1. Before Max Fried took the mound on Tuesday night in Seattle, Michael Kay mentioned how the Yankees were turning to their ace “at the moment,” insinuating that Fried is just a placeholder ace because of injuries to the rotation. Kay couldn’t be more wrong. Fried is the ace. He was in 2025 and still is in 2026.

After throwing 6 1/3 scoreless innings on Opening Day in San Francisco, Fried threw seven scoreless innings in the middle game of the three-game series in Seattle. His line through two starts this season: 13.1 IP, 5 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 2 BB, 10 K, 0.00 ERA, 0.525 WHIP.

2. “There weren’t times where I was just fighting to throw strikes,” Fried said. “I felt like I was actually able to locate today, which made things a lot easier.”

Fried was referring to his start against the Giants where he struggled at times to find the zone. But, again, in that start he still managed to throw 6 1/3 scoreless innings without a feel for his pitches at times. On Tuesday, he had everything working.

“I can’t go wrong with what I call when he has all these pitches going,” J.C. Escarra said. “It makes it easy for me and easy for him.”

3. Before Fried threw a pitch the Yankees had a 2-0 lead. After Trent Grisham and Aaron Judge were retired and Cody Bellinger quickly fell behind 0-2 to Logan Gilbert, it seemed like the Yankees were destined for an easy 1-2-3 inning. But Bellinger fought back to run the count full and then singled up the middle. Ben Rice followed with a double down the first-base line to score Bellinger and Giancarlo Stanton continued his hot start to the season with a flare to right field to score Rice. What had been a strike away from a quick first for Gilbert turned into a 28-pitch, two-run inning.

4. Gilbert settled down after that to throw a scoreless second, third, fourth and fifth, but the Yankees chased him in the sixth with a three-run outburst made possible by the same trio of Bellinger, Rice and Stanton. Stanton had his fifth straight multi-hit game to open the season, Bellinger, Rice and Grisham all had a pair of hits and Jazz Chisholm added an RBI single. Judge, Escarra, Jose Caballero and Ryan McMahon combined to go 0-for-16 with seven strikeouts.

5. Brent Headrick and Tim Hill combined to throw two scoreless innings in relief of Fried as Paul Blackburn remains the only reliever to allow a run this season. It was a nice, tidy win in a place the Yankees have had trouble scoring runs against a team many feel is one of the few true contenders in the AL this year.

6. Not only is Stanton hitting .500/.500/.750 with 10 hits in five games, but after scoring from second on a base hit to left field on Opening Day and then taking second on a ball that barely got away from Cal Raleigh on Tuesday, he looks like he has turned the clock back. You never know when an extended slump or injured list stint is going to take Stanton down, so for now, I’m enjoying every moment of this vintage showing.

“I’m just staying back, being on time for heaters and keeping my barrel through the zone as much as possible,” Stanton said.

7. The Yankees are 4-1 despite hitting only three home runs (Judge 2, Stanton 1) on the year. They’re 4-1 with Judge having a .190 on-base percentage and essentially no power throughout the lineup. When you get the type of production the Yankees are getting from their pitching staff, you don’t need to do much offensively to stack wins. I will always take a team with a great pitching staff over a team with a great offense.

“Everyone has contributed,” Aaron Boone said. “Max has gone into the seventh or completed the seventh in back-to-back ones. Everyone else from the starting rotation has gone out and held them down, and then the bullpen has been excellent.”

8. The offenses of the Giants and Mariners aren’t exactly the Dodgers or Blue Jays, but there are very few good offenses across the league. Most of the opponents the Yankees will face will have offenses similar to what they have seen in San Francisco and Seattle and that bodes well for the best rotation in the league and what’s emerging to be a strong and exciting bullpen.

9. “We’ve been waiting for this opportunity, to have the season start and go compete,” Fried said. “We want to go win, and we’re leaving everything out there.”

Those words from Fried closely resemble Judge talking about the importance of each game, as if the idea of all 162 games mattering is a new concept to the Yankees. But I’m glad they finally understand it and are playing and acting like it.

10. No matter what happens on Wednesday in the series finale, the season-opening road trip has already been a success as the Yankees have clinched a winning record on it. But there’s something to be said for winning a road series against one of the AL’s best and for boarding the flight back to the East Coast following a win and for going into a day off before the home opener following a win. And with Cam Schlittler on the mound, the Yankees have a very good chance of that happening.

1. I finished the most recent Thoughts with this:

The Yankees and Mariners always play weird, tight, low-scoring games, especially in Seattle, and I’m expecting the same over the next three days.

And that’s what we got on Monday night in the series opener as the Yankees lost a 2-1 game in walk-off fashion.

2. I also wrote this in the most recent Thoughts:

It’s hard to believe I could feel any better about the Yankees after their season-opening series than I do right now. Three games, three wins and one run allowed to begin the season is about as good as anyone could ask for.

What I should have written was “It’s hard to believe I could feel any better about the Yankees’ pitching” because that’s really what I feel. I feel good about the pitching, not the ‘Run It Back’ offense. Aside from one surprising inning on Opening Day when the Yankees ambushed Logan Webb with first-pitch swings, the ‘Run It Back’ offense has been doing ‘Run It Back’ offense things with seven runs over the last three games. (I’m sure they will have a one-game explosion soon to prop up their run differential.)

Giancarlo Stanton had a double and single, Aaron Judge and Jose Caballero each had a single and a walk and Ben Rice had a single and that was the entire Yankees’ offense. Trent Grisham went 0-for-4. Cody Bellinger went 0-for-4. Jazz Chisholm went 0-for-4. Austin Wells went 0-for-3 and Ryan McMahon went 0-for-2. The $22 million qualifying offer, the big free-agent signing, the man who says he can have a 50/50 season, the catcher who made the all-World Baseball Classic team and the guy who supposedly changed his swing have all somewhat struggled to open the season.

3. Again, it’s not “just” four games. This season is a continuation of last season because the roster and lineup are the same. So Wells and McMahon sucking doesn’t qualify for “give them time” because they sucked last year and were both below league average. I’m not worried about Wells and McMahon because I expect nothing from them offensively. I’m the least worried about Bellinger because he has the career track record of being very good (though there is precedent for him completely falling off like he did in 2021 and 2022). I’m very worried about Grisham and was all winter because the back of his baseball card is the ultimate ‘One of These Seasons Doesn’t Look Like Any Other’ and because if he does suck he will continue to bat leadoff and start for months before he’s removed from his spot atop the lineup or his starting outfield spot. I’m also worried about Chisholm because anyone who claims they want to have a 50/50 season when their name isn’t Shohei Ohtani or Ronald Acuna is going to do things at the plate they shouldn’t do to try to reach that goal. Chisholm already had a habit of swinging for the fences in counts and situations he shouldn’t and now with the 50/50 proclamation in his head, he will likely do it even more than he already does. Add in the pressure of being an impending free agent and supposedly wanting to get paid $35 million per year on an eight-plus-year deal, and well, yeah, there’s a lot to be worried about with Chisholm.

4. Aaron Boone went away from his lefty-righty alternation with his linuep and tried to stack lefties together against Luis Castillo, who always pitches well against the Yankees, especially since they chose to not trade for him in 2022 and instead traded for Frankie Montas. Boone’s construction didn’t work, Castillo was able to throw six scoreless innings and then when Seattle when to the bullpen, they had beautiful lefty lanes built for them to breeze through.

5. After having a rather easy series and needing to make pretty much zero difficult decisions in San Francisco, Boone was more involved in Monday’s one-run game, and Yankees fans were reminded why they fare so poorly in one-run games with Boone at the helm. Boone chose to let Paul Blackburn pitch a second inning on Monday and inevitably the Mariners walked off the Yankees in that second inning of work.

“I liked him through the bottom of the order there,” Boone said. “They found a couple of holes and beat us.”

Blackburn was allowed to face Brendan Donovan and Cal Raleigh in the ninth. Donovan was batting first in the lineup and Raleigh pinch hit in the 2-hole. Not exactly the bottom of the order, Boone. So if Boone liked Blackburn against 5-6-7 in the eighth and then 8-9 in the ninth, OK. But once the lineup turned over to actual hitters he should have removed him.

6. Or maybe he could have used Camilo Doval for more than two pitches? Boone claims he didn’t want Doval to sit after ending the seventh and then get back up to pitch in the eighth, but he is OK with him doing that exact thing later in the season … after Doval has thrown hundreds of pitches and didn’t just have five-plus months off.

“I’m sure eventually he’ll have plenty of two-ups,” Boone said. Eventually, just not on Monday, two days after Judge mentioned how important every game is after the 2025 season was ruined by the Yankees not valuing every game with equal importance.

7. Knowing Ryan Weathers is a hard-throwing lefty trying to make a strong first impression in his Yankees debut, it made sense he would open the game overthrowing and having trouble throwing strikes.

“I definitely want to be more efficient and be in the zone a little bit more,” Weathers said. “I don’t want to hang my hat on 4 1/3 innings. I want to get deeper into the ballgame, and a lot of that comes from managing the pitch count myself and not falling behind in counts.”

8. Weathers gave 4 1/3 innings after Will Warren gave the same on Saturday. For two guys pitching for rotation spots once Carlos Rodon and Gerrit Cole return, that little of length even with minimal damage isn’t going to cut it. Add in Luis Gil who will have a chip on his shoulder once he gets called up as the fifth starter, and Warren, Weathers and Gil will also be competing for one available rotation spot. (That is if everyone else stays healthy).

But for as erratic as Weathers was at times, he still only allowed one run over 4 1/3 innings. The offense provided one run on five hits, and they only scored the one run because the sacrifice fly opportunity that scored the run was created from a wild pitch.

9. There were two huge potentially big moments early in the game both involving Grisham and Caballero. The first came in the third inning when Caballero walked with one out following two successful ABS challenges. Grisham came up and didn’t give last season’s league leaders in steals a chance to go because he got a first-pitch, middle-middle fastball. But rather than hit it into the seats or in a gap, Grisham grounded out and erased Caballero on the bases. The next situation with these two came in the fifth. Caballero reached on an infield “single” with two outs in the inning and the Yankees still trailing 1-0. He could potentially steal and get driven in by Grisham or he could stay on first and see if Grisham could hit his first home run of 2026. Instead, Caballero got picked off of first with too much of a lead. Caballero on base with the lineup turning over is supposed to create offense, not destroy it.

10. Three of the six games the Yankees and Mariners played last year were one-run games and so was Monday’s. With Max Fried and Logan Gilbert going on Tuesday, it would be the least surprising result of all time if another one-run game took place. With the way the Yankees have looked offensively since Webb was removed on Opening Day, the confidence level is low that they will break out against a starter who averaged 11.9 strikeouts per nine innings in 25 starts last season in a place where they seem to struggle to score runs.

1. It’s hard to believe I could feel any better about the Yankees after their season-opening series than I do right now. Three games, three wins and one run allowed to begin the season is about as good as anyone could ask for. Yes, the opponent was the destined-to-be-.500 Giants, but beating up on mediocre and bad teams is how you win the division and avoid having it settled on a tiebreaker.

2. “One thing from the past couple of years we’ve struggled at was finishing series and sweeping series,” Aaron Judge said. “Pregame, we talked about it … That’s what’s going to make the difference between winning the division or ending up tied. Every game matters.”

Well, well, well. All it took was the Yankees losing the AL East on a head-to-head tiebreaker and then getting humiliated in the ALDS because of that tiebreaker for them to realize every game matters. I have always believed a game on March 28 is as important as September 28 and have always wanted the Yankees to operate with the same mindset and urgency and it seems like they may finally be doing that.

4. Ben Rice gave the Yankees a 2-0 lead in the third with a booming double to right field. The Giants got one run (their first of the season) back in the bottom of the third to make it 2-1, but Judge hit his second home run in as many games to increase the lead to 3-1 in the fifth and that’s how it would stay as the Yankees swept the Giants, outscoring them 13-1 in the series. It’s amazing the Dodgers get to play 52 games against the Giants, Rockies, Padres and Diamondbacks.

5. Max Fried, Cam Schlittler and Will Warren threw 16 innings of one-run ball in the series and the bullpen put up zeros in the other 11 innings. That will work. Please keep doing that.

“Our starting rotation came out there and attacked the zone,” Judge said, “and really just dictated the ballgames.”

6. The Giants had 12 baserunners to the Yankees’ nine, but four inning-ending double plays kept the Giants off the board except for their lone run.

“You can’t get enough of those,” Rice said. “I’m just happy to be on the end of each one of those and finish it off.”

7. What a day behind the plate for Chad Whitson who had seven ABS calls overturned against him. Yes, the ones that barely graze the zone are hard to fault an umpire for, but some of his calls were really bad, and the ones that went in the Yankees’ favor changed the game.

8. Warren was OK for 4 1/3 innings. He put seven runners on, but kept the damage to a minimum, allowing just one run. It was a respectable outing for his first of the year.

“My command was a little wonky today,” Warren said. “They did a good job fouling stuff off and making me work.”

9. Brent Headrick, Jake Bird, Tim Hill and David Bednar combined to throw 4 2/3 scoreless innings, and the bullpen has been unbelievable so far. The bullpen was easily the biggest question mark going into this season since we knew the rotation would be great (if healthy) and we knew what to expect from the same offense, but the bullpen is full of mysteries. (Again, the Giants aren’t very good, so everything needs to be taken with boxes worth of salt.)

10. “I love that we played well,” Aaron Boone said, “but it’s March.”

Yes, it is. But to me these games are just a continuation of last season because it’s the same roster. So while it may be March on the calendar, everything happening is an extension of last season, and so far the first games of 2026 are much better than the last games of 2025, even if the opponent was the Giants for the first three games.

10. The next opponent won’t be as easy: the Mariners. (The Yankees went 5-1 against the Mariners in 2025). Many have the Mariners finally getting to the franchise’s first World Series in 2026. I don’t see it, but what I do see is a very strong rotation that is likely second in the AL to the Yankees this year. Ryan Weathers will get the ball for his Yankees debut in the series opener against Luis Castillo, who has always been a problem for the Yankees. The Yankees and Mariners always play weird, tight, low-scoring games, especially in Seattle, and I’m expecting the same over the next three days.

1. The last time we saw Cam Schlittler in a real, meaningful game he was proving to be the only Yankees starter capable of success against the Blue Jays in the ALDS (6.1 IP, 2 ER). That Game 4 start came after he saved the Yankees’ season with his historical start against the Red Sox (8 IP, 0 ER, 12 K) in win-or-go-home, Game 3 in the Wild Card Series. On Friday in San Francisco, he picked up right where he left off in October, dominating the Giants with 5 1/3 scoreless, one-hit innings, needing only 63 pitches to get 16 outs.

“I was trying to be as efficient as possible, seeing how far I could get,” Schlittler said. “[The pitch count] was out of my control … but I’ll just keep building from this week to next week.”

2. The Yankees were supposedly keeping Schlittler to a 70-pitch limit in his first start of the season after his setback in spring training. He had no problem giving them decent length with that number, hitting 100.1 mph in the game and blowing fastballs by Giants hitters.

3. “He located all three fastballs, threw a bunch of curveballs and just pounded the zone,” Cody Bellinger said. “He’s been really fun to watch.”

“Really fun” is an understatement. Schlittler has been exceptional in 17 career starts (including the postseason.) What if he continues to be this good? The Yankees already have two proven No. 1s in Fried and Gerrit Cole, and while I don’t like Carlos Rodon, he would be a No. 1 for a lot of teams. It’s possible Schlittler is another No. 1, and there has been nothing to suggest he isn’t so far. Everyone please pray daily for the health of the rotation because there isn’t another like it in the league.

4. The relief combination of Fernando Cruz, Tim Hill, Camilo Doval and David Bednar added 3 2/3 hitless innings and the Yankees shut out the Giants for a second straight game with a 3-0 win.

“The pen was outstanding,” Aaron Boone said. “Each guy, I thought, did a really nice job. It was a really good win.”

5. Doval has looked very good in the first two games, both at his former park. He pitched a perfect ninth on Wednesday and then struck out the side in a perfect eighth on Friday. Doval never looked good as a Yankee until the end of the season and because of his early struggles with them after the trade I never had any trust or confidence in him. But for at least these first two games he has looked like the once-dominant Giants closer and the pitcher the Yankees thought they were getting when they traded for him.

6. Through five innings, Robbie Ray was as good as Schlittler, which wasn’t a surprise since he has had good success in his career against the Yankees. Through five innings, the Yankees had three singles and no runs. Paul Goldschmidt opened the sixth with a double down the right-field line and Aaron Judge followed with a 405-foot, two-run home to left field to the give the Yankees a 2-0 lead. After Cody Bellinger grounded out, Jose Butto relieved Ray and promptly gave up a 414-foot home run to Giancarlo Stanton to make it 3-0, and that’s how it would stay. (Something I forgot to mention in the Thoughts following Opening Day was how surprising it was to see Stanton score from second on a ball hit to left field in that game. It was shocking.)

7. Goldschmidt had the double, Judge a two-run home run, Bellinger a single and walk, Stanton a solo home run, Jazz Chisholm a single and Jose Caballero a pair of singles. Amed Rosario didn’t reach base in his season debut and neither did Randal Grichuk in his Yankees debut. The Yankees went 1-for-7 with runners in scoring position and left eight on.

8. Thankfully, what has gone on with the Giants through two games hasn’t gone on with the Yankees. The Giants have no runs and four hits across 18 innings in the series. It’s one thing to get shut out and be lifeless at the plate in back-to-back games in the middle of the season, but to start the season? I may need to check out some Giants blogs to see how the first two games are being handled by that fan base. I know how it would be handled by me and other Yankees fans if it were going on here.

9. It feels great to be 2-0 to start the season, especially with the two starts the Yankees got from their rotation and the two very different types of wins in these games. It doesn’t matter that it’s against the Giants because the the AL East as a whole is 5-1 and every win matters like always. Look no further than last season when the Yankees pissed away so many games, lost the record tiebreaker to the Blue Jays and then had to go on the road to start the ALDS and their season ended. A game on March 25 or March 27 is just as important as a game on September 25 or September 27 and last season was the most useful example of that.

10. On Saturday, it will be Will Warren against Tyler Mahle. Mahle has only started one game in his career against the Yankees and that came in 2023, so it’s irrelevant to this lineup. One interesting piece of lineup information is that Goldschmidt has a double, three home runs and a .379/.441/.793 slash line against Mahle in 34 career plate appearances. Would the Yankees let Goldschmidt start against a righty? I would with those kind of numbers as he has faced Mahle 18 times more than any other Yankee and hits like he’s facing a position player against him. If Goldschmidt doesn’t start against Mahle, it will tell us that he won’t start against any righties this season. Warren started against the Giants last April and was pretty good: 5 IP, 2 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 2 BB, 6 K, 1 HR. Only five Giants (Rafael Devers, Willy Adames, Jung Hoo Lee, Matt Chapman and Heliot Ramos) have faced Warren before and they are a combined 1-for-9 with two walks against him, and they have never seen the supposedly new-and-improved Warren, who now pitches from the other side of the mound.