The Yankees lost to the Orioles 2-0 on Monday as they were shut out for the fifth in 30 games this season. Clarke Schdmit turned in what I think was the best start of his
The Yankees lost to the Orioles 2-0 on Monday as they were shut out for the fifth in 30 games this season. Clarke Schdmit turned in what I think was the best start of his career, but the offense stranded all 10 of its baserunners and the Orioles took a one-game lead in the AL East.
The Yankees lost a winnable game to the Brewers on Friday, falling 7-6 in 11 innings thanks to their own manager. Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees. 1. On Monday, I wrote the following:
The Yankees lost a winnable game to the Brewers on Friday, falling 7-6 in 11 innings thanks to their own manager.
Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.
1. On Monday, I wrote the following:
Boone has had a mostly error-free three-plus weeks to begin the season. Wait until that changes. The Yankees are 7-2 in one-run games. Of their 23 games, 39 percent have been decided by one run. The more one-run games they play in, the more Boone’s in-game decisions become vitally important. If there’s any part of the Yankees standing on the tracks waiting to be destroyed by the regression train it’s their play in one-run games when managed by Boone.
The train is here.
On Friday night in Milwaukee, Yankees fans were treated to the version of Aaron Boone they have watched for six-plus seasons. The version of Aaron Boone that plays for tomorrow when there’s a winnable game at hand. The real Aaron Boone.
2. It all started in the bottom of the sixth inning with the Yankees leading 5-4.
Luis Gil had given the Yankees five mediocre innings, allowing four earned runs on five hits and two walks and getting burned by a pair of two-run home runs. He had thrown 95 pitches and considering the Yankees haven’t let him reach 100 pitches this season and have already given him extra rest once (which led to a seven-walk performance), he wasn’t going to be able to finish a sixth inning of work unless he got three groundouts in four pitches (something he’s incapable of doing). But Boone sent him back out for the sixth anyway.
Two pitches later, the Brewers had a leadoff double with the tying run on second and no one out. That double came off the bat of Gary Sanchez, who undoubtedly wants to give it to the Yankees more than you want anything in your life. Knowing how the law of ex-Yankees works in that every ex-Yankee comes back to haunt their old team, an extra-base hit was inevitable in that situation.
3. Boone used Gil in hopes of stealing one or two outs in the sixth, figuring it would be one or two less outs his bullpen would need to get. It’s a strategy employed by Boone frequently and one that backfires nearly every time, just like the contact play the Yankees put in motion with a runner on third and less than two outs on a ball hit in the infield with the infield in. You know, the play they miserably failed to convert in the 11th inning.
Stealing outs is a dangerous game, but Boone doesn’t care. He doesn’t care who the pitcher is he’s sending back out, what the score is, what the situation is, what the standings say, nothing. He’s going to do it no matter what and on Friday he sent back out a clearly fatigued Gil, who didn’t have his best stuff all night and who battled and grinded to get through five innings.
Because teams other than the Yankees have no problem scoring a runner from second with no outs without getting a base hit, the Brewers did it with ease: ground ball to second followed by a sacrifice fly. 5-5. Tie game.
4. The Yankees failed to score in the seventh inning because Juan Soto and Alex Verdugo, the only hitters on the team capable of getting on base consistently didn’t bat in the seventh. In the eighth, Soto led off the inning with a single, but was quickly erased when Aaron Judge hit into a double play, which is all he seems to do. Well, that and strike out. In the ninth, Verdugo did walk with one out, but was thrown out trying to steal second.
5. With the game tied going to the bottom of the ninth, Boone called on Clay Holmes. Ron Marinaccio (1 1/3 innings), Dennis Santana (2/3 innings) and Caleb Ferguson (1 inning) had done their jobs keeping the Brewers off the board for the sixth, seventh and eighth innings. Holmes is the team’s best reliever, and despite it not being a save situation he entered the game. (It’s absolutely insane to manage your bullpen based on a stat, and yet, the Yankees still do so.)
Here was Holmes’ recent workload before Friday:
Sunday, April 21: Didn’t pitch
Monday, April 22: Didn’t pitch
Tuesday, April 23: Nine pitches
Thursday, April 24: Didn’t pitch
Over the previous four days, Holmes had made one appearance throwing nine pitches. When he entered the game on Friday against the Brewers, I figured because of his recent light workload, he was going to pitch the ninth, and if the game reached the 10th inning and the Yankees scored in the top of the 10th, he would close out the game in the bottom of the 10th inning. Sound logic. Unfortunately, the manager of the Yankees doesn’t operate or base decisions on sound logic.
Holmes went out and had arguably his best outing of the season. He retired the side on 10 pitches, striking out Oliver Dunn and William Contreras in the process. To the 10th inning the game went.
Giancarlo Stanton pinch hit for Trent Grisham and immediately crushed a double to the left-center gap scoring the automatic runner on second. The Yankees had a 6-5 lead and the idea of Holmes having a chance to close out the game in the bottom half of the inning was coming to fruition.
6. After the top of the Yankees’ lineup stranded Stanton on second with no outs (because why wouldn’t they?), Holmes didn’t walk to the mound from the dugout. Instead, out of the bullpen came newest Yankee Michael Tonkin.
If you were unfamiliar with Tonkin prior to seeing him jog to the mound to close out Friday’s game and were thinking “Who the fuck is this guy?” when an unknown Number 50 uniform began throwing warm-up pitches to Jose Trevino, it’s understandable. I wasn’t thinking “Who the fuck is this guy?” I was thinking “Why is this fucking guy in the game?”
Tonkin had become a Yankee just the day before. He had signed with the Mets in the winter, got designated for assignment by the Mets and purchased by the Twins on April 9, got designated for assignment again and selected off waivers by the Mets on April 17 and then got designated for assignment again and selected off waivers by the Yankees on Thursday. Why has Tonkin been designated for assignment three times in less than three weeks? Surely, it must be because he’s awesome and capable of closing out the first-place Brewers in extra innings with the automatic runner on second and no outs.
Tonklin immediately gave up the lead, allowing a game-tying single to Willy Adams, but did manage to get out of the 10th inning without losing the game. Unfortunately, he would save that for the 11th inning.
In the 11th inning, the Yankees failed to score the automatic runner from second, largely because the team’s offense sucks, but also because their trusty manager had the aforementioned contact play on with a runner on third and one out in the inning. That runner was Jahmai Jones and he was thrown out by at least 10 feet on the idiotic play, running home on contact on a ball hit right back to the pitcher. In the bottom of the 11th, Tonkin allowed a walk-off single to Joey Ortiz, as the Brewers’ 8-hitter capped off a nice four-RBI day.
“It’s definitely a tough spot to go in,” Boone said of Tonkin entering an extra-innings save situation for his first appearance in his first day as a Yankee.
Then why was he put in that spot, you moron.
Boone’s sole job as manager of the Yankees is to put his players in the best possible position to succeed. If he does that and it doesn’t work out, so be it. There isn’t a person in the world who would have questioned Holmes being used for a second inning if he couldn’t hold the lead and allowed the tying run to score or lost the game. He’s the best reliever on the team in the middle of a stretch in which he had thrown nine pitches in four days. Boone didn’t see it that way.
7. “He’s on about an 80-game pace in April, and with some of the attrition we’ve had in our bullpen, I wasn’t going to send my closer out,” Boone said.
Holmes was on a 75-game pace prior to his appearance last night, not 80. Holmes’ career high for appearances is 69, so his pace wasn’t far off a number he’s already previously accomplished. (For reference, Mariano Rivera averaged 67 games per season in his career, and three times pitched over 70 times. A 75-game pace is in no way outrageous.)
I wish Boone were joking about the attrition the Yankees have had in their bullpen, but he wasn’t. Jonathan Loaisiga went down for the season within the first week. Guess what Loaisiga is best at? Getting hurt. That’s what he does. The only “full” season he pitched in the majors was in 2021 and he was the best reliever in baseball that season. But outside of that his career has been marred by injuries. Not even three weeks ago, Boone himself said, “It’s been pretty much something every year that’s tripped him up.” Relying on Loaisiga to be the team’s best reliever was irresponsible given his injury history, much like it was irresponsible to rely on Aaron Hicks to be a starting out fielder on the team in 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023. The Yankees continue to count on players with extensive injury histories and when they inevitably get injured, the front office and manager cry about the injuries and adversity the team has had to deal with, or in this case: attrition. The only other reliever the Yankees have had get hurt since the start of the season is Nick Burdi. He entered this season having thrown 15 1/3 career innings in the majors over six years because of injuries. I can’t believe he’s hurt again.
8. “I’ll do four outs this time of year,” Boone said, “but I wasn’t going to send him out for a second inning.”
If you don’t think Boone is detrimental to the success of the team he manages, don’t ever forget that sentence.
The evaluation of a pitcher should be done by pitches never by outs, and yet, Boone is making millions of dollars per year for the seventh straight year while doing the complete opposite. Not all outs or appearances are created equal. Holmes pitched a scoreless ninth inning in Milwaukee on Friday. He also pitched a scoreless ninth inning in Houston on Opening Day. He recorded three outs in both and pitched exactly one inning in both. To Boone, those two appearances are of equal value and energy.
Again, Holmes threw 10 pitches in the ninth. TEN! He threw nine pitches over the previous four days. The Yankees had the opportunity to win a game against a good team and Boone decided saving Holmes for a situation on a different day that may never happen was a better idea. The Yankees had a winnable game at hand and Boone decided he would rather take his chances of winning a made-up game in the future. That’s who’s managing the Yankees.
The best part is Holmes probably won’t be needed for a few days. He may not be needed for a week. If Boone wants to play the what-if game, let’s play it. He thinks he may need Holmes for an inning on Saturday, so he wasn’t going to push him for a second inning on Friday. Well, what if Holmes isn’t need on Saturday, or Sunday, or Monday, or Tuesday? Then he’ll be used in a game on Wednesday no matter what the score is to get him work. Not even two weeks ago, Boone refrained from using Ian Hamilton in the extra-inning game in Cleveland that the Yankees led in and instead used Caleb Ferguson who blew the game and the Yankees lost. Three days later, after having still not pitched, Boone used Hamilton in a game the Yankees were trailing in because he needed the work.
9. “He’s got a lot of experience,” Boone said of Tonkin.
Yeah, a lot of experience sucking.
“That’s just where we were in the game,” Boone said, “with what we had left.”
The Yankees also had Victor Gonzalez available. I guess he was good enough to close out the Rays with a one-run lead on Sunday, but five days later isn’t good enough to close out the Brewers with a one-run lead. Let’s have the new guy that the Braves didn’t want back, the Mets gave up on twice and the Twins allowed to make one appearance before cutting ties.
10. I’m not mad at Tonkin. Not in the least bit. He’s not good. If he was, the Braves would have re-signed him after last season or the Mets or Twins would have kept him. He wasn’t put on waivers because he’s really good at closing out one-run games. He didn’t ask for the Yankees to offer him a major-league contract. He didn’t ask for Boone to put him into the game in that spot. It’s not his fault he blew the lead in the 10th and lost the game in the 11th.
It’s the Yankees’ fault for lacking bullpen depth when they knew they wouldn’t have Michael King, didn’t re-sign Wandy Peralta, knew of Loaisiga’s unbelievable injury history and knew they would be without Tommy Kahnle, Scott Effross and Lou Trivino to begin the season. And it’s Boone’s fault for putting him in the game. Unfortunately, that won’t be the last bad decision Boone is allowed to make.
The Yankees followed up their series win over the Rays by splitting four games against the lowly A’s at Yankee Stadium. It was a disappointing series in which the Yankees were shut out in the
The Yankees followed up their series win over the Rays by splitting four games against the lowly A’s at Yankee Stadium. It was a disappointing series in which the Yankees were shut out in the first game and left 13 runners on in the fourth game.
Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.
1. The Yankees went 4-3 during their week-long homestead and that winning record was a disappointment. It was a disappointment because two of the three losses came against the A’s, and in those two losses the Yankees scored one run total. One run in 18 innings against the A’s, a team that is purposely fielding a team with the intention of losing.
To make matters worse, the Yankees only allowed five runs in those two games (two in the first and three in the second). Those have to be wins. They have to be wins because when the Orioles play the A’s this week in Baltimore, you can bet your ass they won’t be getting shut out by the A’s (like the Yankees did on Monday) and they won’t be leaving 13 runners on (like the Yankees did on Thursday).
2. Yes, the A’s are much improved from the team 112-loss team they were a year ago, but they are still on pace to lose 100 games this year. The biggest difference between last year’s A’s team and this year’s is that they have a bullpen, and a very good one. Mason Miller is awesome with his 104 mph fastball and unhittable slider. He got seven outs in the series and six were strikeouts, including two impressive ones of Juan Soto.
3. Soto went 0-for-4 on Monday and 1-for-4 with a walk on Thursday, and the Yankees lost both games. Howdoyoulikethat?! (John Sterling voice.) The Yankees are going to lose nearly every game Soto doesn’t carry them, and that includes against bad teams like the A’s. The 2023 Yankees Plus Juan Soto are a real thing.
They are a real thing because Aaron Judge continues to not be himself. Sure, he hit a first-inning, two-run home run on Wednesday, but he also needed a four-strike count to do so because of a balk call. He went 0-for-7 with four strikeouts and hit into two double plays in the two losses. He’s hitting .186/.322/.371 on the season.
5. Giancarlo Stanton hit .136/.208/.182 in the seven-game homestand, striking out in a third of his at-bats. Despite his recent slide back into being the 2022-2023 version of himself he was promoted in the lineup from the fifth spot to the fourth spot because of how bad Anthony Rizzo has been.
Yes, Rizzo kind of came out of it with a pair of home runs in the A’s series, but again, like I wrote on Tuesday, it’s the A’s. I will gladly the take the offense since it’s hard to come by even with the household names the Yankees have, but let’s see what Rizzo does over the next week against the Brewers and Orioles before we decide he’s back.
Anthony Volpe has a .636 OPS since his four-hit game in Arizona on April 1 with 19 strikeouts to six walks in his regression back to being who he was last year.
6. Then there’s Gleyber Torres. (I will refrain from writing about Alex Verdugo, Jose Trevino, Austin Wells and Oswaldo Cabrera since my expectations for them are nothing.) I feel unwell when I watch Torres play baseball. When he’s not striking out on three pitches (like he does at least once a game), he’s getting thrown out on the bases (like he was on Thursday) or throwing balls away in the field (like he does a once a week). Torres isn’t a smart player, and right now he’s not a good player. It’s a dangerous combination to be relying on to hit in the middle of the order and play every day.
Torres is a losing player. He’s a disappointment. His entire game epitomizes the 2018-2023 Yankees (and going on 2024 Yankees). He’s on the Mount Rushmore of this Yankees’ core of disappointment along with Judge, Stanton and Aaron Boone with Brian Cashman chiseling the stone for this era. Torres has a .520 OPS. He has two RBIs. Yes, TWO RBIs. It’s the end of April. Tyler Nevin, who is a 27-year-old with a .631 career OPS matched Torres’ RBI total with one swing on Thursday. (It’s absolutely disgusting that Nestor Cortes let Nick Allen and his .545 career OPS and Nevin beat him on Thursday.)
At some point Torres will hit a three-run home run … I think. He will, right? He has to. If he’s going to play every day and get 600-plus plate appearances, at some point he will run into one. And everyone will think it’s the turning point of his season. He may even hit two home runs in a week (what a concept), but don’t let him fool you. This is the same player that came to 2020 spring training 2.0 out of shape, played his way off shortstop in 2021, had the worst OPS in the majors for a six-week stretch in 2022 and tricked everyone into thinking the Yankees should keep him for 2024 because he hit 25 home runs in 2023. Now as an impending free agent he’s playing himself into a prove-it deal instead of a nine-figure deal because he’s completely abandoned any semblance of having a plan at the plate to go along with the worst Baseball IQ in the league when he’s in the field or on the bases.
If you’re holding out hope the 2018-19 Torres is going to return at some point, that’s only going to happen if the juiced baseball of those two seasons returns as well. Otherwise, this is who Torres is.
7. “It’s one of those games where you get all those opportunities,” Boone said after Thursday’s one-run performance. “Ultimately, you want to create that traffic, but you have to deliver on it and we were not able to do that tonight.”
It wasn’t just Thursday night the Yankees weren’t able to deliver on it. They scored one run on Thursday. They were shut out on Monday. They were shut out on Saturday. They scored one run last Monday in Toronto. This isn’t a one-time thing with the Yankees leaving everyone on base and not scoring. This is a common occurrence. It’s becoming expected. The Yankees have been shut out four times already this season. For as bad as the 2023 team was, at this point last year, they hadn’t been shut out a single time yet. They weren’t shut out for a fourth time until their 89th game on July 7. It’s April 26.
8. The Yankees are 17-2 when they score three runs. Three runs. That’s all they need to win to have an 89 percent chance of winning, and yet, they have failed to do that in 27 percent of their games. At least once a series (outside of the Astros series), they are completely stifled.
It’s not as though it’s a surprise. The 2023 Yankees offense was a monumental disaster, and this year they are only marginally better. That margin is Soto. The other eight bats are essentially the same with the only other difference being Verdugo. He’s been coming around somewhat over the last few days, but he may as well be Aaron Hicks aside from those few days.
I have zero confidence in Torres or Verdugo doing anything at the plate, and no one should be counting on Trevino, Wells or Cabrera for offense. Whatever they give you is a bonus. Judge, Stanton and Rizzo have to hit. It’s that simple. Soto is always going to be fine, and Volpe will give enough as a sophomore. It’s the heart of the order, the 3-4-5 hitters that can’t continue toe be as bad as they have been.
9. “Its a tough one because of the chances to really grab this game a couple of times,” Boone said about Thursday. “We were not able to get through.”
What happened on Thursday is going to happen at times over 162 games. But with the Yankees, through 27 games, it has happened too often, just like it did it in 2023 and half of 2022 and all of 2021. I don’t expect the Yankees to win every game. Even in a great season, they will lose 62 times. I do expect them to beat the A’s though, especially at home. I do expect them to win games started by JP Sears (who entered Monday’s game with nine strikeouts total in four starts and then struck out seven Yankees over six shutout innings) and Alex Wood (who entered Thursday’s game with the worst ERA of any pitcher in baseball). I expect the trio of Judge, Stanton and Rizzo to do more, much more than they have this season.
10. I watched the Brewers-Orioles series a couple of weekends ago and the Yankees will be “up against it” (to use a common Boone phrase) for the next seven games. They won’t be facing Sears or Wood this coming week (not that they hit either of those two anyway). The Yankees’ pitching will be facing dynamic, potent lineups that are going to feast on the Yankees’ anemic bullpen arms if given the opportunity.
The Yankees’ offense has to show up starting on Friday night. The season is a month old. The soapbox for the “It’s early!” crowd has been put away until next year. If the offense doesn’t show up, a bad weekend against the Brewers while the Orioles are hosting the A’s coupled with a bad four games in Baltimore next week will allow the Orioles to create separation in the division and run away and hide with it for the rest of the summer. Every game of the season is important. This next week is even more important.
The Yankees have played four games on their current homestand, have been shut out in two of them and even lost to the A’s. Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees. 1. The 2023 Yankees
The Yankees have played four games on their current homestand, have been shut out in two of them and even lost to the A’s.
Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.
1. The 2023 Yankees plus Juan Soto have been on full display through the first four games of the current seven-game homestand. The Yankees beat the Rays 5-3 on Friday, lost to the Rays 2-0 on Saturday, beat the Rays 5-4 on Sunday and were embarrassingly shut out by the A’s 2-0 on Monday. The Yankees have scored 10 runs in the four games, were shut out twice and have only scored in three of 36 innings to begin the homestand. If that doesn’t portray how truly awful the offense has been, how’s this: Soto has two extra-base hits in the four games and the rest of the Yankees have zero. Not a single extra-base hit from anyone other than Soto in four straight home games.
I continue to wonder where the 2024 Yankees would be without Soto, and it’s a place you don’t want to know about. The Yankees’ strategy to upgrade the offense this season was to trade for the generational superstar and then hope all of their aging, oft-injured, on-the-wrong-side-of-30 bats would bounce back. Soto has lived up to his expectations and then some, while the other half of the strategy has been a collective disappointment.
2. There’s been no bigger disappointment than Judge who seems to ground into a double play or strikeout in every at-bat, killing any rally he can get his hands on. His one clutch hit of the season, the two-run single against the Blue Jays last Wednesday was hit on the ground and mere inches from being an inning-ending groundout.
Judge is hitting .174/.308/.337 and the narrative is to not worry about him and the commonly used silver lining is “Look at the Yankees’ record without Judge hitting!” It’s no longer acceptable to make excuses for Judge not getting a full spring training worth of at-bats when he’s had 104 plate appearances during the season.
3. Judge has been booed this week at Yankee Stadium, and a lot is being made about it. Every Yankee has been booed at least once. Derek Jeter was booed during his 0-for-32 slump in 2004. Mariano Rivera was booed for blowing saves. The two of them helped the Yankees to five championships. Their numbers are in Monument Park and they are the most voted-for Hall of Famers in history. If they can be booed anyone can be, especially Judge.
“I’ve heard worse,” Judge said about the booing, though he has never heard worse at home. “I’d probably be doing the same thing in their situation.”
Judge gets it. He has sucked this year and he’s hearing about it. It comes with the territory. It’s not going to last because his slump isn’t going to last. He’s just another Yankees superstar who has been booed. It’s a non-story.
4. The Yankees don’t need 2024 Judge to be 2022 Judge to get to where they want to go now that they have Soto. The Juan Soto Yankees don’t need the history-making version of Judge, they just can’t have this version of him.
“We’ve just got to keep grinding,” Soto said after the 2-0 loss to the A’s even though he doesn’t need to do anything different. “We just had a tough game. Forget about it and come back tomorrow.”
Unfortunately, the Yankees didn’t just have a tough game as in a single game, and it would be easy to forget if it wasn’t a disturbing trend.
The Yankees have already been shut out four times this year. They have scored three or fewer runs in more than one-third of their games. They are 14-1 when they score four runs in a game, which seems like it should be so easy for a team that features the names this team features, and yet, they frequently have trouble plating four runs.
5. Aaron Boone, who lasted less than one inning on Monday after he was wrongfully ejected for something a fan said gave us his fist “We’ve got to mount more than that” after the shutout loss to the A’s. That’s how bad things are offensively that Boone is dipping into his buzz word bag to describe his offense.
“I’m seeing the ball well,” Rizzo said after another 0-for on Monday. “I’ve just got to put better swings on the ball.”
I don’t know what’s worse: home plate umpire Hunter Wendelstedt trying to say he ejected Boone because what was said to eject Boone came from the dugout or Rizzo trying to tell the world he is seeing the ball well. Rizzo sounds like a clearly drunk person trying to tell you they’re not drunk.
Rizzo is hitting .227/.307/.284 on the season. The batting average is 36 points below his career, the on-base percentage is 57 points below his career and the slugging percentage is 245 points below his career. Rizzo isn’t seeing the ball well and hasn’t in 11 months since suffering a concussion against the padres last May. As a soon-to-be 35-year-old who has a negative-0.3 WAR on the season and whose contract ends this year (plus the $6 million buyout the Yankees idiotically agreed to for 2025), he’s closer to being designated for assignment than he is putting “better swings on the ball.”
6. For as “bad” as Judge has been, Rizzo would gladly trade his .590 OPS for Judge’s .645. And Gleyber Torres would donate an organ to have Rizzo’s .590 instead of his own .516.
The day Torres is no longer a Yankee will be a wonderful day. For someone who should have been traded three years ago, Torres has somehow been worse than Judge and Rizzo. Torres has yet to hit a home run and has driven in two runs. TWO RUNS in 98 plate appearances. Austin Wells is 3-for-the season and has as many RBIs as Torres in 55 fewer plate appearances.
On Monday, Torres struck out on three pitches in his first plate appearance and in his second plate appearance he struck out on nine pitches. So when he came to bat a third time, Ryan Ruocco said, “Here’s Gleyber Torres. He struck out in his last at-bat, but really battled.” That’s what we’re resorting to in evaluating Torres? Congratulating him for battling? Can someone show me where battling can be found in a player’s slash line? Is it before or after slugging percentage? Torres struck out on three pitches in that third plate appearance, finishing the day 0-for-3 with three strikeouts.
Torres had to be praying he didn’t get a chance to come up in the ninth representing the tying run. Considering he couldn’t get the bat on the ball against the light-throwing JP Sears, I’m curious to see how he would have looked swinging against A’s closer Mason Miller and his 104 mph fastball that he used to strike out Anthony Volpe, Judge and Soto for a perfect ninth.
7. The 2024 A’s aren’t the 2023 A’s because this version of the A’s has a bullpen, which is something the Yankees now completely lack. The two most trustworthy relievers in the Yankees’ bullpen are Ian Hamilton and Clay Holmes and I wouldn’t trust either of them to tell me what day of the week it is, so you can imagine how good I feel when I see them enter a close game. After those two it’s Caleb Ferguson and Victor Gonzalez? Because of a lack of relief depth, barely-in-the-majors Luke Weaver is firmly entrenched in Boone’s circle of trusted receivers, and Estevan Florial showed everyone 10 days ago why that’s a bad idea. The entire bullpen is a joke. No Yankees reliever is a true strikeout pitcher and no one out of the bullpen can put away a hitter with two strikes on them. Holmes has tried to blow or ruin every game he has come into, but he has had a horseshoe jammed so far up his ass this season, I hope he has been playing Powerball and Mega Millions every single day given what has transpired in his outings for him to still not have allowed an earned run.
If you’re waiting for Tommy Kahnle, Scott Effross and Lou Trivino to save the day, you’re going to be waiting for a long time. And by the time those three are all healthy (if they are ever all healthy at the same time) there might not be a day to save. It’s not early. The season is nearly a month old and we’re approaching the 20 percent mark of the schedule.
8. You may be wondering what I’m writing about since the Yankees are 15-8. If you are, then you were probably wondering what I was writing about when the Yankees were winning nearly every day in April, May and the first half of June in 2022 before that entire season crumbled leading into 2023, which was the worst Yankees season in 30 years.
I don’t view these Yankees as a team that has only played 23 games. How could you? It’s the same team plus Soto from last year. It’s the same team plus Soto from 2022 as well. Sure, some of the names are different, but the production is equal. Rizzo may as well be Josh Donaldson. Torres may as well be Aaron Hicks. The starting pitching is relatively the same and the bullpen is much, much worse without Jonathan Loaisiga, Michael King and Wandy Peralta.
9. I would trade King for Soto a trillion times out of a trillion, but when the Yankees knew they weren’t going to have King, how do they not bring back Peralta at a measly $4.25 million a year? He has a 0.82 in 12 appearances for the Padres.
Relying on Loaisiga to be the team’s best reliever was irresponsible given his injury history, much like it was irresponsible to rely on Hicks to be a starting out fielder on the team in 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023. The Yankees continue to count on players with extensive injury histories and when they inevitably get injured, the front office and manager cry about the injuries and “adversity” the team has had to deal with.
The Hal Steinbrenner Yankees always have to cut corners somewhere. They will give Judge a monster contract, only to not address left field or the bench. They will trade their farm system for Soto, only to skimp out on the bullpen. For the last six-plus years, both Hal and Brian Cashman have talked about “leaving no stone unturned” when speaking to the media about the free-agent market, and yet they rarely turn over any stones. That’s how you end up with Dennis Santana and his career 5.19 ERA pitching important innings in the third week of April.
10. These Yankees are what they are and that is the same offense of the last four years plus Juan Soto, a starting rotation that rarely gives more than five innings and a bullpen that is being held together by tape, glue and gum scraped off a bleacher from Section 39. Boone has had a mostly error-free three-plus weeks to begin the season. Wait until that changes. The Yankees are 7-2 in one-run games. Of their 23 games, 39 percent have been decided by one run. The more one-run games they play in, the more Boone’s in-game decisions become vitally important. If there’s any part of the Yankees standing on the tracks waiting to be destroyed by the regression train it’s their play in one-run games when managed by Boone.
The offense has the ability to take Boone’s in-game strategy out of the equation before the train comes with an inverse regression of their own. That will take Judge waking up, Rizzo proving he’s past his 2023 head injury and Torres not being the equivalent of a random fan getting to face major-league pitching. If it happens, the Yankees will be fine. It could even happen as early as this week against the A’s mediocre-at-best starting pitching. I’m going to need to see it for a lot longer than a series against the A’s, but after what I watched on Monday, I’ll gladly take any offensive outburst even if it’s against the A’s.
The Yankees avoided a fourth straight loss and a sweep in Toronto with a ninth-inning comeback win over the Blue Jays to maintain their place atop the AL East. Here are 10 thoughts on the
The Yankees avoided a fourth straight loss and a sweep in Toronto with a ninth-inning comeback win over the Blue Jays to maintain their place atop the AL East.
Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.
1. I don’t know what Juan Soto is going to get this winter, all I know is the Yankees better be the ones to give it to him. Whether it’s $500 million or $600 million or $700 million, whatever the price tag is, the Yankees need to meet it. Give him $1 billion. Give him an ownership stake. I don’t care what it takes, the Yankees have to pay it. If the organization that generates more revenue than any other in the sport isn’t going to sign 25-year-old Soto (who amazingly may not even be in his prime yet), then who will they sign?
2. The Yankees have to sign Soto because he is the Yankees. It’s disturbing to think what the Yankees’ record through 19 games would be without him, and the 13-6 record they do have is largely based on his performance alone.
The 2024 Yankees are the 2023 Yankees with Soto and a better offensive version of Anthony Volpe. Remove Soto from the equation and the Yankees would be battling the Red Sox for sole possession of the AL East basement. Remove Soto from the equation and the Yankees would have been swept in Toronto the last three days.
3. On Wednesday, in Soto’s first-inning plate appearance he walked. The “heart” of the order stranded him. He led off the third with a single and Judge erased him with yet another double play. With two outs in the fifth, he doubled in Oswaldo Cabrera for the Yankees’ first run before Judge stranded him again. In the eighth, he hit a solo home run off of Genesis Cabrera. With two outs in the ninth, he drew a walk against tough lefty Tim Mayza to extend the inning. Five plate appearances, three hits, two extra-base hits, two walks, one run and two RBIs.
Soto kept the Yankees alive and in the game to create their ninth-inning comeback and Blue Jays manager John Schneider did the rest, choosing not to use Jordan Romano or Yimi Garcia to close it out, allowing the Yankees to come back, win and salvage the third game of the series.
4. “We have confidence; grinding every day, playing 27 outs,” Soto said. “I have really good confidence in this team. We all know what kind of players awe have. I just every single one of them.”
(That’s nice of Soto to say, but there’s absolutely no truth to it. Do you think Soto feels good about Gleyber Torres coming up with the bases loaded? Do you think when he’s standing on second he believes Anthony Rizzo is going to drive him in? I know I don’t.)
5. Soto is the most important player on the team. He’s hitting .352/.478/.577 and has reached base safely in 17 of 19 games. He leads the team in batting average, on-base percentage, slugging percentage, RBIs and walks.
In the Yankees’ six losses this season, Soto is 4-for-19 with four strikeouts and two walks. Simply put: when Soto has a bad day, the Yankees lose. Or when Soto has a bad day, the 2024 Yankees look like the 2023 Yankees.
Unsurprisingly, in the Yankees’ six losses, Soto has driven in one run. And in the six losses, the Yankees have scored 13 total runs, being shut out twice.
This is Soto’s team and needs to be his team for the next decade-plus. Judge may be the captain, but these are the Juan Soto Yankees.
6. The Yankees have won 13 of 19 and are in first place because of Soto. Judge is hitting .183 and has banged into five double plays.Rizzo has a .620 OPS and has 18 strikeouts to six walks. Torres has yet to hit a home run shown and is slugging .236. Alex Verdugo is tied for the team lead in double plays with Judge and pretty much only hits ground balls to the right side of the field. The combination of Jose Trevino and Austin Wells hasn’t been good. Volpe was off to an incredible start before Yusei Kikuchi seemingly broke him with Volpe now reverting back to swinging at balls and abandoning his early-season plan at the plate. Giancarlo Stanton has chipped in with some big home runs in between swings in which he looks blindfolded.
And then there’s Oswaldo Cabrera, who has been impressive and has become a lineup necessity. (It’s comical to think 21 of his plate appearances this season went to Jon Berti.) Cabrera is hitting .309/.350/.545 with four doubles and 13 RBIs. He has driven in more runs than Rizzo (7), Torres (2 … embarrassing), Verdugo (5) and even Judge (11) in about 20 percent less plate appearances than each.
The offense has been mostly Soto, some Volpe and Cabrera, a little Stanton and little to nothing from everyone else.
7. The starting rotation has been much of the same, led by Marcus Stroman and then very little from everyone else. Stroman was strong again on Wednesday (5.1 IP, 6 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 2 BB, 2 K, 1 HR) at his former home stadium, and he needed to be after Luis Gil and Carlos Rodon combined to give the Yankees just nine innings the previous two days.
8. It was painful to watch Gil on Monday: 5 IP, 3 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 7 BB, 6 K. There’s nothing worse than watching a pitcher either wants to nibble and refuses to throw strikes or simply can’t throw strikes. Gil is the latter.
With seven walks in the start, Gil now has 14 in 14 innings this season. It’s almost as if giving a starting pitcher eight days off is detrimental to success.
“I don’t think it affected me,” Gil said of the time off. “It’s definitely extra time that you’re not used to, but you’re just trying to execute pitches.”
Gil said it didn’t affect him, and yet said it’s something he’s not used to. So of course it affected him. It would affect just about anyone, let alone someone who has made two major-league starts in two years.
If Gil is going to be part of the rotation, let him be part of the rotation. It doesn’t matter that he’s coming off of Tommy John surgery. There is absolutely no evidence that skipping starts, limiting innings or giving a set amount of days off to a pitcher prevents further injury, whether or not they are coming back from elbow surgery. Pitchers get hurt. That’s what they do. And a pitcher that throws as hard as Gil throws is likely to get hurt again no matter what unnecessary precautions are taken. If you want Gil to not tear his elbow throwing a baseball overhand at 100 mph then have him retire. But if you want him to throw a baseball overhand at 100 mph then let him throw a baseball overhand at 100 mph.
9. Rodon had his worst start of the season on Tuesday (4 IP, 5 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 4 BB, 5 K), inexplicably needing 101 pitches to get 12 outs.
“It was death by the foul ball tonight,” Boone said of Rodon. “They just kept spoiling pitches.”
That seems to be who Rodon is with his once-great fastball now incapable of missing bats (he has 18 strikeouts in 19 2/3 innings this season).
“He was in the strike zone,” Boone said, “and the stuff was really good.”
Three runs, nine baserunners and 101 pitches to get 12 outs, yet “the stuff was really good?” Never change, Boone. Never change.
10. If it feels like you watch the Yankees sweating through their new road gray jerseys every day it’s because you do. Only six of the team’s 19 games so far this season have been at home, but home is where they will be for seven straight games beginning on Friday. Three against the Rays and four against the A’s.
Friday also begins a stretch of 17 games in 17 days with the next day off on Monday, May 6. As I wrote earlier this week, the Yankees seem to have changed their approach with unnecessary ret and load management, really only giving Stanton days off to this point. We’ll see if that changes over the next two-and-a-half weeks.