1. The Yankees waited 16 months to have Max Fried and Gerrit Cole in the same rotation, and after waiting through Cole’s Tommy John surgery and recovery and Fried’s two-plus-month stay on the injured list with a bone bruise, the two finally appeared in the rotation at the same time. Not only that, they pitched on the same day in their first day in the rotation together in Wednesday’s doubleheader against the Pirates.
“It’s something I’ve been looking forward to for a while now,” Fried said. “And it kind of sucks that I got hurt when I did to delay that. But better late than never.”
2. The doubleheader went as expected: the Yankees got impressive starts from both Cole and Fried, but the offense provided little to nothing as the Yankees split the day with the Pirates. The entire offense in the 6-3 afternoon loss came from one Ben Rice swing in the form of a seventh-inning, game-tying home run. The offense in the second game was a pair of seventh-inning runs in a 2-0 win. The pitching continues to do everything it can to keep the Yankees in reach of the division and afloat overall, as the offense continues to do everything it can to try to sink the season.
3. As I have written many times since Aaron Judge went down at the beginning of June, it doesn’t matter if Judge returns and Giancarlo Stanton returns if Rice is the only other reliable hitter in the lineup. I keep waiting for Cody Bellinger and Jazz Chisholm to find some consistency and do what they are expected to do, and with each passing day another game comes off the schedule. The Yankees have played 102 games and Bellinger had an .853 OPS through the first 60 and has a .636 OPS in the 42 since. Chisholm had a few big home runs over the last two weeks, but when he isn’t hitting an unexpected late-game home run, he turns in empty plate appearance after empty plate appearance, with ill-advised challenges mixed in. I guess the occasional home run from Chisholm is more than what Bellinger is providing power-wise as the $32.5 million-per-season man hasn’t hit a home run since June 17. Aside from those two and Rice, I have no expectations for the rest of the lineup to provide anything, so they are all living up to those expectations.
4. Spencer Jones was used as the 27th man for the doubleheader and was in the lineup batting third in the first game. So Jones wasn’t good enough to be a Yankee before being added as an extra roster player for the doubleheader, but was good enough to bat THIRD In the lineup upon his call-up. Then he was back to the bench for the night game. He went from not being a major leaguer to batting THIRD to not being a major leaguer again in a single day. If you remember Aaron Boone using Mike Ford as a pinch hitter with a game on the line six years ago only to send him down after the game, you know this isn’t the first instance of the Yankees making puzzling in-game decisions with fringe major leaguers during this era.
Jones went 0-for-3 with a walk and a strikeout in the game. He was lifted against a lefty for Amed Rosario, who struck out. Jones has a contact problem, but he’s far from the problem. The Yankees struck out 12 times in the afternoon game and Jones only struck out once. Rice (3), Bellinger (3), Jose Caballero (2), Chisholm (1), Ryan McMahon (1) and Rosario (1) also struck out.
5. Here are the OPS for each player since Judge’s last game on May 31:
Rice: .878
Grisham: .796
Jones: .781
Goldschmidt: .743
Chisholm .739
Schuemann: .719
McMahon: .716
Dominguez: .675
Caballero: .652
Bellinger: .640
Volpe: .613
Sanchez: .558
Escarra: .491
Wells: .427
Cabrera: .000
The MLB average OPS this season is .722. So five Yankees have been above league average since Judge went down, Chisholm just made the cut after his big week and Goldschmidt has six hits since June 26. Again, Judge can’t just come back. He has to come back and be at the top of his powers and others have to step up. Otherwise, the postseason will look like it has every other year during this era.
6. Fortunately, the team we have watched play 102 games and will watch play 112 games won’t be the team the Yankees have following the deadline. At least I hope it’s not. The Yankees need to upgrade catcher and shortstop and the bullpen and figure out third base and get Judge and Stanton back, and then the Yankees can dream about the team doing something it hasn’t done in going on SEVENTEEN YEARS. The rotation with Fried back is too good to allow for an extended losing streak now and too good to prevent the Yankees from reaching the playoffs, but it’s not good enough alone to win in the playoffs. The Yankees have to address those areas of need, otherwise they are looking at another early exit, and at best, if everything breaks right and they get an AL Central-only path, they could reach the World Series only to get trounced there again.
7. Yes, I want Mason Miller to be a Yankee. Not only is he the best reliever in the world, but this is entertainment and there’s nothing more entertaining than a reliever with a 0.86 ERA and 0.51 FIP, who allows 4.5 hits per nine innings with 16.8 strikeouts per nine innings. No, he’s not the biggest need for the team, but he’s awesome and the best at his job in the world, and acquiring players who are the best at what they do is a sound strategy. (Let’s forget about the fact that his right elbow is a ticking time bomb and at any moment he could go down for 16-plus months or for good.)
Yes, I want Ryan Jeffers to be a Yankee. I can’t watch Wells play baseball anymore. I can’t keep hearing about how Wells will break out any day now. Earlier this week, Boone said he likes what he has seen out of Wells the last eight games. That’s nice. It’s eight games. What about the 62 he played before that? Or the 260 from 2023 to 2025 before that? What about his .468 postseason OPS in 78 plate appearances in which he has run a 39 percent strikeout rate? When is enough going to be enough? Wells needs to call a near-no-hitter and throw out every would-be basestealer at this point to negate his offense.
8. Shortstop seems like it’s taking care of itself. Caballero is more occupied with the pitch clock and fucking with pitchers at the eight-second mark than he is actually getting on base and Volpe continues to be one of the all-time busts in franchise history. Caballero hasn’t been the same since he went on the IL briefly in May and Volpe has been the same as he was the last three years. Volpe’s .663 OPS this season is identical to last season and one point above his career OPS (.662) after 2,053 plate appearances. Progress! At this rate, he will have a league-average OPS (.722) in 59 years. The position is taking care of itself because while those two continue to be automatic outs, George Lombard Jr. continues to tear it up at Triple-A.
Lombard Jr. returned from the IL on July 13 and homered in back-to-back games for the FCL Yankees. He then went back to Triple-A where he’s 9-for-20 with three doubles and a home run in four games. This comes after he posted a .921 OPS in the 26 games prior to his injury. Lombard Jr. is 5.1 years younger than the average player in Triple-A.
I have long waited for Lombard Jr. to end the Volpe experiment and we are almost there. We are so close. So close. I’m talking any day now we could see Lombard Jr. with the Yankees. After sitting through more than 2,000 plate appearances of Volpe’s, the end is near.
9. This postseason lineup is a real possibility:
Ben Rice, 1B
Aaron Judge, RF
Cody Bellinger, LF
Giancarlo Stanton, DH
Trent Grisham, CF
Ryan Jeffers, C
Jazz Chisholm, 2B
George Lombard Jr., SS
Ryan McMahon, 3B
We know Grisham can’t hit elite pitching. Last year he hit 34 home runs and not a single one came against a pitcher that started a postseason game. Then he hit .138/.219/.207 in the postseason. This year, he does have solo home runs off Yoshinobu Yamamoto (shocking) and Sonny Gray (not so shocking), but his other nine home runs are against pitchers who are either no longer in the league or on teams that won’t be playing in October. Get him out of the leadoff spot once everyone is healthy. I’m willing to compromise by giving Boone his mandatory lefty-righty alternation throughout the lineup.
That gives the Yankees the five-man postseason bench of Wells (I guess), Caballero, Rosario, Schuemann and Goldschmidt.
A rotation of Cam Schlittler, Fried, Cole and Carlos Rodon. (Yes, that’s the order they should appear, but would never because of veteran status, reputation and relationships.)
A bullpen of Miller, David Bednar, Brent Headrick, Fernando Cruz, Tim Hill, Paul Blackburn, Yovanny Cruz and Will Warren. (It’s likely Warren gets moved at the deadline, especially for the Yankees to acquire Miller or Jeffers. The Yankees won’t give him a playoff spot, so it makes him expendable. But I’m including him here for now. I’m also including Cruz, even though the Yankees clearly don’t like or value him. Either way, those two spots on the playoff roster can be interchanged.)
That’s a lineup, bench, rotation and bullpen that can win it all. Sure, Boone and the Dodgers would still be in that roster’s way of winning it all, but it’s a roster that can win it all. Today’s roster can’t win it all. Today’s roster may not even win the division or hold off the Red Sox from closing the gap in the wild-card race. Luckily, today’s roster won’t be (it can’t be) the one the Yankees have at 6 p.m. on August 3.
10. The 10-game road trip that begins on Friday and starts a 13-game-in-13-days run for the Yankees represents the most important stretch of games to date, because every game now represents the most important game of the season to date. That’s what happens when you dick around for most of June and July, aren’t able to overcome a struggling Rays team and let the Red Sox shave off 11 of the 15 games you led them by in a month. The Yankees will play three games against the Phillies and then spend an entire week in Chicago with four against the White Sox and three against the Cubs. While that’s going on, the Rays will play the Guardians, Rangers and White Sox, and the Red Sox will play the Blue Jays, Athletics and Dodgers. When the 10-game road trip ends, the trade deadline will take place before the Yankees’ next game.
Last modified: Jul 24, 2026
