1. When the Yankees took a 10-1 lead over the Twins in the fourth inning on Tuesday night, I didn’t think I would be doing a Joba Chamberlain 360-fist pump around my living room after the final out of the game. The Yankees nearly blew a nine-run lead over the final five innings against the ninth-best offense in the American League, but managed to hold on for a 10-9 win.
2. The Yankees scored two runs in the first, four in the second, three in the third and one in the fourth. That should have been enough for the bats to go quiet for the rest of the game (which they did), but it wasn’t thanks to the pitching (and managing to some extent).
Cam Schlittler retired the first two batters he faced on two pitches. Then he allowed back-to-back, six-pitch walks and a five-pitch RBI single. He ended up needing 24 pitches to get the final out of the first.
Schlittler rebounded from that first-inning RBI single to retire 10 straight from the last out of the first through the first out of the fifth. Working with a nine-run cushion with one out in the fifth and no one on, the rest of the game seemed like a formality until Schlittler unraveled. After recording that first out in the fifth, the Twins went single, home run, walk, strikeout, walk, wild pitch and walk off him before he was removed for Fernando Cruz. It took five of six batters to reach against the clearly fatigued Schlittler for Boone to decide to make a change. Cruz ended the inning on four pitches.
3. Leading 10-4 going into the bottom of the sixth, Aaron Boone decided not to send Cruz back out for the seventh. Maybe he didn’t want him having an up-and-down. Maybe he wanted to save him in case he was needed on Wednesday. Maybe he thought the game was over with a six-run lead in the sixth. Whatever the reason was, it nearly came back to haunt the Yankees.
With Cruz out of the game, Boone gave the ball to Ryan Yarbrough. He likely wanted Yarbrough to eat the remaining four innings. Yarbrough wasn’t able to eat anything. He got one out while giving up four runs.
4. In came Mark Leiter Jr. and it was Leiter Jr. of all pitchers who restored order to the game for the Yankees by putting up a zero over 1 2/3 innings across the sixth and seventh.
“That’s one of the stories of the game for me, a huge four outs there from Mark to settle things,” Boone said. “Him getting four outs was massive and that allowed Devin and Bednar to take it from there.”
Devin Williams followed Leiter Jr. with a scoreless eighth, and clinging to a one-run lead, David Bednar allowed a one-out, solo home run in the ninth before retiring the next two batters to end a game that should have never been as close as it was.
5. Here are my current Bullpen Trust Rankings:
David Bednar
That’s it. Just Bednar. But if you want the entire bullpen ranked by level of trust, here it is:
David Bednar
Fernando Cruz
Tim Hill
Luke Weaver
Devin Williams
Ryan Yarbrough
Mark Leiter Jr.
Camilo Doval
Even with as many home runs as Cruz has given up of late, he has to be second. Hill never gets to pitch, but with a lefty up to end an inning, I trust him explicitly. If he has to pitch to a righty he plummets on this list. Weaver has been so bad of late outside of Saturday at Fenway Park that I nearly put him below Williams. Doval is the worst reliever on the team and should no longer be on the team.
(I didn’t include Paul Blackburn since he’s clearly only on the roster to get the team through Game 162. Blackburn and I have the same odds of being on the postseason roster.)
7. “A little exhale after that one,” Boone said.
It would have been a disastrous loss for the Yankees with the Red Sox losing to the A’s and an opportunity to create separation in the wild-card standings available. The win combined with a Red Sox loss, Mariners win and Astros win currently has the Yankees playing the Astros in the Bronx for the wild-card series. With the Yordan Alvarez ankle injury, playing the Astros is preferable to the Red Sox because the Astros don’t have Garrett Crochet.
8. “I feel like we have one of the best bullpens in the league,” Leiter Jr. said.
Clearly a graduate of the Aaron Boone School of Media, Leiter Jr. couldn’t be more wrong. The Yankees have the worst bullpen in the majors since the trade deadline with the highest ERA. The only truly trustworthy arm is Bednar.
9. Anthony Volpe returned to the lineup and went 2-for-4, which was enough for Jack Curry to call for him to start again tomorrow on the postgame show. Not you too, Jack! Twins starter Zebby Matthews sucks and doesn’t belong in the majors. Evaluating Volpe on hitting a guy that the entire Yankees lineup beat the crap out of isn’t impressive. Matthews put 13 runners on in three innings.
We have three years of performance to know Volpe shouldn’t be playing over Jose Caballero and if the Yankees are going to make the shortstop decision based on performance against a Triple-A pitcher (which is how we ended up in this situation with Volpe hitting Triple-A pitching in 2023 spring training) then they are even more lost than I originally thought. The starting shortstop shouldn’t be a daily decision. Start Caballero every day and play Volpe once the postseason position is set.
9. The Yankees will see an old AL East familiar face in Taj Bradley on Wednesday. The Yankees got to him for six runs back on April 17 at Yankee Stadium before beating them on May 4. He’s not going to allow the type of hit parade Matthews did, so the Yankees are going to need Luis Gil to have some semblance of control. It’s hard to envision Gil continuing to succeed while walking the park and with Schlittler struggling mightily in two of his last three starts, Gil is likely the Yankees’ Game 3 starter in the postseason. It would be nice if Gil could start to build some trust in throwing strikes.
10. The Twins are bad. Really bad. They have the second-worst record in the AL. Losing a series to them at this point of the season with what’s at stake for home-field advantage in a best-of-3 would be unacceptable.
Last modified: Sep 17, 2025
