The Yankees lost to the Rays 5-4 and lost another series. They haven’t won a series in a month and haven’t won back-to-back games in that time either.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. “Spirited comeback.” That’s what Michael Kay labeled the Yankees’ ninth-inning rally that came up short. A “spirited comeback.”

The bottom of the ninth inning in Games 4 and 5 of the 2001 were spirited comebacks. The eighth inning of Game 7 of the 2003 ALCS was a spirited comeback (and also the reason the Yankees are currently managed by the manager they are). What happened on Thursday night at Tropicana Field was just a collapsing team coming up short yet again and losing for the 18th time in 25 games.

2. The Yankees wouldn’t have needed to have a comeback of any sort if they could just situationally hit. Alex Verdugo singled to lead off the game and Juan Soto followed with a double. The Yankees had runners on second and third with no outs and Aaron Judge due up.

Shane Baz was making his second start of the season and his second start since 2022 due to injury. The Yankees had him on the ropes with a chance to win the game in the first inning. Instead, Judge hit a shallow fly ball, Ben Rice struck out on three pitches and Gleyber Torres struck out on four.

2. Two batters into the Rays’ offensive night they had a 2-0 lead. Yandy Diaz doubled off the catwalk and Randy Arozarena clubbed a two-home run. Nestor Cortes was doing his can’t-pitch-on-the-road act yet again in an attempt to mimic Carlos Rodon’s start two nights before.

“I haven’t had success on the road this year,” Cortes said, “but I don’t think much of it when I’m out there.”

What exactly is he thinking about when he’s on a non-Yankee Stadium mound? How quickly can I put this game out of reach?

3. Cortes needed 97 pitches to get 13 outs and allowed five earned runs and 10 baserunners in just 4 1/3 innings of work. It was an abysmal start, but his manager didn’t think so.

“Stuff-wise he was good,” Aaron Boone said.

How could anyone have good stuff and give up five runs and 10 baserunners and only last 4 1/3 innings? You know who had good stuff on Thursday? Paul Skenes. He threw seven no-hit innings for the Pirates with 11 strikeouts. That’s good stuff.

4. Thankfully, Jeff Nelson on the postgame show didn’t sit by and listen to his former teammate in Boone spew bullshit.

“You’re throwing 97 pitches in 4 1/3 innings,” Nelson said. “I don’t know how you have ‘good stuff.'”

5. Boone then went on to talk about how the team is “in control” despite losing yet another series and losing the opportunity to win back-to-back games for the first time in exactly a month from today. (Happy One-Month Anniversary!)

“Missing opportunities, that’s what I think it comes down to,” Aaron Judge said. “There was a lot of fight out of the guys all the way to the end.”

No one fights and loses like the Yankees!

6. “We’re the Yankees,” Jose Trevino said. “If we win, [it’s], yeah, we should have won. If we lose, they like that.”

Does Trevino think it’s 15 years ago when being the Yankees meant something? When the Yankees were the Yankees, acted like it, played like it and won like it. That was a long time ago. I don’t think anyone still thinks the Yankees should win because they’re the Yankees. They have played worse than the White Sox and Rockies for the last month. They are coming off a season in which they missed the playoffs when 40 percent of the league makes the playoffs. They haven’t reached or won the World Series in 15 years and have lost five ALCS in that time.

7. “Nobody likes losing,” Judge said. “Nobody is happy about it.”

The Yankees may not like losing, but they’re accepting of it. They’re comfortable doing it, and they’re pretty good at it.

8. The Yankees are a three-home run game from Rice against the Red Sox and Grisham driving in both runs and making a game-saving catch against the Rays from being in the middle of a nine-game losing streak. That’s scary, but what’s even scarier is for how bad things are, they are set up to get a lot worse over the next three days in Baltimore.

9. The Orioles were just swept at home by the crappy Cubs. Not only were they swept, but they were outscored 21-2 and shut out on Wednesday and Thursday. It’s very realistic they break out and hang 30 runs on the Yankees this weekend.

The Yankees need to sweep the Orioles to have a winning road trip. Rodon is starting on Sunday, so that’s a loss, and the dream of a sweep is gone. They need to win two of three to at worst run in place and go .500 on this trip. I can’t envision a scenario in which the Yankees take two of three from the Orioles in Baltimore, but they need to.

10. “We’re going to play a first-place team right now,” Judge said. “We’ve got to take these good at-bats into Baltimore.”

They’re going to need to bring a lot more than good at-bats to Baltimore. They’re going to need to bring actual runs, quality starting pitching, bat-missing relief pitching, strong defense and a capable manager. Otherwise, the division will be over before the All-Star break and what was once a promising season will be closer to being over as well.

The Yankees played on Tuesday and that means their season loss total increased by one.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. It takes a lot for Brian Cashman to join the Yankees on the road, and losing 16 of their last 22 games entering Tuesday certainly constitutes as a lot.

“Thankfully, we got out of the gates really strong,” Cashman said at Tropicana Field before Tuesday’s game. “Hopefully that cushion will allow us to work through this. Hopefully sooner than later because it’s gone on long enough.”

Whenever you’re using the word “hopefully” to discuss your baseball season, you’re screwed, and Cashman used the word twice in 11 words. You would think more than $300 million in salaries could buy you more than hope, but that’s all it has gotten Cashman. It’s all he has gotten after incorrectly spending more than $3 billion in salaries since the Yankees’ last World Series appearance.

2. Cashman could do something other than “hope” the season will turn around. He could replace his manager and try to remove the comfortable-with-losing stench Aaron Boone has covered the Yankees’ winning tradition with. But he won’t. That would go against “the process” Cashman has frequently mentioned in recent years as an excuse for his team’s shortcomings. It would go against his belief that the process is more important than the results, which he said at his end-of-the-season press conference in 2022.

“It’s been a tough stretch for us,” Cashman added.

If by “stretch” Cashman means the entirety of the Boone era, then yes, it’s been a tough “stretch.” Unfortunately, that’s not what Cashman meant. He was referring to just the last month. In fact, he didn’t hesitate to praise the work Boone has done this season, saying his manager has navigated this collapse “as well as he possibly can.”

3. Not only did Cashman defend his handpicked manager’s leadership during a third straight disastrous mid-June collapse, he doesn’t think this season is any way like the last two.

“I think every year is different,” Cashman said. “I think those teams are different and some of the issues are different.”

What? WHAT? WHAT?! Like Mugatu yelling about Zoolander’s faces, THEY’RE THE SAME THING! Blue Steel? Ferrari? Le Tigre? 2022? 2023? 2024? THEY’RE THE SAME THING!

Each Yankees season is a continuation of the previous season. This season is a continuation of 2023 and 2023 was a continuation of 2022 and so on. The collapses have been the same. The offensive issues have been the same. The oft-injured players inevitably getting injured are the same. The underperforming players are the same. When you run it back with the same front office, same manager and essentially the same roster over and over, you get the same result. This collapse isn’t an anomaly. It’s not part of the ebb and flow of the baseball season like Boone likes to say. It’s expected. It’s part of who these Yankees are.

4. Cashman’s presence at the Trop on Tuesday did nothing to stop the Yankees from free falling into nothing as they lost again. After they scored a first-inning run on a Gleyber Torres RBI single, the thought the game may play out differently than nearly every game for the past month may have entered your mind. Then Carlos Rodon walked to the mound.

Two batters and seven pitches into Rodon’s night, the Yankees lead was gone and the game was tied at 1. Two batters and seven more pitches from Rodon, and the Yankees trailed by three runs and the remaining eight-plus innings were just a formality in leading the Yankees to their 17th loss in their last 23 games.

5. “It has not been fun, that’s for sure,” Rodon said. “I’m just not really giving my team a chance to win, giving up runs early.”

The Yankees have lost each of Rodon’s last four starts, and in those games, he has put 41 baserunners on in 19 innings, pitching to a 10.89 ERA and 2.053 WHIP. Opposing hitters are batting .356/.423/.713 against him for a 1.135 OPS. For reference, Aaron Judge has the highest OPS in the majors at 1.103, so opposing hitters are collectively the best hitter in the game against Rodon.

6. It was always going to be extremely difficult to like Rodon as a Yankee after his first season with the team when he came to spring training unfocused and possibly out of shape, got hurt before Opening Day and said he would be pitching if it were the playoffs then missed the first half of the season, pitched to a 6.85 ERA over 14 starts, blew a kiss to heckling fans, turned his back on the pitching coach and gave up eight runs without recording an out in his final start of the season. With what has gone on with him this season, I can’t envision ever being a fan of his as a Yankee.

7. Rodon allowed four runs on Tuesday before recording an out didn’t stop his manager from supporting the lefty (who makes roughly $800,000 per start).

“Once he gets settled he’s got a lot of ways of getting you out,” Boone said.

Rodon has a 9.00 ERA on the season in the first inning. He loses each game for the Yankees before they have a chance to bat at home or before they have a chance to bat for a second time on the road. But hey, once he gets settled, watch out!

8. Rodon’s next start will come on Sunday in Baltimore in the final game before the All-Star break. He faced the Orioles in Baltimore on May 2 and allowed six earned runs on eight hits, including three home runs and the Yankees lost 7-2. You can put the Yankees down for a loss this Sunday in Baltimore.

Since the Yankees already lost on Tuesday and are likely to lose on Sunday with Rodon pitching again, that means they would have to win the next four games to post a winning road trip. The last time the Yankees won two games in a row was June 11 and June 12. Today is July 10.

9. With “hope” being Cashman’s solution to the season, the best the Yankees can “hope” for on this six-game trip to Tampa and Baltimore is to go 3-3, and even then it’s not exactly promising. A 3-3 trip would keep them running in place while the Red Sox keep winning and the Orioles gradually increase their separation. On June 12, the Yankees had a 2 1/2-game lead over the Orioles and a 14-game lead over the Red Sox. Today, the Yankees trail the Orioles by four games in the loss column and their 14-game lead over the Red Sox is down to two games in the loss column.

10. The stuffing in the “cushion” Cashman spoke about is bursting at the seams. The Yankees are a bad rest of this road trip from being buried in the division race and from hanging on to a postseason berth. The team Cashman said is “pretty fucking good” during his unhinged tirade over the winter is anything but. For the last month, they’ve been pretty fucking bad, and the “hope” they will magically turn it around is fading by the day.

The Yankees lost another game and another series and their season is collapsing.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. “We had chances to grab that game, take that game. We didn’t,” Aaron Boone said. “And that’s where we are right now, and it’s really difficult right now.”

“We gotta play better period,” Boone continued. “And the great thing is it’s right in front of us. It’s right here and we can fix it. It’s right here. It’s there and we can run away with this thing. And we got the dudes in there to do it.”

“If we don’t score,” Boone added, “tough to win.”

Boone said none of that after Sunday night’s 3-0 loss to the Red Sox. He did say all of that on Aug. 20, 2022 with the Yankees’ season in the type of free fall Tom Petty sang about. But you wouldn’t know Boone said that nearly two years ago and not this weekend because his summarization of the Yankees’ situation is the same today as it was then.

2. What Boone did say after losing yet another series was, “It’s all right there in front of us.” It was the same line he used in that Aug. 20, 2022 meltdown when he slammed the table with his right hand while saying it. It’s not the only other time he said it.

Aug. 20, 2022: “It’s right in front of us.”

July 15, 2023: “It’s all there right in front of us.”

July 7, 2024: “It’s all right there in front of us.”

For three straight seasons the Yankees have endured a mid-June collapse, and for three straight seasons, the man leading the team has regurgitated the same tired line.

The 2022 Yankees were 61-23 and then went 38-40.

The 2023 Yankees were 36-25 and then went 46-55.

The 2024 Yankees were 50-22. They are now 55-37, having gone 5-15 in their last 20 games.

When Brian Cashman gave up on Sonny Gray after 2018 and traded him away for nothing, he said, “I don’t feel like we can go through the same exercise and expect different results.” But when it comes to the person responsible for in-game management and creating a winning culture, Cashman is completely fine with living the same season over and over.

3. This week will be a month since the Yankees last won a series. It’s now been more than a month since they won a home series. And after this 1-5 homestand against the Reds and Red Sox, Boone has added some more glowing accomplishments to his impressive resume:

– Only Yankees manager to get a fifth season on the job without a championship (and now a sixth and seventh season)

– Manager for the most lopsided home postseason loss in franchise history (Game 3 of the 2018 ALDS)

– Manager for the worst single-month record in 33 years

– Manager for the worst season record in 31 years

– Manager for the most steals allowed in a single game by franchise in 109 years

– Manager for the first three-plus-game-series sweep by NL team at Yankee Stadium in franchise history

– Manager for the first Yankees team to lose five straight home series in 34 years

– Manager for the first time in Yankees history the team allowed 35-plus home runs and had a losing record over any 16-game span

– Manager for the first Yankees team to not steal a base over 20 consecutive games in 61 years

4. This can’t go on. It couldn’t go on after Boone’s decision-making in the 2018 ALDS, but it did. It couldn’t go on after his decision-making in the 2020 ALDS, but it did. It couldn’t go on after the disgraceful 2021 season, but it did. It couldn’t go on after the second-half collapse, use of the 2004 ALCS at motivation and embarrassment in the ALCS in 2022, but it did. It couldn’t go on after the worst Yankees season in 30 years with the team missing the postseason in a format in which 40 percent of the league makes the postseason in 2023, but it did. It can’t continue for the rest of 2024. But it will.

5. It will because Cashman is in charge, and he’s invincible as general manager of the Yankees. He’s as close to being a member of the Steinbrenner family as one could be without having their last name. Cashman built a roster in which the Yankees are heavily relying on a 25-year-old rookie to be the third-most important bat in the lineup after Aaron Judge and Juan Soto. He’s the one who thought Anthony Rizzo coming off a lost season would stay healthy at almost 35 years of age. He’s the one who thought relying on Giancarlo Stanton to be available all season despite a lost tenure as a Yankee would suffice. He’s the one who thought DJ LeMahieu would turn back the clock five years. He’s the one who has held on to Gleyber Torres to the point where he has no value and will leave the Yankees for nothing in return in three months. He’s the one who thought Alex Verdugo’s contact ability would help a strikeout-heavy lineup, despite all of his contact being ground balls to second base. He’s the one who hung his hat on Anthony Volpe as the shortstop of the future and passed over every big-name free-agent shortstop available. He’s the one who gave Carlos Rodon $162 million to be a fifth starter at best. He’s the one who built this bullpen that has one trustworthy option in it (Luke Weaver), and it’s a stretch to call that one option trustworthy.

6. Unfortunately, Cashman isn’t going anywhere. Despite being unable to build a core of his own since being named general manager 26 years ago, there’s a better chance the Yankees remove the interlocking NY from their hat and stop wearing pinstripes than there is Cashman is removed from his position. He will remain in his position for as long as he wants, and when he no longer wants to be in the position, he will handpick the next person to do the job so Hal Steinbrenner doesn’t have to.

Cashman created this mess of a roster, though he likely doesn’t see it as that considering over the winter he said his team coming off an 82-win season is “pretty fucking good.” But he also created this culture of losing by installing a manager who is accepting and comfortable with losing. A manager who calls extending losing streaks “bumps in the road” and refers to historic collapses as “the ebbs and flows of a baseball season” and considers catastrophic, avoidable losses to be “just part of 162” all while telling everyone at the end of each disappointing season how “sweet” it will be when the Yankees finally “climb the mountain” and win a championship under his watch.

7. It would take an incredible amount of good fortune and luck for the Yankees to win a championship with Boone as their manager. I’m not talking about a few bounces going their way or an unlikely bat getting hot in October. I’m talking about the kind of good fortune and luck needed to win the lottery and then win it again two days later.

If you’re one of the few lunatics who feels Boone is undeserving of losing his job, then you must be of the idea that no manager should ever lose their job because there’s no one more deserving of losing their managerial job than Boone. Boone isn’t the problem, but he is a problem, and he’s certainly not part of the solution.

8. If you listened to Anthony Volpe speak with the media after his lack of hustle led to the Yankees not scoring a run that would have won them the game on Friday night, it was as if Boone scripted Volpe’s responses for him. Judge frequently talks about “getting them tomorrow.” Last year, Rodon said, “It’s in front of us” as the season fell part, and a week after that, Harrison Bader responded, “No concern” when asked about the Yankees being 4 1/2 games out of a playoff spot. One of the reasons Joe Girardi was let go was because Cashman feared the young core of players would take on the tense characteristics of their manager. That young core under Boone didn’t grow up by taking on the characteristics of their happy-go-lucky, Pollyanna manager, they have become him.

9. With Gray, Cashman eventually said enough is enough. With tens of millions of dollars owed to pitchers and players like A.J. Burnett, Alex Rodriguez, Jacoby Ellsbury and Aaron Hicks, he thought paying them to not play or to play against the Yankees was better than paying them to play for the Yankees. When it came to his belief that winning with an all-right-handed lineup was possible while completely disregarding lineup balance, he finally gave in and traded for and signed left-handed bats. But for some reason, when it comes to Boone, he can’t make a change. He won’t make a change.

10. There’s 70 games left in the season. Seventy games to try to save a season that is taking on water at a faster rate than the previous two. Seventy games to not waste another season of the primes of Judge and Gerrit Cole, and not waste possibly the only season of Soto as a Yankee.

Coming off a season in which the Yankees were one win away from the World Series, Cashman handed the team over to someone with no managerial or coaching experience at any level. There’s no fixing or making up the last six lost seasons, but by finally ending this experiment Cashman can do something his manager has rarely ever done: put the team in the best possible position to succeed.