Labor Day is depressing, but with Labor Day has nearly always come the anticipation of October and Yankees playoff baseball. Unfortunately, there won’t be any postseason baseball for the Yankees this October. So as the summer comes to an end, and this miserable Yankees season comes to end, let’s look at the state of franchise.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. While I have spent the last couple of weeks rooting for the Yankees to lose to further cement this embarrassing season and give ownership no room to possibly run it back again next season, part of me was hoping they pulled off the four-game sweep in Detroit just to hear the postgame comments from Aaron Boone and his players. I so badly wanted to hear that this is the turnaround they have been waiting for and that they have momentum going into September, but I was deprived the opportunity for comedic comments from the Yankees clubhouse because they couldn’t even pull off a sweep of the Tigers. In spectacular Yankees fashion, Gleyber Torres threw away a double play ball (after booting a double play ball earlier in the game that extended an inning and led to the Tigers scoring) that would have sent the game to the 11th inning. It was so Gleyber and so Yankees that it was beautiful in the way a tornado is.

2. The Yankees managed to go 3-1 in Detroit, and they are now 11-2 against the A’s, Royals and Tigers, and 57-67 against all other teams. If they only played those three teams (on pace for 115, 113 and 90 losses respectively) then they would be “championship-caliber” in the way Hal Steinbrenner, Brian Cashman and Boone have talked about them this season. Instead, the Yankees are 65-69, sitting comfortably in last place in the AL East and need to go 17-11 in their remaining 28 games to preserve the consecutive season winning streak that dates back to 1993.

3. What’s even harder to stomach about this season is that the Yankees would be 64-61 if they never played the Red Sox. And the Red Sox would be 61-64 if they never played the Yankees. The Red Sox singlehandedly ruined the Yankees’ season, and the Yankees singlehandedly propped up the Red Sox’ season. I guess the good from that is the Red Sox helped the Yankees realize they need organizational and roster change, and the Yankees prevented the Red Sox from selling their wide array of assets at the deadline, only to stand pat (like the Yankees) and they will now also miss the playoffs.

4. The Yankees’ decision to stand pat at the deadline was ill-advised at the time and looks even worse in hindsight. After choosing to not move Harrison Bader by the first of August, the Yankees put him on waivers on Tuesday and then watched him join the Reds on Thursday for nothing in return other than salary relief. Just some money back in Hal’s bank account.

On Aug. 2, 2022 when the Yankees traded Jordan Montgomery for Bader, I tweeted, “Umm … Harrison Bader sucks.” Bader sucked with the Cardinals and he sucked even worse with the Yankees. He came to the Yankees as a below-league-average hitter for his with a 99 OPS+ and posted a 72 OPS+ with the Yankees, somehow managing to be 27 percent worse in New York than he had been in St. Louis. He hit .237/.273/.353 with the Yankees for a .627 OPS. His first six weeks as a Yankee were spent on the injured list and a lot of his 2023 was spent there too. His five 2022 postseason home runs in nine game is what some will remember his time with the Yankees by, but I will remember him for three other things:

1. His error in Game 3 of the 2022 ALCS. He dropped a fly ball that would have ended an inning, but instead extended the inning and the next batter (Chas McCormick) hit a two-run home run to essentially end the Yankees’ season.
2. His postgame comments on August 6. After losing to the Astros, Bader was asked how much of a concern it is being 4 1/2 games out of a playoff spot? “No concern at all,” he answered. “We keep playing this brand of baseball it’s going to be just fine.” The Yankees did keep playing that brand of baseball and are 7-14 since.
3. Not knowing what waivers is. After Tuesday’s game he was asked what his reaction was to finding out he was put on waivers. “Like what is waivers mean?” he replied. (That’s not a typo. That’s how he worded his answer.) How does a going-to-be-30-year-old in their seventh major-league season not understand waivers?

Bader was as much of a bust as busts get, and I’m glad I no longer have to watch him play for the Yankees, and I’m especially glad he won’t be a Yankee for 2024 and longer as many wanted him to be with a possible extension. The fact the Yankees technically traded Montgomery (who they could have desperately used this season) for nothing is the type of result that can be expected from Cashman transactions at this point.

5. Bader’s dismissal was only the start of the roster news for the week as Josh Donaldson was released by the Yankees on Tuesday. Why did the Yankees wait until now to release Donaldson in a move that every Yankees fan was clamoring for since the end of last season? I have no idea. But I do know if the Yankees’ season didn’t spiral out of control, the Yankees would have kept Donaldson and he would have been starting at third base and batting fifth the moment his current 60-day IL stint ended.

Bader’s time with the Yankees was forgettable, but short-lived. Donaldson’s time with the Yankees was disastrous with long-term ramifications.

On Jan. 12, 2023. prior to the start of spring training, I wrote about Donaldson, questioning how he could still be a Yankee for 2023:

Donaldson is owed $21.75 million in base salary in 2023 and has an $8 million buyout attached to him for 2024. There’s a better chance the Yankees figure out how to efficiently conduct Stadium entrance security than there is that Donaldson isn’t bought out in 2024. That means Donaldson remains a $29.75 million investment for the Yankees. I have made a lot of foolish purchases in my life. The Tubthumper album from Chumbawama in 1997 comes to mind. But that cost my sixth grade self, what, $14? Maybe $15. (I should have used that money on a safer investment like buying more Pogs.) The Yankees willingly traded for Donaldson and took on the entire $51.5 million owed to him to acquire Kiner-Falefa. Teams do crazy shit like that when they are getting an elite player in return. Pay off this overpaid sunk cost for us and we will give you the player you covet. The Dodgers took on David Price’s remaining contract to get Mookie Betts. The Yankees coveted Kiner-Falefa, a player the Rangers spent half-a-billion dollars to avoid playing (by signing Corey Seager and Marcus Semien), and a player the Twins immediately flipped to the Yankees (and then used the money saved on Donaldson to sign Carlos Correa). The Yankees coveted him so much, they were willing to take on more than the entire team payrolls of the A’s and Orioles to make it happen.

Donaldson is going to play because of owed money. There’s no circumstance in which he will be benched for underperformance. If he wasn’t benched last year when he posted career lows in runs, hits, home runs, RBIs, walks, batting average, on-base percentage, slugging percentage and had the highest strikeout rate of his career, what exactly would he need to do to get benched in 2023? If he were to have a sub-.500 OPS around Memorial Day, Boone would still deflect questions about Donaldson batting fifth with how great his defense has been as if defense doesn’t grow on trees.

On Memorial Day, Donaldson did have a sub. 500 OPS at .489 and was on the IL, having been so since the sixth game of the season. He did eventually get his OPS up to .659 (which was 190 points lower than his career OPS and represented a new low for him for an OPS in a season, beating last year’s .682) before going on the IL for the remainder of his time as a Yankee. His .142 batting average was alarming and his .225 on-base percentage made him unplayable, and yet, when healthy, he always played and never batted lower than sixth in the lineup.

6. “The things he did this winter to get himself ready to go, I think you’re crazy to think that a bounce back is not in there offensively,” Boone said of Donaldson in spring training. “This guy still has bat speed, and is super talented. He’s in a much better place than he was a year ago right now.”

I guess we’re all crazy. Everyone not employed by the Yankees is just a crazy idiot. He never bounced back, and he ended up being in a worse place than he was the year prior. I can hear John Sterling now at an Old Timers’ Day in the near future …

“This next Yankee came to the Bombers via trade prior to the 2022 season. In his first year in pinstripes he posted full-season career lows in every single offensive statistic, culminating in a magnificent 1-for-13 performance with 10 strikeouts in the ALCS as the Yankees were swept away by the Astros. Despite offseason calls to release him, the Yankees brought him back for 2023, never batted him lower than sixth and eventually released him in late August, while still on the 60-day injured list. He missed 44 percent of the team’s games over his two seasons as the Yankees paid him $51.5M for 165 games of a .678 OPS. That’s Josh, by gosh! Josh, with panache! Welcome back, Josh Donaldson!” (Stadium organ plays.)

7. All of the recent benching, waiving and releasing has made it possible for the Yankees to call up and play the next wave of Baby Bombers that the organization hopes can fulfill the goal the last wave couldn’t: win a championship. Or even play for a championship.

Last week, it was Oswald Peraza and Everson Pereira. And now on Friday, in Houston, against Justin Verlander, it will be 20-year-old Jasson Dominguez and 23-year-old Austin Wells. Dominguez reaches the majors after just nine games and 37 plate appearances in Triple-A and Wells after 33 games there.

8. In a vacuum, neither Dominguez nor Wells are likely ready for the majors. But the Yankees don’t operate in a vacuum. Hal sees the possibility of an empty Stadium for all of September and likely deteriorating TV ratings over the last three weeks that are only going to get worse over the next four. He hears the calls for him to sell the team, replace his entire front office, fire everyone in the dugout and get rid of any player whose last name isn’t Judge, Cole or Volpe. He knows the Yankees’ brand and the interlocking NY are being viewed as if they’re a steaming pile of crap, and with all of the recent 2024 season-ticket emails that have gone out, the demand, interest and sales can’t be doing well.

9. Hal had two moves to negate the damage done by the last-place season for his bottom line. The first was to raise ticket prices for 2024, which he did, reportedly by as much as 10 percent for some seats. (He needs to make up for the missed postseason gates somehow.) The other was approve the call-ups of all top prospects, and he has now done that as well.

No Yankees fan who hadn’t already purchased September tickets and had an ounce of self respect (or a life) would trek to the Stadium to see Bader swing through fastballs from righties, watch Giancarlo Stanton power walk on the basepaths, sit through a Carlos Rodon shellacking, witness Kyle Higashioka throw the ball into the outfield on stolen-base attempts or be present for an Albert Abreu meltdown. But to see top prospects? To see the future? Well, that’s a different story. Potential September Stadium-goers know it, YES viewers know it and Hal knows it.

It’s likely the Yankees’ baseball operations department doesn’t agree with the decision, but screw them. They have been wrong about everything for several years that it’s time they are overruled before hopefully being replaced.

10. Odds are Dominguez and Wells will be overmatched this weekend, and could be all month the way Peraza and Pereira have been for the last week, Oswaldo Cabrera has been all year and Anthony Volpe has been for the most of the season as well. That’s fine. Winning games no longer matters, and hasn’t since the horrific Sunday loss in Miami. All that matters now are plate appearances, innings played and continued development for those six. The only way the Yankees make their stay at the bottom of the division a one-year thing, and the only way they climb back to the top of the East in the relatively near future is by building their own homegrown talent.

The remaining 28 games of this season are crucial to 2024 and beyond. For the next month, it’s probably going to look ugly a lot more than it’s going to look promising, and that’s OK. The 2023 Yankees, had they been at full strength all season, were never going to do what the 2017-2022 couldn’t do either. That core had their chance. They had many chances. Now it’s time for a new roster, a new team and a new era, and I’m ready for it. I think all Yankees fans are.

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The Yankees have lost five straight. They haven’t won a series against a team other than the A’s or Royals in two months. Their postseason odds are down to 2.3 percent.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. After Tuesday’s loss to the Braves, Aaron Judge said what everyone outside of the Yankees knows. “We’re not showing up,” Judge said. “That’s what it comes down.”

It wasn’t a great look for Judge’s manager, who spent the previous two nights telling everyone how his team is “scuffling their asses off” and “playing hard” and “preparing the right way” and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Aaron Boone is part Pollyanna to accept his team is showing up, part delusional to think they are playing hard, and part liar to tell everyone he thinks they are doing both things. And yet, there was the star of the team, the franchise player and captain disagreeing with everything Boone has been saying for days.

2. Boone was asked about Judge’s comments and tried to spin, twist and mold them into something other than what they were, which is an indictment on the entire roster and organization. Boone said Judge didn’t mean what everyone thinks he meant, which is exactly what he meant: that the Yankees have given up.

A night later, after the Yankees were shut out for the second straight game, Judge had changed his tune. Changed it to a karaoke tune of his manager. Judge was no longer calling out his teammates, instead he did a perfect impression of his manager. “It’s right in front of us,” Judge told the media after the Yankees lost their fifth straight game and fell under .500.

3. There’s nothing in front of the Yankees. They no longer control their own destiny. The Blue Jays hold the third wild card. The Blue Jays are 6 1/2 games up on the Yankees. The Yankees have six games left with the Blue Jays. If the Yankees were to sweep the six games from the Blue Jays, they still wouldn’t overcome the deficit. The season is in front of the Blue Jays. It’s not in front of the Yankees. They need to help themselves and then they need outside help.

Twice this week Boone talked about how there is a quarter of the season left. He mentioned the history of baseball being “littered” with teams that went on “unlikely runs” to reach the postseason. He referenced the 2019 Nationals, the 2021 Braves and the 2022 Phillies. He said Suzyn Waldman told him about the 1995 Yankees. He didn’t reference the hundreds of teams that were just as disappointing and bad as the Yankees that never turned it around.

4. Let’s act as though Boone isn’t a crazy, desperate man who has a little more than six weeks left in his current job and is spewing nightly bullshit to the media worse than he ever has. Let’s take the Yankees’ current 2.3 percent odds of reaching the postseason and join Boone in thinking having a 2.3 percent chance of reaching the postseason is just some minor adversity that a team that has been under .500 for 213 games can overcome. Let’s try to map out a way for the Yankees to reach the postseason.

The Yankees trail the Blue Jays by 6 1/2 games, and in between them are the Mariners (6 games back of) and Red Sox (3 games back of). Let’s remove the Mariners from the equation and standings for now.

The Yankees have six games remaining with the Blue Jays and seven with the Red Sox. Realistically, the best you could hope for is the Yankees to go 4-2 against the Blue Jays and 5-2 against the Red Sox.

Yes, winning five of seven against the Red Sox will be difficult, but it seems like every season no matter how good or bad one of the teams in the rivalry is, they always end up one or two games apart in the season series. The Red Sox depressingly lead the season series 5-1. If the Yankees go 5-2, they will finish 6-7 against the Red Sox. They would lose the season series, and therefore would need to finish at least one game ahead of them in the standings to avoid the tiebreaker.

5. Here are the Yankees’ remaining other games: Nationals (3), Rays (3), Tigers (7), Astros (3), Brewers (3), Pirates (3), Diamondbacks (3) and Royals (3).

For the sake of this exercise, we are going to need to pretend the Yankees can win series against teams other than the A’s or Royals, something they haven’t done since June 25. We are also going to need to pretend the Yankees can beat bad teams, even though they themselves are a bad team.

The Nationals (3), Tigers (7), Pirates (3) and Royals (3) are all bad teams. That’s 16 games against bad teams. Simply winning each series isn’t going to cut it. The Yankees are going to need to win at least 12 of the 16 games against these teams. They are going to need to clean up here. It’s their only chance.

That leaves games against the Rays (3), Astros (3), Brewers (3) and Diamondbacks (3). The Yankees are going to have to find a way to win two-thirds of these 12 games and go 8-4. This is the most unrealistic part of this exercise, even though the entire exercise is unrealistic. The Rays, Astros and Brewers are all in the postseason currently and trying to hold or better their position. The Diamondbacks are a game out of the last wild card in the NL. All four of these teams will be going all out in September to solidify their place in October.

The Yankees are 60-61. Add in the 9-4 record against the Red Sox and Blue Jays, and they are 69-65. Add in the 12-4 against their fellow bad teams, and they are 81-69. Add in the improbable 8-4 against the remaining schedule, and they are 89-73. Are 89 wins enough to get in?

6. The Blue Jays would be 69-59 if they went 2-4 against the Yankees. The Yankees could tie the Blue Jays with wins since they would hold the season series advantage. The Yankees would need the Blue Jays to go at best 20-14, as that would give the Blue Jays 89 wins but give the Yankees the tiebreaker.

The Red Sox would be 65-63 if they went 2-5 against the Yankees. The Yankees can’t tie the Red Sox since they would have lost the season series, so they need the Red Sox to finish with 88 wins. The Yankees would need the Red Sox to go at best 23-11, as that would give the Red Sox 88 wins, and they would finish one game behind the Yankees.

Then there’s the Mariners.

The Mariners are 66-55 and six up on the Yankees. The Yankees won the season series (4-2) against the Mariners, so they can finish with the same record. The Mariners have to go 23-18 to finish with 89 wins. The Mariners have won 11 of 14, and after they play three against the Astros this weekend, they play nine straight against the White Sox, Royals and A’s. They also have three games against the A’s in September.

7. To recap:
The Yankees need to go 4-2 against the Blue Jays.
The Yankees need to go 5-2 against the Red Sox.
The Yankees need to go 20-8 in all other games.
The Blue Jays need to win no more than 20 games against other teams.
The Red Sox need to win no more than 23 games against other teams.
The Mariners need to win no more than 23 games.

That’s a lot that needs to happen. The Yankees need to play .707 baseball for six weeks, they need to beat up on the Blue Jays and the Red Sox, and have those two teams cooperate when they aren’t playing the Yankees, and then they need to the Mariners to play no better than .561 baseball for the rest of their season. And now you know why the Yankees’ playoff odds are down to 2.3 percent.

8. But they’re not 0 percent, and that’s what Boone, Judge and the Yankees want you to remember. It’s why Tommy Kahnle wrote “BELIEVE” on a piece of paper and hung it above his locker. As ridiculous as it is for the Yankees to start winning like the 1998 team they are celebrating next month at Yankee Stadium, and as absurd as it is to think the Blue Jays, Mariners and Red Sox will all do just enough to not beat out the Yankees (and even the Angels who I left out, but are just one game behind the Yankees), there’s still a chance, no matter how small it is, and the Yankees as an organization are clinging to idea they can be the team a team in a future disappointing will reference when talking about trying to reach the playoffs.

9. It would be very on-brand for the Yankees to go on a historical run, have all the needed elements to reach the postseason fall their way and get into the playoffs only to get embarrassed at some point by the Astros and then run it back in 2024 with the same general manager, manager, coaching staff and roster. It’s my biggest fear, that the Yankees as currently constructed on the field, in the dugout and in the front office will be the Yankees eight months from now. And if the Yankees miraculously do reach the playoffs only to get run out of the tournament, the 2023 Yankees will be the 2024 Yankees because they will have accomplished their goal: make the playoffs.

10. That is the Yankees’ goal: make the playoffs. Whether it’s as the 1-seed with the best record in the league and holding home-field advantage throughout or as the third wild card that clinched in the final at-bat of the final day of the season. Be in the Top 40 percent of the league is what the Yankees strive for, not to be the Top 1 in the league. Again, it’s in every Yankees fan’s best interest that they don’t reach that goal, and that the degrading series in Atlanta carries into this weekend against the Red Sox. Bottoming out is the only way change can happen (even if bottoming out doesn’t promise doesn’t guarantee change).

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The Yankees followed up their eight-run loss to the Braves by getting one-hit and shut out.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. Aaron Boone and his coaching staff showed up in full uniform to Tuesday night’s game against the Braves. Maybe it was the last possibility on their list of superstitions to turn the season around. I have to think it was Boone knowing he has less than seven weeks to wear a Yankees uniform. Whatever his reason, it didn’t work. The Yankees were one-hit and shut out in a 5-0 loss.

“It’s not fun getting beat up, especially when you wear this uniform,” Boone said after the loss.

Boone showed off the number 17 on his back that the Yankees hope Shohei Ohtani is wearing in 2024, but that would entail persuading Ohtani to give up playing on the West Coast and somehow getting him to choose the Yankees over a contender, or even a team with a hint of promise in their future. The Yankees don’t boast any of those things. Instead, they boast a .500 record this late in the season for the first time in 28 years.

2. It didn’t matter that Luis Severino was allowed to start against the best offense baseball. Not just because the Yankees are playing meaningless games at this point, even if they are trying to lead you to believe they aren’t meaningless, but because the offense provided nothing. One hit and no runs in nine innings. The game could still be going on at this moment and the Yankees still wouldn’t have scored.

“Not good enough,” Boone said about the offense he has spent the last three calendar years saying would “get it rolling.”

But Severino did start, and he wasn’t good. Sure, he struck out five in four innings and was finally getting swings and misses. He also allowed put eight runners on base in those four innings, gave up five runs and two home runs.

“I thought he threw the ball well,” Boone said. “Again, a lot of swing-and-miss. It was as good of stuff as I’ve seen.”

3. When it looked like Severino might pitch a scoreless first inning, he allowed a three-run home run. When it looked look like he might finish strong with a string of scoreless innings after the three-run first, he gave up a two-run home run in the fourth.

“He had stuff tonight,” Boone said. “You could tell he was having his way a lot of the night which was good to see.”

Let’s ask Marcell Ozuna and Ronald Acuna about Severino “having his way” with the Braves lineup.

“I think that was a much better Sevy than we’ve seen,” Boone said, saying “we” should be happy with five runs in four innings, which translate to a 7.20 ERA.

Again, it didn’t matter. Severino could have given up one run or the five he gave up or 55. DJ LeMahieu’s one-out single second was the only hit. The Yankees went 1-for-24 with five walks. They had one runner get past first base. After allowing 10 runs in his last two starts and 9 1/3 innings, Braves starter Bryce Elder pitched seven scoreless innings.

3. On top of the Yankees’ latest putrid offensive performance, they hit into four double plays. The Yankees have now hit into a league-leading 58 double plays since June 1, which is the most in the majors. If you recall, on June 4, 2021 after a loss to the Red Sox, Boone said, “Typically, the better teams are going to hit into double plays.” If that’s true, the Yankees are just ones of the “better” teams since June 1 of this season, they are the best team! (They are actually 26-36 since June 1. I can’t believe leading the league in double plays for two-and-a-half months hasn’t translated to more wins.)

Gleyber Torres hit into two double plays on Tuesday and has hit into six in his last six games, which is the most double plays grounded into in a six-game span in Yankees history. (Congratulations on making history, Gleyber!) Harrison Bader hit into one, and like a well-written script, Aaron Judge banged into one to end the sad night.

4. I think “sad” is a perfect way to describe the Yankees at this point. It’s not like they’re being embarrassed because they have suffered many losses like the ones on Tuesday, or Monday, or Sunday. It’s the norm for this team, so it’s hard to say they are being embarrassed or humiliated anymore. No one says the A’s or Royals or Rockies or White Sox get embarrassed or humiliated when they lose. Those teams all suck, and losing is what they do. Well, the Yankees also suck, and losing is what they do as well.

5. The Yankees are 1-9-3 in their last 13 series dating back to June. (That one series win came over the Royals.) They are 8-1 against the A’s and Royals and 52-59 against everyone else. They are 104-108 in their last 212 games. They are 20-26 since Hal Steinbrenner said he was confused why fans are upset this season. They are 11-18 since they fired their hitting coach. Anyway you break it down, they are a bad baseball team on their way to a last-place finish and ending the organization’s 30-year winning streak. Yes, they suck, and are a sad collection of overpaid, underachieving losers managed by the biggest loser of all.

“It sucks,” Boone said about falling to .500. “We’re simply just not playing well enough. It starts with me and on down. It’s a broken record, right?”

It’s hard to argue the Yankees haven’t given up. Their play certainly suggests they have. (Has anyone checked in on Bader since his August 6 comment of “No concern” about the Yankees’ place in the standings?)

6. The only player on the Yankees’ roster who has ever won anything is Anthony Rizzo, which is likely why he can be seen on camera nightly cracking up in the dugout as if he’s watching a Sebastian Maniscalco comedy special on one of the scouting iPads. Rizzo could care less that the Yankees have become a laughingstock and that the fan base is rightfully angry and distraught. He ended the Cubs’ curse. He’s a Chicago hero. He has a ring. He doesn’t need one with the Yankees, and he doesn’t need to do anything with the Yankees other than collect a paycheck.

Rizzo’s carefree attitude seems to be contagious. Throughout the season, he has been seen having the time of his life during losses with different players. On Monday, he had Judge and Giancarlo Stanton all but slapping their knees on the top step with the Yankees trailing by eight runs. Earlier this summer, he nearly had Anthony Volpe in tears while the Yankees were enduring one of their countless series losses. In the dugout, the Yankees are having the kind of fun you have during the last hour of a wedding reception, while on the field, they are a disgrace.

7. “There’s a lot of season left,” Boone said on a night the Blue Jays, Red Sox, Rangers, Astros and Mariners all won and the Yankees’ playoff odds fell to 2.9 percent. “There’s a quarter of the season left and we gotta do better than this.”

A QUARTER OF THE SEASON?! How are Yankees fans supposed to be subjected to this type of play 42 more times?!

“Forget October,” Boone said. “Forget September.”

I wish I could forget September when the Yankees are playing mathematically eliminated games. I wish I didn’t have to sit through October with 12 teams not named the Yankees playing for a championship. Unfortunately, I can’t just forget about two months on the calendar.

8. “Like that’s not the focus,” Boone said of September and October. “And it never is, frankly, when you’re in the driver’s seat.”

First, the Yankees were “championship-caliber.” Then, they were “going to get it rolling.” Then the season was still “in front of them.” Now, they’re just forgetting about September and October. What’s next? Forgetting about July and August? Creating a new calendar that only includes months and days chosen by the Yankees?

9. “We’re scuffling our asses off,” Boone said. “We need to do better and we need to take some personal pride.”

If the Yankees are truly “scuffling their asses off” which was said following a one-hit, no-run performance, well that’s a serious problem. I really hope they just gave up and aren’t actually trying their hardest. As for pride, well, I think that concept was lost on these players and in the clubhouse a long time ago. Long before this season.

10. “So the message continues to be, ‘Make sure we’re competing our asses off,’” Boone said, “and I believe that is happening.”

It’s time for a new message. It’s been time for a new message for a long time. Next season, there will be a new message from a new manager. (And again, if there isn’t, my time as a Yankees fan will come to an end, and I can spend the thousands of hours in 2024 dedicated to this team doing anything else.)

With each sloppy, depressingly played game the Yankees are one day closer to ending this miserable season. A season that looks like it was pulled from the Stump Merrill years. At least Merrill had the excuse of managing a roster that was never going to win and was never expected to win.

Maybe on Wednesday night, Boone and his coaching staff will add wearing high socks to their full-uniform attire. I’m sure that will jumpstart the season.

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