The Yankees suck. I have used that phrase (with credit to the Red Sox fans chanting it over the years) at times during this soon-to-be lost season in jest, but it’s true. They do suck.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. I keep thinking we have reached the lowest point in the 2021 Yankees season, and the Yankees keep going even lower. I thought getting swept by the Red Sox to fall to 0-6 on the season against them and six games back in the loss column to them, while only scoring seven runs in 27 innings at the most right-handed-hitter-friendly park in the league despite facing two left-handed starters would be the lowest point. I was wrong. The Yankees followed up their atrocious weekend in Boston by losing to the Angels on the day Aaron Boone declared “the season is on the line,” and two nights later, they lost to the Angels again despite scoring seven runs in the first inning and having a four-run lead in the ninth. We have yet another new low.

After the Red Sox series, the Yankees had 13 games remaining before the All-Star break. I thought they had to win at least eight of those, which would mean going 8-5 at worst. They are 1-2. With Thursday’s rainout, they now have 12 games in total from the end of the Red Sox series until the All-Star break, and they have to win seven of the nine remaining. I feel like I have a better chance at winning the Powerball this weekend, and I don’t even have a ticket for the drawing.

2. The Yankees have lost fix of six, have the second-worst offense in the AL, a negative run differential, a worse record than the historocally-bad Mariners, three more losses than the $54 million Indians and after Friday’s game (if it takes place with the forecast), the season will be half over. Things aren’t just bad, they’re miserable. It’s painful to watch this team play each night knowing they will either not score any runs or allow too many runs, and even if things are going well, their manager will find a way to ruin the game. They invent new ways to lose each game to the point it’s actually unbelievable. Like The OC after Marissa Cooper’s departure or The Office after Michael Scott left, it’s unwatchable, but yet people keep watching.

3. Monday’s game wouldn’t have been a Michael King start without him allowing some first-inning runs (he gave up two) and without him giving the team length (he went 4 1/3 innings and allowed eight baserunners). After the game, he was asked why he struggles in the first inning. “I like to set guys up for their second and third at-bats.” It was arguably the worst answer I have ever heard at a postgame press conference, and I don’t miss Boone postgame press conferences. King is apparently willing to sacrifice runs and putting his team in an early hole to get outs later in the game. What? How is that a real answer he gave? What makes it even more ridiculous is that the Yankees don’t allow King to face a lineup a third time.

I don’t know when the Yankees will stop letting King start games, but it doesn’t appear to be anytime soon. Deivi Garcia isn’t doing well at Triple-A, but he’s only at Triple-A, so the Yankees can roster King and/or Scumbag Domingo German. Garcia not performing well at Triple-A simply doesn’t matter to me. What he did last year for the Yankees is what matters. He should have never been in Triple-A in the first place this season.

4. King isn’t good, and neither is Jameson Taillon. The Yankees scored a season-high 11 runs on Tuesday (10 of them while Taillon was pitching), and he still couldn’t get through six innings. Taillon lasted 5 1/3 innings, allowed five earned runs, put 10 runners on and gave up another three home runs. An embarrassing performance in what has been a season full of them for a pitcher Brian Cashman was called a genius for trading for. Taillon has now given up 14 home runs in 69 2/3, which is a 40-home run pace over 200 innings. In a rotation that features, King and Scumbag German, Taillon has been the worst. Congratulations!

5. King isn’t good, neither is Taillon, and neither is Scumbag German. As expected, German put the Yankees behind 2-0 before they could even bat on Wednesday, and even though he was given SEVEN runs of support in the bottom of the first inning, that didn’t stop him from allowing a third run in the second inning, as he finished the game with three innings pitched, while allowing three earned runs and seven baserunners.

So the Yankees’ rotation is King (sucks), Taillon (sucks), Scumbag German (sucks), Jordan “Crooked Number” Montgomery and then Gerrit Cole, who just had the worst start of his Yankees tenure in the biggest regular-season game of his Yankees tenure, and has looked more like the other four than his former self since the crackdown on foreign substances. Why do I spend three-plus hours of each day watching this team again? That’s not rhetorical. I’m really asking. I need help. All Yankees fans still watching do.

6. It’s not all on the pitching. Yes, the offense has been great the last two games, scoring 19 runs, including their second double-digit output of the season, but where were they when the pitching was actually good in May? That’s when they were putting up two and three runs per game like they did last weekend in Boston.

The entire team is a problem. The starting pitching is awful, the offense is mostly non-existent, the manager looks like someone hired to do a job they were unqualified to do, the coaching is comical, the defense is poor and the baserunning is worse than all of those other things combined. Put it all together and you get a team that’s 41-39, just two games over .500 through 80 games with the season about to be half over.

7. On the day (Monday), Boone said, “The season is on the line,” his team scored three runs and lost. Two nights later after stopping the four-game losing streak, the season must have no longer been “on the line” as he chose to sit Aaron Judge and Gio Urshela. Boone claimed the day off for Judge was one “he really needed.” The night before Judge hit a ball off the batter’s eye bar in center field. He looked real fatigued.

Following Wednesday’s unimaginable loss, Boone was asked what he has to say to Yankees fans. “I feel bad for them,” Boone said. “They deserve better than this.” Then resign. If you truly feel Yankees fans deserve better than the team’s performance, and you are the one leading and guiding the team, then resign and step away from the job. Boone would never do that because he wouldn’t give up the seven-figure salary. No one would. But in reality, Boone doesn’t think this season (or any of the last three) are any bit his fault. He thinks he has made every right decision and pushed every right button, and his players have failed him. Unfortunately, Cashman and Hal Steinbrenner agree.

8. The Yankees went into yet another season with Brett Gardner as their fourth outfielder despite rostering Judge (one full season in his career), Hicks (no full seasons in his career), Stanton (can’t play the outfield and hasn’t played a full season in three years), Clint Frazier (unproven with history of injuries) and Mike Tauchman (can’t hit major league pitching). They had to know Gardner would become an everyday player at some point, and were OK with it, and he has been an everyday player now pretty much all season. Just like he was in 2019 and 2020.

Here were Alex Rodriguez’s 2016 numbers at the time of his forced midseason retirement by the Yankees:

65 games
9 HR
31 RBIs
.200/.247/.351
.598 OPS

Here were Gardner’s numbers in 65 games (through Tuesday):

65 games
3 HR
8 RBIs
.195/.301/299
.599 OPS

How was A-Rod forced into a midseason retirement (with a year to go on his contract), but Gardner is playing EVERY DAY for the Yankees?

If Gardner sits this weekend, it won’t be because the Yankees have a better option. The Yankees acquired outfielder Tim Locastro on Thursday. In 200 games and 480 career plate appearances, he has hit .234/.339/.324. That right-handed bat wih a .663 OPS will fit in nicely on this Yankees team as they have yet another outfielder who can’t hit because Gardner, Hicks, Miguel Andujar, Frazier and Ryan LaMarre weren’t enough. I fully expect to see Locastro playing this weekend against the Mets and won’t be surprised to see him bat ahead of other established major leaguers. Maybe Boone will even have him bat third since he has let everyone else have a turn in that spot this season.

9. It’s a miracle the Mets were able to get their game in on Thursday, a game started by Jacob deGrom, which takes him out of the equation this weekend. This lineup against deGrom would have been as automatic and as much of a guaranteed loss as there can in this sport. While most Yankees fans have given up on the season, I still think there is time (though not much) to turn it around. I’m like Rudy’s fellow scout team member who tells him, “I’m under the delusion that I might get a chance to run out that tunnel.” The delusional part of me is ecstatic the Yankees are missing deGrom. The part of me telling me to do something else with my weeknights and weekday afternoons for the next three months is sad they are going to get further embarrassed this season by potentially being no-hit by deGrom.

10. The Yankees are in real danger of not having a season. I have long said they are in trouble, going back to early April, but they are well past trouble, and now sitting on the brink of disaster. After this weekend, the Yankees have Monday off and then go the Seattle for three and finish the first “half” of the season in Houston with three games.

After the All-Star break, the Yankees play four against Boston, two against Philadelphia, four against Boston and three against Tampa Bay. The latest we will know if there’s any point in watching the last two months of this season will be on Thursday, July 29. At worst, all Yankees fans will have one month of their summer not wasted by this team.

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Well, that sucked. The Yankees had a chance to have a big weekend in Boston and it couldn’t have gone worse. The Yankees were swept by the Red Sox for the second time this season and are now 0-6 against their rival.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. If you thought the Yankees getting swept by the Rays at Yankee Stadium in mid-April to fall to 5-10 was the low point of the season, it wasn’t. If you thought getting shut down by Matt Harvey at the end of April was the low point of the season, it wasn’t. If you thought getting shut down by Jordan Lyles in mid-May was the low point of the season, it wasn’t. If you thought getting swept by the Tigers at the end of May was the low point of the season, it wasn’t. If you thought losing 10 of 13 at the end of May and beginning of June was the low point of the season, it wasn’t. If you thought allowing a complete-game shutout to Ryan Yarbrough (he has pitched to a 1.56 ERA and 0.692 WHIP in three games against the Yankees and a 5.43 ERA and 1.333 WHIP against every other team) was the low point of the season, it wasn’t. If you thought getting swept by the Red Sox at the beginning of June was the low point of the season, it wasn’t. If you think going to Boston with a chance to erase the loss-column deficit in the AL East and instead get swept to increase that deficit to six games, well it is. This weekend was the lowest point of the 2021 season.

2. It’s hard to take the Yankees seriously as anything more than an average team. The preseason AL favorite, they are now 6 1/2 games back in the division and five games out of the second-wild card berth.

It’s hard to take them seriously because they can’t hit with consistency, can’t pitch with consistency, can’t field with consistency, can’t run the bases with consistency and can’t manage with consistency. Most importantly, they can’t win with consistency, now just three games over. 500.

“Inconsistency has kind of defined us so far,” Aaron Boone said after Sunday’s embarrassing 9-2 loss.

“Kind of?” “Kind of?!” “KIND OF?!” Boone likes to sugarcoat everything that comes out of his mouth, but adding a “kind of” in that sentence might be the most ridiculous bullshit he has ever said as Yankees manager. There’s no kind of. The Yankees are inconsistent. It’s why they’re in fourth place in the division after 77 games and 48 percent of the season.

“We have the people in that room to get this done,” Boone said after getting swept by the Red Sox for the second time this season. “We can’t wait and look around for a magic move to make us better.”

What exactly is “this” anyway? Simply making the postseason? Winning a wild-card berth? Hosting the wild-card game? “This” should mean winning the World Series, considering Boone took over a team that came within one game of the World Series and the team has gone backward under his leadership though I think by “this” he meant making the postseason, and simply making the postseason shouldn’t be acceptable. But when you have a loser manager who has done nothing in his career but lose, is OK with losing and has made his players believe it’s OK to lose, then doing the bare minimum becomes acceptable.

A lot of Yankees fans forgot about the movement to replace Boone as manager over the three series prior to this one because the Yankees had gone 7-2. I didn’t forget. Because even when they were beating the Blue Jays, A’s and Royals, Boone was doing everything he could to not put his players in the best possible position to succeed, and was doing everything he could to manage his team to losses.

What “magic move” could the Yankees make to make the team better other than to get a whole new team? All offseason I wrote and talked about how poorly constructed the 2021 roster was and my worst fears have come true and then some. I thought the Yankees would have issues fending off the Rays and Blue Jays in the division and at best would lose in the first round of the playoffs. Making the first round of the playoffs is now a pipe dream. The first time I said I would sign up for the Yankees settling for the second wild-card spot was back on April 14. Two-and-a-half months later and they need to jump the Blue Jays, Mariners, Indians and A’s for a postseason spot.

3. If your name isn’t DJ LeMahieu (7-for-19) or Gary Sanchez (.400 OBP), you didn’t do much this weekend. That includes Aaron Judge who went 3-for-12 with a home run, two RBIs and a walk. Judge continues to be a huge disappointment with runners on base (.961 OPS with the bases empty and .781 OPS with runners on) and in late-and-close situations (.765 OPS). It’s gotten to the point where it might be best to bat Judge leadoff, so he has at least one at-bat per game with no one on to increase his chances at hitting a home run (12 solo home runs and five multi-run home runs). Judge did hit a two-run home run in Sunday’s game when the Yankees trailed by six runs. But when he came up with the bases loaded representing the tying run in the seventh inning, he popped out to first base. The night before he had a chance to tie the game or give the Yankees the lead the bases loaded and two outs in the ninth, but he struck out against Adam Ottavino.

4. The Yankees are paying Ottavino to pitch for the Red Sox. Rather than retain Ottavino and sign Darren O’Day and Justin Wilson, the Yankees chose to trade Ottavino to the Red Sox of all teams to shed payroll to stay under the luxury-tax threshold. Staying under the threshold was more important to the Steinbrenners than winning, and because of it, the Yankees gifted the Red Sox a right-handed reliever who possesses the Yankees’ kryptonite: high-velocity fastballs and impossible breaking balls. Knowing they could face Ottavino up to 19 times in the regular season and that their expected everyday lineup would feature at least eight right-handed hitters, the Yankees still willingly made the move to save money to avoid exceeding the imaginary salary cap. Ottavino has pitched in four of the six games between the Yankees and Red Sox this season, and the Red Sox have won all four. Of course they have since they have won all six games in the series.

5. To make matters worse, Red Sox’ right-handed reliever Garrett Whitlock continues to get important outs against the Yankees. Whitlock was a Yankee, but they let him go in the Rule 5 draft and the Red Sox selected him. The Yankees thought it was more important to keep Nick Nelson and Brooks Kriske on the 40-man roster than Whitlock. In eight games this season, Nelson has pitched to a 9.75 ERA and has put 23 baserunners on in 12 innings. Kriske pitched to a 14.73 ERA last season and has an 11.25 ERA this season. Kriske’s career line: 7.2 IP, 9 H, 11 R, 11 ER, 9 BB, 11 K, 3 HR, 12.91 ERA, 2.348 WHIP.

Here is what Ottavino has done against the Yankees: 4.1 IP, 2 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 2 BB, 3 K, 2.08 ERA, 0.924 WHIP

Here is what Whitlock has done against the Yankees: 5.1 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 1 BB, 6 K, 0.00 ERA, 0.750 WHIP

6. Even with the left-handed Eduardo Rodriguez and his 6.07 ERA pitching for the Red Sox, the Yankees weren’t going to overcome a first-inning, four-run deficit. And they didn’t as Rodriguez turned in arguably his best start of the season (6 IP, 5 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 0 BB, 8 K, 1 HR).

“I do think we were prepared,” Boone said. “I felt like we were ready to go all weekend.”

The Yankees “were prepared” and yet they trailed 4-0 after an inning, couldn’t hit a bad left-handed starter and lost 9-2? Boone “felt the Yankees were ready to go all weekend” and they went 0-3 and scored seven runs in 27 innings at the most right-handed-hitter-friendly park in all of baseball?

Clearly, Boone can’t read his own clubhouse, and clearly, whatever message he is delivering to his team isn’t getting through. A change is long overdue. I don’t expect the Yankees to make one midseason since the Yankees under Hal Steinbrenner have become perfectly content with mediocrity. The only way the Yankees move on from Boone is after the season. So either the Yankees have a miraculous turnaround over the remaining 85 games or they continue to slog through a season that had great expectations and Boone gets fired. It’s a win-win position.

7. I despise Nathan Eovaldi. (Spoiler alert: he will be the starting pitcher on my 2021 All-Animosity Team.) He couldn’t have been a worse Yankee, pitching to a 4.45 ERA and 1.387 WHIP before eventually needing Tommy John surgery. Despite throwing 100 mph, he couldn’t strike anyone out, could never go more than five innings and every five days we had to hear the Yankees refer to him as “Nasty Nate.” Since joining the Red Sox, he has helped them win a championship and has thoroughly dominated the Yankees in a way I thought Gerrit Cole would dominate the Red Sox.

Cole had to win on Sunday. He had to. He had to go out, dominate and have one of his best starts as a Yankee. Instead, he might as well have been wearing uniform number 47, 50, 55 or 73 because there was no difference between Cole or any of the other awful Yankees starters. It was easily the worst start of Cole’s Yankees tenure and he should be embarrassed of his performance. I know all Yankees fans are.

8. “I think from the beginning his stuff wasn’t as sharp as I’m used to seeing,” Higashioka said. “As the game went on, he got a lot better.”

“His stuff wasn’t sharp?” Thanks for that insight, Higashioka! One pitch into Cole’s day and the Yankees were down 1-0 on an Enrique Hernandez home run, the same Enrique Hernandez who boasts a career .730 OPS. Eight pitches later and the Red Sox had second and third and no outs. Five pitches later, the Red Sox had a 4-0 lead after Rafael Devers hit a three-run home run and the game was over.

As for him getting “a lot better” as the game went on, who cares? The game was over after five batters. And it’s not like Cole shut down the Red Sox after the first as he allowed a home run and another two runs in the third. Cole finished the game with this line: 5 IP, 8 H, 6 R, 5 ER, 2 BB, 6 K, 3 HR. An embarrassment indeed.

9. There’s nothing left to say about the unnecessary pairing of Cole and Higashioka. If Higashioka is going to get a lot of the credit when Cole is dominant (even though Higashioka has nothing to do with Cole’s success) then Higashioka should get a lot of the blame when Cole is bad (even though Higashioka has nothing to do with Cole’s failures like Sunday).

Cole has gotten lit up in three of his last eight starts and one of them was against Tampa Bay and one against Boston, the two teams the Yankees are chasing for a postseason berth. Not good. In Cole’s last four starts, Boone used Sanchez as a pinch hitter for Higashioka, so even when he’s getting a “day off,” he’s not really getting the full day off.

10. Everything the Yankees did in the nine games prior to this weekend was erased. The Yankees went from putting themselves in a position to have the division lead by the end of June to now being buried in both the division and wild-card standings and they accomplished it in 45 hours.

Between now and the All-Star break, the Yankees have 13 games against the Angels (4), Mets (3), Mariners (3) and Astros (3). They either need to win every series or the equivalent of every series, and that means going 9-4. It’s lofty and might seem unreasonable and borderline impossible given the way the team has played this season, but because of the way they have played this season, they are going to have to start achieving unreasonable and borderline impossible goals.

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!