1. The Yankees’ odds of winning seemed bleak early on Tuesday as Carlos Rodon allowed a leadoff single to open the game and was at 30 pitches with the bases loaded and no outs in the first inning. Rodon’s Yankees career has been three seasons of letting the team and its fans down, but this time he settled in, allowed one run in the inning and didn’t allow another hit for the rest of his night. The Yankees as a whole didn’t allow a hit for the rest of the night. The Twins went 1-for-28 with two walks and eight strikeouts against Rodon, Tim Hill and Yerry De los Santos.
“We were set up for disaster there, but we got through it,” Rodon said. After the first inning, I attacked the strike zone and made them put the ball in play, and the defense played great.”
2. The Yankees scored nine runs in the game and it could have been a lot more. They racked up 11 hits (five for extra bases) and 11 walks. There was traffic on the bases all game as the Twins failed to have a single 1-2-3 inning. The 9-1 win gave the Yankees back-to-back wins for the first time in two weeks and just the second time in a month.
3. Giancarlo Stanton hit his 12th home run of the season (in only 157 plate appearances) and had his first four-hit game in two years. Stanton is now up to .300/.376/.586 on the season and has been the Yankees’ best hitter since he returned from the injured list. The games he lost sitting on the bench over the last couple of weeks that the Yankees lost because he was on the bench look even worse now than it did at the time.
“It’s refreshing after missing so much time, because I contribute zero when I miss time,” Stanton said. “Anything I can do when I’m back is always nice.”
4. Anthony Volpe hit a three-run home run after what looked like a little help from Jazz Chisholm on second base relaying him the pitches. As long as Chisholm is on second base waving his arms for Volpe to see, Volpe is a great hitter. To his credit, Volpe has been a much better all-around player in recent weeks, especially defensively. I still don’t trust him at the plate and will never trust him in the field, but he’s fine since the boos starting raining down in him at home last month.
5. Aaron Judged homered in the first to tie the game. It was Judge’s first home run since July 23. Yes, he missed a chunk of time on the IL during the last three weeks, but he had gone seven games without a home run, which is an eternity for Judge.
6. Wins by four or more runs are always welcome, like the Yankees provided the last two days. Blowout wins like Tuesday’s are the best. It’s no coincidence the Yankees’ starter pitched into the seventh inning and the offense scored six-plus runs in both games in the series and the Yankees won both. Aaron Boone looks like a genius when he doesn’t have to think. Pitch well, hit well and play clean baseball and Boone doesn’t get to be a part of the equation. It’s the best kind of baseball there is.
7. “Our mission is still the same thing: Go back to the World Series and win it,” Judge said. “We made it a little tough for ourselves the past couple of weeks, falling out of first place, but we have a lot of ballgames left to go do our thing.”
First, let’s settle down with any World Series talk. Right now the Yankees are tied with the Guardians in the loss column and the Guardians have two games in hand. If the Guardians and Yankees finish with the same record for the third wild-card spot, the Guardians will get in based on their record against their own division. Second, you didn’t make it “a little tough” you made it a lot of tough. You went from an eight-game division lead over the Blue Jays to pissing it away entirely in two months. And it hasn’t been a few weeks, it’s been more than two months of bad baseball and you haven’t been in first place since July 3. Third, there aren’t “a lot of ballgames left” as there are now 42 games left.
Unfortunately, the Mariners, Blue Jays, Guardians and Red Sox all won, so the Yankees’ blowout win didn’t change the standings. (The Rangers did lose to fall 4 1/2 games behind the Yankees, so for now they aren’t worth worrying about.)
8. It was another start at catcher for Ben Rice on Tuesday. The Yankees traded away every catching prospect they had because they believed Austin Wells would be their starter for the next decade and that J.C. Escarra would be a worthy backup. Now Wells is benched since he can’t hit sliders or sweepers and Escarra was sent down at the trade deadline and only recently recalled because of the injury to Amed Rosario. The Yankees’ payroll distribution and roster construction are deplorable and their decisions at catcher are a big reason why.
9. I can’t believe I forgot to write about Brooks Kriske in Tuesday’s thoughts after he pitched against the Yankees on Monday. Kriske threw 11 1/3 innings across 12 games for the Yankees in 2020 and 2021 and is best known for his wild pitch meltdown at Fenway Park to lose an extra-inning game in 2021. But my favorite thing about Kriske is just looking at his pitching line as a Yankee: 11.1 IP, 15 H 20 R, 19 ER, 6 HR, 13 BB, 15 K, 1 HBP, 7 WP, 15.09 ERA, 2.471 WHIP. What a masterpiece. That’s 29 baserunners in 11 1/3 innings! That’s an average 11.9 hits, 4.8 home runs and 10.3 walks per nine innings. It has to be the single-worst pitching line in Yankees history for someone who was allowed to pitch in 12 games. And to think the Yankees chose to protect Kriske and Nick Nelson instead of Garrett Whitlock. Now you know how it’s possible the same front office chose Wells and Escarra over Carlos Narvaez and Agustin Ramirez, only to have someone (Rice) they said wasn’t good enough to be a catcher in the majors become their starting catcher.
10. The Yankees will go for the sweep on Wednesday night, and in order to pull it off, they will need to beat the Twins’ best starter in Joe Ryan. The active Yankees have only faced him a couple of times in their careers and their numbers against him are weak. Cam Schlittler will need to match Ryan for as long as he can because after scoring 15 runs over the last two nights, Wednesday has a Yankees offensive no-show written all over it. Yes, it’s hard to sweep any team, even the Twins, but the Yankees need to find a way to. That’s what happens when you spend two-and-a-half months losing more often than not.
Last modified: Aug 13, 2025
