The Yankees lost to the Orioles 9-7 on Wednesday and failed to clinch the division title in their second attempt at it.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. 0-for-2. That’s what the Yankees are in opportunities to clinch and win the AL East. Add two more missed opportunities and it will read like an Alex Verdugo batting line. But if the Yankees miss two more opportunities they could possibly be in a world of shit.

One Yankees win or one Orioles loss over the next four days will give the Yankees the division. It would be nice if they could get it out of the way with a win on Thursday, rendering the three remaining games of the regular season against the Pirates rather meaningless. But given the way the Yankees have played in the first two games of this three-game series against the Orioles, it wouldn’t surprise me (and shouldn’t surprise anyone) if the division is not over by the end of play on Thursday.

2. Prior to Wednesday’s 9-7 loss to the Orioles (to drop the Yankees to 4-8 on the season against the Orioles), Nestor Cortes was placed on the 15-day injured list, taking him out of the equation for the ALDS. In his place, Marcus Stroman made his first start in 15 days and second in 21 days. The Yankees have done everything they can to avoid giving Stroman the ball in September and rightfully so.

Stroman was awful once again, needing 66 pitches to get 10 outs, while giving up six earned runs on 10 hits. Since July 4, Stroman has started 64 innings and only nine of them have been 1-2-3 innings, which is outrageous. Every seven-plus innings Stroman will give you a clean frame. He didn’t have one on Wednesday.

3. “It’s frustrating,” Stroman said. “I didn’t execute and do my job out there to keep my team in position to win.”

The last pitch Stroman threw should be the last pitch he throws in 2024 outside of maybe some innings eating this weekend against the Pirates (as long as the division is wrapped up). Stroman can’t be trusted to nibble in October and he can’t be trusted out of the bullpen either without swing-and-miss stuff. Balls in play (even ones on the ground) lead to bad things (just ask Clay Holmes) and Stroman relies on balls in play more than anyone in baseball.

4. In a game in which Juan Soto and Aaron Judge both hit multi-run home runs and the Yankees scored seven runs, they lost. That’s how bad Stroman was and then how bad Clayton Beeter was in relief of Stroman (1.1 IP, 3 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 1 BB, 2 K).

Soto and Judge combined to go 4-for-8 with three runs, two home runs, six RBIs and two walks. The rest of the lineup went 6-for-28 with no extra-base hits. It was the type of offensive performance the Yankees have to have in October to succeed since no one in the lineup outside of those two can be trusted with any regularity. Despite Gleyber Torres’ last month, he’s only now a league-average hitter for the season. Austin Wells has a .410 OPS in September and looks like the April version of himself. Giancarlo Stanton is either extremely hot or extremely cold with no in between and there’s no knowing what he will be in October. Jazz Chisholm has a .446 OPS over the last three weeks. Any plate appearance for Anthony Rizzo or Anthony Volpe resulting in them getting on base is a magnificent surprise. Alex Verdugo is a lost cause and Jasson Dominguez plays too infrequently to get into an extended groove.

5. Dominguez was back in the lineup after an unnecessary day off on Tuesday. He misplayed a ball in left field in the first inning that looked to be tailing away from him in the corner and then came back into the field of play.

“I have no excuse,” Dominguez said. “That ball needs to be caught, 100 percent of the time.”

Almost 100 percent of the time since it had a catch probability of 95 percent.

6. “He’s missed some plays that he should make,” Aaron Boone said of Dominguez. I can count on one hand (I may need a finger or two from my other hand) to count the times Boone has been somewhat critical of one of his players in seven seasons and this is one of those instances. Boone defended Torres’ game-altering baserunning gaffe just 24 hours earlier (when Torres himself couldn’t defend it), but there was Boone not having the same type of defense for Dominguez, who is playing a position he has little experience playing. Dominguez has played 20 total games in left field this season between the majors and minors.

“I haven’t played a ton of games in left field,” Dominguez said, “but I feel I can do it.”

Unfortunately, for Dominguez, the Yankees only have four games remaining, so there’s not much time to learn in actual games. Boone wants to play Verdugo over Dominguez and Dominguez is giving him a reason to.

7. “You try to take it all in, what gives you the best chance to win on a given night,” Boone said of his ongoing left-field competition. “We’re trying to give a good look to Jasson here down the stretch.”

That second part is telling. “We’re trying” is Boone foreshadowing him telling the media “they tried” when Dominguez is on the bench or not on the postseason roster next Saturday night at Yankee Stadium.

On Wednesday, Dominguez hit balls 109.3 mph, 106.5 mph and 109.2 mph. Verdugo has hit one ball over 100 mph in the last two weeks. It doesn’t matter to the Yankees that Dominguez is the far superior hitter to Verdugo. Boone wants to play Verdugo and Dominguez’s defense is going to be what Boone uses to play one of his favorites.

8. I fear Verdugo will be the Yankees’ starting left fielder to begin the postseason. Then if the team is having trouble scoring in the postseason the way they do every October, they will insert Dominguez into the lineup in place of Verdugo to try to get a jolt out of his bat after he has been sitting cold and not playing. When that doesn’t work out, everyone will say Dominguez sucks. It’s almost too easy to predict.

9. I pray that doesn’t happen. I pray if Verdugo plays over Dominguez that he hits, and that if it’s Dominguez over Verdugo that he catches fly balls. You can’t afford to play with automatic outs in the lineup (like Verdugo) in October and the Yankees will already be playing Rizzo and Volpe since they are immune to losing playing time for their lack of offense. And you can’t afford to be misplaying easy outs and giving the opposition extra outs to work with in October either.

10. For now, the Yankees need to worry about getting to October with a bye. That can be resolved with one more win. It wasn’t resolved on Tuesday or Wednesday. Thursday will be their third chance at it. I don’t want to have to write about them going for it for a fourth time tomorrow.

The Yankees lost to the Orioles 5-3 on Tuesday and failed to clinch the division title in their first attempt at it.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. The Yankees entered Tuesday’s series opener against the Orioles with a magic number of 1 to clinch the division. Win one of the remaining six games and the goal of winning the AL East would be complete. Their first crack at it was unsuccessful.

Aaron Boone decided he would try to clinch the division title in the first of six possible attempts without the best possible lineup. There was Alex Verdugo, some way, somehow starting over Jasson Dominguez on Tuesday.

“It’s still declaring itself,” Boone recently said of the starting left field role. Tuesday was Game 157 of the season. Wednesday is Game 158. In all likelihood (barring a monumental collapse over the five remaining games), the Yankees will be playing a postseason game next Saturday night at Yankee Stadium. There’s no time for left field to still be declaring itself. IT’S DECLARED ITSELF! We have a full season of Verdugo being one of the very worst everyday players in the league. The Yankees can’t go into the postseason with a daily lineup shuffle the way they did two years ago. That’s not going to work. Play the best available nine players. This isn’t hard.

2. But for Boone it is hard. It’s hard for him to not play veterans and players and pitchers he has relationships with. It’s why Verdugo is still playing. It’s why Clay Holmes is still pitching in high-leverage and save situations. It’s why Brett Gardner was batting third in the 2019 ALCS. It’s why CC Sabathia was allowed to face the Red Sox’ lineup a second time in Game 4 of the 2018 ALDS. It’s why Boone couldn’t completely pull the plug on Isiah Kiner-Falefa as the team’s shortstop in the 2022 postseason and why he kept batting Josh Donaldson fifth and sixth that same postseason despite him having no better chance than a fan from the stands at putting the ball in play.

3. Nothing will stop Boone from playing Verdugo at this point. He would rather lose with his favorites playing than win without them. He so desperately wants Verdugo to be the team’s starting left fielder and small “wins” like Verdugo reaching first via an infield single that had a .180 expected batting average are the types of nonsense Boone will refer to when telling the media Verdugo has been “swinging the bat well lately.”

4. Verdugo has one extra-base hit in September. Dominguez has three times as many in 17 less plate appearances. Verdugo has two home runs since July 6. Dominguez has two home runs in the last six days. Since being called up, Dominguez has more walks, steals, doubles and home runs, and a higher on-base percentage, slugging percentage and OPS than Verdugo.

If you want to talk about Dominguez’s outfield mishaps in left field in Seattle, well, other veteran outfielders had trouble with the sun in those games as well, not to mention Dominguez still adjusting and learning left field. At least he has an excuse. Verdugo overthrew the cutoff man over the weekend. And no one should ever forget his play to end the games against the Orioles in the last game before the All-Star break.

5. With the Yankees trailing 2-1 in the fifth on Wednesday, Anthony Rizzo and Anthony Volpe drew back-to-back walks to begin the inning, bringing Verdugo to the plate. He hit into a double play to destroy the rally. Representing the tying run at the plate with two outs in the ninth, he made the final out of a game he shouldn’t be playing in, a game the Yankees could clinch the division in. How can you not be romantic about baseball? Verdugo is now for 1-for-his last-17 with the one being the slow roller to the right side that he beat out on Tuesday. Keep playing him!

The Yankees have five games over the next five days to get it right, play Dominguez every day and get him as acclimated as he can be to the Yankee Stadium outfield before they begin to play for all the marbles next Saturday. Every inning Dominguez spends on the bench and Verdugo spends in the field is detrimental to the Yankees’ chances at winning the division and then winning in October.

6. The Yankees’ best chance to tie or take the lead in a game they never led in came in the same inning as Verdugo’s monster 82-mph infield single that traveled three feet in the air. Trailing 4-1 with runners on first and third with two outs in the seventh, Gleyber Torres hit a ground-rule double to right field to make it 4-2. Juan Soto followed with a single to pull the Yankees within a run. Anthony Santander threw home on Soto’s single to try to prevent the run from scoring and as the ball traveled toward the plate, Soto took off for the second, barely beating the throw. Torres had initially held up on the base hit, but when Adley Rutschman threw down to second to try to get Soto, Torres inexplicably broke for home, ended up in a rundown and was eventually tagged out.

“I think he thought Soto was going to be out,” is the nonsensical, bullshit reasoning Boone gave to defend Torres’ decision.

When told Torres leads the majors in outs at home plate, Boone barked back at the questioner, “I mean do you have the context on all of the outs at home plate?” as if Torres has a history of smart decisions on the basepaths.

You’re right, Boone. Torres is an intelligent baseball player with good baserunning instincts, who has a seven-year career full of aggressive, smart baserunning choices. Everyone else is just wrong and dumb.

Jack Curry on YES called Torres’ decision “inexplicable” and “reckless.” Aaron Judge said, “Stuff like that can’t happen.” Even Torres himself said, “If I’m going to make that decision, go straight for the run.” Everyone including the baserunner realized it was a losing mistake. Everyone except the manager who couldn’t just flat-out say it was a foolish error.

7. Playing Verdugo and Torres’ baserunning gaffe weren’t the only reasons the Yankees lost. Clarke Schmidt needed 100 pitches to get 16 outs and gave up three earned run in 5 1/3 innings and Boone’s choices to relieve Schmidt in a close game following an off day were Tim Mayza and Mark Leiter Jr. The duo got five outs, but not before allowing five baserunners and a run to score.

8. The loss dropped the Yankees to 4-7 on the season against their division rival. The head-to-head record won’t mean anything if the Yankees can win one of their five remaining games or if the Orioles lose one of their five remaining games, but it doesn’t make me feel comfortable or confident about the Yankees’ chances against the Orioles if the two teams meet in the ALDS. And as of Wednesday morning, the Yankees will face the winner of a potential Orioles-Tigers best-of-3.

9. The Yankees released some bad news on Wednesday morning, announcing Nestor Cortes would not make his scheduled start in the second game of this series and instead would have an MRI on his left elbow. Cortes has allowed just one earned run in his previous 15 1/3 innings since calling out the Yankees for sending him to the bullpen in Chicago and has pitched to a 1.58 ERA over his last 40 innings. He is/was likely to be in the postseason rotation, and if not, would have been a left-handed weapon out of the bullpen, but now could have his season cut short (and possibly miss all of next season as an impending free agent). Rarely does a pitcher in need of a throwing elbow MRI receive good news. And even if they do, rarely is it a few days without throwing before returning to action. It’s hard to envision Cortes being a part of the postseason.

10. John Sterling will be a part of the postseason. The 86-year-old legend returned to the broadcast booth on Tuesday and it was like he never left. It’s almost as if the last five-plus months didn’t happen. As a Sterling fan, it was hard to not be able to listen to him anymore when he retired in April. While I’m elated he’s back for the remainder of the regular season and the postseason, overall, it’s just a tease, knowing we will have to say goodbye all again. Hopefully, the last out of the season and of his career he calls isn’t the same as the last out of the last 14 seasons he has had to call: with the Yankees’ season ending without a championship. The next Yankees win (or Orioles loss) will increase the Yankees’ odds at preventing a 15th straight disappointing final out call from Sterling. It would be enjoyable if that win came on Wednesday night to get it out of the way.

The Yankees avoided a disappointing loss and beat the Mariners 2-1 in 10 innings on Wednesday, clinching a postseason berth in the process.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. Aaron Boone was willing to go to Luke Weaver in the eighth inning on Wednesday night against the Mariners, but first he wanted to find the answer to the question of how many outs he could steal with Clay Holmes. The answer: one.

One out is what Holmes recorded in the eighth inning before giving up a game-tying home run to Justin Turner. Why was Holmes in a one-run game to begin with? Why was he once again pitching in a high-leverage situation after being removed from the closer role and demoted in the bullpen pecking order just two weeks ago? And why wasn’t a better, more trusted reliever not pitching after the Yankees had Monday off and won a nine-run blowout on Tuesday in which they didn’t use any of their best relievers?

But there was Holmes getting the call for the third out of the seventh inning in relief of Tommy Kahnle with the tying run on base and and the go-ahead run at the plate. (It took him 12 pitches to get the last out of the seventh.) And there he was again going back out to the mound to begin the eighth. Not only was Boone willing to use his least trusted reliever for multiple innings in a one-run game, he had decided the lane for his least trusted reliever was the Marniners’ 1- and 2- hitters in the seventh and then the heart of the order in the eighth.

2. The home run allowed to Turner resulted in Holmes’ 13th blown save of the season, five more than anyone else. On a night when a Yankees win would clinch them a postseason berth, Boone did everything he could to prevent it from happening.

If you’re upset with Holmes following the Turner home run and his latest blown save, you’re upset with the wrong person. Holmes sucks. Everyone knows he sucks except for his manager. I’m not upset with Holmes. He didn’t make himself a Yankee. He didn’t make himself the closer. He didn’t keep himself in the closer role until his 11th blown save earlier this month. He didn’t put himself in a position to blow his 12th save last week or his 13th on Wednesday.

Boone so desperately wants Holmes to be his closer that he will stop at nothing to continue to give him opportunities in crucial spots. After being removed as the closer following his blown save in Texas two-and-a-half weeks, it took one scoreless outing in his next appearance for Holmes to then be given a one-run lead to protect the following outing: he blew that lead. Then after getting four outs without allowing a run across two games over the weekend, he was thrust right back into a one-run spot on Wednesday, and of course, he blew it.

Boone would rather have Holmes standing on the mound as Jose Altuve races home as the pennant-winning run next month or have Yordan Alvarez trotting around the bases with Holmes hanging his head as a response to the team’s elimination than ruin his friendship or relationship with Holmes by removing him completely from high-leverage situations. Boone is willing to risk it all and ruin the Yankees’ season on the right arm of Holmes. We saw it all season when he wouldn’t remove him from the closer’s role until that 11th blown save, and we have seen it continue over the last two weeks as he allowed him to blow two more.

3. The only way to ensure Boone doesn’t use Holmes in the postseason is to exclude him from the roster, which we know isn’t going to happen. Boone will use anyone and everyone at his disposal on the postseason roster. It’s how you get Neil Walker hitting instead of Miguel Andujar in the ninth inning of an elimination game in Game 4 of the 2018 ALDS. It’s how you get JA Happ pitching in relief in Game 2 of the 2019 ALCS. It’s how you get Happ being used a bulk reliever in Game 2 of the 2020 ALDS, or how you get Mike Ford pinch hitting in 2020 playoff games after he wasn’t good enough to be on the roster in the weeks leading up to the playoffs. It’s how you get Aaron Hicks starting games in the 2022 postseason and Boone’s shortstop shuffle between Isiah Kiner-Falefa, Oswaldo Cabrera and Oswald Peraza that same year. If you’re on the postseason roster, Boone will find playing time for you. Holmes will pitch in a high-leverage situation in October and the Yankees will either blow a lead or lose a game (or both) because of it.

4. Holmes’ work on Wednesday erased the impressive six shutout innings Nestor Cortes provided. Since being removed from the rotation and being inexplicably passed over for a start instead of Marcus Stroman and voicing his opinion on the matter, Cortes has been dominant: 15.1 IP, 7 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 7 BB, 18K. If anything, Cortes was a little too comfortable taking the ball every five days as a Yankee, tweeting delusional thoughts about how great the team has been and turning in crap performances most starts. The brief demotion has certainly motivated him to be better than he had been for stretches this season.

5. Weaver should have been the pitcher relieving Kahnle in the seventh with the lineup turning over, and if not, then Jake Cousins. Allowing Holmes to face the 1 through 4 hitters was irresponsible. That should always be Weaver’s “lane” in any late-game situation. The best reliever should be facing the best hitters. Weaver blew away the Mariners, retiring five of the six batters he faced and striking out four of them. His line since Boone’s admission through usage that Weaver is the best reliever in the team: 7.1 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 3 BB, 16 K and a .083/.185/.083 slash line against.

6. My current bullpen trust rankings are as follows:

Luke Weaver
Ian Hamilton
Jake Cousins
Tommy Kahnle

Hamilton was outstanding again on Wednesday against the Mariners, but the gap, for me, between Weaver and Hamilton remains massive. Overall, trust falls off completely after Kahnle. No one other than those four should be getting big outs next month unless Clarke Schmidt or Luis Gil joins them in the bullpen.

7. It’s a relief the Yankees are back in the postseason in a format that accepts 40 percent of the league. When the league moved to this format for the 2022 season, I figured the Yankees would never miss the postseason again. I didn’t envision them missing it in the second year of the format. Being in the Top 40 percent of the league with the Yankees’ resources should be a given, and yet, just a year ago they finished in eighth in the AL and were seven games out from being in sixtth.

It’s comical now to hear Boone say last year’s team wasn’t good (which he has now said twice in the last few days), considering last summer he kept telling everyone how the Yankees had the guys in the room capable of turning the season around and getting the job done. They didn’t and never did. Now they are back in the postseason for the first time in two years, and because of the way the 2022 postseason ended (in humiliating fashion against the Astros), it feels like they haven’t been in the postseason in a much longer time. Now that they’re headed back, the season will hinge on the offense not performing its annual October disappearing act. I’m not worried about the pitching. Pitching hasn’t eliminated the Yankees from the postseason since Joe Torre was manager. The offense is what has prevented the Yankees from reaching and winning the World Series over the last 14 years.

8. The offense was essentially a no-show for the first nine innings on Wednesday, picking up just two hits and striking out 15 times. Home plate umpire Jim Wolf didn’t do them any favors with one of the worst strike zones we have seen all season, but it was an ugly offensive effort. The lone run the Yankees scored before getting the automatic runner in in the 10th was when Jasson Dominguez walked in the second, stole second and moved to third on an error, and then scored on an Anthony Rizzo single.

Rizzo drove in both Yankees runs and prevented the bottom third of the order from being a complete non-factor as Anthony Volpe and Alex Verdugo combined to go 0-for-8. Volpe was particularly awful in this one as he hit into an inning-ending double play first time up, struck out in his next two at-bats and then popped up a first-pitch sacrifice bunt for an easy out in the 10th with Rizzo on second and no outs. For as bad as Volpe was last year (and he was extremely bad), his OPS this year in now seven points worse.

9. Giancarlo Stanton was held out of the lineup for a second straight game, supposedly due to the matchup and not an injury. On Tuesday, the Yankees faced the hard-throwing righty Bryan Woo, and then on Wednesday, the Yankees faced the hard-throwing righty Bryce Miller and Stanton sat for both games. On Thursday, the Yankees will face the hard-throwing righty Logan Gilbert, who is the best of three, and yet, Stanton has been told he will play against Gilbert. Holding out Stanton against hard-throwing righties, but saying he will be playing in October doesn’t add up since all October has is hard-throwing righties. When Stanton sits, it moves Judge to designated hitter, and forces Verdugo in the lineup. How about waiting until the division is clinched before continuing that lineup construction so often?

10. The magic number to clinch the division is down to 6. Any combination of Yankees wins and Orioles losses totaling 6 and the AL East is the Yankees’ for just the third time in Boone’s tenure. The Yankees also have a two-game loss column lead on being the 1-seed in the American League playoffs, something they have never been during Boone’s tenure. By clinching a postseason berth, the Yankees have completed the first goal in doing something else they haven’t done during Boone’s tenure. If Boone stops using Holmes in high-leverage situations he just may accomplish that goal in his seventh year.

The Yankees routed the Mariners 11-2 in Seattle on Tuesday night and are now one win away from clinching a postseason berth.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. That’s how a late-night West Coast game should go. The Yankees scored two in the first inning, two in the second, two in the fourth, one in the fifth, three in the sixth and one in the ninth. They led 2-0 after one, 4-1 after two, 6-1 after four, 7-1 after five and 10-1 after six. Eleven runs on 12 hits, including six for extra bases. That will do.

2. Three batters into the game the Yankees had a 2-0 lead after Gleyber Torres singled and Juan Soto and Aaron Judge hit back-to-back doubles. When Soto and Judge hit, the Yankees win, and it’s no surprise the Yankees have been winning a lot lately (8-3 since September 6) because the duo has been hitting.

Soto went 2-for-2 with a double, home run, two walks, three runs and two RBIs. Judge went 2-for-4 with a double, a walk, a run and four RBIs. The home run for Soto was his 40th of the season as the two became just the third pair of Yankees teammates to both hit 40-plus home runs in a season, joining Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig (1927, 1930, 1931) and Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris (1961).

3. Soto’s home run was his 200th career home run. Having 200 home runs at age 25 is ridiculous. (Judge hit his 200th home run during his MVP season in 2022 at age 30.) It was the last active stadium he needed to homer in to have homered in every stadium.

“What a great way to go into free agency,” Soto said, “with all 30 ballparks checked on my list.”

What a quote from Soto. It’s obvious he’s going to the highest bidder this winter whether it’s the Yankees or Mets or Giants or some crappy last-place team looking to make a splash. He’s not going to leave a dollar on the table, and the dollars he does accept better come from the Yankees.

4. The Yankees are so top heavy and reliant on Soto and Judge that the offense can’t function without both. We saw what happened last year with only Judge as the Yankees missed the playoffs and we saw what happened when he was out for an extended period of time following the Dodger Stadium injury: their season collapsed. With only Judge, the Yankees haven’t been able to reach the World Series. With Soto and Judge, their ceiling is a championship. Remove Soto from the equation and their best-case scenario falls back to being embarrassed by the Astros every October.

5. “In a lot of ways, he’s not necessarily even entered his prime,” Aaron Boone said of Soto. “Maybe he’s entering it now.”

The idea Soto is this good and hasn’t entered his prime is what makes signing him a must. This isn’t paying a 30-something-year-old star for what he already accomplished knowing you may get one or two seasons of their prime and then will be living with an albatross contract until it expires. This is paying for a soon-to-be-26-year-old generational star to get the entirety of their prime, like what the Yankees missed out on with Bryce Harper. They can’t make that mistake again.

The Yankees had a young, inexpensive core when they decided to not even meet with Harper, let alone sign him, and they have a similar setup now. Austin Wells, Anthony Volpe and Jasson Dominguez make nothing and Jazz Chisholm is under contract at inexpensive rates for the next two years. If you add in potentially Ben Rice at first base for next season and either Oswald Peraza, Oswaldo Cabrera or Caleb Durbin at second base, and operate under the idea Soto will be re-signed, the Yankees will have a player 26 or under at catcher, first base, second base, third base, shortstop, left field and right field. The only outliers would be Judge in center or a corner spot and Giancarlo Stanton at designated hitter. That’s an extremely young everyday lineup. Everyone in the lineup would be making seven figures or less except for Judge, Soto and Stanton. But that lineup and plan only works if Soto is re-signed.

6. As of now, the Yankees have 11 guaranteed games with Soto remaining. Once they clinch a postseason berth, they will get at least two more games with him (if they are a wild-card team) or at least three more games (if they win the division). Every win from Game 163 on will guarantee them another game with Soto in pinstripes.

I’m not ready for Soto’s time in pinstripes to be over. Watching him this season has been like sitting in first class on an international flight with a cabin, personal bathroom and all-you-can-eat-and-drink options. I don’t want to go back to sitting in the last row of economy in a middle seat next to the bathroom. That’s where Yankees fans were while being forced to watch Jake Bauers, Isiah Kiner-Falefa, Billy McKinney, Willie Calhoun, Aaron Hicks, Franchy Cordero and Greg Allen as outfielders last season before the trade for Soto. I’m not going back to that. I will retire as a Yankees fan and baseball fan if I have to go back to that.

7. Soto wasn’t the only Yankee to homer on Tuesday night. Dominguez hit his first home run of the season and finished the game reaching base in two of five plate appearances. Dominguez is starting to get on track. In his last four games, he has as many strikeouts (4) as walks, a .412 OBP and .873 OPS. Verdugo has one extra-base hit in 12 September games, presents no speed on the basepaths and is playing a questionable left field. The season is 151 games old. I’m running out of ways and stats to say he sucks.

8. Oswaldo Cabrera got the start at short over Volpe and picked up two hits. For comparison, Volpe has one multi-hit game in September. Cabrera is hitting .303 with a .361 on-base percentage over the last month. The power hasn’t been there (just one extra-base in that time), but at least he’s getting on base. Volpe hasn’t homered since August 3, has one double since August 22 and one walk since August 30. Give me more Cabrera, whether it’s in place of Volpe or Anthony Rizzo, who went 0-for-5 with a strikeout on Tuesday and has a .484 OPS since returning on September 1.

9. The Yankees’ early 2-0 lead was nearly erased in the bottom of the first when the Mariners loaded the bases with two outs. Luis Gil was in trouble and behind Justin Turner with a 3-0 count. One pitch away from walking in a row or potentially allowing multiple runs, Gil was saved when Victor Robles inexplicably tried to steal home and was easily thrown out. It was possibly the dumbest thing I have seen in a game, surpassing Nick Swisher sacrifice bunting a runner from second to third with already one out in an inning. It made the Yankees’ decision to intentionally walk Rafael Devers on Saturday look brilliant. It looked like something Gleyber Torres or Alex Verdugo would do. After that Gil settled in and gave the Yankees five innings and one-run ball yet again without his best stuff. It seems like Gil is either lights out with his best stuff or gives the Yankees five innings of one-run ball without it. He’s been awesome.

10. The Yankees can clinch a postseason berth with a win on Wednesday night in Seattle.

“That’s what we came into the season to do, get into the postseason and give ourselves an opportunity to go out there and win a World Series,” Judge said. “So that will be step one, but we’ve got to get there first.”

The Yankees’ division lead is up to four games with 11 to play. The goal should be to keep it to at least four games going into the series with the Orioles next week, so even if they were to shockingly get swept, they would still be in first with three to go. Or they can keep winning all the way until that series and make the series that meaningless. That would be preferable.

The Yankees extended their division lead to three games and essentially ended the Red Sox’ season by taking three out of four from their rival.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. The Yankees have a three-game lead with 12 games to play. Their magic number to clinch a postseason berth is 3, but the goal is to win the division and avoid the best-of-3, wild-card series, which likely won’t be decided until next week against the Orioles at Yankee Stadium. It may not be decided until after that series when the two teams will each have three games remaining.

The four-game series win over the Red Sox has increased the Yankees’ odds of winning the division to 88.1 percent. (They currently have the highest odds of winning the World Series at 18 percent. It’s been a long time since they were the league leader for that math.)

The four-game series win over the Red Sox also essentially ended the Red Sox’ season, dropping their odds of reaching the playoffs to 2.5 percent. That’s too bad.

2. After eking out a 2-1 win in the series opener thanks to a Juan Soto walk-off single, the Yankees won the second game on an Aaron Judge grand slam. It had been a few weeks of Judge not doing much, but he seems to be back on track. Since September 6, Judge is hitting .303/.452/.546 and has as many walks (9) as strikeouts.

Judge’s entire season will be evaluated and remembered based on what he does in October and not what his home run total finishes at after these 12 remaining games. Judge needs to have a postseason similar to his regular season. He has to have it. Two years ago, he set the single-season home run record in the American League and then went 1-for-16 with a single in the ALCS against the Astros and the Yankees were swept. I expect Juan Soto to be his usual self in October because he was that for the Nationals and Padres in postseasons past. Judge has to join him. The rest of the Yankees offense is too bad, too weak, too untrustworthy to not have both Judge and Soto hitting in the playoffs.

3. Giancarlo Stanton is quietly coming out of his latest funk, as he reached base in half of his plate appearances (12) against the Red Sox. Austin Wells had his first bad series in months (1-for-11 with four strikeouts), which I’m more than OK with. Gleyber Torres hit a couple of Yankee Stadium home runs and is extremely close to getting his OPS (.697) above .700.

Anthony Volpe went 1-for-the Red Sox series and struck out three times in the series finale and left about 92 runners on base. Volpe has looked bad offensively for the entirety of his two-year career and this current slump he’s in is the worst he has looked overall. (I guess it’s not really a “slump” since he’s just always bad?) Volpe hasn’t homered since August 3. He has one double since August 22. He has one walk since August 30. In September, he’s hitting .163/.177/.163. A .177 on-base percentage! A .163 slugging percentage! A .340 OPS! These are horrific numbers. Unplayable numbers. But because he’s the Golden Boy, he will continue to play every day for the rest of the regular season and every game in the postseason. I have come to accept there is no level of offensive production that is bad enough for the Yankees to not play him. Unfortunately, Volpe isn’t the only automatic out in the lineup.

Anthony Rizzo returned on September 1 and is hitting .191/.277/.262 since then. He’s been every bit as bad as he was from Opening Day until he got hut in mid-June. He’s as washed as washed gets, and yet, he will be playing every day through the Yankees’ final game of the season, whenever that may be.

Alex Verdugo had a hit in one of the two games he played in, but of course negated the hit by getting thrown out trying to stretch a single into a double. Jasson Dominguez had a pair of hits in the three games he played in, drew three walks, scored two runs, produced lengthy at-bats and looked comfortable in the box.

4. Here is what Aaron Boone said about Dominguez on September 1:

“When he comes up here, you’re going to want to play him every day.”

Here is how Dominguez’s call-up has gone:

September 9: Played
September 10: Played
September 11: Bench
September 12: Played
September 13: Bench
September 14: Played
September 15: Played

Seven games on the team, five starts. That’s not being an everyday player.

Dominguez has always played every day. He needs to play every day. He’s not an every-other-day player. Look at Wells. When he was getting 50 percent (at best) of the playing time at catcher he wasn’t hitting. When he became the “everyday” catcher (or as everyday as a catcher can be), he took off, becoming the best-hitting catcher in the league, outside of maybe Salvador Perez. The Yankees have taken this foolish approach with every prospect to get called up except for Volpe, who has been given two years of everyday playing time and has done nothing to prove he deserves it. Maybe if Dominguez was born in New York City and grew up in New Jersey a Yankees fan, and if the team had passed over every available star free agent at Dominguez’s position he would be playing every day in actuality and not in just some fictional world Boone speaks of.

5. After winning the first two games of the series, the Yankees led the third game 1-0 in the top of the fourth with one out, no one on base and Rafael Devers coming to the plate against Gerrit Cole. Devers stepped in the box and Cole threw up four fingers on the mound, signaling an intentional walk.

It was a foolish move, a dumb decision and a cowardly choice by Cole. He’s the reigning AL Cy Young winner, a likely future Hall of Famer. He’s not Marcus Stroman. And even if he were, I wouldn’t want Stroman walking Devers in that spot either. Can you imagine Roger Clemens or David Cone or Justin Verlander or any true “ace” putting up four fingers on their own there? Cole and the Yankees got what they deserved for trying to outsmart and outthink the opposition. Devers stole second and Cole mentally was gone, allowing seven runs to score after the walk between the fourth and fifth innings. Unless he pitches lights-out in the playoffs and finally leads this team to a championship in his fifth season, the lasting image of his season will be him holding up those four fingers.

6. While the walk was ill-advised, it was the unfolding of the walk that I have a problem with, as it was yet another communication breakdown on Boone’s watch.

Cole said the decision to walk Devers in the game had been discussed with Boone and Matt Blake.

“I think that I bought into the plan going into it,” Cole said, “but afterward, it was the wrong move.”

“Once we scored the run, my preference would have been, ‘Let’s attack him,'” Boone said. “But obviously, I didn’t communicate that well enough. I think Gerrit was a little indecisive out there and rolled with it.”

Obviously.

“We were in the tunnel before the inning and had discussed that if Duran was retired, were we going to stick to it aggressively and intentionally walk him?” Cole said. “That was the plan.”

“I was not in that conversation,” Wells said. “I didn’t know that was in the plans.”

“During the inning, I looked to the dugout and stuck to the plan,” Cole said. “If i make the pitches after that and I continue to execute at a high level, then the plan works. Evidently, the plan didn’t work.”

Evidently.

The plan was idiotic and none of the Yankees’ versions of what transpired adding up goes to show how disastrous it was.

7. Boone was hired, and likely solely hired, because of his so-called great communication skills. The issue with that is Boone was hired with no coaching or managerial experience at any level anywhere, so there were no recommendations or references for the Yankees to refer to in the interview process. There was no body of work for them to base the idea of Boone being a great communicator off of. The Yankees executives in the room who hired Boone based the theory that he’s a great communicator off of whatever he said to them in the interview room and nothing else. Unfortunately, the body of work Boone has created in now nearly seven seasons as a major league manager suggest otherwise.

Not even a month into the job in his first spring training he tried to bring Dellin Betances into a game even though he hadn’t yet called on Betances to warm up yet. That year in the postseason, with the ALDS tied at 1, his starting pitcher didn’t know what time Game 3 started. He didn’t let JA Happ know about the decision to use Deivi Garcia as a secret opener in the 2020 ALDS. He never told Gary Sanchez he wasn’t going to play every day during his final two seasons with the Yankees. He said he didn’t think Domingo German needed to apologize to the team to begin 2021, but after Zack Britton voiced a different opinion to the media about German, Boone had him apologize. After the Yankees lost Game 3 of the 2022 ALDS following an odd decision to not use Clay Holmes in relief, Boone said Holmes wasn’t available. When Holmes was asked about his availability after the loss, he said he told Boone he was available and “good to go” prior to the game. When the Yankees went down 3-0 in the ALCS, Boone used video from the Yankees’ 2004 ALCS loss to motivate his team. When Rizzo suffered a concussion in May of 2023, he continued to play. When Rizzo told Boone about his symptoms in a series in Baltimore, he then went on to play that entire series and two games after it before being shut down for the season. There have been endless lies about injuries, the extent of injuries and timetables for injuries. There has been disinformation about the intended use and playing time of every prospect other than Volpe. There have been countless exaggerations of performance and production. There has been widespread delusion about washed-up players turning their seasons and careers around only for those players to be designated for assignment, released or placed on the injured list.

8. Over the last two years, rarely does a week go by without a bizarre story emerging from the Yankees clubhouse. Whether it’s injury-related nonsense (like recently saying the results of DJ LeMahieu’s supposed hip MRI were unclear), the crazy timeline of the game from 2023 when German wasn’t able to start then pitched in relief then showed up drunk to the Stadium, saying Dominguez would only be called up if he is to play every day and then calling him up and not playing him every day or the conversations that led to the intentional walk of Devers, there’s always something with the Boone Yankees.

Joe Girardi had his faults and many of them were bullpen related. But there wasn’t this level of internal chaos with any of Girardi’s teams outside of the 2011 situation between he and Jorge Posada during a Red Sox series, and from 2013-2016, Girardi had four poorly constructed rosters that should have created internal chaos and losing records and never did.

9. Boone can’t properly fill out a lineup card. He doesn’t put his players in the best possible position to succeed. He rarely makes a correct in-game decision and infrequently gives his relievers clean innings to work with. He’s never upfront about injuries or the severity of them and is never honest in evaluating his players. Each year, the teams he manage make unacceptable outs on the bases, mental mistakes in the field and go into lengthy and sometimes irreversible slides. The one thing that was supposed to separate him from others was his communication skills, and yet, I was able to write an inordinate amount of words just now of communication breakdowns of his off the top of my head from memory, likely forgetting some egregious ones from the last nearly seven years.. Boone is not a good communicator. He’s a horrible one.

10. Luckily for Boone, and for players like Volpe, Rizzo, Verdugo, Cole, Holmes, Carlos Rodon and others, the postseason is just two weeks away. Then everyone gets a clean slate. The poor production of the last six months is thrown out the window and every wrong can be righted with a championship. But for now, it’s off to the West Coast for one last time in 2024 for six games against the Mariners and A’s.