1. The Yankees have been waiting all season for the bottom of the lineup show up. Prior to this last week there had been a few moments here and there, but nothing consistent. Then Payton Tolle went and started Jazz Chisholm’s season for him, Jose Caballero decided he wanted fans on his side when Anthony Volpe returns, Ryan McMahon started making contact and hitting the ball hard and Austin Wells started to get on base regularly. Again, the last week of games has come against the Royals, Red Sox and Astros — three last-place teams — but these signs of life from the bottom of the order have been encouraging.

“[We’re] being patient when we need to, being aggressive when we need to,” Ben Rice said. “Guys are just delivering.”

2. On Friday, the Yankees routed the Astros 12-4. The top of the order gave them an early lead in the first inning, but the bottom of the order put the game out away in the later innings. Chisholm, McMahon and Caballero all homered and the 6-through-9 hitters went 8-for-17 with three home runs, seven RBIs and a walk.

On Saturday, it was Caballero who gave the Yankees a 2-1 lead in the fifth inning and it was Wells who gave them a 3-2 lead in the seventh inning. The combination of Wells, McMahon and Caballero went 7-for-13 with two home runs, four RBIs and two walks.

3. Caballero is heating up at the right time for the fan base to be distraught when Volpe is automatically the starting shortstop again. Caballero is hitting .280/.316/.430 on the season with three home runs, 11 RBIs and 10 steals in 12 attempts. He has a .746 OPS and a 107 OPS+. If Volpe had those numbers the Yankees would be offering him a nine-figure extension. In his rehab games, Volpe has a .636 OPS in three games at Triple-A and a .780 OPS in four games at Double-A, while playing the infield like he has a blindfold on. Seriously, the video of his errors and misplays at short in the seven games is startling. Caballero could homer in every at-bat from now until Volpe is activated and it won’t matter: Volpe will get his job back. If Volpe doesn’t get off to a great start (and his career suggests he won’t), the calls for Caballero to be the starter will be as loud as ever and the Stadium boo birds that booed Volpe into getting pinch-hit for in his last at-bat of 2025 will be waiting for him.

“Just a tough out,” Boone said of Caballero. “Just a gritty, tough player. You kind of want him up there in certain situations.”

The complete opposite of the player who is going to take his job this week.

4. Caballero is a fun watch and the ideal “you hate him when he’s on another team, but love him when he’s on your team” player. However, he’s also reckless in both his challenges at the plate and basestealing decisions. Both of his attempts to steal third base on Saturday were ill-advised. The first was with no outs in the inning and the second was with Rice and Judge due up. I understand Caballero entered the game 9-for-9 in attempts this season and was likely thinking he’s invincible as the reigning league leader in steals, but he needs be a little smarter about when to try to take third.

5. The Yankees are riding an eight-game winning streak, having gone 8-0 against the three last-place teams, which is what they need to do. Beat up on the bad teams and play .500 against the good teams and you’ll wind up with a win total in the mid-90s, a division title and a bye to the division series. The one caveat there is that there aren’t really any other “good” teams at the moment in the AL. The Yankees and Rays are the only teams over .500 in what was supposed to be the best division in baseball and only five teams total in the AL are over .500. This season feels a lot like 2024 so far in that the AL is the Yankees to lose. Considering where they are without Gerrit Cole and Carlos Rodon and the rotation production and depth they have, and yes, it’s definitely theirs to lose.

6. And since its theirs to lose, Boone’s seat should be hotter than ever, especially after what just unfolded in Boston. Boone called the 2025 roster the best he has managed and the 2026 roster is the same, so he’s once again managing the best roster he has had in his eyes. Given that and the level of ineptitude around the AL and if the Yankees don’t reach the World Series this season, Boone should finally be shown the door. (Sadly, we all know his future is safe as long as he reaches the division series.)

7. Will Warren was good again on Friday and has now allowed two earned runs or fewer in all six of his starts this season with 37 strikeouts to seven walks in in 31 1/3 innings.

Ryan Weathers was also good on Saturday, considering he and his wife just had a baby a few days ago. For as good as Weathers was through five innings I would have taken him out in the sixth inning given he was going to face the the lineup a third time and the Yankees’ bullpen is as rested as it will ever be until the offseason. But Boone let Weathers go back out for the sixth and he gave up a leadoff home run then a single then a loud out to the deepest part of the park before taking him out.

“Obviously, I wish I would have been a littler sharper in the sixth,” Weathers said.

I don’t know why simple decisions continue to be so difficult for Boone. Luckily for Boone the Astros bullpen is so bar the Yankees were able to retake the lead and then tack on five more runs to avoid him having to manage a close game for the final three innings.

8. The battle for the fifth spot in the rotation once Rodon and Cole return (and if all starters stay healthy) continues to be close.

IP Weathers 33.2, Warren 31.1
H: Warren 29, Weathers 33
ER: Warren 9, Weathers 13
BB: Warren 7, Weathers 8
K: Weathers 40, Warren 37
HR: Warren 3, Weathers 5
ERA: Warren 2.59, Weathers 3.21
WHIP: Warren 1.149, Weathers 1.218

The fact these two are battling to be the fifth starter on the team when they would be No. 1s on a lot of teams and no worse than No. 2s on the majority of teams is absurd. The Yankees’ rotation is good and so deep (knock on all the wood) that it won’t matter most of the time how many below-league-average bats they roster and play.

9. Aaron Judge continues to take his walks (five in the first two games of the series), but when he does swing the bat, he’s not doing much. The Yankees are 18-9 and in first place with Judge being just really good and not otherworldly to this point and that’s encouraging because at some point he will get hot and carry the offense.

10. It would nice if that point was on Sunday. The Yankees will face Spencer Arrighetti who is currently the best starter in the Astros’ rotation. Arrighetti walks a lot of hitters (eight in 13 innings), which plays right into the Yankees’ best offensive attribute, but so far this season he has been able to limit the damage despite a lot of baserunners ( 19 in 11 innings). If regression comes for Arrighetti’s strand rate, Sunday is a perfect storm for it to happen.

Luis Gil gets the ball for the Yankees. The box score shows Gil was outstanding against the Red Sox, but he only got three swings-and-misses and had little command of his pitches against a truly awful lineup. The Red Sox have the worst team OPS in the AL, while the Astros have the best. If Gil was only able to generate three whiffs against the Red Sox, it’s possible he generates zero against the Astros. The Astros are going to put the ball in play, and if Gil misses his spots, the Astros will make him pay. If not, the Yankees will be on their way to their 12th win in their last 13 games in Houston.

1. My only fear going into the series finale on Thursday was that Cam Schlittler might be so amped up for his first start at Fenway Park that he may overthrow early, walk a few batters and possibly leave one over the middle of the plate for the Red Sox to add to their league-worst team home run total. That fear was put to rest when Schlittler dominated the Red Sox early and continued to dominate them through eight innings of one-run ball with one mistake pitch mixed in.

“It was good. I don’t think emotions were too high,” Schlitter said.

2. However, another fear was created with Payton Tolle pitching like Brendan Fraser’s character Steve Nebraska from The Scout. In the movie, Nebraska famously threw a perfect game in the World Series, striking out all 27 batters and it looked like Tolle might do the same against the Yankees. Tolle wasn’t very good in limited major-league action last year and was pretty good, but nothing special in Triple-A this year. That seemingly didn’t matter as he struck out the side in the first inning, the first two batters in the second inning and the first batter in the third inning. He was doing to the Yankees what Schlittler did to the Red Sox in Game 3 of the Wild Card Series last October.

3. While Tolle was embarrassing the Yankees, the Red Sox took a 1-0 lead on an unearned run in the second after a Rosario throwing error. In the fourth, the Yankees loaded the bases with no outs for the 4-5-6 in the lineup, but unfortunately, the 4-5-6 in this one was Giancarlo Stanton who looked lost all game, Randal Grichuk and Trent Grisham. The trio left the bases loaded, failing to plate a single run.

The Yankees managed to tie the game in the next inning when Jazz Chisholm hooked his first home run of the season around the Pesky Pole in right field. (Chisholm also singled in his next at-bat. Maybe this is him finally joining the 2026 season? With the next six games indoors in Texas, the weather excuse is gone.) But in the bottom of the inning, Schlittler missed badly with a 1-2 pitch to Carlos Narvaez and Narvaez gave the Red Sox the lead again with the team’s 14th home run of the season. It’s always an ex-Yankee or someone previously in the Yankees’ system who seems to get the big hit against them.

4. In the seventh, the Yankees looked like they might repeat their leaving-the-bases-loaded act. With them loaded and one out, Austin Wells got ahead of Danny Coulombe 3-0. He took a strike and ripped a line drive foul to run the count full. Coulombe then left a sweeper over the heart of the plate, but Wells waved through it for the second out. With Rosario due up, Alex Cora went to former Yankee and right-hander Greg Weissert and Aaron Boone countered with Cody Bellinger off the bench, Bellinger got ahead 2-0, and took a middle-middle sinker for a strike. Weissert came back with a four-seamer up in the zone and Bellinger lined it to left field to score two and give the Yankees a 3-2 lead. Aaron Judge followed with an RBI single to make it 4-2, and that’s how this one stayed.

5. For as good as Tolle looked, Schlittler outlasted him by two innings. Sure, Tolle struck out 11 to Schlittler’s five, but Schlittler gave the Yankees two more innings and allowed the same amount of earned runs in the game (1). Schlittler was able to to hand the ball off to David Bender to close the game out, while Tolle forced the Red Sox use four relievers to get through three innings and they blew the lead and the game.

“He’s just getting really, really good out there,” Boone said. “That’s an ace-like performance.”

He’s already really, really good, Boone. He has a 1.77 ERA and 41 strikeouts to four walks in 35 2/3 innings. He is your ace.

6. It’s always enjoyable to beat the Red Sox, so when the Yankees sweep them at Fenway Park it’s an indescribable high. The Red Sox scored three runs in the series: one on a single following a defensive indifference, one after an error on a throw that should have ended the inning and a solo home run. I don’t care if the Red Sox suck, if their entire lineup lacks a single star, that they are in last place and headed nowhere and couldn’t even sell out two of three home games against the Yankees. I used to pay hundreds of dollars for standing room tickets to sit in awful obstructed view seats for Yankees-Red Sox at Fenway Park. The fact that two games in this series weren’t sellouts is disturbing. At least the Fenway crowd got their “YANKEES SUCK” chants in as they fell to seven games under .500.

7. A six-game winning streak is a six-game winning streak, but these six wins came against the Royals and Red Sox, the two worst offenses in the AL. The Yankees swept the Red Sox, but also scored 12 runs in three games in hitter-friendly Fenway Park. The bottom of the lineup remains a disaster and the top of the lineup seems to never be clicking at the same time. Tuesday’s offense was Stanton, Wednesday’s was Amed Rosario and Thursday’s was primarily Bellinger’s pinch-hit single. I expect more from the offense in Houston because the Astros have the worst team ERA (5.81) in the majors, which is why they are 10-16 and the third straight last-place team the Yankees will face. The reason their last-place record isn’t worse is because they have an AL-best team OPS of .783. They can mash.

8. Yordan Alvarez, especially, can mash. It’s going to be nearly impossible to keep him from doing damage unless you pitch around him or throw up four fingers, which I’m fine with. Throw up four fingers every time he comes up and let someone else beat you. Do to another superstar what the opposition has done to Judge in recent years. Don’t let the league leader in hits, home runs, RBIs, batting average, on-base percentage, slugging percentage, OPS, OPS+ and total bases beat you.

9. The Yankees will face three righties this weekend, so that means no Paul Goldschmidt or Randal Grichuk. It will be interesting to see what Boone does at third base. I bet he gives Ryan McMahon the start on Friday and then goes from there the next two days based on how McMahon looks on Friday. There’s a chance Anthony Volpe joins the Yankees after this series, which means someone (likely Grichuk due to money owed and reputation within the team) is going to lose their roster spot. We may have already seen Grichuk’s last at-bat as a Yankee.

10. It will be Will Warren against Lance McCullers Jr. on Friday. Warren pitched well in his last start, but that came against the Royals. The Astros will be the best offense Warren has faced this season and could be the best one he faces all season.

McCullers Jr. has been very bad this season, pitching to a 6.20 ERA in four starts. He had a 6.51 ERA last season after missing all of 2023 and 2024 with injuries. The last time McCullers Jr. was himself was back in 2022, four years ago. But for as bad as he has been, I only think of McCullers Jr. as the kid throwing breaking ball after breaking ball in Game 7 of the 2017 ALCS to stifle the Yankees.

1. I will never not enjoy a Yankees win over the Red Sox, but wow, these Red Sox suck. It’s sad, really. Not sad in the sense that I feel bad for them, but more sad in the sense that they are a disgrace and have ruined the rivalry. Their lineup is anchored by Trevor Story and, I guess, Wilyer Abreu? Their ace leads the league in earned runs allowed and hit by pitches. There is no one on the injured list they’re waiting for to return. They are outside the top 10 in payroll, behind teams like the Tigers and the small-market Padres and their fans have been chanting “SELL THE TEAM” to the owner who ended their 86-year championship drought. Don’t get me wrong, it’s been glorious to watch their demise, but Yankees-Red Sox certainly doesn’t feel like Yankees-Red Sox when my biggest fear as a Yankees fan is that the Red Sox’ offense will draw a couple of walks and follow them up with multiple seeing-eye singles through the infield to score runs.

2. The humiliation of getting completely shut down by Luis Gil (whose velocity was down on his fastball and the break on his off-speed pitches was in decline on Tuesday as he only got three swings-and-misses) was followed by Max Fried dominating the Red Sox for eight shutout innings without nearly his best stuff. Fried was so off on Wednesday that he resorted to pitching out of the stretch for most of the game because of a lack of command out of the windup. He still managed to get through eight scoreless on 100 pitches with nine strikeouts.

3. “Playing the Red Sox is always a little different, there’s a little bit more of an intensity to it,” Fried said. “We want to play our brand of baseball to try to win as many games as we possibly can.”

Last season, the Yankees started 1-8 against the Red Sox and finished 4-9. Their play against the Red Sox (and the Blue Jays) is the reason they lost out on winning the division, forcing them to play in the Wild Card Series and forcing Fried to start Game 1 of the Wild Card Series on extra rest instead of Game 1 of the ALDS on extra, extra rest. In the last two nights, the Yankees have as many wins against the Red Sox as they had in their first 10 games against them last season.

4. Fried taking care of business against the Red Sox is how I expect him to take care of business against arguably the weakest lineup in the league. The only team with less runs scored in the AL is the Royals, but at least they have Bobby Witt Jr., Maikel Garcia, Vinnie Pasquantino and the chance Salvador Perez will run into one every once in a while. The Red Sox have hit 13 home runs in 24 games, four fewer than Aaron Judge and Ben Rice have combined.

5. The old adage that a game is never over at Fenway Park until the final out has been destroyed by this Red Sox team. Wednesday’s game was over in the first inning after Amed Rosario connected for a three-run blast over the Green Monster. It was going to take the Red Sox stringing together a lot of hits to score three runs off Fried, which they never did.

“He’s had some huge, huge games for us,” Giancarlo Stanton said of Rosario. “He directly gave us some wins.”

Rosario is single-handedly responsible for the April 7 win over the Athletics and now the April 22 win over the Red Sox, at least from an offensive perspective.

6. It’s a good thing Rosario sent that ball to the moon because the Yankees didn’t do much after that, scoring just one run over the final 8 1/3 innings. Rosario drove in a fourth run with a sacrifice fly in the third and that was it. A night after Stanton was responsible for three of the Yankees’ four runs, Rosario was responsible for all four. Rosario 4, Red Sox 1.

Paul Goldschmidt was back in the lineup against a lefty starter batting leadoff, but went 0-for-4 with two strikeouts. Judge had a single and two walks. Cody Bellinger went 0-for-4 with a strikeout. Stanton had a pair of doubles. Randal Grichuk and Jose Caballero each had a single. Jazz Chisholm had another 0-for-4 night and Austin Wells another 0-for-3. Ben Rice, Trent Grisham and Ryan McMahon all went hitless as well, going 0-for-4 with three strikeouts.

7. Everything is great when the starting pitching is as good as it has been of late, but not every opponent is going to be the Royals and Red Sox, again the two worst offenses in the AL. The bottom half of the order needs to start doing something, anything, especially Chisholm who is as close to reaching a 50/50 season on the home run side as you and me are. For as rough as Chisholm’s start to last season seemed to be through April, he still had three doubles and seven home runs to go with his abysmal .181/.304/.410 slash line. As of now, Chisholm has five doubles, no home runs and is at .173/.264/.235. Every Yankee other than McMahon has a higher OPS+ than Chisholm, but at least McMahon won them the game last Friday against the Royals. Chisholm has done nothing, other than make excuses about the weather (and then not hit in Tampa or when it was 85 degrees every day during the Angels series), wrongly challenge called strikes and pop up balls in the infield.

8. It seems like Grichuk is going to be the one to lose his roster spot when Anthony Volpe returns, but I’m not so sure it shouldn’t be Goldschmidt. Obviously, Goldschmidt is a borderline Hall of Famer, was a Yankee last year and is making $4 million to Grichuk’s $2.5 million, but Goldschmidt plays one position, doesn’t play it nearly as well as he once did and his season to date has been one three-run home run off of George Kirby three weeks ago. After starting out 0-for-13 with a walk, Grichuk is 5-for-13 with three doubles in his last five games. His at-bats look improved and he’s hitting the ball hard. Goldschmidt was washed after last April and aside from his 10-pitch at-bat against Ranger Suarez to lead off Wednesday’s game (which resulted in an out), he’s been so bad since his home run in Seattle. Grichuk will get picked up by another team if his Yankees tenure comes to an end when Volpe is back. Goldschmidt won’t play Major League Baseball again, just like the Yankees’ last failed, veteran first baseman signing.

9. The Red Sox couldn’t score against Gil and couldn’t do anything against Fried and now they will face Cam Schlittler who shut them down in the win-or-go-home Game 3 in the Wild Card Series. There’s a chance Schlittler overthrows early on Thursday night with how pumped up he will be to face the Red Sox again, given everything that has gone on with their fan base against him on social media over the last six months, but even if he does, I can’t envision the Red Sox getting to him. The Red Sox will counter with Payon Tolle, a 23-year-old left-hander who has been in Triple-A this season. In 16 1/3 innings in the majors last season, Tolle allowed 26 baserunners and five home runs and pitched to a 6.06 ERA.

10. This is the lineup the Yankees should deploy in the series finale:

Amed Rosario, 3B
Aaron Judge, RF
Cody Bellinger, CF
Giancarlo Stanton, DH
Ben Rice, 1B
Randal Grichuk, LF
Jazz Chisholm, 2B
Jose Caballero, SS
Austin Wells, C

Give me that lineup, give me a third straight dominant starting pitching performance and give me a three-game sweep of the Red Sox heading into the weekend.

1. I wasn’t worried about Giancarlo Stanton hitting on Tuesday night even though he had been in a horrific slump overall, including 0-for-17 against left-handed pitching this season. When the games are big and the crowds are bigger and the atmosphere is more pressurized, that’s when Stanton is at his best. To no surprise, he led the Yankees to a 4-0 win over the Red Sox in the series opener. Stanton has always hit well against the Red Sox, just like he has always hit well in the postseason. The bigger the game, the better ‘Big G’ is.

“It’s always a fun rivalry game,” Stanton said. “And you’ve got to raise your game in those types of situations.”

2. Stanton went 2-for-4 in the game with a double, a home run, three RBIs and was robbed of a second double by Ceddane Rafaela. Stanton had been 8-for-55 with one double, one home run and a .448 OPS in April until last night. And because Stanton is as streaky as it gets in the game, you can expect it to continue in Boston (and hopefully throughout the road trip).

3. This is what the offense should look like. Stanton carries them one game, Aaron Judge another, Ben Rice another and so on with everyone else having their moments in between. What can’t happen is what happened against the Athletics and Rays where the entire lineup disappears for days at a time. One or two top-half-of-the-lineup bats need to always be producing for the team to have a chance with how weak the bottom half is.

4. It’s been a long time since Luis Gil was good, except when he faces the Red Sox. Even when Gil can’t be trusted to throw five good innings, he can always be trusted to shut down the Red Sox. Gil entered his start on Tuesday with a 0.99 ERA across 27 1/3 innings in five career starts against the Red Sox and then threw 6 1/3 scoreless in his sixth and latest start.

5. “Hopefully that’s something he builds on,” Boone said, “because we know how good he can be when he’s right.”

I don’t know that Gil will “build on” the performance since he still doesn’t seem to know where the ball is going once it leaves his hand. His success on Tuesday came from the Red Sox being so bad, more than him being good. He only struck out two and was effectively wild enough to keep the Red Sox off balance. Most major-league starters are going to have success against a lineup that has Masataka Yoshida batting third.

6. Every time Tim Hill enters a game and gets a few ground balls and makes lefties look foolish I immediately begin to think about Boone going to Nestor Cortes over Hill in Game 1 of the 2024 World Series. Hill has been exceptional this season with one earned run and no walks allowed in 10 innings. He needed just 10 pitches to get the Yankees out of the eighth inning after needing just eight to get through his last appearance six days prior. He’s the most trustworthy reliever the Yankees have.

7. Brent Headrick has increased his level of trustworthiness though and had another strong outing in this one. David Bednar looks like a completely different pitcher when he has some rest, which he didn’t have for most of the first few weeks of the season coming off the World Baseball Classic and then being thrown into so many close and one-run games immediately.

8. Ben Rice was allowed to start against a lefty again and hit third, but was the only Yankees starter to not reach base. Rice went 0-for-4 with four strikeouts, but got screwed on a few outside pitches called strikes he was unable to challenge because Aaron Judge and Jose Caballero blew the Yankees’ challenges on ill-advised challenges. Caballero and Jazz Chisholm should be banned from challenging pitches.

9. I don’t want Rice to sit ever and because I never want Rice to sit, there’s no place for Paul Goldschmidt on the Yankees, just like there wasn’t before they unnecessarily re-signed him. Goldschmidt should only play against lefties, but that means either Rice or Stanton doesn’t play. And if Goldschmidt isn’t going to play against lefties, he has no role. Goldschmidt is 3-for-20 on the season (his one important hit came against a righty in George Kirby in Seattle) and has started once in the last four games with all four games against lefties.

10. It will be Max Fried against Ranger Suarez on Wednesday. I was unhappy when the Red Sox signed Suarez because I envisioned him doing to the Yankees what lefties have done to the Yankees this season prior to the last three games. I expect Fried to pitch well because the Red Sox’ offense is abysmal and because the Yankees have lost his last three starts with his last win coming on March 31. He will need to pitch well with how well Suarez has pitched in his last two starts (14 shutout innings). For the Yankees to extend their winning streak to five they will need to win a fourth straight game started by a lefty.