The Yankees spent the first three weeks of May erasing all the damage they did to themselves in April. They have spent the last week undoing the first three weeks of May. As June begins, the April Yankees are here.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. If you have watched every pitch of every Yankees game in 2021, well, first, I’m sorry, and second, you have given this horrible team 149 hours and 43 minutes of your life. That’s six days, five hours and 43 minutes you will never get back. I apologize for that realization.

2. The Yankees are in trouble. A lot of trouble. They were allowed a mulligan for their disastrous April because the Rays and Blue Jays also had bad opening months, and no one ran away with the division. That’s no longer the case. The Yankees have fallen apart again, losing six out of seven, and their recent play has coincided with the Rays winning 16 of 17. The Rays are now 5 1/2 games ahead of the Yankees.

The Yankees are very close to playing for a wild-card berth. A 5 1/2-game Rays lead isn’t a mirage, the way it would be if the Red Sox had a 5 1/2-game lead. Even if the Yankees were to win two of the three remaining games against the Rays in the current four-game series, they would only cut one game off the deficit, and three more games would have come off the schedule and three more head-to-head games at that. The math is starting to work against the Yankees and they are a bad rest of the week against the Rays and Red Sox from being buried for good in the division.

3. I would gladly sign up for the second wild-card berth if I were the Yankees right now. To win the division, they will have to outlast the Rays (who already have that 5 1/2-game lead) and the Blue Jays (who are 6-3 against the Yankees). Two of those three teams will be playing for a wild-card berth. Add in the Red Sox, possibly the Indians and one of the Astros and A’s, and that’s five teams for two spots. So yeah, today on June 1, I would sign up for the Yankees going on the road for one game and burning Gerrit Cole for Game 1 of the ALDS. That’s how badly things have turned for the Yankees.

4. Losing two out of three to the Blue Jays last week for the third time this season was bad, but losing all three games in Detroit to the Tigers was simply unacceptable. The Yankees have now scored two runs or less in nine of their last 12 games, which seems impossible to do, but they have done it.

“This is just a bad ending to a terrible weekend,” Aaron Boone said after Sunday’s loss. “And we’ve gotta get better.

Boone repeats himself a lot, but there’s no phrase he has used more in 202 than “we’ve gotta get better.” It was used daily in April and it’s made a comeback here over the last week with the offense’s season-long disappearing act.

No shit the team has to get better. The Yankees have now played 54 games and one-third of the season and have as many runs scored as the Orioles, who have lost 14 straight and are on pace for 110 losses, and 71 runs less than the Rays, who don’t have near the names or payroll for position players the Yankees have. The offense to get better and they have to get better now. I don’t mean “now” in general to the near future. I mean “now” as in today.

5. On Friday, Boone used Aroldis Chapman with the game tied 1-1 in the ninth. Chapman had recently been sick and hadn’t pitched in five days. He threw 14 pitches in a scoreless ninth, but wasn’t brought back out for the fifth. Instead, Justin Wilson came in for the 10th with the Yankees holding a one-run lead. Wilson blew the game, allowing a walk-off home run, his fourth home run allowed in 13 innings.

After the game, Meredith Marakovits asked Boone, “Did you give any consideration to using Chapman in the 10th?”

“No,” Boone bluntly answered.

No? NO? NO?!?!?!? How did you not even “consider” that option? Because it was asking him to throw more than 14 pitches? In Chapman’s previous 19 appearances this season, he has thrown more than 14 pitches in 10 of them. Was it because he would have to sit and then get back up? There’s zero evidence that leads to injury or a drop in performance. Because he was recently sick? So he’s healthy enough to pitch, just not more than 14 pitches because he was recently sick. Is that what the Yankees’ injury prevention strategy book says?

6. After Monday’s 3-1 loss to the Rays, Boone was asked about the offense not showing up again. He didn’t blame his offense for another embarrassing performance, instead choosing to tip his cap to Rays starter Rich Hill.

“Well, first, Hill obviously shut us down and was real pitch efficient there through five.”

Boone had the same compliments for Casey Mize and Spencer Turnbull of the Tigers. He similarly complimented Hill earlier in the year, along with Michael Wacha, Matt Harvey, Joe Ross, Jordan Lyles, Steven Matz and every other starter who seems to always have their best stuff against the Yankees. In reality, they are mediocre and the Yankees make them look great.

The magic number for opposing teams against the Yankees is four runs. Opponents are 20-5 against the Yankees when they score at least four runs because of the Yankees’ lack of offense. The Yankees struggle to scratch across three runs in most games (they have scored runs two runs or less in nine of their last 12 games) and four seems like 10 (they have only scored double-digit runs once in 54 games). The offense has pissed away and has lost four starts from Gerrit in which he allowed two earned runs or less.

The Yankees scored seven runs in three games against the Blue Jays and then five runs in three games against the Tigers. They followed that up with one run in the series opener against the Rays.

7. In The Office, David Wallace asked Michael Scott his business philosophy. Here was his answer:

“My philosophy is, basically this. And this is something that I live by. And I always have. And I always will. Don’t, ever, for any reason, do anything, to anyone, for any reason, ever, no matter what, no matter where, or who or who you are with, or where you are going, or where you’ve been. Ever. For any reason. Whatsoever.”

After losing for the seventh time in 10 games against the Rays, Lindsey Adler asked Aaron Boone what the Yankees’ offensive philosophy is. Here was his answer:

“When you get done with us in a series, you know even if you’ve had success on a given day, or success in a given series where a guy’s pitched really well, you know we want you to feel like it was heavy, it was difficult, it was a lot to get through us.”

There’s no difference in the two answers.

8. What was Boone’s evaluation of Jameson Taillon’s latest loss?

“I thought he threw the ball well,” Taillon said. “I thought overall, I thought he threw the ball pretty well, and I thought stuff-wise was good today.”

The term and stat “quality start” is shit. Three earned runs in six innings is shit. A 4.50 ERA is shit. But if it’s going to be used as a measuring stick then Taillon isn’t coming close to being average. He has gotten an out in the sixth inning in just one of his 10 starts and has recorded one “quality start” in 10 starts. He doesn’t give the Yankees length and the amount of innings he does give them aren’t any good.

How could anyone think Taillon threw the ball well? The Rays had baserunners the entire day. Boone loves to use the word “traffic” to describe runners on base, well, it looked like FDR Drive at a 5 p.m. on a Friday against Taillon. At least, Boone’s streak of thinking his starting pitcher had “good stuff” is still alive.

9. This weekend, Boone offered his opinion on what needs to change to turn things around.

“We haven’t mounted enough and scored enough runs to win ballgames and we’re certainly capable of it,” Boone said. “That starts with me and the coaching staff making sure we’re putting these guys in the best position to be successful.”

It shouldn’t be hard to fill out the Yankees’ lineup card, yet not a day goes by that Boone doesn’t leave his lineup to be second-guessed. One day Rougned Odor will bat second then the next day ninth then the next day out of the lineup. Brett Gardner will bat ninth … or leadoff … or third. Sometimes they will both play against a lefty, sometimes neither of them will. Mike Ford rarely plays, but when he does, he bats fifth. Gary Sanchez bats behind both Odor and Ford. Kyle Higashioka continues to get regular playing time. None of it makes sense.

Boone rarely, if ever, puts his position players in the best position to succeed. The same goes for his bullpen. The only person in the world who thought Wilson should pitch the 10th inning on Friday was Boone. I’m sure Wilson himself wondered what Boone was doing when he was told to start warming up. Boone used Nick Nelson earlier in the season as if he were Chad Green, the same way he used to use Jonathan Holder. He does this because is truly has no idea what he’s doing.

10. Boone continues this player or that player will be fine. He continues to say his team will hit and they have to be better. They are only empty promises with no urgency behind them.

With three games remaining against the Rays this week and then three against the Red Sox, if there isn’t going to be urgency now, there will never be.

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The Yankees played a series against the Blue Jays, and that means the Yankees lost a series since they can’t seem to beat the Blue Jays in 2021. It was the Yankees’ first series loss in their last 10, but it came as no surprise as the offense once again failed to show up.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. Goodbye, Corey Kluber. After straining a shoulder muscle in his first start following his no-hitter, Kluber won’t throw for four weeks. That brings us to the end of June. Then he will need about four to six weeks to get built up to return. That brings us to the beginning or middle of August. That’s if everything goes right.

Seeing how Kluber pitched one inning last season before suffering a shoulder injury which needed surgery coupled with the Yankees’ history of properly diagnosing, treating and handling injuries and I would say there’s a better chance Kluber doesn’t throw another pitch in 2021 than there that he returns sometime in August. It’s unfortunate because Kluber had looked like his former Cy Young-winning self over his previous five starts, but this was always a risk in signing the 35-year-old Kluber coming off his last two seasons.

2. Kluber’s injury opens the door for Deivi Garcia to join a rotation he should have been in to begin the season. This should be Garcia’s job moving forward. Not Michael King. Not an opener. Garcia and Garcia only. Garcia proved himself last season and the Blue Jays proved on Thursday afternoon what happens when you give your high-end prospects a chance at the major league level: they just might succeed.

3. Alek Manoah became the latest starting pitcher to shut down the Yankees, and he shut down the entire lineup except for Miguel Andujar, who was able to get a broken-bat single and a blooper to fall in. 6 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 2 BB, 7 K.

When the Blue Jays announced they would be calling up Manoah to face the Yankees, there was a story on MLB.com essentially saying that while Manoah had dominated in three Triple-A starts this season, Triple-A isn’t Yankee Stadium. Well, it might as well be. Because you can add Manoah and his 35 professional innings entering his Thursday start to the list of starting pitchers that have stifled the Yankees this season, a list that includes Michael Wacha, Matt Harvey, Joe Ross, Jordan Lyles and Steven Matz.

4. I guess this wasn’t the series the Yankees’ offense decides to show up for good in 2021. Maybe it will be the next series or the series after that or the series after. Most likely it won’t be, but Aaron Boone keeps telling us it’s going to happen!

Seven runs in three games. It was the latest atrocious performance from a lineup that continues to one-up itself with each new series. The Yankees have scored two more runs that the Orioles and 63 less runs than the Rays. It’s embarrassing, but the Yankees don’t seem to mind. They continue to give regular at-bats to Mike Ford and Brett Gardner and Tyler Wade and Rougned Odor.

5. Every day Odor is a Yankee is a day I’m embarrassed to be a Yankees fan. It’s bad enough the Yankees traded for him to be a bench player, but he has been an everyday player for the Yankees, and he’s been about as a good as a player who was released by a last-place team despite being owed $27 million like he was by the Rangers.

In Tuesday’s series opener, Odor went 0-for-3 with a walk and three strikeouts, batting in the 6-hole. On Thursday, in the first game of the doubleheader, Odor was batting second. Second. Second! SECOND! A place usually reserved for Aaron Judge and Odor of all players was batting there. He rewarded Boone for his inexplicable trust in him by going 0-for-2 with a walk and two strikeouts.

6. During Odor’s second at-bat (after he had struck out on three pitches in his first at-bat), YES showed the graphic with his stat line for the season and his abysmal batting average, which led Michael Kay to say the following: 

“Rougned Odor hasn’t hit with the consistency that you’d expect.”

What? Odor has hit .212 in his last 2,008 plate appearances since the start of the 2017 season. So over five seasons he has been a .212/.278/.414 hitter and Kay doesn’t think his numbers as a Yankee (.160/.269/.333) are what should be expected.

6. Estevan Florial was called up for the doubleheader and doubled in one of his three at-bats. Then he was sent down after the game as the Yankees don’t feel he’s ready for the majors. Based on what?

Gardner has one double in his last 51 plate appearances and two in his last 105, has no home runs this season and can’t catch up with fastballs over 92 mph. Odor last hit a home run in April and has two doubles in 93 plate appearances as a Yankee. Wade has barreled two balls in his major league career. Ford has no doubles this season and one home run in the last month. Are any of those guys ready for the majors in 2021?

7. OK, so Florial supposedly isn’t ready for the majors. That doesn’t change the fact the Yankees need a new everyday center fielder, now that it’s official Aaron Hicks won’t play again in 2021. (It was actually official the moment it was announced he had a wrist injury.) It doesn’t matter Hicks is under contract through at least 2025 and then will need to be bought out in 2026. When he was unnecessarily extended for SEVEN years at $10 million per, it was with the caveat that it wasn’t a franchise-crippling amount of money, and they could afford to pay him to go away. The hope was that wouldn’t happen until 2023. It has happened in 2021.

Hicks can’t be trusted for 2022 and beyond, and planning to pencil him as the everyday center fielder in 2022 will be a regrettable decision the Yankees can’t afford to make. The Yankees need to trade for someone between now and the July 30 trade deadline or hope they hit on either Florial or Jasson Dominguez at some point. They will likely have to trade for someone now and hit on one of those two as well.

8. The Yankees had Monday off. They had had Wednesday off. That didn’t stop Boone from playing Gio Urshela in only one of the two games on Thursday. Urshela sat out the first game and the Yankees were two-hit and shut out.

In the second game, Urshela batted fourth and produced an RBI double in his first at-bat. I guess playing 16 innings of baseball is all he could handle in a four-day span. Good thing he couldn’t have played in a second shortened seven-inning game on Thursday. The Yankees might have won, and everyone knows unnecessary rest is more important than wins.

9. The Yankees are now 3-6 against the Blue Jays with 25 runs scored in the nine games. That’s on top of the 3-6 they are against the Rays with 25 runs scored in those nine games. The Yankees are 6-12 against their direct competition for the division and 23-9 against everyone else. Both the Rays and Blue Jays scare the shit out of me, and I think both teams are better than the Yankees, even if only the Rays have a better overall record than the Yankees.

I would sign up for the second wild-card berth right now if I were the Yankees, and yes, that means playing a one-game playoff on the road and losing Gerrit Cole for Game 1 of the ALDS. I just don’t know if the Yankees can outlast both teams in for the division title and then outlast one of two as well as the Red Sox and Astros or A’s for a wild-card spot. With this Yankees offense, the second wild card sounds pretty good right about now.

10. The Yankees have a chance to pick up wins this weekend, and likely three of them. The Tigers are a disaster with the second-worst record in the AL, only to the Orioles (who the Yankees have trouble beating). The Yankees swept the Tigers in New York to open the month and now they have a chance to sweep the Tigers in Detroit to close the month.

After another series loss to the Blue Jays and with a four-game series against the Rays and a three-game series against the Red Sox next week, three games against the Tigers are exactly what the Yankees need.

Subscribe to the Keefe To The City Podcast. New episode after every game during the season.

My book The Next Yankees Era: My Transition from the Core Four to the Baby Bombers is now available as an ebook!