There has never been and will never be a more clear path to the World Series for these Yankees.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. The Astros went 12-5 against the Yankees in the 2017, 2019 and 2022 ALCS. They’re out. The Orioles went 8-5 against the Yankees in the regular season this year. They’re out. The Tigers and Royals did the job I feared the Yankees may not be able to do if they faced the Astros or Orioles this October. Now they don’t have to.

Three teams from the AL Central remain. Again, that’s three teams from the AL Central standing between the Yankees and their first pennant in 15 years.

The Yankees destroyed the AL Central in the regular season. They won the AL East and avoided the dangerous best-of-3 series because of the number they did on the AL Central in the regular season, including going 12-6 against the three Central teams remaining.

They went 4-2 against the Guardians. Both losses were in extra innings.

They went 4-2 against the Royals. One loss was a Clay Holmes blown save.

They went 4-2 against the Tigers. One loss was another Holmes blown save.

None of those three have any offense. They finished sixth, seventh and eighth in the AL in runs scored. Their entire success centers around their pitching and the Yankees’ bats will have to get to some combination of Cole Ragans, Seth Lugo, Tarik Skubal, Tanner Bibee and other quality starters to end their AL pennant drought.

2. Those bats producing in October is what keeps me up at night. No matter what happens during the regular season, the entirety of the Yankees’ season each year hinges on whether or not the bats will be there in October. The bats haven’t shown up in a long time.

The dynastic Yankees of the late-‘90s and 2000s won in the postseason because their stars remained stars in October. When the 163rd game came, there was no drop-off in production despite only facing the top teams and elite pitching each game. Look at these regular season vs. postseason career numbers.

Derek Jeter regular season: .310/.377/.440
Derek Jeter postseason: .308/.374/.465

Bernie Williams regular season: .297/.381/.477
Bernie Williams postseason: .275/.371/.480

Paul O’Neill regular season: .288/.363/.470
Paul O’Neill postseason: .284/.363/.465

That hasn’t happened with this Yankees core. When October comes, these Yankees have always disappeared, and Aaron Judge has been as big of a problem as anyone.

Aaron Judge regular season: .288/.406/.604
Aaron Judge postseason: .211/.310/.462

3. Judge hasn’t had a postseason series OPS above .738 since the 2019 ALDS when the Yankees beat the shit out of the Twins. Since then he’s posted OPS of .681, .717, .637,. 500, .738 and .180 across a wild-card game, a wild-card series, two ALDS and two ALCS. He’s supposed to be the best hitter in the game, but he hasn’t even been the best hitter on the Yankees in a postseason series since the 2017 ALCS.

Judge has the home run record. He has the captaincy. He has the long-term contract and life-changing, generational wealth. The only thing missing is a championship, and this is his best chance to date to win one, and he may never get a chance as good as this again.

4. The Yankees have far and away the best roster of the remaining four AL teams. It’s not even close. And for as concerend as I am with the Yankees’ offense, their offense is in another stratosphere compared to the light-hitting Royals, Guardians and Tigers. But like the other three teams, the Yankees’ bottom of their order won’t do them any favors.

Gleyber Torres, Juan Soto, Judge, Austin Wells, Giancarlo Stanton and Jazz Chisholm are going to be the 1 through 6 hitters. After that’s, it’s likely to be Anthony Volpe, Alex Verdugo and Ben Rice in some order.

Volpe has been an offensive disappointment since his first major-league plate appearance. Verdugo was benched over the last two weeks of the season for being arguably the worst everyday hitter in the majors for six months and is only going to be playing because Jasson Dominguez can’t be trusted to catch fly balls. Rice was sent to the minors at the end of August after posting a .624 OPS over two months and is only on the team because the Yankees’ first and second options at first base (Anthony Rizzo and DJ LeMahieu are both injured). It’s bleak at 7 through 9.

One-third of the Yankees lineup is as close to being three automatic outs as there are in the postseason. So either the trio is going to have to provide some unexpected offense or a few big hits with runners on, or the top two-thirds of the lineup is going to have to carry all of the weight with the Yankees essentially giving away three innings worth of outs each game.

5. If the Yankees are going to willingly give away three innings worth of outs each game, Judge and Juan Soto are going to have to hit like they did in the regular season when they were being mentioned alongside Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth daily. I’m not worried about Soto. He has proven capable of handling October in his two postseason appearances, especially in 2019 when as a 20-year-old he hit three home runs and posted a 1.178 OPS against the Astros in the World Series. I am worried about Judge. For being as worried about Judge as I am, I do expect him to finally have that big postseason and carry the Yankees to the World Series. If not now, when?

6. When is centered around the future, and if the Yankees can’t get to the World Series against this field, I don’t know that there will be a future for Aaron Boone with the Yankees. Even though he was able to retain his position after the Yankees missed the postseason last year and finished with the club’s worst record in three decades, falling short with this team against those teams would have to mean the end for him, given that his contract expires this season.

With each previous failed postseason run, Boone has always talked about how close his teams have been and how sweet it will be once they finally win, only to never get close and never finally win. That has to change this October.

7. In-game management in close games isn’t exactly Boone’s forte. Well, neither is being transparent about injuries or accurate in player evaluations. Then again, communication — the trait he was sold to Yankees fans on — is a problem as well. OK, I don’t really know what Boone’s strong suit is. He’s a nice guy? That must be it. He’s a nice guy, loyal and someone you would want to grab some beers with. When it comes to being a capable, major-league manager though, to put it nicely, he has been a disaster to this point.

8. Boone has been exceptionally bad in the bad postseason. In his first postseason in 2018, in the pivotal Game 3 at home, his starting pitcher didn’t know the start time of the game. In that same game, he let that starting pitcher go back out for a third inning despite giving up piss missiles all over the place in the first two innings. By the time he decided to make a pitching change, the Yankees were down 3-0 and the bases were loaded with no outs. Despite having a stable of strikeout arms in his bullpen, he went to a starter with mediocre strikeout ability at the time and it ended in the Yankees suffering their most lopsided home postseason loss in franchise history.

The following night, facing elimination, he let CC Sabathia face the entire Red Sox lineup a second time because he liked the matchup of Sabathia against Jackie Bradley Jr., who was batting ninth. The Yankees were eliminated.

The next October, he used JA Happ in relief in extra innings in Game 2 of the ALCS. Carlos Correa walked off the Yankees and the Yankees went 1-4 over the final five games of the series.

In 2020, there was the Deivi Garcia-Happ debacle in the ALDS. In 2021, he led the odds-on favorite in the AL to a third-place finish in the division and a fifth-place finish in the AL. Their postseason lasted nine innings (and really just a half-inning of those nine thanks to Gerrit Cole).

In 2022, he changed his starting shortstop daily, somehow made Clarke Schmidt the first guy out of the bullpen in Game 1 of the ALCS, kept batting Josh Donaldson fifth and eventually used video from the 2004 Yankees’ ALCS collapse to motivate his own Yankees team.

9. The Boone Yankees are 14-17 in the postseason. A lot of it is because of the offense’s annual disappearing act, but Boone hasn’t done anything to elevate the game or the chances of his previous five postseason teams. If anything, he has been detrimental to their success.

I like to say that the Yankees need to outhit their own manager to win games to prevent him from having an impact on close games. That’s not possible in the playoffs where games are low scoring and close. Every decision Boone makes from the moment he starts to fill out his lineup card until the final out of each postseason game is crucial, and he has been incapable of handling the pressure that comes with making correct decision after correct decision, which is what it takes in October.

I want nothing more than for the Yankees to win and for Boone to win. I don’t want to sit through another end-of-the-season press conference with him telling everyone how close the team is and how sweet it’s going to be once they do win it all.

10. Boone’s decision-making shouldn’t be able to deter the Yankees from winning the AL this year. It shouldn’t matter in the AL playoffs if Verdugo plays or Dominguez plays. It shouldn’t matter if Wells bats cleanup or Chisholm does. It shouldn’t matter if Schmidt starts Game 3 or Luis Gil does. The Yankees are that much better than the three remaining AL opponents. The 50/50 choices and decisions around the margins shouldn’t be the difference between this team advancing or being shockingly eliminated. The Yankees were the best team in the AL in the regular season and are the best team remaining in the AL postseason. It’s time they played like it in October.

The Yankees routed the Orioles 10-1 on Thursday and clinched the AL East title in the process.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. Aaron Boone was right. He knew back in July when he regurgitated (for a third straight season) his popular phrase “It’s right in front of us” in regards to the Yankees’ postseason and division chances. He knew playing .500 baseball for the final three months of the season would lead the Yankees to an AL East title.

2. The season goals are to reach the postseason, win the division, receive a bye to the ALDS, win home-field advantage through the ALCS, win the ALDS, win the ALCS and win the World Series. The first three have been accomplished. Next up is to win home-field advantage through the ALCS.

3. “We’d love to get it,” Boone said. “That said, I’m going to make sure I get guys a day here. I feel like we gotta do it, but we’ll be playing to win.”

I believe being the 1-seed in the AL playoffs is important. The Yankees don’t. They never have. Boone said as much on Thursday. The Yankees have always operated under the idea of “just get in” and that hasn’t exactly worked out for them. They haven’t been the 1-seed in any of Boone’s six previous years managing the team. That could change in the seventh.

The Yankees currently have a one-game lead over the Guardians for the 1-seed. Because the Yankees won the head-to-head season series (4-2), finishing with the same record as the Guardians is all they need. The odds are in their favor.

4. But no matter what happens this weekend, the Yankees returned home on Sunday, got to sleep in their own beds for the Orioles series, will sleep in their own beds this weekend, get to sleep in their own beds all of next week and won’t need to travel until after Game 2 of the ALDS, which is scheduled for October 7. They will have been able to be in their own homes, playing in their own stadium and not traveling for 16 days from when they returned from Oakland until they have to leave for Game 3 of the ALDS.

5. That’s just one of the many advantages the Yankees have heading into the postseason. On top of that, they will be able to set their rotation as they please and open their postseason playing in front of what will be a raucous Stadium crowd on a Saturday night in the Bronx.

6. “I feel like we’ve been through a lot as a team already this year,” Boone said. “So I’d like to think we’re battle-tested for what’s ahead.”

The Yankees haven’t been through that much. Most of what they have been through was self-inflicted. But hey, if coming up with a fictional narrative is what Boone needs to motivate his team in the postseason, I’m all for it. It’s better than using video from the 2004 ALCS as motivation like he did the last time the Yankees were in the playoffs two years ago.

7. “We’re going to celebrate tonight,” Judge said, “and then look forward to October.”

I’m confident about the Yankees heading into the postseason. I know it can all change in an instant. A loss in Game 1 of the ALDS can make it feel like the season is ending. I know the bats can just not show up in a way they haven’t in October for a while now. I know the most trusted arms in the rotation could lay eggs, the bullpen could implode or Boone could manage his team to elimination.

8. Every fan knows their own teams flaws, watching them unfold nearly daily for six months. But for as critical as I am of the Yankees (and rightfully so given their performance and internal decisions over the last 14 years), they boast the best roster of any of the six AL teams that will be in the field.

9. “We’re in a good spot,” Stanton said, “but there’s a lot of work to do.”

Everything is in their favor heading into this October in a way it hasn’t been in a long, long time. There is no dominant team in the field. If anything they are the team to beat in the field. Their rotation is healthy (outside of Nestor Cortes, but he may not have been part of the rotation anyway) and they have the best two hitters in the league in the same lineup. The only potential AL opponent that scares me is the Astros, but that’s more about the past than the present, as this Astros team isn’t the 2017, 2019 or 2022 teams. (Thankfully, as long as the Yankees win the 1-seed they won’t have to face the Astros until the best-of-7 ALCS format.) If the Yankees can’t win the World Series with the setup they have this year, I don’t know when they will.

10. This weekend will now be relaxing and stress-free. Next week will be the same. But come next Saturday when Yankees fans wake up, the second season begins. The good and bad of the previous 162 games is erased. Every Yankee gets a clean slate full of opportunity. No opportunity greater than the chance to be a part of something no Yankees team has been a part of in 15 years.

The Yankees lost to the Orioles 9-7 on Wednesday and failed to clinch the division title in their second attempt at it.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. 0-for-2. That’s what the Yankees are in opportunities to clinch and win the AL East. Add two more missed opportunities and it will read like an Alex Verdugo batting line. But if the Yankees miss two more opportunities they could possibly be in a world of shit.

One Yankees win or one Orioles loss over the next four days will give the Yankees the division. It would be nice if they could get it out of the way with a win on Thursday, rendering the three remaining games of the regular season against the Pirates rather meaningless. But given the way the Yankees have played in the first two games of this three-game series against the Orioles, it wouldn’t surprise me (and shouldn’t surprise anyone) if the division is not over by the end of play on Thursday.

2. Prior to Wednesday’s 9-7 loss to the Orioles (to drop the Yankees to 4-8 on the season against the Orioles), Nestor Cortes was placed on the 15-day injured list, taking him out of the equation for the ALDS. In his place, Marcus Stroman made his first start in 15 days and second in 21 days. The Yankees have done everything they can to avoid giving Stroman the ball in September and rightfully so.

Stroman was awful once again, needing 66 pitches to get 10 outs, while giving up six earned runs on 10 hits. Since July 4, Stroman has started 64 innings and only nine of them have been 1-2-3 innings, which is outrageous. Every seven-plus innings Stroman will give you a clean frame. He didn’t have one on Wednesday.

3. “It’s frustrating,” Stroman said. “I didn’t execute and do my job out there to keep my team in position to win.”

The last pitch Stroman threw should be the last pitch he throws in 2024 outside of maybe some innings eating this weekend against the Pirates (as long as the division is wrapped up). Stroman can’t be trusted to nibble in October and he can’t be trusted out of the bullpen either without swing-and-miss stuff. Balls in play (even ones on the ground) lead to bad things (just ask Clay Holmes) and Stroman relies on balls in play more than anyone in baseball.

4. In a game in which Juan Soto and Aaron Judge both hit multi-run home runs and the Yankees scored seven runs, they lost. That’s how bad Stroman was and then how bad Clayton Beeter was in relief of Stroman (1.1 IP, 3 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 1 BB, 2 K).

Soto and Judge combined to go 4-for-8 with three runs, two home runs, six RBIs and two walks. The rest of the lineup went 6-for-28 with no extra-base hits. It was the type of offensive performance the Yankees have to have in October to succeed since no one in the lineup outside of those two can be trusted with any regularity. Despite Gleyber Torres’ last month, he’s only now a league-average hitter for the season. Austin Wells has a .410 OPS in September and looks like the April version of himself. Giancarlo Stanton is either extremely hot or extremely cold with no in between and there’s no knowing what he will be in October. Jazz Chisholm has a .446 OPS over the last three weeks. Any plate appearance for Anthony Rizzo or Anthony Volpe resulting in them getting on base is a magnificent surprise. Alex Verdugo is a lost cause and Jasson Dominguez plays too infrequently to get into an extended groove.

5. Dominguez was back in the lineup after an unnecessary day off on Tuesday. He misplayed a ball in left field in the first inning that looked to be tailing away from him in the corner and then came back into the field of play.

“I have no excuse,” Dominguez said. “That ball needs to be caught, 100 percent of the time.”

Almost 100 percent of the time since it had a catch probability of 95 percent.

6. “He’s missed some plays that he should make,” Aaron Boone said of Dominguez. I can count on one hand (I may need a finger or two from my other hand) to count the times Boone has been somewhat critical of one of his players in seven seasons and this is one of those instances. Boone defended Torres’ game-altering baserunning gaffe just 24 hours earlier (when Torres himself couldn’t defend it), but there was Boone not having the same type of defense for Dominguez, who is playing a position he has little experience playing. Dominguez has played 20 total games in left field this season between the majors and minors.

“I haven’t played a ton of games in left field,” Dominguez said, “but I feel I can do it.”

Unfortunately, for Dominguez, the Yankees only have four games remaining, so there’s not much time to learn in actual games. Boone wants to play Verdugo over Dominguez and Dominguez is giving him a reason to.

7. “You try to take it all in, what gives you the best chance to win on a given night,” Boone said of his ongoing left-field competition. “We’re trying to give a good look to Jasson here down the stretch.”

That second part is telling. “We’re trying” is Boone foreshadowing him telling the media “they tried” when Dominguez is on the bench or not on the postseason roster next Saturday night at Yankee Stadium.

On Wednesday, Dominguez hit balls 109.3 mph, 106.5 mph and 109.2 mph. Verdugo has hit one ball over 100 mph in the last two weeks. It doesn’t matter to the Yankees that Dominguez is the far superior hitter to Verdugo. Boone wants to play Verdugo and Dominguez’s defense is going to be what Boone uses to play one of his favorites.

8. I fear Verdugo will be the Yankees’ starting left fielder to begin the postseason. Then if the team is having trouble scoring in the postseason the way they do every October, they will insert Dominguez into the lineup in place of Verdugo to try to get a jolt out of his bat after he has been sitting cold and not playing. When that doesn’t work out, everyone will say Dominguez sucks. It’s almost too easy to predict.

9. I pray that doesn’t happen. I pray if Verdugo plays over Dominguez that he hits, and that if it’s Dominguez over Verdugo that he catches fly balls. You can’t afford to play with automatic outs in the lineup (like Verdugo) in October and the Yankees will already be playing Rizzo and Volpe since they are immune to losing playing time for their lack of offense. And you can’t afford to be misplaying easy outs and giving the opposition extra outs to work with in October either.

10. For now, the Yankees need to worry about getting to October with a bye. That can be resolved with one more win. It wasn’t resolved on Tuesday or Wednesday. Thursday will be their third chance at it. I don’t want to have to write about them going for it for a fourth time tomorrow.

The Yankees lost to the Orioles 5-3 on Tuesday and failed to clinch the division title in their first attempt at it.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. The Yankees entered Tuesday’s series opener against the Orioles with a magic number of 1 to clinch the division. Win one of the remaining six games and the goal of winning the AL East would be complete. Their first crack at it was unsuccessful.

Aaron Boone decided he would try to clinch the division title in the first of six possible attempts without the best possible lineup. There was Alex Verdugo, some way, somehow starting over Jasson Dominguez on Tuesday.

“It’s still declaring itself,” Boone recently said of the starting left field role. Tuesday was Game 157 of the season. Wednesday is Game 158. In all likelihood (barring a monumental collapse over the five remaining games), the Yankees will be playing a postseason game next Saturday night at Yankee Stadium. There’s no time for left field to still be declaring itself. IT’S DECLARED ITSELF! We have a full season of Verdugo being one of the very worst everyday players in the league. The Yankees can’t go into the postseason with a daily lineup shuffle the way they did two years ago. That’s not going to work. Play the best available nine players. This isn’t hard.

2. But for Boone it is hard. It’s hard for him to not play veterans and players and pitchers he has relationships with. It’s why Verdugo is still playing. It’s why Clay Holmes is still pitching in high-leverage and save situations. It’s why Brett Gardner was batting third in the 2019 ALCS. It’s why CC Sabathia was allowed to face the Red Sox’ lineup a second time in Game 4 of the 2018 ALDS. It’s why Boone couldn’t completely pull the plug on Isiah Kiner-Falefa as the team’s shortstop in the 2022 postseason and why he kept batting Josh Donaldson fifth and sixth that same postseason despite him having no better chance than a fan from the stands at putting the ball in play.

3. Nothing will stop Boone from playing Verdugo at this point. He would rather lose with his favorites playing than win without them. He so desperately wants Verdugo to be the team’s starting left fielder and small “wins” like Verdugo reaching first via an infield single that had a .180 expected batting average are the types of nonsense Boone will refer to when telling the media Verdugo has been “swinging the bat well lately.”

4. Verdugo has one extra-base hit in September. Dominguez has three times as many in 17 less plate appearances. Verdugo has two home runs since July 6. Dominguez has two home runs in the last six days. Since being called up, Dominguez has more walks, steals, doubles and home runs, and a higher on-base percentage, slugging percentage and OPS than Verdugo.

If you want to talk about Dominguez’s outfield mishaps in left field in Seattle, well, other veteran outfielders had trouble with the sun in those games as well, not to mention Dominguez still adjusting and learning left field. At least he has an excuse. Verdugo overthrew the cutoff man over the weekend. And no one should ever forget his play to end the games against the Orioles in the last game before the All-Star break.

5. With the Yankees trailing 2-1 in the fifth on Wednesday, Anthony Rizzo and Anthony Volpe drew back-to-back walks to begin the inning, bringing Verdugo to the plate. He hit into a double play to destroy the rally. Representing the tying run at the plate with two outs in the ninth, he made the final out of a game he shouldn’t be playing in, a game the Yankees could clinch the division in. How can you not be romantic about baseball? Verdugo is now for 1-for-his last-17 with the one being the slow roller to the right side that he beat out on Tuesday. Keep playing him!

The Yankees have five games over the next five days to get it right, play Dominguez every day and get him as acclimated as he can be to the Yankee Stadium outfield before they begin to play for all the marbles next Saturday. Every inning Dominguez spends on the bench and Verdugo spends in the field is detrimental to the Yankees’ chances at winning the division and then winning in October.

6. The Yankees’ best chance to tie or take the lead in a game they never led in came in the same inning as Verdugo’s monster 82-mph infield single that traveled three feet in the air. Trailing 4-1 with runners on first and third with two outs in the seventh, Gleyber Torres hit a ground-rule double to right field to make it 4-2. Juan Soto followed with a single to pull the Yankees within a run. Anthony Santander threw home on Soto’s single to try to prevent the run from scoring and as the ball traveled toward the plate, Soto took off for the second, barely beating the throw. Torres had initially held up on the base hit, but when Adley Rutschman threw down to second to try to get Soto, Torres inexplicably broke for home, ended up in a rundown and was eventually tagged out.

“I think he thought Soto was going to be out,” is the nonsensical, bullshit reasoning Boone gave to defend Torres’ decision.

When told Torres leads the majors in outs at home plate, Boone barked back at the questioner, “I mean do you have the context on all of the outs at home plate?” as if Torres has a history of smart decisions on the basepaths.

You’re right, Boone. Torres is an intelligent baseball player with good baserunning instincts, who has a seven-year career full of aggressive, smart baserunning choices. Everyone else is just wrong and dumb.

Jack Curry on YES called Torres’ decision “inexplicable” and “reckless.” Aaron Judge said, “Stuff like that can’t happen.” Even Torres himself said, “If I’m going to make that decision, go straight for the run.” Everyone including the baserunner realized it was a losing mistake. Everyone except the manager who couldn’t just flat-out say it was a foolish error.

7. Playing Verdugo and Torres’ baserunning gaffe weren’t the only reasons the Yankees lost. Clarke Schmidt needed 100 pitches to get 16 outs and gave up three earned run in 5 1/3 innings and Boone’s choices to relieve Schmidt in a close game following an off day were Tim Mayza and Mark Leiter Jr. The duo got five outs, but not before allowing five baserunners and a run to score.

8. The loss dropped the Yankees to 4-7 on the season against their division rival. The head-to-head record won’t mean anything if the Yankees can win one of their five remaining games or if the Orioles lose one of their five remaining games, but it doesn’t make me feel comfortable or confident about the Yankees’ chances against the Orioles if the two teams meet in the ALDS. And as of Wednesday morning, the Yankees will face the winner of a potential Orioles-Tigers best-of-3.

9. The Yankees released some bad news on Wednesday morning, announcing Nestor Cortes would not make his scheduled start in the second game of this series and instead would have an MRI on his left elbow. Cortes has allowed just one earned run in his previous 15 1/3 innings since calling out the Yankees for sending him to the bullpen in Chicago and has pitched to a 1.58 ERA over his last 40 innings. He is/was likely to be in the postseason rotation, and if not, would have been a left-handed weapon out of the bullpen, but now could have his season cut short (and possibly miss all of next season as an impending free agent). Rarely does a pitcher in need of a throwing elbow MRI receive good news. And even if they do, rarely is it a few days without throwing before returning to action. It’s hard to envision Cortes being a part of the postseason.

10. John Sterling will be a part of the postseason. The 86-year-old legend returned to the broadcast booth on Tuesday and it was like he never left. It’s almost as if the last five-plus months didn’t happen. As a Sterling fan, it was hard to not be able to listen to him anymore when he retired in April. While I’m elated he’s back for the remainder of the regular season and the postseason, overall, it’s just a tease, knowing we will have to say goodbye all again. Hopefully, the last out of the season and of his career he calls isn’t the same as the last out of the last 14 seasons he has had to call: with the Yankees’ season ending without a championship. The next Yankees win (or Orioles loss) will increase the Yankees’ odds at preventing a 15th straight disappointing final out call from Sterling. It would be enjoyable if that win came on Wednesday night to get it out of the way.

The Yankees avoided a disappointing loss and beat the Mariners 2-1 in 10 innings on Wednesday, clinching a postseason berth in the process.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. Aaron Boone was willing to go to Luke Weaver in the eighth inning on Wednesday night against the Mariners, but first he wanted to find the answer to the question of how many outs he could steal with Clay Holmes. The answer: one.

One out is what Holmes recorded in the eighth inning before giving up a game-tying home run to Justin Turner. Why was Holmes in a one-run game to begin with? Why was he once again pitching in a high-leverage situation after being removed from the closer role and demoted in the bullpen pecking order just two weeks ago? And why wasn’t a better, more trusted reliever not pitching after the Yankees had Monday off and won a nine-run blowout on Tuesday in which they didn’t use any of their best relievers?

But there was Holmes getting the call for the third out of the seventh inning in relief of Tommy Kahnle with the tying run on base and and the go-ahead run at the plate. (It took him 12 pitches to get the last out of the seventh.) And there he was again going back out to the mound to begin the eighth. Not only was Boone willing to use his least trusted reliever for multiple innings in a one-run game, he had decided the lane for his least trusted reliever was the Marniners’ 1- and 2- hitters in the seventh and then the heart of the order in the eighth.

2. The home run allowed to Turner resulted in Holmes’ 13th blown save of the season, five more than anyone else. On a night when a Yankees win would clinch them a postseason berth, Boone did everything he could to prevent it from happening.

If you’re upset with Holmes following the Turner home run and his latest blown save, you’re upset with the wrong person. Holmes sucks. Everyone knows he sucks except for his manager. I’m not upset with Holmes. He didn’t make himself a Yankee. He didn’t make himself the closer. He didn’t keep himself in the closer role until his 11th blown save earlier this month. He didn’t put himself in a position to blow his 12th save last week or his 13th on Wednesday.

Boone so desperately wants Holmes to be his closer that he will stop at nothing to continue to give him opportunities in crucial spots. After being removed as the closer following his blown save in Texas two-and-a-half weeks, it took one scoreless outing in his next appearance for Holmes to then be given a one-run lead to protect the following outing: he blew that lead. Then after getting four outs without allowing a run across two games over the weekend, he was thrust right back into a one-run spot on Wednesday, and of course, he blew it.

Boone would rather have Holmes standing on the mound as Jose Altuve races home as the pennant-winning run next month or have Yordan Alvarez trotting around the bases with Holmes hanging his head as a response to the team’s elimination than ruin his friendship or relationship with Holmes by removing him completely from high-leverage situations. Boone is willing to risk it all and ruin the Yankees’ season on the right arm of Holmes. We saw it all season when he wouldn’t remove him from the closer’s role until that 11th blown save, and we have seen it continue over the last two weeks as he allowed him to blow two more.

3. The only way to ensure Boone doesn’t use Holmes in the postseason is to exclude him from the roster, which we know isn’t going to happen. Boone will use anyone and everyone at his disposal on the postseason roster. It’s how you get Neil Walker hitting instead of Miguel Andujar in the ninth inning of an elimination game in Game 4 of the 2018 ALDS. It’s how you get JA Happ pitching in relief in Game 2 of the 2019 ALCS. It’s how you get Happ being used a bulk reliever in Game 2 of the 2020 ALDS, or how you get Mike Ford pinch hitting in 2020 playoff games after he wasn’t good enough to be on the roster in the weeks leading up to the playoffs. It’s how you get Aaron Hicks starting games in the 2022 postseason and Boone’s shortstop shuffle between Isiah Kiner-Falefa, Oswaldo Cabrera and Oswald Peraza that same year. If you’re on the postseason roster, Boone will find playing time for you. Holmes will pitch in a high-leverage situation in October and the Yankees will either blow a lead or lose a game (or both) because of it.

4. Holmes’ work on Wednesday erased the impressive six shutout innings Nestor Cortes provided. Since being removed from the rotation and being inexplicably passed over for a start instead of Marcus Stroman and voicing his opinion on the matter, Cortes has been dominant: 15.1 IP, 7 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 7 BB, 18K. If anything, Cortes was a little too comfortable taking the ball every five days as a Yankee, tweeting delusional thoughts about how great the team has been and turning in crap performances most starts. The brief demotion has certainly motivated him to be better than he had been for stretches this season.

5. Weaver should have been the pitcher relieving Kahnle in the seventh with the lineup turning over, and if not, then Jake Cousins. Allowing Holmes to face the 1 through 4 hitters was irresponsible. That should always be Weaver’s “lane” in any late-game situation. The best reliever should be facing the best hitters. Weaver blew away the Mariners, retiring five of the six batters he faced and striking out four of them. His line since Boone’s admission through usage that Weaver is the best reliever in the team: 7.1 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 3 BB, 16 K and a .083/.185/.083 slash line against.

6. My current bullpen trust rankings are as follows:

Luke Weaver
Ian Hamilton
Jake Cousins
Tommy Kahnle

Hamilton was outstanding again on Wednesday against the Mariners, but the gap, for me, between Weaver and Hamilton remains massive. Overall, trust falls off completely after Kahnle. No one other than those four should be getting big outs next month unless Clarke Schmidt or Luis Gil joins them in the bullpen.

7. It’s a relief the Yankees are back in the postseason in a format that accepts 40 percent of the league. When the league moved to this format for the 2022 season, I figured the Yankees would never miss the postseason again. I didn’t envision them missing it in the second year of the format. Being in the Top 40 percent of the league with the Yankees’ resources should be a given, and yet, just a year ago they finished in eighth in the AL and were seven games out from being in sixtth.

It’s comical now to hear Boone say last year’s team wasn’t good (which he has now said twice in the last few days), considering last summer he kept telling everyone how the Yankees had the guys in the room capable of turning the season around and getting the job done. They didn’t and never did. Now they are back in the postseason for the first time in two years, and because of the way the 2022 postseason ended (in humiliating fashion against the Astros), it feels like they haven’t been in the postseason in a much longer time. Now that they’re headed back, the season will hinge on the offense not performing its annual October disappearing act. I’m not worried about the pitching. Pitching hasn’t eliminated the Yankees from the postseason since Joe Torre was manager. The offense is what has prevented the Yankees from reaching and winning the World Series over the last 14 years.

8. The offense was essentially a no-show for the first nine innings on Wednesday, picking up just two hits and striking out 15 times. Home plate umpire Jim Wolf didn’t do them any favors with one of the worst strike zones we have seen all season, but it was an ugly offensive effort. The lone run the Yankees scored before getting the automatic runner in in the 10th was when Jasson Dominguez walked in the second, stole second and moved to third on an error, and then scored on an Anthony Rizzo single.

Rizzo drove in both Yankees runs and prevented the bottom third of the order from being a complete non-factor as Anthony Volpe and Alex Verdugo combined to go 0-for-8. Volpe was particularly awful in this one as he hit into an inning-ending double play first time up, struck out in his next two at-bats and then popped up a first-pitch sacrifice bunt for an easy out in the 10th with Rizzo on second and no outs. For as bad as Volpe was last year (and he was extremely bad), his OPS this year in now seven points worse.

9. Giancarlo Stanton was held out of the lineup for a second straight game, supposedly due to the matchup and not an injury. On Tuesday, the Yankees faced the hard-throwing righty Bryan Woo, and then on Wednesday, the Yankees faced the hard-throwing righty Bryce Miller and Stanton sat for both games. On Thursday, the Yankees will face the hard-throwing righty Logan Gilbert, who is the best of three, and yet, Stanton has been told he will play against Gilbert. Holding out Stanton against hard-throwing righties, but saying he will be playing in October doesn’t add up since all October has is hard-throwing righties. When Stanton sits, it moves Judge to designated hitter, and forces Verdugo in the lineup. How about waiting until the division is clinched before continuing that lineup construction so often?

10. The magic number to clinch the division is down to 6. Any combination of Yankees wins and Orioles losses totaling 6 and the AL East is the Yankees’ for just the third time in Boone’s tenure. The Yankees also have a two-game loss column lead on being the 1-seed in the American League playoffs, something they have never been during Boone’s tenure. By clinching a postseason berth, the Yankees have completed the first goal in doing something else they haven’t done during Boone’s tenure. If Boone stops using Holmes in high-leverage situations he just may accomplish that goal in his seventh year.