1. Ever since Aaron Judge played his last game of the season to date on May 31, this season has been weird. Because when Judge went down, Giancarlo Stanton had already been down for more than a month, Max Fried had been on the injured list for two weeks and Gerrit Cole had yet to come back from Tommy John surgery. Yankees fans knew the Yankees without those four weren’t the real Yankees and couldn’t be properly evaluated until they were all active at the same time (if they would ever all be active at the same time), but there was a season to be played whether or not Max Schuemann was leading off.
2. Judge has remained out and so has Stanton, but Cole returned and so did Fried, only for Carlos Rodon to get hurt along with Cody Bellinger. Each positive Yankees injury update has been met with a negative announcement about a different Yankee. Judge playing catch and running in Toronto on Sunday provided Yankees fans with the realization he would return within the next month, but on Monday — on a day off nonetheless — the Yankees announced Fried was going back on the IL with the same injury he landed on the IL with in May: a bone bruise.
The Fried news means the best rotation in baseball won’t exist for the rest of the season. Fried started on May 13 and then was out until July 22 with his last bone bruise. If a similar timeline follows this IL stint, his season is over. So instead of a 1-2-3 of Cam Schlittler, Fried and Cole in some order in October, it will now be Schlittler, Cole and either Ryan Weathers or Carlos Rodon in some order. For an offense that is putrid, losing Fried is a season-changing injury because of its postseason implications.
2. No, the offense won’t remain this putrid if and when Judge returns from his rib injury and Bellinger returns from his hamstring injury and Stanton returns from his traumatic brain injury calf injury, but even if all three return, six other bats from the weakest lineup in baseball will still be present. Yankees fans waiting for the offense to get reinforcements from those three are also banking on all three coming back and producing at a high level. Last October, all three were healthy, and only Judge produced and the Yankees’ postseason ended in the division series.
There’s nothing Yankees fans can do other than to wait for the closest thing to the Yankees’ expected roster to be available. But while we wait for whatever that roster looks like to be available, the Yankees are trying to overcome a six-game division deficit with 38 to play, while also trying to hold off a Red Sox team that is just three games back in the loss column. This past weekend in Toronto, the Yankees did a poor job of trying to catch the Rays and hold off the Red Sox as they scored four non-extra-inning runs in three games and lost two of three.
3. The play that ruined Friday’s game was so spectacularly bad, and yet, it’s likely not even the Top 10 sloppiest defensive sequences in the Aaron Boone era. Ryan McMahon’s inability to throw the ball form third to first in the air on what should have been an inning-ending double play led to Luis Garcia trying to pick a short hop (which he was unable to do) and losing his glove in the process. Seeing a runner head for third after the dropped pick, Garcia picked up the ball and launched it toward third wildly with no one covering the base. George Lombard Jr. tried to get over to third to get his glove on the ball, and in the process, collided with Vladimir Guerrero Jr. The ball went down the left-field line, and Guerrero Jr. ran home to score the Blue Jays’ second run on the play. Instead of an inning-ending double play to preserve a 1-0 lead, the Blue Jays scored twice and went on to win. Garcia’s ill-advised throw nearly ended Lombard Jr.’s career and did send Guerrero Jr. to the seven-day IL for a concussion.
4. On Saturday, the Yankees scored one run again and lost, wasting yet another strong start from Cam Schlittler. These are games the Yankees have lost since the All-Star break:
6 IP, 2 ER
7 IP, 3 ER
6.1 IP, 1 ER
7 IP, 0 ER
5.1 IP, 1 ER
7 IP, 1 ER
5 IP, 1 ER
6 IP, 1 ER
5.1 IP, 1 ER
Inexplicable. If the Yankees had won four of those nine, they would be two games out in the division. If they had won six of the nine, they would be tied for the division.
5. The Yankees entered Sunday’s series finale having gone 44-44 since May 4. So if you think Judge and Bellinger are going to save the offense, just remember that Judge played all of May and Bellinger played all of May, June and most of July and the Yankees were still a .500 team during that time.
The Yankees couldn’t score again on Sunday, putting up just two runs in nine innings. And because of their lack of offense, the Blue Jays were able to tie the game in the ninth following an error, walk, wild pitch and sacrifice fly. The Yankees were about to achieve a new worst loss of the season before Ben Rice hit a two-run home run in the 10th to make up for committing the leadoff error in the ninth. The Yankees miraculously held on for a 4-3 win.
6. It’s possible Brian Cashman has found his white whale in Ryan Weathers. After nearly three decades unsuccessfully trading for young, controllable starting pitchers (Jeff Weaver, Javier Vazquez, Michael Pineda, Nathan Eovaldi, Sonny Gray, Jameson Taillon, etc.), Weathers may have ended Cashman’s search. Weathers has a 0.85 ERA over his last five starts, a 1.94 ERA over his last seven starts and a 2.56 ERA over his last 11 starts. After allowing 16 home runs in his first 14 starts this season, he has allowed just two over his last 10, following an adjustment in his pitch usage. With Fried out, Weathers gets my vote for a postseason start (if the Yankees’ postseason lasts more than two games). I find it hard to believe anyone would feel better with Rodon on the mound than Weathers, but there are still Boone supporters and Volpe fans out there, so there are likely Rodon backers as well.
7. Boone finally decided to shake up the lineup on Sunday after weeks of having Trent Grisham lead off proved ineffective. (The Yankees last scored a first-inning run on July 29.) Boone sat Jazz Chisholm and his .471 OPS since July 22 and played Jose Caballero. Boone made it clear Chisholm would return to second base on Tuesday no matter how well Caballero played. Caballero went 1-for-2 with a run, an RBI, a walk and a stolen base in just his third start since August 3. Caballero has a 1.033 OPS and more extra-base hits, RBIs, steals and walks than Chisholm since July 28. Without Caballero in the lineup on Sunday, the Yankees would have gotten swept by the Blue Jays.
8. While Chisholm has been so bad he got benched, Heliot Ramos has been so bad that Boone decided to bat him third on Sunday. Ramos went 1-for-4, picking up his first hit since August 7. He’s 3-for-36 as a Yankee. I always thought Austin Kearns in 2020 would go down as the worst trade deadline acquisition, but then Joey Gallo came along in 2011 and then Ramos. Ramos has made the deadline trade for Gallo look like the deadline trade for David Justice.
9. The Blue Jays aren’t any good. They’re four games under .500 and had to rip off a 13-7 run in recent weeks just to get to that poor record. They sold at the deadline and in a normal season would be buried in the standings. But because this isn’t a normal season and because the Yankees failed to end their season this past weekend, the Blue Jays are very much alive and a half-game back for the final playoff spot. It’s a disgrace that a team with an under-.500 record may get into the postseason this year, and right now that team is the three-games-under-.500 Orioles, who the Yankees will play for the next three days.
The Orioles have allowed the most runs in the AL East and the fifth most in the AL. Their pitching staff blew leads of 3-1 and 6-4 on Monday against the Rays. If there was ever a team for the Yankees’ offense to come to life against, the Orioles would be it. The problem is the Yankees were stifled by a crappy version of Shane Bieber on Friday and seven different Blue Jays on Saturday. They have spent more than two months making fringe major leaguers look like Cy Young candidates. I don’t know that there is any pitcher in the league who wouldn’t feel good getting the ball against these Yankees at the moment.
10. Shane Baz gets it on Tuesday in the series opener. Baz is as average as it gets as a major-league starter. He’s also the exact pitcher who will hold the Yankees scoreless for six innings because many like him have done just that this summer.
Rodon will make his first start since June 28 in what was supposed to be him replacing Will Warren in the rotation, but because Fried is now down again, Warren will continue to throw less than five innings and allow five earned runs every fifth day indefinitely. The only way for the Yankees to leave Baltimore with a series win is to score runs. And while “runs” technically means two or more, it’s going to need to be more like four or more for them to have a chance this week.
Last modified: Aug 18, 2026
