The Yankees four-game winning streak came to an end on Thursday with a disappointing one-run loss to the Twins. After an abysmal August, the Yankees needed to see the Twins on the schedule.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. Following Sunday’s series finale against the Rays, if the Yankees had any other team on the schedule other than the Twins for a four-game series, it’s likely the Yankees’ 15 1/2-game collapse complete. Because while the Yankees were winning three of four against the Twins, the Rays were sweeping the last-place Red Sox. The Yankees needed a big week to pause their free fall, and a big week is what they got against the team they have owned for the last 20 years.

It should have been bigger and needed to be bigger. No, you can’t expect to sweep a four-game series, let alone one against a good team like the Twins. But when you spend an entire month playing .357 baseball, you need to sweep a four-game home series against the Twins, even if they are good. The Yankees put themselves in the situation of now needing to do unexpected.

2. Aaron Boone did his best to put together early-March spring training lineups over the four games, and also did his best to manage his team to losses. But thankfully, not even Boone’s inept in-game managing could lead the Twins to overcoming their issues with beating the Yankees.

3. I truly enjoy Isiah Kiner-Falefa supporters saying “See!” after Kiner-Falefa hit two home runs in the series, including a grand slam. Please. He now has three home runs in 123 games, a .653 OPS and kicks around the ball at short. One or two games isn’t going to erase the disastrous decision to trade for him, take on Josh Donaldson’s salary to acquire him, not sign either Carlos Correa or Corey Seager because of him and then play him every day over Oswald Peraza and Anthony Volpe. Kiner-Falefa’s Baseball Savant page is still full of blue as 99 percent of the league has a better barrel rate than him, 94 percent of the league hits the ball harder than him and 90 percentage of the league has a better average exit velocity than him. Kiner-Falefa does one thing well: he makes contact. However, when he makes contact, it’s weak contact, so it cancels out the fact that he makes contact. Play any borderline major leaguer every single day for a full season like the Yankees have with him and he will run into a few long balls along the way. (Just ask Aaron Hicks.)

4. Kiner-Falefa’s big series against the team that fleeced the Yankees to move him came while he was playing third base. I would welcome Kiner-Falefa at third if meant Donaldson not playing, but we all know that’s not going to happen. Once Donaldson is back, Kiner-Falefa will go back to short and Peraza will go to the bench. You know, the player Hal Steinbrenner and Brian Cashman cited as the reason for not signing a big-name free-agent shortstop. The player Kiner-Falefa was supposed to be a stopgap for until ready. Well, he’s ready, he’s playing an awesome shortstop and hitting major-league pitching, and yet, no one can expect him to play once Donaldson returns from paternity leave. Yankees baseball!

5. It took one good day for Kiner-Falefa to find himself batting cleanup the next day, and it took one double for Aaron Hicks to go from being benched to batting leadoff the next day. When you’re a Boone favorite and front office favorite (like those two are), it doesn’t take much to be rewarded. Don’t be surprised if you see equally crazy shit like Hicks leading off and Kiner-Falefa batting cleanup this weekend against the Rays in what is the biggest series of the season … again.

6. The Yankees’ cleanup hitter should be Giancarlo Stanton, but apparently, he’s unable to play with any regularity … again. Stanton was unavailable to pinch hit for Ronald Guzman (who I hope to never see play a game for the Yankees again), but was able to pinch hit in the ninth inning one day later. I guess one day magically healed him.

Of course Stanton could have pinch hit on Wednesday. It was absurd he didn’t. Not as absurd as the Yankees waiting an extended amount of unnecessary time to play shorthanded before putting Anthony Rizzo and DJ LeMahieu on the injured list, but absurd nonetheless.

The Yankees got a good-but-not-great age 28 season out of Stanton in 2018, in which he played a solid portion of the season with a hamstring issue. They got 18 games from his age 29 season, and 23 of 60 games in the shortened 2020 season when he was 30. Last year, they were able to get 137 games out of him at age 31, but this year, at age 32, he has missed 34 percent of the season. As a Yankee, he has missed 37 percent of the team’s regular-season games, covering his age 28 through 32 seasons. His contract runs through his age 37 season and then he will be bought out for $10 million for his age 38 season. He’s a problem now at age 32. I wonder how the next five years will go.

Stanton returned from his Achilles injury on August 25 and drove in three runs in 13-4 win over the A’s. Since then, he’s 3-for-35 (I don’t even remember the three hits), hitting .086/.180/.086. Just three singles in 39 plate appearances.

Since Monday when I wrote a Yankees Thoughts blog titled Yankees Thoughts: Giancarlo Stanton and Josh Donaldson Can’t Be Automatic Outs, Stanton has been a combination of hitless and injured.

7. The Yankees are without LeMahieu, Rizzo, Matt Carpenter, Andrew Benintendi (and to a much lesser extent, Harrison Bader). It seems like LeMahieu will have to play through his toe injury for the rest of the season. I don’t have great confidence in Rizzo coming back and being a middle-of-the-order threat even though Boone will bat him in the middle of the order. Carpenter is still being held back from baseball activities for two more weeks, and Benintendi’s chances of coming back seem to be closer to a prayer than likely. The Yankees can’t have Stanton being an automatic out. They can’t have him being even 80 percent of his abilities. They need him to be the guy who won the All-Star Game MVP and who’s the highest-paid position player on the team. And they need it now. Not next week or the week after when the collapse could be complete. Now.

8. Anyone who thinks Shohei Ohtani should be the AL MVP over Aaron Judge shouldn’t be allowed to vote in elections, obtain a driver’s license, own property or have children. Judge isn’t just the only choice for MVP, he’s possibly the most deserving of the MVP award in the history of baseball. Without him, the Yankees aren’t a postseason team. He’s the most valuable, most important, best player in the majors this season. It’s not debatable.

9. With 24 games left, the Rays’ elimination number is way too high at 22. (Any combination of Yankees wins and Rays losses equaling 22 will eliminate the Rays from the division.) The Yankees can lower that number to 16 by Sunday afternoon, and if they do so, the Rays’ recent attempt to overtake the Yankees will be over.

I don’t think that will happen. I would like it to happen, but if you think this version of the Yankees in which Hicks could bat leadoff and Kiner-Falefa cleanup this weekend is going to sweep the Rays, you likely think Cashman has done a good job in recent years as general manager and that the Steinbrenner family cares about winning like their father did.

I can’t say Just don’t get swept because I think losing two of three this weekend will put the Yankees in a horrendous spot, even if the Rays have 16 games left against the Blue Jays and Astros. I don’t think the Blue Jays are that good, and the Astros will have the AL West clinched soon and the AL 1-seed shortly after that. Who knows what their lineup or level of care will be when they face the Rays from September 19-21 and again from September 30-October 2.

10. A series win this weekend would get the elimination number down to 18 with 21 to play. (Still too high for my liking, but that’s what you get when you piss away two-and-a-half months of the season.) The Yankees can’t lose the series. (I mean, sure, they can, and odds are they will, but they can’t.) And they certainly can’t get swept. (Again, sure, they can, but they can’t.)

Right now, I’m moderately worried about the Yankees’ completing the single biggest game-lead collapse in baseball history. I’m a 6.7 out of 10 worried. Five days ago, I was a 9.1. If the loss column lead is zero on Sunday afternoon, I will be a 10, and a 10 is stock-up-on-bottled-water-and-batteries-to-go-into-hiding-level bad. So if the Yankees get swept, and you don’t hear from me with Thoughts about the series by Monday morning, just know I’m safe.

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Losers of three straight and six of seven, the Yankees managed to win the series finale against the Rays on Sunday and salvage a game from the most important series of the season.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. I don’t care how the Yankees won on Sunday, barely eeking out a 2-1 victory over the Rays, all that matters is they won. They won for the first time in four games and the second time in eight games. They momentarily stopped their free fall that led to them entering the series finale against the Rays with a four-game lead in the division, and just three games in the loss column. For at least one night, Yankees fans can sleep well knowing the magic number finally moved off 27 for the first time since Tuesday. Unfortunately, the momentary relief of Sunday’s win is just that: momentary. The Yankees play at 1:05 on Monday, and if they don’t build on Sunday’s win, it won’t have mattered.

2. Sunday’s win was as painful as any win can be. Right up until the final pitch, a called third strike to end the game that wasn’t a strike. It involved Aaron Judge producing the game’s first run on the second pitch of the game (this is why I have been advocating for him to leadoff) and the Yankees only managing to score once more for the rest game on an Oswaldo Cabrera sacrifice fly in the seventh inning. The Yankees left the leadoff man on in the second, left two on in the fourth, left the bases loaded in the fifth, left two on in the sixth, left a runner on in the seventh and couldn’t score with first and third and no outs in the eighth. It was yet another game in which the Yankees scored three runs or less.

3. Since August 3, the Yankees have played 29 games. They have scored three runs or less in 21 of those 29 games. In 72 percent of their last 29 games, the Yankees have scored three runs or less. But Aaron Boone was quick to twice say, “We have the Number 1 offense in the league,” on Saturday. What Boone failed to mention about that “achievement” is that of the Yankees’ 655 runs scored this season, 36 percent of them have come in just 15 percent of the season. The Yankees scored 237 runs in 20 games against the Guardians, Orioles, Royals, White Sox, Tigers, Twins, Cubs, A’s, Pirates and Red Sox. Guess how many of those teams currently hold a playoff berth? One. The Guardians. They lead the atrocious AL Central by a half-game, and if they don’t win their division, they will miss the postseason, since they lead their division, but would currently be 4 1/2 games out of the final wild-card spot.

4. The Yankees’ offense isn’t good. It never has been. In those 20 games, they averaged 11.9 runs per game. In the other 114 games, they have averaged 3.7 runs per game. That’s the true Yankees offense, and we saw it again this weekend.

In what was the biggest series of the season to date, the Yankees scored three runs total in the three games. I would sign up for the Yankees scoring three runs per game for the rest of the season because one run feels like a burden and scoring two runs feels like a miracle. Scoring three runs?! Well, that might as well be 23 right now. And if Judge doesn’t hit a home run, it’s hard to envision the Yankees manufacturing a run any other way.

5. The Yankees rely on the home run for more than half of their runs, which is the most in the majors. Starting with the first game of the second half of the Subway Series back on August 22, here are the Yankees’ home runs by game:

vs. Mets: Judge
vs. Mets: Judge
at A’s: None
at A’s: Judge
at A’s: None
at A’s: None
at Angels: Anthony Rizzo, Judge
at Angels: Andrew Benintendi, Rizzo, Judge
at Angels: None
at Rays: None
at Rays: Judge
at Rays: Judge

6. In the Yankees’ last 12 games, they have hit 10 home runs, and Judge has hit seven of them. No other Yankees has homered in the last four games, and just two other Yankees have homered in the last 12. One of them is missing games for the third time in a month due to back issues and the other needs surgery on his wrist and may not play for the Yankees again.

7. If you’re expecting other players to step up and start banging some out, don’t waste your time.

DJ LeMahieu (who is playing through a foot injury that the Yankees have admitted won’t heal until the offseason) hasn’t homered since August 7.

Gleyber Torres (who will likely be traded this offseason after the Yankees chose not to trade him last offseason and had a deal with the Marlins at the deadline to trade him fall through) has two home runs since July 27.

Aaron Hicks (who was outright benched, but has somehow found his way back into the lineup every day again) last homered on July 9.

Isiah Kiner-Falefa (who is somehow still playing baseball in the majors) has one home run in 439 plate appearances.

Cabrera has 60 career plate appearances and Oswald Peraza has seven.

With Anthony Rizzo in and out of the lineup for back issues and Matt Carpenter not expected back for a few weeks at best, there only two other sources of potential power.

8. The first is Josh Donaldson. He’s being paid like the MVP he was and not the player he is, which is as washed up as it gets, and he continues to be treated as though he’s the Blue Jay version of himself, batting in the middle of the Yankees’ lineup every game.

I don’t believe in Donaldson and recognize if he weren’t owed $24 million next season, he would no longer be a Yankee. But I can’t lump him in with Hicks and Kiner-Falefa and Torres and the rookies since he does have a long history of being a power bat, with or without the juiced baseball (which is the only time Hicks or Torres had power).

Donaldson is an asshole. That’s been evident since he was an opponent of the Yankees and continues to be more evident with each game he’s a Yankee. He’s done a lot of idiotic things this season, but none bigger than chirping Jeffrey Springs on Saturday to throw him fastballs, which Springs did and struck Donaldson out on (including one at 91 mph down the middle with two on in the first inning).

Donaldson’s batting average is 46 points below his career average. His on-base percentage is 57 points below his career average, his slugging percentage is 120 points below his career average, and his OPS is 177 points below his career average. He has 12 home runs and is on pace for 15 if he plays in all of the Yankees remaining 28 games. It would be the lowest single-season home run total of his career and 12 less than his current season-low of 24 from 2013. Anyone who cites his great defense this season as a reason to justify his miserable offensive production is as big of an asshole as he is.

I don’t expect Donaldson to contribute or become his former self. But when Boone mentions the “need to get a couple guys going,” like he did most recently after Saturday’s loss, and has for months now, he’s reffering to Donaldson. He’s also referring to Giancarlo Stanton.

9. Stanton last homered on July 15. Since then he was on the injured list for more than a month, having missed 35 percent of the season (once again), and has a sub-.400 OPS in his last 14 games and 55 plate appearances with 17 strikeouts. Since coming off the IL on August 25, he’s 4-for-35 with five walks and nine strikeouts. Stanton’s horrific season between injuries and underperformance (his season OPS is 136 points below his career average) is as big a problem as any the Yankees have offensively. Stanton’s inability to stay healthy (again), and his inability to perform to his career averages might be the biggest problem.

It’s hard to remember that six weeks ago Stanton was an All-Star, winning the MVP of the game at Dodger Stadium. Because now all he’s doing is flailing at sliders in the other batter’s box and popping up middle-middle straight fastballs.

I understand this is who Stanton is. When he’s going right, he’s as feared as any hitter in the league, but when he’s off, he looks like he’s picking up a bat for the first time. Just because I know this is who he is doesn’t make his own personal free fall since the start of July (.149/.231/.319 and a month-long IL stint) any easier to stomach.

If Stanton is going to continue to be as automatic of an out as Donaldson is, then the Yankees aren’t going anywhere. Opponents are already pitching around Judge every chance they get, and that will only be heightened in the postseason.

10. The Yankees need a lot to go right over the next month to avoid the biggest game-lead collapse in history. And then after that, they will need even more to go right over the following month to accomplish the organization’s supposed goal of winning the World Series.

They don’t just need a couple of guys to get going like Boone suggests, they need an entire lineup aside from Judge to start contributing, and on top of that, they need nearly half of their expected everyday lineup to get healthy. It’s a lot to ask for and a lot to expect. Likely too much to ask for and too much to expect. But for at least one night, the collapse has been paused. Momentarily.

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On June 19, the Yankees led the Blue Jays by five runs. The Yankees were 10 outs away from completing a three-game sweep of the Blue Jays and from extending their current winning streak to 10 straight. But over 1 2/3 innings, the Yankees allowed seven runs and lost. Since that day, they are 30-37.

The Yankees have now been a bad team for more games (67) than they have been a good team (65). They have let a 15 1/2-game lead in the division fall to a five-game lead, and just a four-game lead in the loss column over the Rays. They are on the verge of completing the largest division-lead collapse in the history of Major League Baseball, and at this point, it doesn’t seem like a matter of if, but a matter of when the collapse will be complete.

I knew the Yankees were going to lose to the Rays on Friday night. I knew it the moment the lineup was announced and both Oswald Peraza and Oswaldo Cabrera weren’t in it.

The Yankees botched not calling up Peraza all season long as Isiah Kiner-Falefa cemented himself as the worst everyday player on a supposed contender and arguably the worst starting shortstop in the majors. Then the Yankees botched actually calling him up. They let him start a Triple-A game on Thursday before pulling him for the call-up, risking injury in a move they must have knew they were going to do that day all along since they waited until rosters expanded on September 1 to give Peraza a chance in the majors. Then they botched his major-league debut, not starting him in the most important game and the most important series of the season to date, choosing to give him his first taste of major-league action as a pinch hitter in the bottom of the ninth with two outs and no one on and the Yankees trailing by nine runs after having just sat on the bench for the previous three-plus hours.

As for Cabrera, the energetic 23-year-old has been a breath of fresh air since being called up and the Yankees’ second-best position player after Aaron Judge since his call-up. He was inexplicably sat on Wednesday in Anaheim despite a scheduled day off the following day, and then was held out of the starting lineup on Friday as well.

Prior to Friday’s game when the Yankees’ horrific lineup was posted, Aaron Boone was asked about his decision to not start Peraza, the Yankees’ No. 3 prospect in his first game with the team.

“Probably try and maybe get him in there tomorrow,” Boone said. “But we’re trying to win.”

“Probably … maybe get him in there tomorrow?” What? What is that? Does Boone think he is doing the kid some kind of favor by having him on his team and in his dugout? As if he hasn’t earned this well overdue call-up. And “trying to win?” Yes, that’s Boone insinuating Peraza won’t help the Yankees win.

What Boone really said was: “We’re trying to win, so we are going to play the same players who have prevented us from winning for the last two-and-a-half months.”

Rather than give opportunities to Peraza and Cabrera who are more than deserving of those opportunities, Boone created this lineup for the first game of a three-game series against the Rays — the team closest to the Yankees in the standings who are essentially trying to get Boone fired.

DJ LeMahieu, 1B
Aaron Judge, RF
Andrew Benintendi, LF
Giancarlo Stanton, DH
Jose Trevino, C
Gleyber Torres, 2B
Aaron Hicks, CF
Isiah Kiner-Falefa, SS

Boone iterated that Kiner-Falefa is the team’s starting shortstop, and that he spoke with Kiner-Falefa about the Yankees promoting Peraza, reassuring him his job wasn’t in jeopardy. (Oddly enough, Boone never felt the need to talk to Gary Sanchez when he was being benched for Kyle Higashioka. Kiner-Falefa is a Boone favorite, and Boone favorites always get treated differently.)

“Izzy is such a big part of what we’re doing,” Boone said, “And I expect him to continue to be right in the middle of everything we’re doing.”

Boone’s right. Kiner-Falefa is a big part of what the Yankees are doing: losing. He represents the everything wrong with the 2022 Yankees and how they play, how they are managed and how they are run from top to bottom.

There was Josh Donaldson and his .691 OPS batting fifth. There was Gleyber Torres (who has the lowest OPS of any player in the Major League Baseball over the last month) batting seventh. There was Aaron Hicks, who last had an extra-base hit on July 9 and who was supposed to be a bench player moving forward. There was Kiner-Falefa (who is now second on the team in games played this season, only behind Judge), once again, in the lineup.

In desperate need of a big weekend in Tampa, Boone turned to his favorites, all four of them, rather than ride with the rookies. What did it get him?

With two on and two out in the first inning, Donaldson struck out looking, taking a 91 mph fastball down the middle for strike 3. In the bottom of the first, he misplayed a ground ball into a hit, and in the fourth inning, he made a fielding error and throwing error on back-to-back plays. He finished the game 0-for-4 with two strikeouts, two errors, and what should have been a third error, if not for some homecooking from the official scorer.

Gleyber Torres grounded out weakly to short on the second pitch of his first at-bat, reached on an infield single in his second and then struck out swinging in his last two at-bats.

Hicks struck out swinging in his first two plate appearances, walked in his third and reached on a ground ball single in his fourth.

Kiner-Falefa hit a lazy fly ball on the first pitch he saw in the game, hit a double in his second at-bat and lined out in his third.

Collectively, the players Boone claims will help the team win went 3-for-15 with a double, walk and six strikeouts, as well as two errors in the field.

Trailing 3-0 entering the eighth, the Yankees went down 1-2-3 on 11 pitches and two strikeouts. At that point, the game was over. Even if the Yankees were to keep the score where it was, they would have Torres, Hicks and Kiner-Falefa due up in the ninth. But they weren’t able to keep the score right where it was anyway, thanks to some waving-the-white-flag managing from Boone.

With two on and two out, Greg Weissert foolishly threw away a ball behind the mound that he had no play, scoring two for the Rays, making it a 5-0 game and putting it officially out of reach. Boone then called on Anthony Banda to get the last out of the eighth, and not only could Banda not do that, he couldn’t even throw a strike. It was one of the single-worst pitching performances in Yankees history, including Weissert’s in Oakland, and Jonathan Holder’s 2018 meltdown in Fenway Park. Banda walked three, gave up to singles, hit a batter and walked in two runs, throwing just 10 of 29 pitches for strikes. If you told Banda he would receive $1 billion if he could throw a strike, I don’t think he would be able to, and would instead just half-heartedly toss his shitty changeup into the dirt.

It was both fitting and comical that Banda was pitching in the biggest game of the season to date. It was even more fitting and comical that Marwin Gonzalez was called on to get the last out of the eighth inning, and he did so, needing just three pitches to do it, after Banda couldn’t on 29.

I wish I could say Boone was upset or angry after the game, but he wasn’t. He had his usual who-gives-a-fuck tone to his postgame answers, harping on the fact that there’s always tomorrow as if he were auditioning to be Annie on Broadway. It’s only a day away!

“We’ve set a better standard around here,” the delusional Boone said.

“A better standard?” Under Boone, the Yankees have won one division title, have two ALDS losses, one ALCS loss and a wild-card game loss. They have been eliminated in the postseason twice by the rival Red Sox, have endured the most lopsided home postseason loss in franchise history, and just had the worst month record-wise the organization has had in 31 years. The standard under Boone is losing, and being comfortable with it. These Yankees aren’t meeting the Boone era standard, they are exceeding it with flying colors.

For possibly the first time as Yankees manager, Boone did use the word “embarrassing” to describe his team’s effort. A word he didn’t use when the Yankees were run out of their own stadium in the 2018 ALDS, when they couldn’t get a hit with runners in scoring position in the 2019 ALCS, when they were defeated by the team with the second-lowest payroll in the 2020 ALDS or when their postseason ended four batters into the bottom of the first in the 2021 wild-card game.

“That’s an embarrassing loss,” Boone said. “Hopefully, one of those rock bottom situations.”

Rock bottom is rock bottom. It’s not plural. So Friday couldn’t be “one of those situations.” It’s either rock bottom or it isn’t. But it wasn’t. That loss wasn’t rock bottom. He hasn’t seen rock bottom and the Yankees haven’t experienced rock bottom yet. Rock bottom will be when the 15 1/2-game collapse is complete. Again at this point, it feels like, not if, but when.

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