1. The Yankees’ first stop on their two-city, six-game West Coast road trip had everything the 2025 Yankees seem to offer: the best hitter in baseball continuing to be that, a poor showing against a left-handed starter, a career game for the top prospect, a late-inning meltdown from the bullpen, questionable in-game decison-making from the manager and a few explosive innings from the offense.
2. It had been more than two weeks since Will Warren had given the Yankees a serviceable start after being unable to get through four innings against the Orioles and taking a loss in 4 2/3 innings against the Rays his last two times out. On Friday, Warren turned in the best performance of his career: 7.1 IP, 4 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 1 BB, 7 K.
For much of the game, Warren needed to be as good as he was. The Yankees only had a 2-0 lead entering the fifth, before tacking on one run in each of the fifth, sixth and seventh and then blowing the game open with a five-run eighth. Warren entered Friday having been unable to record an out in the sixth inning this season and was still on the mound in Sacramento in the eighth.
3. The Yankees got to Osvaldo Bido (5.1 IP, 8 H, 4 R, 3 ER, 2 BB, 6 K, 2 HR) and then pounded Hogan Harris and Elvis Alvarado. Aaron Judge, J.C. Escarra, Jorbit Vivas, Ben Rice and Oswaldo Cabrera hit doubles, Paul Goldschmidt had a solo home run and Jasson Dominguez became the youngest Yankee ever to hit three home runs in a game.
“Tonight was special,” Dominguez said. “A very special night that I will remember.”
Dominguez homered from both sides of the plate on three different pitch types. His third home run was his first career grand slam.
“He just needs to play,” Aaron Boone said. “It’s just the experience with him. He’s so talented.”
I feel like Boone is just fucking with everyone at this point. Who is the one who decides when Dominguez plays? BOONE! Boone played Dominguez in all three games in the series and he went 5-for-12 with six runs, three home runs, seven RBIs, two walks and two strikeouts. It was the first time Dominguez appeared in every game of a series since the Guardians series nearly three weeks ago.
Dominguez should be in the lineup every game, but leave it to the Yankees to toy with their top prospect who is hitting .324/.407/.541 against right-handing pitching and just hit his first career home run against a lefty. Overall, Dominguez has a .343 on-base percentage and is hitting 24 percent better than league average. And yet, he doesn’t play every day. You can guarantee he will sit at least one game in Seattle. Can you imagine how the Yankees would have acted if Anthony Volpe had this type of production in his rookie season? Or any season? Volpe gets to play every day and has since the moment he was called up. If he had these kind of numbers two years ago in his rookie year there would already be a plaque for him in Monument Park. But not for Dominguez.
Not for Dominguez because the Yankees traded for Cody Bellinger, and reputation combined with owed money will always trump actual performance, talent and development. Bellinger is hitting .221/.293/.382 on the year and is nine percent worse than league average. If you gave Bellinger’s salary to Dominguez and Dominguez’s salary to Bellinger, Dominguez would be batting third as Judge’s protection every game and Bellinger may not even be on the team. Because if Dominguez were hitting nine percent worse than league average, he would be back in Scranton. Instead, even with his numbers, he has to settle for batting seventh or eighth in 28 of his 34 games.
4. The Yankees nearly came back from a four-run deficit on Saturday to win, but instead, they just added to their league-leading total of blowing games they lead in after the seventh inning. Ex-Yankee JP Sears (traded for Frankie Montas in a memorable Brian Cashman deal) stifled the Yankees for five innings (5 IP, 4 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 1 BB, 4 K, 1 HR), allowing only one run on a Judge solo home run. Add Sears to the list of left-handed starters that have shut down the Yankees.
5. Trailing 4-0 after three because of a couple of home runs and a crooked-number inning against Carlos Rodon, Judge homered in the fourth. The Yankees exploded for a five-run inning for the second straight day in the sixth to take a 6-4 lead. Judge solo homered for the second time in as many at-bats, Bellinger walked, Volpe doubled, Austin Wells hit a sacrifice fly, Dominguez walked, Oswaldo Cabrera hit a sacrifice fly and Oswald Peraza hit a two-run home run. All of that happened against the same reliever. Mark Kotsay removed Sears after five innings and only 82 pitches for fear of Judge facing him again and the rest of the lineup seeing him for a third time. He brought in Justin Sterner and let him throw 28 pitches and allow five runs.
For a moment I felt thankful for Boone as Yankees manager. Even Boone wouldn’t allow something so egregious to happen. Then the very next inning Boone reminded me why I feel the way I do about him.
6. Ahead 6-4 with the top of the A’s lineup due up to begin the seventh inning, the spot screamed for Luke Weaver. But as I wrote in these Thoughts when Weaver was moved into the closer role, Weaver being the closer is detrimental to the Yankees because he will be assigned to the ninth inning (and maybe an out or two in the eighth every once in a while) no matter who is due up. Boone went to Fernando Cruz because Boone manages his bullpen to set innings. His plan was for Cruz to pitch the seventh, Devin Williams to pitch the eighth and Weaver the ninth. Boone has a plan and once the plan is deployed, there’s no stopping it. No matter what takes place on the field, he will see the plan out. Because in his mind, the plan will work flawlessly. Cruz will pitch a 1-2-3 seventh, Williams will do the same in the eighth and Weaver the same in the ninth.
Cruz allowed a one-out single followed by a double. The slugging Shea Langeliers came to the plate and Cruz threw a splitter that didn’t split and ended up being a middle-middle 81 mph fastball and Langeliers hit it 418 feet to regain the lead for the A’s.
7. There are likely some (idiotic) fans who will side with Boone and ask, “Well, if Weaver gets through the seventh, who pitches the eighth or ninth?” Cruz and Williams, obviously. If Weaver had pitched a scoreless seventh, the Yankees have a two-run lead with six outs to go. It changes how the eighth is managed by Kotsay. He may use someone other than Tyler Ferguson for the eighth and he’s certainly not going to Mason Miller for five outs when trailing. (He’s not going to Miller at all when trailing.) But because Cruz gave up the lead, Kotsay went to his elite relievers to close the door and they did.
The Yankees trailed by one still in the eighth and Boone used Ian Hamilton to try to keep it there. Hamilton got two outs but had the bases loaded against him, so Boone went to Tyler Matzek to try to get Tyler Soderstrom out to end the threat. Matzek gave up a first-pitch, two-run single and followed that up by allowing a two-run double to give the A’s an 11-6 lead. Sure enough, in the ninth, Trent Grisham led off the inning with a triple against Miller and Judge drove him in. If only, the Yankees had gotten out of the eighth still trailing by a run.
It’s time for Matzek to go. He was great for the Braves from 2020-2022, missed all over of 2023 and was bad in 11 appearances when he returned last year. As a Yankee, he’s allowed 14 baserunners in 5 2/3 innings despite four of his six appearances coming in games decided by eight runs or more. That’s really the only time he can be trusted: in a game of eight runs or more.
8. The power of the Law of Ex-Yankees may be waning. Sure, Sears had a nice start on Saturday, but any person using their left hand to throw a baseball would have success against this Yankees team. It used to be any ex-Yankee playing or pitching against their former team would have an exceptional performance. But Nestor Cortes got rocked in the second game of the season, Wandy Peralta was a disaster last week and Luis Severino pitched against the Yankees on Sunday the way he would pitch in the postseason for the Yankees.
9. Severino was bad in the series finale (4 IP, 9 H, 8 R, 8 ER, 2 BB, 2 K) and it allowed the Yankees to pick up their second straight series win. Not only was Severino awful, but Ryan Yarbrough was solid: 5 IP, 6 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 1 BB, 2 K, 1 HR. I asked for Yarbrough to join the rotation long ago, and in his second start this year (he started for a scratched Clark Schmidt last week) he gave the exact type of performance you would expect. At this moment, the Yankees won’t need to use a fifth starter until Memorial Day Weekend in Colorado, so back to long relief he goes.
The Yankees had two five-run innings on Sunday (the second and fifth innings), Goldschmidt had three doubles, Cabrera had another double, Judge had a double and Rice hit his first career grand slam. It was the exact type of win anyone could ask for on Mother’s Day: an early-blowout-and-coast-to-the-ninth win.
10. Now it’s off to Seattle for three games against the slumping Mariners. The Mariners just got swept at home by the Blue Jays over the weekend and embarrassed in the series finale in a game in which the Blue Jays used Jose Urena as an opener and then went to Eric Lauer for the bulk work and were able to coast to a 9-1 win.
It’s never easy for the Yankees in Seattle. Add in that it’s the last leg of the West Coast trip, there’s a scheduled day off on Thursday and Juan Soto and the Mets come to the Bronx on Friday, and it wouldn’t surprise me if the end of this series is a slog for the Yankees. But the start of the series shouldn’t be.
Last modified: May 13, 2025
