1. I love the AL Central. Since the 2012 ALDS, the Yankees haven’t won a best-of-5 or best-of-7 postseason series against a non-AL Central team. During that time, the Yankees have used beating up on the AL Central to reach the postseason nearly every season and they’re doing it again in 2026. Following Tuesday’s 3-2 win over the White Sox, the Yankees are now 4-1 against the White Sox this season and 17-9 against the AL Central overall, compared to 16-16 against the AL East and 13-9 against the AL West.

2. The White Sox are the “best” team in the Central and they have allowed the Yankees to have run totals of 12 (June 16), 10 (June 17) and 9 (July 27) against them without Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton for the first two of those games and without Cody Bellinger as well for the third. They have lost games started by Gerrit Cole twice (12 IP, 2 ER), Carlos Rodon (5 IP, 3 ER), Ryan Weathers (6.1 IP, 1 ER) and a rusty, pitch-count-limited Max Fried (3 IP, 3 ER). Their only win came in a game in which the Yankees scored one run, and that game was tied at 1 in the eighth. The White Sox are fake good, the AL Central sucks, and the Yankees are doing their job by taking care of annual business against their postseason red carpet.

3. On Tuesday, for the second straight night, a mediocre-at-best left-handed White Sox starter struck out the side in the first inning. Jasson Dominguez and Trent Grisham hit back-to-back singles to open the second and moved up a base on a wild pitch. Anthony Volpe hit a double to the wall in left-center that allowed Dominguez to score, but Grisham was unable to score because of the combination of having to wait to see if it was caught (which it initially was) and his half-assed running style. Grisham and Volpe both came around to score when Max Schuemann hit a double down the third-base line and the Yankees had an early 3-0 lead.

4. Cole easily handled the White Sox lineup with six scoreless innings and seven strikeouts. The White Sox had a bases-loaded, two-out threat in the fourth, but Cole easily extinguished it with an inning-ending flyout to Amed Rosario in shallow left field. Angel Chivilli threw a perfect seventh in relief of Cole and Brent Headrick picked up his major-league-leading 46th scoreless appearance in the eighth. It wasn’t until a two-out, two-run home run in the ninth off David Bednar that the White Sox got on the board, ending Bednar’s scoreless appearance streak, which dated back to May 18.

5. The Replacement Yankees (a term I haven’t used since the 2019 Yankees) went 6-for-32 with four walks and 10 strikeouts, and their only offense came in the three-run second inning. Paul Goldschmidt went 0-for-3 with two walks and a strikeout, Ben Rice went 0-for-4 with two strikeouts, Rosario went 1-for-4 with two strikeouts, Jasson Dominguez had his second straight two-hit game, Trent Grisham had a single, Volpe went 1-for-4 with the double, Jazz Chisholm went 0-for-3 with a walk and two strikeouts, Max Schuemann went 1-for-2 with the double and Austin Wells went 0-for-4 with a strikeout. Spencer Jones went 0-for-2 with a strikeout after pinch-hitting for Schuemann. Defensively, the Yankees didn’t commit an error, which seems like a rarity this summer.

6. If Volpe played second base and batted ninth, the entire perception of him would be different. But because he was given the starting shortstop job and has had it taken away from him for not even two weeks over the last four seasons, while every other Yankees prospect ever has had to earn playing time, everyone is sick of him. Again, not sick of him as the person, but sick of what he represents in the Yankees’ arrogance in this era. Because Volpe continues to bat between fifth and seventh in the lineup and play shortstop every day despite having a second baseman’s arm, he will never live up to the prospect status and hype he once had. The Yankees and fans could deal with him if he played the lesser position and was a bottom-of-the-order presence, and maybe that’s the plan for him once George Lombard Jr. arrives and Chisholm leaves, but until then, the constant criticism of him and the disappointment from him won’t end.

7. Another game off the schedule and another day closer to the August 3 trade deadline and no new names on the roster for the Yankees. Last season, Ryan McMahon was traded to the Yankees six days before the deadline and Rosario five days before. The Yankees traded for Austin Slater one day before the deadline and got Camilo Doval, Jake Bird, Bednar and Jose Caballero on deadline day. The deadline is now five days away, so we are certainly in range of the Yankees beginning to make moves, and as I outlined in recent Thoughts, they have to make moves and get Judge, Stanton and Bellinger back if they plan on ending the championship drought before it reaches 17 years.

8. The Rays and Red Sox both lost on Tuesday, so the Yankees are now two games back of the Rays in the loss column and five games up on the Red Sox in the loss column. The difference between winning the division and not winning it right now is getting a bye to the ALDS or playing the Red Sox in a best-of-3 for the second straight season. A few days ago, the Yankees were in a position where, if the playoffs had started that day, they would have hosted the Guardians in the Wild Card Series with the winner playing the White Sox in the ALDS. I don’t want any part of the Wild Card Series, but if the Yankees are to play in the best-of-3 round, that’s the opponent and path you want.

9. Michael Kay stirring his tea with his glasses was disgusting and Joe Girardi was right to call him out for it. Kay tried to make Girardi out to be the crazy one in the argument, but I can’t imagine there is anyone on Kay’s side for this one. If the tea didn’t dissolve like Girardi explained, Kay could have either drunk it unstirred or not drunk it at all, but at no point was using his glasses to stir it an acceptable choice.

10. Schlittler coming off the most dominant regular-season start of his career gets the ball on Wednesday. He’ll go against Davis Martin — the White Sox best starter — who the Yankees blasted for nine earned runs and three home runs in 3 1/3 innings back on June 16 at the Stadium. A win on Wednesday would clinch at worst a .500 record on the 10-game road trip, which is the mark I would have signed up for before it began.

1. On July 27, the Yankees fielded a lineup resembling a February 27 game. Despite their spring training look, the Yankees scored their most runs since July 9 and their second-most runs since June 17 in a 9-5 win over the White Sox. It wasn’t the kind of win you would expect from a nine-run output. The Yankees fell behind three runs in the first inning, took a one-run lead in the fourth, gave away the lead in the fifth, retook a one-run lead in the sixth, made it a five-run lead in the eighth and allowed the White Sox to bring the tying run to the on-deck circle in the ninth.

2. After throwing five scoreless, one-hit innings in his return from the injured list on Thursday, Max Fried looked like his pre-IL self on Monday. Fried lasted only three innings, allowed seven baserunners and three earned runs and needed 66 pitches to get nine outs.

“I wish I would’ve been sharper to be able to get some more innings,” Fried said.

3. Fried wasn’t sharp, but he wasn’t helped by his defense either, which makes sense since the Yankees had multiple players playing out of position to maximize their right-handed-hitting options. The Yankees had Max Schuemann playing left field and leading off, Jasson Dominguez in the clean-up spot, Anthony Volpe batting fifth, Jose Caballero playing third base, Jazz Chisholm and Spencer Jones playing with a lefty starting and Amed Rosario (who was re-signed specifically to play against lefties) on the bench.

4. For the first three innings, it looked like the 22-year-old rookie Noah Schultz and his 6.04 ERA were going to easily navigate the Yankees’ lineup like so many mediocre starters have since the beginning of June. Schultz struck out the side in the first and had five strikeouts through three. In the fourth, trailing 3-0, the Yankees loaded the bases with a pair of walks and a single, leading to a Volpe groundout to make it 3-1, which led to Schultz’s removal. Chisholm greeted reliever Chris Murphy with a two-run, game-tying double, stole third and scored on a Jones groundout to give the Yankees a 4-3 lead.

5. The White Sox tied the game at 4 in the fifth against Tim Hill and it remained tied until Ben Rice drove in Rosario following Rosario’s pinch-hit double. In the eighth, the Yankees added a run to their lead after a throwing error and broke the game open with an Ali Sanchez three-run home run, the first of his career.

“You always dream to play in the big leagues,” Sanchez said. “Having yoru first homer with the Yankees uniform and getting the ‘W,’ it’s special.”

6. In the ninth, the combination of Camilo Doval and poor infield defense led to the White Sox bringing the tying run to the on-deck circle. Volpe dropped a popup on the right side of the infield that would have ended the game, but instead, it led to David Bednar needing to relieve Doval and throw pitches in a game the Yankees led by five in the ninth. Back-to-back games with crucial errors from Volpe. Nothing to see here! Start him again at short on Tuesday!

7. The Yankees had to use seven relievers to get through six innings after Fried’s ineffectiveness and pitch count forced him out after three. Will Warren only gave the team three innings as well on Sunday. The Yankees need length from their starters, and they need exceptional starts, considering expecting nine-run outbursts from a lineup that features mostly reserve and minor-league players is a recipe for disaster, not success.

8. I have no idea what the Yankees’ plan is for the trade deadline, and it seems like no one else does either. There are reports that they are willing to go all-in for Mason Miller. There are reports connecting them to CJ Abrams. There is talk of them going after Zach Neto. There are so many different outcomes for the Yankees at the deadline ranging from upgrading shortstop to getting a catcher to revamping one-third of the 26-man roster. All I know is that their deficit to the Rays hasn’t moved and their lead over the Red Sox is dwindling as neither of those teams seems to lose. Waiting until the actual deadline to acquire upgrades means six more games (against the White Sox and Cubs) off the schedule and likely a seventh with the Yankees playing an hour after the deadline.

9. When you look at Monday’s lineup, at full strength (if that ever happens) and after the expected post-deadline moves, it’s likely Rice and Chisholm are the only two who would be starting for the Yankees in the postseason. Schuemann would be on the bench (at best), Goldschmidt would be on the bench, Dominguez would be on the bench (at best), Volpe would hopefully not be on the roster or in the organization, Caballero would be on the bench, Jones wouldn’t be on the roster and Sanchez would likely not be on the roster either. With the left-handed Anthony Kay starting on Tuesday, the Yankees lineup won’t look much different from what it was on Monday.

10. The bad news is that, for probably the rest of the road trip, the Yankees are going to have to manage with lineups identical or close to Monday’s. The good news is that the Yankees are already 3-1 on the road trip. I would have gladly signed up for 5-5 before it began in Philadelphia, so based on that expectation, the Yankees winning two of the remaining six games against the White Sox and Cubs should be deemed a success. With Gerrit Cole, Cam Schlittler and Max Fried starting four of those six games, the Yankees have the opportunity to have a much-better-than-expected road trip.

1. If the playoffs started today, Cam Schlittler should be the Yankees’ Game 1 starter. But if the playoffs started today, I don’t think he would be. And when the playoffs do start, even if Schlittler continues this all-time season, I still don’t think he will be the Yankees’ Game 1 starter. In a year in which Schlittler leads the American League in ERA and WHIP and is second in innings pitched (Michael Wacha) and strikeouts (Dylan Cease) and has made all 22 starts to date, there’s no other choice, even though it would surprise no one if the Yankees made another choice, and they likely will since veteran status and reputation have always trumped actual performance in determining playing time and rotation setting.

Schlittler dominated the Phillies on Friday with 7 1/3 scoreless innings and 12 strikeouts. It was his best start of the season and the best regular-season start of his career as the Yankees won 1-0.

“He bullies you a little bit with the fastball on both sides,” Don Mattingly said. “I don’t think this guy’s getting hit very hard often.”

No, he’s not, Donnie Baseball. It was the 17th time in 22 starts Schlittler has pitched at least five innings and allowed two earned runs or fewer. The Yankees improved to 15-7 when he starts. In three of those seven losses, he went at least five innings and allowed two earned runs or fewer.

2. A Paul Goldschmidt home run was the entire offense for both teams on Friday. The Yankees’ and Phillies’ offenses are very similar in being top-heavy and completely reliant on home runs. It’s why both teams have had very similar postseason exits over the last five seasons. They both have a World Series loss, they both have a CS loss and the Phillies have two DS losses to the Yankees’ one. (The Phillies have made the playoffs in each of the last four seasons, while the Yankees missed the postseason in 2023 despite 40 percent of the league qualifying for the postseason.) And because the teams are nearly identical in how their lineups are built, there were five total runs in the first 18 innings of the series.

The Yankees won Saturday’s game 3-1 behind a surprising Ryan Weathers’ start (5.1 IP, 6 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 1 BB, 7 K) and home runs from Austin Wells and Jasson Dominguez. The Phillies’ bullpen game consisted of seven relievers, and the Yankees were able to score off of three of them.

3. Maybe you can’t truly predict baseball, but Sunday’s result was as predictable as the sport gets. Will Warren against Christopher Sanchez with a lineup featuring Amed Rosario batting third, Dominguez fourth and Anthony Volpe fifth? Due for an offensive outburst after the first two games of the series, the Phillies scored once off Warren in the first, once again in the second and opened the game up with four runs in the third on their way to an 11-4 win. Warren lasted only three innings and allowed six earned runs and eight baserunners. It was the fourth time this season Warren allowed six-plus earned runs in a game, while all other Yankees pitchers have done so just three times (thanks to Katie Sharp for the stat). Warren’s four starts of six-plus earned runs allowed are the second-most in the AL (also from Sharp). Jeffrey Springs of the Athletics has the most with five. Springs leads the league in losses, hits and home runs allowed. He pitched seven scoreless innings of one-hit ball against the Yankees back in April.

I won’t be upset if Sunday was Warren’s last start as a Yankee, and I’m fairly certain it was. Warren is the likeliest of current Yankees’ major leaguers to get traded by next Monday, and if they plan on moving him, I don’t know that they would risk running him out there for one more start on Friday. At this point, it’s not just about not wanting him to get hurt before the deadline to move him, it’s also about giving the team the best chance to win and Warren at Wrigley Field against the Cubs’ offense isn’t that.

4. Remember when David Bednar allowed that stunning game-tying home run at Citi Field back on May 17? I do, and my wallet does. The following day, Bednar allowed another earned run to the Blue Jays as the Yankees held on for a 7-6 win. That was the last time Bednar allowed an earned run. Here is Bednar’s line since that May 18 game: 23.2 IP, 8 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 5 BB, 24 K. Bednar was forced into high-leverage situations early in March because of the World Baseball Classic and then was leaned on heavily and overworked in late March and throughout April by the Yankees because of how many close games they were playing and how few trustworthy options they had. Once Bednar was given adequate rest and others emerged as late-inning relief choices, he began to look like his normal self, and now he looks like a version of himself that has never previously existed.

5. One of those choices who emerged was Brent Headrick who has a 1.38 ERA in 52 appearances and 52 innings in his first full season in the majors. He and Bednar are clearly and obviously the most trustworthy relief options on the team followed by Paul Blackburn (whose career has been saved by the Yankees like Luke Weaver’s was), then Fernando Cruz (in specific spots), then Tim Hill (in two-lefty lanes) and that’s the end of the list. With Blackburn’s ability to go multiple innings, the Yankees have the option of shortening a game to five or six innings if needed, or turning to others to close out games on days Bednar is unavailable. That doesn’t mean the bullpen is a finished product or should be, just that it’s in a much better place than it was just a few weeks ago when Jake Bird and Camilo Doval were pitching in high-leverage situations.

6. During Friday’s late-game meltdown, the NBC booth was talking about Girardi winning a championship as Yankees manager.

“I wanted to thank Mr. Steinbrenner for the opportunity and I was able to do that by giving him a ring,” Girardi said.

As Girardi finished that sentence, the camera cut to Boone walking to the mound for a pitching change in the middle of his ninth season of a ring-less tenure. I guess he’s playing the long game in thanking this Steinbrenner for the opportunity.

7. A Yankees comeback was made impossible on Sunday night when the Phillies used a Volpe error to open the floodgates for a five-run sixth. The inning began with a harmless ground ball to Volpe who lollipopped a throw wide of first down the line toward right field. Joe Girardi wondered if Volpe thought he had less time on a play in which he clearly could have set his feet and made a throw over to first rather than wildly throwing on the run, but no, Joe, that wasn’t it. That was Volpe knowing he lacks the arm strength needed to set his feet and get the ball over to first in time, so he lets it go as quickly as possible to try to make up for his lack of arm strength. The day before, Jose Caballero let a ball get to him slowly rather than charging it, knowing he could fire a strike to first in time to get the runner, and he did just that.

I couldn’t care less that Volpe had two doubles in the game. Whoop-dee-doo. It was Volpe’ first multi-hit game since June 23 and the first game he provided an extra-base hit since June 26. Nearly a month between multi-hit games and exactly a month between extra-base hits. One game against Sanchez, who had to grind through six innings without anything close to his best stuff (nine baserunners and two wild pitches) doesn’t make me suddenly think Volpe is now good or has figured it out or is a major leaguer. Volpe shouldn’t be on the roster and George Lombard Jr. is doing everything he can to make sure that happens.

8. Trent Grisham’s questionable defense led to the Phillies’ first run on Sunday as he took a beer league route to a ball that was played into a triple. Grisham’s route choices and arm are both poor and he’s not hitting the home runs he was last year to make up for it. He has two hits since the All-Star break. He’s been two percent worse than league average at the plate, and like Jazz Chisholm, Grisham provides random power here and there and nothing in between. That $22 million qualifying offer looks worse with each passing game and we are now 105 games into the season and Grisham is hitting .216/.318/.390.

9. Speaking of Chisholm, Mr. 50/50 is now a platoon player? Chisholm sat for both games started by a lefty in Philadelphia (Friday and Sunday) and on Saturday he went 0-for-4 with four strikeouts against the Phillies’ bullpen game. He’s 1-for-12 with five strikeouts since his last home run. At some point in Chicago, he will likely hit another home run, but do nothing in the plate appearances leading up to that home run or after.

10. The Yankees started this challenging 10-game road trip with a nice series win to begin it. Now the trip moves to Chicago where the Yankees will be for an entire week and seven games. The four-game White Sox series will feature Max Fried followed by Gerrit Cole followed by Schlittler. It’s the dream Yankees fans have been dreaming since Schlittler burst into the big leagues last summer and it’s finally being realized.

The left-handed Noah Schultz and his 6.04 ERA will go for the White Sox in the opener. Don’t let Schultz’s poor numbers fool you. He has some good starts mixed into his 12-start career this season between two call-ups. And with Aaron Judge, Giancarlo Stanton and lefty masher Cody Bellinger all on the injured list, the lineup you saw on Sunday against a lefty is likely what Aaron Boone will put together on Monday.

Even with the loss on Sunday, two out of three in Philadelphia was a desirable (and unexpected) outcome. Don’t let the trip fall apart against in Chicago.

1. The Yankees waited 16 months to have Max Fried and Gerrit Cole in the same rotation, and after waiting through Cole’s Tommy John surgery and recovery and Fried’s two-plus-month stay on the injured list with a bone bruise, the two finally appeared in the rotation at the same time. Not only that, they pitched on the same day in their first day in the rotation together in Wednesday’s doubleheader against the Pirates.

“It’s something I’ve been looking forward to for a while now,” Fried said. “And it kind of sucks that I got hurt when I did to delay that. But better late than never.”

2. The doubleheader went as expected: the Yankees got impressive starts from both Cole and Fried, but the offense provided little to nothing as the Yankees split the day with the Pirates. The entire offense in the 6-3 afternoon loss came from one Ben Rice swing in the form of a seventh-inning, game-tying home run. The offense in the second game was a pair of seventh-inning runs in a 2-0 win. The pitching continues to do everything it can to keep the Yankees in reach of the division and afloat overall, as the offense continues to do everything it can to try to sink the season.

3. As I have written many times since Aaron Judge went down at the beginning of June, it doesn’t matter if Judge returns and Giancarlo Stanton returns if Rice is the only other reliable hitter in the lineup. I keep waiting for Cody Bellinger and Jazz Chisholm to find some consistency and do what they are expected to do, and with each passing day another game comes off the schedule. The Yankees have played 102 games and Bellinger had an .853 OPS through the first 60 and has a .636 OPS in the 42 since. Chisholm had a few big home runs over the last two weeks, but when he isn’t hitting an unexpected late-game home run, he turns in empty plate appearance after empty plate appearance, with ill-advised challenges mixed in. I guess the occasional home run from Chisholm is more than what Bellinger is providing power-wise as the $32.5 million-per-season man hasn’t hit a home run since June 17. Aside from those two and Rice, I have no expectations for the rest of the lineup to provide anything, so they are all living up to those expectations.

4. Spencer Jones was used as the 27th man for the doubleheader and was in the lineup batting third in the first game. So Jones wasn’t good enough to be a Yankee before being added as an extra roster player for the doubleheader, but was good enough to bat THIRD In the lineup upon his call-up. Then he was back to the bench for the night game. He went from not being a major leaguer to batting THIRD to not being a major leaguer again in a single day. If you remember Aaron Boone using Mike Ford as a pinch hitter with a game on the line six years ago only to send him down after the game, you know this isn’t the first instance of the Yankees making puzzling in-game decisions with fringe major leaguers during this era.

Jones went 0-for-3 with a walk and a strikeout in the game. He was lifted against a lefty for Amed Rosario, who struck out. Jones has a contact problem, but he’s far from the problem. The Yankees struck out 12 times in the afternoon game and Jones only struck out once. Rice (3), Bellinger (3), Jose Caballero (2), Chisholm (1), Ryan McMahon (1) and Rosario (1) also struck out.

5. Here are the OPS for each player since Judge’s last game on May 31:

Rice: .878
Grisham: .796
Jones: .781
Goldschmidt: .743
Chisholm .739
Schuemann: .719
McMahon: .716
Dominguez: .675
Caballero: .652
Bellinger: .640
Volpe: .613
Sanchez: .558
Escarra: .491
Wells: .427
Cabrera: .000

The MLB average OPS this season is .722. So five Yankees have been above league average since Judge went down, Chisholm just made the cut after his big week and Goldschmidt has six hits since June 26. Again, Judge can’t just come back. He has to come back and be at the top of his powers and others have to step up. Otherwise, the postseason will look like it has every other year during this era.

6. Fortunately, the team we have watched play 102 games and will watch play 112 games won’t be the team the Yankees have following the deadline. At least I hope it’s not. The Yankees need to upgrade catcher and shortstop and the bullpen and figure out third base and get Judge and Stanton back, and then the Yankees can dream about the team doing something it hasn’t done in going on SEVENTEEN YEARS. The rotation with Fried back is too good to allow for an extended losing streak now and too good to prevent the Yankees from reaching the playoffs, but it’s not good enough alone to win in the playoffs. The Yankees have to address those areas of need, otherwise they are looking at another early exit, and at best, if everything breaks right and they get an AL Central-only path, they could reach the World Series only to get trounced there again.

7. Yes, I want Mason Miller to be a Yankee. Not only is he the best reliever in the world, but this is entertainment and there’s nothing more entertaining than a reliever with a 0.86 ERA and 0.51 FIP, who allows 4.5 hits per nine innings with 16.8 strikeouts per nine innings. No, he’s not the biggest need for the team, but he’s awesome and the best at his job in the world, and acquiring players who are the best at what they do is a sound strategy. (Let’s forget about the fact that his right elbow is a ticking time bomb and at any moment he could go down for 16-plus months or for good.)

Yes, I want Ryan Jeffers to be a Yankee. I can’t watch Wells play baseball anymore. I can’t keep hearing about how Wells will break out any day now. Earlier this week, Boone said he likes what he has seen out of Wells the last eight games. That’s nice. It’s eight games. What about the 62 he played before that? Or the 260 from 2023 to 2025 before that? What about his .468 postseason OPS in 78 plate appearances in which he has run a 39 percent strikeout rate? When is enough going to be enough? Wells needs to call a near-no-hitter and throw out every would-be basestealer at this point to negate his offense.

8. Shortstop seems like it’s taking care of itself. Caballero is more occupied with the pitch clock and fucking with pitchers at the eight-second mark than he is actually getting on base and Volpe continues to be one of the all-time busts in franchise history. Caballero hasn’t been the same since he went on the IL briefly in May and Volpe has been the same as he was the last three years. Volpe’s .663 OPS this season is identical to last season and one point above his career OPS (.662) after 2,053 plate appearances. Progress! At this rate, he will have a league-average OPS (.722) in 59 years. The position is taking care of itself because while those two continue to be automatic outs, George Lombard Jr. continues to tear it up at Triple-A.

Lombard Jr. returned from the IL on July 13 and homered in back-to-back games for the FCL Yankees. He then went back to Triple-A where he’s 9-for-20 with three doubles and a home run in four games. This comes after he posted a .921 OPS in the 26 games prior to his injury. Lombard Jr. is 5.1 years younger than the average player in Triple-A.

I have long waited for Lombard Jr. to end the Volpe experiment and we are almost there. We are so close. So close. I’m talking any day now we could see Lombard Jr. with the Yankees. After sitting through more than 2,000 plate appearances of Volpe’s, the end is near.

9. This postseason lineup is a real possibility:

Ben Rice, 1B
Aaron Judge, RF
Cody Bellinger, LF
Giancarlo Stanton, DH
Trent Grisham, CF
Ryan Jeffers, C
Jazz Chisholm, 2B
George Lombard Jr., SS
Ryan McMahon, 3B

We know Grisham can’t hit elite pitching. Last year he hit 34 home runs and not a single one came against a pitcher that started a postseason game. Then he hit .138/.219/.207 in the postseason. This year, he does have solo home runs off Yoshinobu Yamamoto (shocking) and Sonny Gray (not so shocking), but his other nine home runs are against pitchers who are either no longer in the league or on teams that won’t be playing in October. Get him out of the leadoff spot once everyone is healthy. I’m willing to compromise by giving Boone his mandatory lefty-righty alternation throughout the lineup.

That gives the Yankees the five-man postseason bench of Wells (I guess), Caballero, Rosario, Schuemann and Goldschmidt.

A rotation of Cam Schlittler, Fried, Cole and Carlos Rodon. (Yes, that’s the order they should appear, but would never because of veteran status, reputation and relationships.)

A bullpen of Miller, David Bednar, Brent Headrick, Fernando Cruz, Tim Hill, Paul Blackburn, Yovanny Cruz and Will Warren. (It’s likely Warren gets moved at the deadline, especially for the Yankees to acquire Miller or Jeffers. The Yankees won’t give him a playoff spot, so it makes him expendable. But I’m including him here for now. I’m also including Cruz, even though the Yankees clearly don’t like or value him. Either way, those two spots on the playoff roster can be interchanged.)

That’s a lineup, bench, rotation and bullpen that can win it all. Sure, Boone and the Dodgers would still be in that roster’s way of winning it all, but it’s a roster that can win it all. Today’s roster can’t win it all. Today’s roster may not even win the division or hold off the Red Sox from closing the gap in the wild-card race. Luckily, today’s roster won’t be (it can’t be) the one the Yankees have at 6 p.m. on August 3.

10. The 10-game road trip that begins on Friday and starts a 13-game-in-13-days run for the Yankees represents the most important stretch of games to date, because every game now represents the most important game of the season to date. That’s what happens when you dick around for most of June and July, aren’t able to overcome a struggling Rays team and let the Red Sox shave off 11 of the 15 games you led them by in a month. The Yankees will play three games against the Phillies and then spend an entire week in Chicago with four against the White Sox and three against the Cubs. While that’s going on, the Rays will play the Guardians, Rangers and White Sox, and the Red Sox will play the Blue Jays, Athletics and Dodgers. When the 10-game road trip ends, the trade deadline will take place before the Yankees’ next game.

1. Before the start of the season when I planned a path to the Yankees exceeding their projected win total of 90.5, I planned for them to lose two of three to the Dodgers in July, and that expectation was met. After blowing a late lead on Friday, the Yankees were blown out in the first game of Sunday’s doubleheader and then blew another late lead in the series finale before winning for just the second time at home in their last 11 games in the Bronx.

2. With my wife being a Dodgers fan, we let our 5- and 4-year-old sons stay up to watch the Sunday night game. Confused by our rivalrous marriage, our 4-year-old was confused by who the good guys were and who the bad guys were after watching my wife celebrate Cam Schlittler’s short outing earlier in the day. Normally, it’s easy for him to understand to root against the team that isn’t the Yankees, but with my wife celebrating each Yankees failure throughout the day, he wasn’t sure what was going on.

“Do we like that guy?” he asked me every time a new face was shown on the TV.

“Yes, we like him,” I answered when he asked about Ben Rice.

“Do we like that guy” he asked when Cody Bellinger appeared.

“Yes, we like him,” I said.

“Do we like that guy?” he asked with Anthony Volpe at the plate.

“We like that he’s a Yankee, but we don’t like what he represents,” I replied. “You see, he represents everything that is wrong with the team during this disappointing era in the history of the franchise.”

He didn’t respond.

“Do we like that guy?” he asked with Aaron Boone shown blowing bubbles in the dugout.

“No, we don’t like him,” I said. “He’s in charge of the Yankees during the game, but he’s bad at his job and makes them lose.”

“That’s not good,” my son replied.

“No, it’s not,” I said.

3. Losing to the Dodgers is something the Aaron Boone Yankees are good at. They lost two of three to them this past weekend. They lost two of three to them last year. They lost two of three to them during the 2024 regular season then four of five to them in the World Series. The Yankees are 4-10 against the Dodgers since the start of 2024 and two of those wins came when the Dodgers went with bullpen games: Game 4 of the 2024 World Series and Sunday night. The Dodgers figured they would save their real starter for Monday against the Phillies and still came within an eighth-inning Jazz Chisholm solo home run on Sunday of nearly pulling off a sweep of the Yankees.

4. The Swoon is still alive. Those three late-game comebacks against the Nationals before the All-Star break were a mirage. The Yankees scored five runs at home against the Dodgers. The first was produced by an outfield error and passed ball. The second was a solo home run. The third was the result of a sun-aided “double” and a bloop single. The fourth came with a two-out double and single, and the fifth was another solo home run. If the ball doesn’t go over the wall with runners on, the Yankees are unlikely to win unless the opposing defense gifts them runs.

5. The sun-aided “double” came off the bat of Chisholm when Andy Pages couldn’t find it in Sunday afternoon’s high sky. Pages took cover to avoid being struck by it rather than catch it. The Yankees were trailing by seven runs at the time and Chisholm had done nothing to deserve being on second base, but there he was celebrating back toward his teammates in the dugout as if he had just hit a 110-mph double off the base of the wall in a close game. Chisholm ended up coming through in the nightcap with a go-ahead solo home run to give the Yankees a 2-1 lead in the eighth inning.

6. “I feel like we match up against any team in the league,” Chisholm obnoxiously said after the game.

The Yankees eked by the Dodgers in a game the Dodgers were OK giving away when they moved their starter to Monday and elected to go with a bullpen game, and yet, Chisholm was ready to stick out his chest after the win despite the series loss. He was the one who called the Royals “lucky” after their ALDS Game 2 win in 2024. He was the one who said last season the Yankees were going to go to the World Series after they beat the Reds in Cincinnati on June 25 for just their fourth win in 14 games at the time. Give Chisholm an inch and he’ll take a mile with his mouth.

“I feel like we beat ourselves a lot,” Chisholm said. “I feel like that stuff, we’re going to clean up as it goes.”

The “stuff” the team has been doing for nine years under Boone? Yeah, I’m sure it will miraculously be cleaned up over the remaining 63 games.

At least Chisholm said one truthful thing on Sunday when he said, “I’ve sucked all season.”

7. You always know when Boone realizes the team is in deep shit because he starts to manage in a way he would never otherwise manage. Bringing David Bednar in with two on and one out in the eighth inning was Boone showing his hand and admitting things aren’t as great as his postgame press conferences make them out to be. How many times has Boone said this year’s Swoon isn’t what it is or that it’s just been a bad series (like he said in Boston) or a few bad games. Well, after the Sunday afternoon loss, Boone used “weeks” twice to describe the Yankees’ futility and then he brought in his closer into a non-save situation in the eighth inning. Boone told everyone things aren’t what he wants you to believe they are and then he went out and proved it with his managing. His words in the afternoon and his usage of Bednar at night may not seem like a big deal, but if you have been listening to this in-over-his-head manager speak and have been watching him manage for nearly nine seasons, you know it was a huge deal.

8. I guess Anthony Volpe’s bloop RBI single over the outstretched reach of a glove in a seven-run game in the first game of the doubleheader was enough for him to get the start in the night game. The RBI was Volpe’s first since June 19. Yesterday was July 19. Yes, it took him a month to get an RBI despite playing in 22 games during that time. His best friend Austin Wells must be proud. Volpe rewarded his manager’s faith in him by going hitless in the second game and by taking a sword swing to strike out on a 3-2 pitch with the bases loaded. Volpe’s .663 OPS is now identical to his 2025 OPS and in line with his career .662 OPS. He’s been given 2,050 plate appearances, but don’t worry, any game now he’s going to get going! “He’s fucking elite,” is what Boone told Meredith Marakovits last season.

9. I’m glad the Dodgers series is over. The Yankees are fortunate they won’t see the Dodgers again in the regular season. The Yankees are really fortunate they play in the American League and not the National League. The Yankees have the second-best record in the AL and are 5 1/2 games up on a playoff spot. They wouldn’t be leading any NL division, would have the fifth-best record in the NL and would barely be hanging on to a wild-card berth at the moment. Given where things were in the division a little over three weeks ago, the Yankees should be more worried about the Red Sox than the Rays. The Rays may have the division lead, but that is down to two games in the loss column. The Yankees’ once 15-game lead over the Red Sox in the loss column is down to four after the Red Sox ripped off 13 straight wins.

10. Next up is a three-game series with the Pirates, who are a lot like the Nationals. Great offense, awful bullpen. The Yankees will miss Paul Skenes in the series, so there is no reason they shouldn’t come out of it with a series win at home. Then again, after losing nine of 11 at home and with a pathetic offense that relies on Rice the way it did Aaron Judge and with both Ryan Weathers and Will Warren expected to pitch in the series, there are a lot of reasons why they may not come out of these next three days with a series win at home.