew out on the first pitch of his at-bat for the first out of the inning and I could breathe for a second. The runners on base meant nothing, as did the batter at the plate. Just keep the tying run out of the batter’s box, and never let the go-ahead run get to the plate.

Mookie Betts battled Chapman as Chapman looked gas and like he might walk the park. Behind 3-1 in the count, I felt like dry heaving with Rafael Devers on deck and visions of Devers home run off Chapman last season started to replay in my head.

Chapman threw the best two pitches he will probably throw this season to Betts for a called strike 2 and a swinging strike 3 and there were two outs in the inning.

Devers came up to the plate and a wild pitch from Chapman scored Bradley to make it 10-7. But Vazquez and Devers still meant nothing. Hanley Ramirez standing in the on-deck circle meant everything.

Chapman struck out Devers to avoid the worst Yankees regular-season loss of my lifetime (no exaggeration given everything at stake). Brittni got warm and she got some sushi and she promised to never wear flats to an April baseball game in Boston again.

The Yankees were back to .500 and the Red Sox’ nine-game winning streak had been stopped.

Part III of my three-day, three-game trip to Boston coming tomorrow.

I have seen a lot of bad Yankees games at Fenway Park. A lot of bad games.

May 18, 1999: Joe Torre returns to the Yankees after missing the beginning of the season to battle prostate cancer. David Cone and Pedro Martinez go toe-to-toe, but trailing 3-2 late, Jason Grimsley can’t keep it close as he gives up three runs in the bottom of the eighth.

Oct 18, 2004: Game 5 of the 2004 ALCS, which also happens to be the third-worst night of my life. The second being Game 6 and the first being Game 7.

April 14, 2005: Randy Johnson gets lit up for five runs and Tom Gordon turns a 5-5 tie into an 8-5 loss with an embarrassing eighth inning. And to top it all off, Gary Sheffield brawls with some fans in right field.

May 1, 2006: Johnny Damon returns to Boston as Friendly Fenway’s center field gets littered with money. Tied 3-3 in the eighth, Tanyon Sturtze gives up the go-ahead run. With two men on and David Ortiz due up, Joe Torre calls for the Mike Myers, the lefty specialist and the man the Yankees acquired for the sole purpose of facing Ortiz. Ortiz cranks a three-run home run into the New England night.

April 22, 2007: After losing the first two games of the series, the Yankees take a 3-0 lead in the rubber match on Sunday Night Baseball. But after holding the Red Sox scoreless for the first two innings, rookie Chase Wright allows Manny Ramirez, J.D. Drew, Mike Lowell and Jason Varitek to go back-to-back-to-back-to-back on him to take a 4-3 lead. The Yankees would take the lead back in the sixth only to have Scott Proctor give up a three-run home run to Lowell in the seventh.

April 24, 2009: The Yankees lead 4-2 in the ninth with two outs and Mariano Rivera on the mound and Kevin Youkilis on first base. Jason Bay hits a 1-0 pitch over the wall in center to tie the game. In the 11th, Damaso Marte gives up a home run to Youkilis that landed just yesterday.

April 26, 2009: Hoping to salvage the final game of the series, Andy Pettitte falls apart in the fifth. Tied 1-1, Pettitte wakes David Ortiz up by allowing Ortiz to double home the go-ahead run. With Jacoby Ellsbury on third and Ortiz on second following the double, Ellsbury steals home on Pettitte and Jorge Posada and steals Pettitte’s pride, dignity and self esteem in the process.

(A period of a lot of Yankees wins.)

April 29, 2016: The Yankees have a 2-0 lead in the seventh inning. With two on and two outs, Masahiro Tanaka gives up a two-run double to Jackie Bradley Jr. to tie the game. In the eighth inning, Dellin Betances gives up a two-run home run to David Ortiz as the Yankees lose 4-2.

April 30, 2016: The Yankees lose 8-0 and Rick Porcello pitches seven shutout innings.

You can add April 10, 2018 to the list.

Thankfully, I’m up in Boston for all three games of the series because I was inside Fenway Park for a total of about 30 minutes on Tuesday night.

Last year on April 26, Luis Severino pitched a seven-inning shutout at Fenway. Then on July 15, he gave up one earned run over seven innings at Fenway. This start looked like his Aug. 12 start against the Red Sox at the Stadium when eight earned runs in 4 1/3 innings.

Severino didn’t have it from the start. Mookie Betts doubled, Andrew Benintendi walked and Hanley Ramirez singled. After three batters and 10 pitchers, it was 1-0 Red Sox with runners on first and third and no one out. With Chris Sale going for the Red Sox, the game was most likely over already. But just incase anyone thought the Yankees might still win, Severino made sure to erase those thoughts in the second inning.

Four more hits, including a two-run Benintendi triple and the Red Sox had a 4-0 lead. I knew it was game over, but I stayed anyway as I watched Brittni’s teeth chatter as she was somehow cold inside her long-sleeved shirt and two coats and hood. Two innings later when the Red Sox added a fifth run and the “Yankees suck” chants started to build with intensity, I had seen enough. I said, “Let’s go,” to Brittni and she moved like they were giving away puppies outside the park.

In the cab on our way to our friend’s apartment to catch up and drink away the pain of a loss to the Red Sox, I watched Aaron Judge homer (thanks to the FOX Sports Go app, which is the best invention of all time), and I thought it would really suck if I left this game early and the Yankees somehow come back. But I was frozen from my short time at the game and I knew better than to think the Yankees were going to mount a five-run comeback against Sale. I made the right decision.

At my friend’s apartment, I watched the bottom of the sixth inning unfold, which will hopefully go down as the worst inning of the 2018 season for the Yankees. If it doesn’t, then that’s going to be quite an inning.

Tommy Kahnle relived Severino to start the six. Here is how his performance went:

Groundout
Double
Walk
Walk
Double (two runs)
Sacrifice fly (one run)
Walk

Then the always reliable Chasen Shreve came in to get the last out of the inning. It took him a while:

Hit by pitch
E5 (one run)
Walk (one run)
Home run (four runs)
Groundout

That’s nine runs on three hits (all extra-base hits), four walks, one hit by pitch and one error. The Red Sox were up 14-1 and I was so pleased with my decision to leave the game in the bottom of the fourth inning for warmth and cheaper beer.

The loss put the Yankees back under .500 at 5-6 and 4 1/2 games out in the AL East, but at least it wasn’t a heartbreaking loss. Sure, this game is now on my list of Fenway Park disasters, but it wasn’t like the two losses to the Blue Jays or the Sunday loss to the Orioles. It was just a good, old embarrassing rout, and those are easier to shake off.

Part II of my three-day, three-game trip to Boston coming tomorrow.