1. It looked like the Yankees’ two-city, six-game road trip would end the same way their other two multi-series road trips had ended this season: with a letdown. After starting their Pittsburgh-Detroit trip in early April 2-1 , it ended 3-3. After starting their Tampa Bay-Cleveland trip in mid-April 3-1, it ended 4-3. After starting their Sacramento-Seattle trip this week 3-1, it was on the verge of ending 3-3.
The Yankees hit Luis Castillo as hard as they ever have (nine balls hit over 100 mph against Castillo) and had nothing to show for it through the first five innings. Trent Grisham hit a ball over the wall to lead off the game that Julio Rodriguez pulled back in to prevent a home run and Aaron Judge singled and Cody Bellinger doubled in the first, and the Yankees still didn’t score a run. In the third, the Yankees had two on with one out and couldn’t score, in the fourth they left a runner on and did so again in the fifth.
The Yankees trailed 2-0 with two outs and no one on in the sixth. Castillo was an out away from throwing six scoreless and turning it over to the strong Mariners bullpen before a two-out rally happened.
Anthony Volpe worked a six-pitch at-bat that ended with a double. With Castillo sitting at 91 pitches, Jasson Dominguez jumped on a first-pitch slider from Castillo and ripped it down the right-field line for an RBI double.
2. Now trailing by one run with three innings of outs to play with, Aaron Boone inexplicably went to Tyler Matzek for the bottom of the sixth to face the middle of the Mariners’ lineup as Boone tried his very best to make sure the Yankees would have a somber cross-country flight home. Matzek entered the game having allowed 14 baserunners in 5 2/3 innings this season, so why wouldn’t Boone go to him in a one-run game with a scheduled day off on Thursday?
Unsurprisingly, Matzek created a mess. He allowed a leadoff single to Cal Raleigh after Boone purposely put Matzek in to turn around Raleigh and have him hit from the right side. He got Randy Arozarena to fly out, but let Raleigh steal second and then walked pinch-hitter Dylan Moore. Matzek was able to strike out Leody Tavares (who was let go by the Rangers earlier this season and has a .554 OPS), and thankfully, Boone removed him from the game for Ian Hamilton.
3. Dan Wilson removed Castillo for the seventh at 93 pitches and went to his trusted lefty Gabe Speier, who had no problem shutting down the Yankees the night before. Boone went to his bench and used Paul Goldschmidt to pinch hit for J.C. Escarra and Goldschmidt blasted Speier’s first pitch into the left-field seats to tie the game at 2.
“It shows you the type of player he is and the knowledge he has,” Judge said of Goldschmidt. “His preparation to where he was ready to go from the very first pitch, and he put a great swing on it.”
After getting the last out of the seventh, Hamilton threw a perfect eighth, and just like Goldschmidt leading off the seventh with a home run, Judge did the same in the eighth to give the Yankees a 3-2 lead.
Fernando Cruz pitched around a couple of baserunners in the eighth and Luke Weaver struck out the side on 15 pitches in the ninth, and the Yankees were able to board their flight home in celebratory fashion.
4. Will Warren put together back-to-back good starts for the first time in his career. After going 7 1/3 innings last Friday against the A’s, he held the Mariners to two runs over five innings with a career-high nine strikeouts. He has brought his ERA down to a respectable 4.61 given where he was earlier this year. I still don’t trust him. I still need more than one of nine starts going more than five innings. But there is intrigue with him after this trip, and there is at least promise that maybe he can figure it out the way Clarke Schmidt kind of/sort of has.
5. DJ LeMahieu reached base with a walk and also hit a line-drive single up the middle in the game. As I wrote after the second game of the series, LeMahieu just needs to be average at the plate. That’s all anyone is asking: Be average.
6. Anthony Volpe has quietly been hitting well of late. For as critical I am of the Yankees’ Golden Boy, I will be fair when he’s going well. He hit .304/.448/.522 on the road trip, hit his first road home run of the season to prove he can hit the ball out away from the short porch at Yankee Stadium and his OPS for the season is back up to .770. He has a .900 OPS over the last three weeks and 17 games. Am I ready to believe he is the player the Yankees promised? No. He’s done this before. He has fooled us all into believing he has figured it out several times in his first two-plus seasons in the league. I’m going to need a much longer period of success than three weeks before I buy into Volpe again, but for the moment, my belief is trending in the right direction.
7. Cody Bellinger is riding a 10-game hit streak. Before the streak he had a .614 OPS. Now it’s all the way up to. 688. Wow! A .688 OPS for a $25 million player! What an accomplishment. I’m sure the trio of Bellinger, Grisham and Dominguez will all sit a game this weekend. That seems to be the way things are going. It’s going to take one of them turning into Aaron Hicks or Josh Donaldson to get something close to an everyday expected lineup, and even then, as you remember with Hicks and Donaldson, that still may not be enough. Even if Bellinger is the worst of the three (which he has been by a large margin), his defense, reputation and owed money will always keep him at the top of the pecking order.
8. The Yankees have already told us they don’t give a shit that Dominguez is destroying right-handed pitching with a .305/.383/.512 slash line against them and an .895 OPS since they continue to sit him against them. (For comparison, Bellinger has a .639 OPS against righties.) Grisham seems to need to homer twice a series to stay in the lineup, and Bellinger seems to be able to do whatever he wants to stay in the lineup. Throw in the extra-base hit machine in Ben Rice, who can’t get into the lineup daily and the Yankees have a problem in that they have too many hitters for not enough lineup spots. The problem derives from the fact that their best hitters don’t play positions of need. The Yankees need a second baseman and third baseman, and unfortunately, none of Dominguez, Grisham, Bellinger and Rice play those positions, so LeMahieu and Oswald Peraza/Jorbit Vivas get to play every day.
9. This is the best possible Yankees lineup against a right-handed starter at the moment:
1. Trent Grisham, CF
2. Aaron Judge, RF
3. Ben Rice, DH
4. Paul Goldschmidt, 1B
5. Jasson Dominguez, LF
6. Anthony Volpe, SS
7. Austin Wells, C
8. DJ LeMahieu, 2B
9. Oswald Peraza, 3B
10. The Yankees will see two right-handed starters this weekend against the Mets. Friday’s game is going to have a postseason feel to it in the first game of the 2025 Subway Series and the first game back in the Bronx for Juan Soto. I love the Subway Series, always have, even after all of these years. I don’t think the games have lost their luster, and this year’s (especially this weekend) will show that.
Carlos Rodon, Clarke Schmidt and Max Fried are lined up to go this weekend, so it’s the best possible three the Yankees could use going in the series. A night game on Friday, followed by a day game on Saturday and then another night game on Sunday leading into a day off on Monday. It’s going to be a loud weekend at the Stadium.
Last modified: May 16, 2025
