Night game series finale’s are a pain in the ass for me in terms of getting the newsletter done and sent out to you early in the morning, and they’re especially difficult when the game is delayed at the start by more than an hour, and I have to be at Bills training camp by 7:30 in the morning.

So today’s lead is going to be brief, and straight to point.

The Yankees feel cooked to me. They just lost two of three games to the St. Louis Cardinals, a team that is the picture of mediocrity with its 57-58 record and over the past month has the third-worst record in MLB, a slump which has crushed their playoff chances.

If the Yankees were a serious team, they don’t lose a series to the Cardinals at home, but the Yankees are not a serious team.

Brian Cashman proved it Monday when he did virtually nothing to improve a roster that was screaming for upgrades in several areas, and all he did was add Luis Garcia Jr., a lefty-swinging, power-hitting, average at best defending first baseman/DH who is redundant when you already have Ben Rice as that same exact player, and outfielder Heliot Ramos which felt like a move just to make a move because he couldn’t make any other useful moves. I don’t think Ramos brings anything to the team.

Not even the promotion of George Lombard Jr. could inject lasting life into this moribund team. Yeah, his debut was electric on Tuesday and he was a big reason for their only win, and he had another hit plus a spectacular play in the field Wednesday, but when the rest of the team sucks and scores one run, it didn’t matter.

The Red Sox have won 30 of their last 35 games, the best 35-game stretch in the history of that miserable franchise that we all should hate with every fiber in our being, and they have now caught the Yankees in the AL East in the all-important loss column.

That’s right, the Yankees now have 51 losses, same as the Red Sox, and are only still technically in second place behind the other team that never loses, the god damn ever-annoying Rays, because they have played two more games than Boston and they happened to win both. By the end of the weekend, it’s almost a certainty that Boston will have leapfrogged New York, and this season now feels absolutely hopeless.

Aaron Judge said Wednesday he’s sure he’ll be coming back this year; I’ll believe it when I seen it and by the time it happens, will it even matter? Giancarlo Stanton is due back soon, big deal. Same for Cody Bellinger. Again, is it going to matter? Oh, Aaron Boone says it will, everyone in the national media seems to think so. I don’t.

Chew on these numbers provided by stat guru Katie Sharp: Going into last night’s game, here’s what the Yankees have done with runners in scoring position since June 1, the day Judge’s injury stint began:

Their .199 average and .355 slugging percentage rank 29th in MLB in that time frame, and their on-base percentage (.274) and OPS (.629) are 30th which would be, yes, dead last in MLB. And then they went 0-for-10 Wednesday so the numbers will be even worse!

You can’t make this shit up. That’s not a small sample size to sniff at; that’s two-plus months of staggering incompetence. They had five stiffs in the lineup Wednesday with batting averages .217 or lower!

The pitching has been fantastic, but that’s not going to be enough to carry this team anywhere. Yes, they’ll make the postseason, and then it’s going to be another short October because they can’t hit a baseball.

➤ What a day. I mean what a friggin’ day. The Yankees did almost nothing at the trade deadline, a massively disappointing underperformance by Brian Cashman. Then Cam Schlittler shit the bed and the Yankees fell into a 6-0 hole. Then their bats, out of nowhere, woke up and they took a dramatic 7-6 lead on a homer by new guy Luis Garcia Jr. And then they implode and give up seven runs in the eighth and lose in a blowout. And after all that, they ended the night by making the move we’ve all been waiting for, calling up shortstop George Lombard Jr., and sending Anthony Volpe, Jasson Dominguez and Angel Chivilli back to Triple-A. Yeah, it was a day.

➤ Schlittler was shockingly horrible as he needed 83 pitches to get through three shitty innings where he allowed allowed four runs on four hits and a career-high five walks. Five walks! That’s a major red flag for me because you wonder if the workload - the biggest of his career - is catching up to him.

➤ Tim Hill came in and sucked which is becoming the norm for him. Schlittler gave up a two-run bomb to Alec Burleson, so did Hill which made it 6-0, and Burleson hit his third two-run shot in the hideous eighth inning off Angel Chivilli. Since I’m here, Chivilli, holy shit. He started the game with a 0.57 ERA and then apparently he decided to reprise his days when he was getting lit up at Coors Field as a member of the Rockies to the tune of a 6.18 ERA. Yeah, he was that guy again as he gave up three homers in the inning - a three-run shot by Nathan Church and a two-run shot by Jimmy Crooks before the Burleson hat trick homer.

➤ In between all that horrible pitching, the Yankees actually scored seven runs all of them coming on five home runs. Can you even fathom that the Yankees scored seven runs, and lost by six runs? Baseball is utterly fascinating.

➤ The rally began in the fifth when Ryan McMahon singled and Austin Wells - who is sadly and inexplicably going to be the starting catcher for the rest of the season - launched a two-run homer which ended Cards’ starter Michael McGreevy’s night. Four pitches later, Trent Grisham homered off Justin Bruihl and the deficit was cut in half.

➤ Then in the seventh, Yankee Stadium erupted, probably for the first time in about two months because the offense put up four runs on solo homers by McMahon and Jose Caballero in a span of four pitches by Ryan Stanek. Grisham then doubled and after a pitching change, Luis Garcia Jr., who had singled earlier for his first hit as a Yankee, hit his first homer, a dramatic two-run drive to right-center to give New York a 7-6 lead. It was quite a moment, and the fun lasted for about five minutes before St. Louis pummeled Chivilli.

Here’s today’s ad partner. Please give it a click, then return right back to reading the newsletter. Thanks!

Over 4 million people have had the same lightbulb moment.

Morning Brew is a free daily newsletter that breaks down what's happening in business, finance, and tech — clearly, quickly, and with enough personality to make it the best email in your inbox.

No yelling. No filler. Just the news, finally making sense.

Try it for free

➤ The Yankees reverted back to their helpless offensive ways - five hits, 0-for-4 with RISP - and were once again bailed out by outstanding pitching. No team has mastered winning when scoring exactly two runs better than the Yankees as this was the 14th time they’ve scored two runs and they’re 7-7. That’s nuts.

➤ Ryan Weathers was outstanding across six shutout innings - four hits, a walk and six whiffs, and that gives him a career-best scoreless innings streak of 17.2. Fernando Cruz got three outs and Brent Headrick got three including a big one in the seventh when he left Cruz’s baserunner stranded at third.

➤ Headrick wasn’t clean, though, as he put the 8-9 hitters on base to start the eighth, then got two big outs before Aaron Boone made a move that baffled me. With righty-swinging Jose Fermin up, he brought in David Bednar, but all that did was give Cardinals manager Oli Marmol the perfect spot to bring in Burleson as a pinch-hitter. He didn’t start because Weathers is a lefty, a decision that could also be seen as pretty stupid given what Burleson did the night before. Managers and their platoons, right? Anyway, at least Boone had the sense to have Bednar intentionally walk Burleson, even though that loaded the bases. He then struck out Nelson Velazquez to escape unscathed, and finished with a 1-2-3 ninth for his 24th save in 26 chances and his fifth multi-inning save of the year which completed the Yankees’ AL-leading 12th shutout.

➤ I’m burying the lead, of course, because despite the great pitching, the story of the night was the electric debut of shortstop George Lombard Jr. After Jazz Chisholm hit a solo homer in the second, Lombard made it 2-0 as his first hit was a solo homer in the fifth, he later drew a walk, and he made several nice plays in the field, none better than his first one when he backhanded a grounder in the hole to start a slick double play.

➤ Here are some of the fun nuggets: The 21-year-old Lombard became the third-youngest player to debut with the Yankees behind only Bobby Murcer (19) and Derek Jeter (20); he became just the 14th player in Yankees history to homer in his first game including the first shortstop to do it; and he is the third-youngest among those players as only Jasson Dominguez and John Ellis were younger.

➤ Oh, Heliot Ramos made his Yankee debut and he fit right in with an 0-for-4 including a grounder to third that led to Ben Rice getting thrown out at the plate as the contact play failed yet again.

➤ Well, this was the 12th time the Yankees have scored exactly one run, and unlike their luck when scoring two, not so much with one as they are now 1-11 in those games.

➤ I mean, it’s just laughable watching this team hit. They had four measly hits all night, but because they drew eight walks, there was traffic on the bases. Not that it mattered because as I said above, they went 0-for-10 with RISP, finishing off a series in which they were 1-for-18, and the only run scored when Chisholm drew a bases-loaded walk in the sixth, only to have McMahon then follow with a pathetic strikeout to leave the bases juiced.

➤ Pinch-hitter Paul Goldschmidt doubled in the seventh and Rice drew a two-out walk but Garcia, now fully infected by the Yankees’ diseased offense, grounded out. In the eighth, two walks died when Lombard was overmatched by Ryne Stanek and struck out. And Rice walked in the ninth only to have Ali Sanchez - who shouldn’t even be on the team if Cashman had acquired an actual MLB catcher - struck out looking to end the game.

➤ Will Warren was pretty good for four innings, and then as is usually the case with him, one bad inning ruins his night. In the fifth he allowed two singles but then struck out Cesar Prieto for the second out. But just when it seemed like he might escape, two balls got smoked over the head of Grisham in center, a two-run double by Wetherholt and an RBI double by Herrera. That’s all the Cardinals needed against the inept Yankees.

The Yankees finally get the day off and when they take the field Friday night for what should be a brutally tough series against the Braves who, at 69-45 have the second-best record in MLB, they’ll be on the brink of falling behind the Red Sox. That’s because the Red Sox are finishing their series with the White Sox Thursday night, then open a three-game series against the horrible A’s Friday.

When they win both games- which is basically a foregone conclusion these days - and the Yankees lose the opener with Atlanta, Boston will move past the Yankees. Hey, if not Friday, it’ll happen Saturday or Saturday. I can’t even believe this is happening based on where these two teams were six weeks ago.

➤ 1B Matt Olson: The Yankees should have signed him as a free agent five years ago, another Brian Cashman fail. He has now played in 896 consecutive games, has mashed his entire time in Atlanta, and this year he has team-highs with 31 homers, 69 RBI and an .890 OPS.

➤ C Drake Baldwin: What a catcher, the kind the Yankees could only dream of having right now. He’s slashing .269/.362 /.461 with an .823 OPS and has 20 homers despite missing more than a month with an injury.

➤ RF Ronald Acuna: The oft-injured 2023 NL MVP just returned from his latest IL stint on July 27 and he’s still trying to find his groove, but he remains very dangerous.

➤ CF Michael Harris II: A dynamic fielder who has 20 homers, 64 RBI and an .806 OPS.

➤ RP Raisel Iglesias: He has 24 saves, a 2.63 ERA and a 1.122 WHIP and averages 9.7 whiffs per nine.