1. Friday’s 5-2 Yankees win was a stereotypical Yankees win: Cam Schlittler started and the back-to-back-to-back trio of Ben Rice, Aaron Judge and Cody Bellinger showed up. When those two things happen, the Yankees win.
Schlittler earned his sixth win of the season with 6 1/3 innings of one-run ball. The one run came on a Juan Soto solo home run on an 0-2 pitch because sometimes generational talents do things no one else is capable of. (It was just the second home run Schlittler has allowed this season.) And Rice, Judge and Bellinger went 5-for-14 with a double and a home run. They finally received some support from Jazz Chisholm, who had his best game of the season, going 3-for-4 with a two-run double and a walk while wearing Giancarlo Stanton’s pants.
2. Rice, Judge, Bellinger and Chisholm hit in the 2-3-4-5 spots in the order on Friday and combined to go 8-for-18 with all of the Yankees’ three extra-base hits and four of their five RBIs. The rest of the lineup went 2-for-18 with three walks and eight strikeouts. The “2” in the 2-for-18 both came from Spencer Jones, who had his first-ever multi-hit game, drove in a run and happened to break Clay Holmes’ leg with a line drive up the middle.
3. Trent Grisham was a total zero in the leadoff spot on Friday with his latest 0-for-5. Again, here is what I wrote about Grisham recently:
Grisham always seems to do just enough to reset his place atop the order. After a bad week, he’ll hit a ball out or pick up a pair of doubles to maintain his place in the lineup and then suck for the next week and then do something positive, over and over.
And here is what I wrote about Grisham after his three-run home run in Baltimore:
After going 1-for-11 with two walks and four strikeouts in the first four games of the road trip, Grisham hit the three-run home run on Tuesday to reset his performance. That was likely his production for the next week. We’ll continue to see Grisham every day from now through the last game of this series and the Citi Field portion of the Subway Series and the four-game Blue Jays series, but we likely won’t see him add positive production again until Memorial Day weekend.
As expected, Grisham is 1-for-11 with five strikeouts since that three-run home run.
4. Anthony Volpe had the second three-walk game of his career on Friday and then a two-walk game on Saturday. Don’t think this is Volpe having good plate appearances or battling up there to earn walks. He did nothing to earn them other than stand there. What do I mean by that?
Volpe’s first walk was a four-pitch walk in which no pitches were close to the zone.
Volpe’s second walk was a five-pitch walk. The only pitch close to the zone was a 3-0 fastball he rightfully took, and even that pitch barely grazed the outside corner.
Volpe’s third walk was a seven-pitch walk in which he fouled off a pitch when the count was 2-2.
Volpe’s fourth walk was a four-pitch walk in which no pitches were close to the zone.
Volpe’s fifth walk was a five-pitch walk in which he never swung the bat.
Volpe swung once in the 25 pitches that produced five walks because every pitch was non-competitive. He didn’t have to battle or grind 0-2 counts into walks. He didn’t have to fight off pitches. Mets pitching made it so he didn’t have to think about swinging.
5. Why does this matter? Because what I wrote a few days ago:
The Yankees desperately want Volpe at shortstop over Caballero and this dumb, freak injury opened the door for them to get what they want without Volpe having to prove it in Triple-A. Any production, any at all will have Caballero on the bench when his injured-list stint is over.
The Yankees love to tell their fans what they have watched isn’t reality even when it is. They will twist and spin any tiny positive about Volpe into reasons why he is breaking out or turning a corner. Five walks that you or I could have also picked up by just standing in the box without a bat on Friday and Saturday should not be used to support Volpe. And yet I’m worried the Yankees will use them to do just that. Volpe remains hitless this season and also left the bases loaded on Saturday with the go-ahead run on base.
6. Volpe wasn’t the only one to leave the bases loaded on Saturday. Amed Rosario and Grisham left them loaded before him. There is no swing-and-miss team among actual contenders like the Yankees, especially in situational-hitting spots. John Smoltz mentioned during the broadcast how it’s unlikely the Yankees will ever win a championship with the amount of swing-and-miss in their lineup. Thanks, John. Yankees fans have only known this for a decade. The Yankees have already struck out 25 times in the series. Forty-six percent of the Yankees’ outs in this series have come via strikeout.
7. The Yankees needed Rosario or Grisham or Volpe to come through with the bases loaded on Saturday because Carlos Rodon was awful for the second straight start. (Reminder, Rodon makes more than $800,000 per start.) So far this season he has produced this line: 8 IP, 5 H, 6 R, 5 ER, 8 BB, 10 K. Welcome back, Carlos! Happy you’re here for this season … and next season … and the season after that.
There should be one more earned run on Rodon’s ledger, but baseball has idiotic scoring rules. Rodon threw a wild pitch with the bases loaded that led to a run on Saturday and he threw away the wild pitch to lead to a second run on the disastrous play. Because the second run came on an error it didn’t count against his line even though it was his error. It was one of the least athletic plays in baseball history as his “throw” home looked like Happy Gilmore’s caddy throwing a rock into the water.
8. Oswald Peraza torched the Yankees when the Angels were in the Bronx a month ago. Ezequiel Duran, who was traded for Joey Gallo, did the same last week. Jake Bauers’ home run off Brent Headrick ignited the Brewers’ comeback last weekend and Gary Sanchez was in the middle of the Brewers’ rallies and throwing out would-be basestealers as the Yankees were swept. Soto is 3-for-5 with a home run and three walks this weekend. The only two home runs Schlittler has allowed this season have been to former Yankees Carlos Narvaez and Soto. Luke Weaver was allowed to leave in free agency because he couldn’t get anyone out at the end of last year and Devin Williams was allowed to leave because he couldn’t get anyone out for nearly all of last year. Those two combined to pitch three scoreless innings against the Yankees on Saturday with Weaver getting out a bases-loaded, no-out jam. The Law of Ex-Yankees performing well against the Yankees never fails.
9. Austin Wells is the luckiest player on the Yankees. Grisham, Chisholm and McMahon being automatic outs this season and the undeserved return of Volpe has kept Wells’ miserable season as a secondary ire of Yankees’ fans. That seems to be changing. Memorial Day is a week away and Wells has one double and five RBIs on the season. Poor roster construction and a lack of options in the minors have protected Wells for this long, but that protection is wearing thin.
10. The Mets have a distinct pitching advantage in the rubber game on Sunday. Freddy Peralta is really good and Elmer Rodriguez’s minor-league command seems to have been greatly exaggerated. The Rangers pummeled Rodriguez in both of his major-league starts over the last two weeks and with the way the Yankees have been hitting on this 2-6 road trip, if Rodriguez has the kind of first inning on Sunday he had last week, the Yankees could be looking at dropping the Citi Field portion of the Subway Series, an unthinkable feat given how bad the Mets have been and are.
Sunday’s game is enormous. It’s not just another game. It’s the difference between going 3-6 or 2-7 on the road trip. It’s the difference between winning the series against the mess that is the Mets or losing a series to the mess that is the Mets. And most importantly, it’s the difference between possibly losing more ground in the AL East or not.
Last modified: May 17, 2026
