My Daughter's Wedding Overshadowed Yet Another Miserable Yankees Series

I know for a fact that the Yankees weren’t as happy as my daughter this past weekend. She got married and the event could not have been more spectacular, while they failed to win a series for the seventh straight time, two of those at the hands of the hated Red Sox, and their collapse continues at full speed. Lets get to it.

I had a far more important thing to concern myself with over the weekend than the Yankees. My youngest daughter, Caroline, got married to her high school sweetheart, Dylan.

I saw only the very worst part of Friday’s game, none of Saturday’s Yankee blowout which was obviously an outlier, and then I subjected myself to that disgraceful Sunday night performance when their offense was back to being putrid. So yes, clearly I’m the problem because when I watched them in this latest losing series, they were pathetic.

Unlike we Yankees fans, my daughter is so, so happy, and so are myself and my wife Christine. What an amazing day and night, every little detail to perfection, all of it planned and organized by Caroline. We had 150 guests and almost all of them came up to me and expressed how it was one of the best weddings they’d ever attended when you combined the beauty of the venue, the ceremony, the presentation, the exquisite and finely-detailed decorations, the flowers, the food, the speeches, and the music and dancing.

I know I’m a little biased, and hey, I also paid for most of this, but I’ve been to a million weddings in my 61 years and I have to admit, it really was quite an epic affair.

My son Holden was the officiant and as the true performer of the family, he was incredible. What a ceremony, mixed with love and laughter, all in a quick 20 minutes under the sun with a golf course pond in the background, and my daughter Taylor delivered an awesome maid of honor speech and toast for her little sister. And my wife Christine radiated with joy and beauty, dabbing at her own tears several times throughout the night.

I was told my speech was fantastic - funny but it also brought a few people to tears and hit every note. I also pulled off a fast one as we got ready for the daddy-daughter dance. Our song was Elton John’s Tiny Dancer - Caroline having danced for 13 years - but just before we started, I worked it out with the awesome DJ, Mike, to slip in a seven-second riff from Born to Run to which I sang and air-guitared: “Tramps like us, baby we born to run!!!”

It brought the house down and Caroline, who didn’t know it was coming, laughed her head off because despite all my pleading, Springsteen was not included on her specially-crafted, Taylor Swift-heavy playlist. She gave me a fist bump for that one.

It was quite a party, and all the young people - and a few of the old people like me - were out there dancing all night, proving that yes, contrary to what you read hear every day, I can find happiness.

As for the Yankees, losers in 15 of their last 20 games and now three games behind the Orioles and sinking like the Titanic, there is no happiness these days.

July 5: Red Sox 5, Yankees 3 (10)

The Lead: An absolute horror show

There are losses that piss you off and frustrate you, but you shrug them off because in baseball, losing 60 games is considered an outstanding season. And then are losses like Friday night that infuriate you enough to want to throw your remote control through the TV and vow to never watch another Yankee game again.

There have been a few of those losses this year, but losing to the Red Sox in the manner in which they did zoomed to the very top of the list for most deplorable loss of the season.

We got home from the rehearsal dinner in time for me to start watching in the top of the eighth when Luke Weaver almost cough up a 3-1 lead thanks to two brain dead errors including one of his own on an awful and ill-advised pickoff throw to second base. But then he escaped by recording two huge outs with men on second and third.

The same could not be said for Clay Holmes in the ninth who provided one of the lowest moments of the season, and given what has been going on for the previous three weeks, that’s saying something. Holmes proved yet again that despite somehow being named to the All-Star team Sunday, he cannot be trusted, and it’s hard to imagine anyone still believes in him as a closer other than Aaron Boone.

He needed 15 pitches to record the first two outs including a 10-pitch battle with the man who is currently the Yankees most despised opponent, Rafael Devers, but he finally got him on a tapper back to the mound. With two outs he gave up a single to Dom Smith, but it was no big deal because even though the tying run came to the plate, that man was singles hitter Masataka Yoshida.

Holmes got up 0-2, but once again he couldn’t put the guy away and finally on the eighth pitch, he left a fastball over the plate and Yoshida creamed it for a tying two-run homer. Unbelievable. Just unbelievable.

And then in the 10th, with the automatic runner at second, Tommy Kahnle threw a meatball changeup that Ceddanne Rafaela crushed for a two-run game-winning homer. It was just a horrendous collapse for the Yankees by two of the relievers who are supposed to be the high leverage guys at the end of games.

Game notes and observations:

➤ Nestor Cortes was terrific. He went six innings and the only run he allowed was a solo homer by Romy Gonzalez in the fifth, but alas, it was a wasted effort thanks to Holmes and Kahnle.

➤ The Yankees’ offense was once again terrible. They scored three runs in the fourth inning against Boston ace Tanner Houck, but only one was earned because of shoddy play by the defense. Juan Soto and Aaron Judge walked and with one out Gleyber Torres had the only hit of the inning, a single to load the bases. Austin Wells then hit what should have been a double play grounder but second baseman Emmanuel Valdez made an errant throw which allowed a run to score. Anthony Volpe then drew a bases loaded walk and Trent Grisham had an RBI groundout. It was as unimpressive a three-run inning as you could imagine and it ended up being their only scoring.

➤ In the fourth, Volpe and DJ LeMahieu combined for a truly egregious situation that cost the Yankees a run. With Volpe on third and LeMahieu at first, Ben Rice hit a grounder to first. Gonzalez fielded and touched the bag, then threw to second. Because the force was now off, Volpe’s run would have counted if he scored before LeMahieu was tagged out. But Volpe jogged home, and LeMahieu didn’t get into a rundown to give him more time so the Red Sox completed the DP to wipe a sure run off the board. How big did that run turn out to be by night’s end? Pretty big. Just an inexcusable brand of baseball.

July 6: Yankees 14, Red Sox 4

The Lead: Ben Rice’s coming out party

Because of the wedding, I didn’t see a single pitch live, though I watched the condensed game Sunday morning and clearly the Maiorana family weren’t the only ones partying Saturday. What a show by Rice as he became the first Yankee rookie to hit three home runs in a game; just the seventh Yankee to hit at least three homers and drive in seven runs in a game (first since Tino Martinez in 1997); and just the third rookie in MLB history with a three-homer performance from the leadoff spot.

“It’s definitely a day I’ll never forget,” said Rice, who grew up just outside Boston though he was a die hard Yankees fan because of Derek Jeter. “I’m just pumped that it was a big-time win for us, a good bounceback win, and over my hometown team. So it’s pretty cool.”

It was so funny when, after the third home run, the fans demanded a curtain call and Rice didn’t know what to do or where to go, so his teammates were pointing him in the right direction. He finally climbed the dugout steps and tipped his cap and the place went wild. Very cool moment for the kid.

“Kind of a legendary day,” Boone said after Rice became the 26th player in Yankees history to hit at least three homers in a regular-season game.

Game notes and observations:

➤ Rice got the party started with a leadoff homer in the first off Josh Winckowski, he hit a three-run shot off Chase Anderson to cap a seven-run explosion in the fifth that made the score 10-4; and he capped his day with a three-run blast off Anderson in the seventh.

➤ Gerrit Cole was not good, and that’s becoming a little worrisome four starts into his season. He lasted just 4.1 innings and gave up four runs on seven hits and two walks with eight strikeouts. The Red Sox scored three in the third on four hits, a walk and a stolen base with Devers delivering an RBI single.

➤ After Alex Verdugo hit his first home run in 18 games, the first since he hit one at Fenway on June 14, a two-run shot that tied the game at 3-3, Devers got Cole yet again for a solo homer in the fourth. Devers is just pure evil against the Yankees, especially against Cole as he now has eight homers off him, double his total against any other pitcher. Yeah, he’s got Cole’s number in a bad, bad way. “He’s a great player. We see that sometimes on the other side with a couple of our guys,” Boone said. “We invest a lot into where to get him. He’s definitely a guy that has performed incredibly well. We’d like to do a better job against him.”

➤ That ended Cole’s day, but from there, the bullpen blanked Boston the rest of the way. Tim Hill threw 2.2 perfect innings and Josh Maciejewski pitched two innings of one-hit ball to close it out.

➤ The big fifth inning was such a release of massive frustration for a lineup that has been so terrible lately. There were five hits and two walks with Rice’s homer the big blow, but there was also an RBI double by Volpe, a bases loaded walk by Austin Wells, and an RBI single by LeMahieu which, yeah, that was stunning. It is beyond belief how terrible a hitter LeMahieu now it, but he also had an RBI single in the seventh, right before Rice’s final homer.

July 7: Red Sox 3, Yankees 0

The Lead: A seventh straight non-winning series

I hope everyone enjoyed that 14-run anomaly Saturday because Sunday it was back to the cold, hard reality of who the Yankees really are: The most overrated team in baseball. It has been three weeks of absolute trash baseball and I’m here to tell you it ain’t gonna get much better, folks. This is who they are.

I think many of you in the subscriber group knew this was coming. You realized the 50-22 start was a mirage and was never sustainable, not with the roster Brian Cashman assembled. It was fun while it lasted, but anyone who was truly paying attention - and even better, was reading all of my analysis in these newsletters - knew it could never last. Did I think the collapse would be this pronounced? No, but I knew it was coming.

“It feels terrible,” Boone said. “You got to be a little sick to be in this game, though, and you got to be able to weather it. You’d like the stretch where it’s a bump in the road to not be this kind of stretch. But it’s all right there in front of us. This is not the time to feel sorry for yourself, it’s the time to try and get guys going.”

I’m so sick of Boone saying nothing impactful about anything. I’m just done with the never ending positivity and looking for silver linings in the face of sheer misery. Lose your shit, man. Just once, tell us the truth. Stop coddling these overrated bums. Call them out like Alex Cora does in Boston when it’s warranted. Show that you have a pulse, or a set of balls.

And Boone’s bullshit is contagious. He sets the tone and thus no one in that clubhouse speaks their mind, they just spew out cliche after cliche, take their losses and cash their mammoth checks because no one seems to give a shit. There’s no accountability with this manager, or this front office. Judge has long bought into this, and now they have Soto buying into the bullshit. “I think the energy is still up, we still believe,” he said. “We grind every day and come in with the same energy. Everything is really positive on our side. We have everything that we need, we just have to keep our chin up.”

No, Juan, you don’t have everything you need. In fact, you have very little of what you need if the goal is to win a World Series. Not long after the All-Star break, I fully expect the Red Sox - now just 4.5 games behind the second-place Yankees - to zip past them in the AL East. They have the better team, especially their young talent. They have way more of it, in fact.

It makes me sick to my stomach to say that because I have always, and always will, hate the Red Sox with every fiber in my being. But their future is so much brighter than the Yankees. And while they were bottoming out the last few years after their most recent World Series championship in 2018 and are now rebuilding their team and farm system, the Yankees continue spinning their wheels signing old free agents based on past performance that will never be matched in the future.

Game notes and observations:

➤ The Yankees wasted Cortes on Friday, and they wasted Luis Gil in this game. He looked like the guy who was AL pitcher of the month in May, not the guy who was throwing batting practice in his last three starts. He was great for six shutout innings but he couldn’t overcome his dipshit manager who sent him out for the seventh inning even though Luke Weaver was ready to go. Boone even had a chance to take a mulligan on that decision after Gil got Tyler O’Neill out. Once Devers stepped into that batters box for his third look at Gil, the choice was so easy. Take Gil out at 90-some pitches and don’t tempt fate.

➤ Naturally, Boone’s in-game weaknesses reared their ugly head, he left Gil in, and Devers did what Devers does in practically every game he plays against the Yankees. He destroyed them. Home run, 1-0, and it might as well have been 100-0 given how horrendously lame the offense was. That’s when Boone realized - too late of course - that it was time to remove Gil.

➤ And never mind that Ceddanne Rafaela - another guy who looks like he’s going to be a Yankee killer for years to come - homered off Weaver in the eighth, and then the goddamn face of evil Devers homered again in the ninth off Michael Tonkin. Devers’ 28 homers against the Yankees are the most of any active player, and 16 have come in the Bronx, tied with former Rays slugger Evan Longoria for the third most by any opponent since the place opened in 2009, trailing only former Blue Jays José Bautista (19) and Edwin Encarnacion (18).

➤ Offensively, the Yankees’ bats were right back in the intensive care unit all night. They had four hits and the only time anyone reached third was Soto in the seventh. He led off with a double, but then Judge whiffed, Verdugo advanced him to third with a grounder, and Volpe - who is so bad right now that it’s pretty sad - lined out to kill the only chance the Yankees had to score.

➤ They might have a chance in the sixth, but more fundamentally terrible baseball bit them in the ass. Oswaldo Cabrera led off with a single, then promptly got doubled off first when Grisham lined one to second and Cabrera didn’t wait to make sure the ball got through and couldn’t get back. LeMahieu followed with a rare productive at bat, a double to right on which Cabrera probably could have scored if he wasn’t back in the dugout.

➤ Red Sox starter Kutter Crawford dominated for seven innings and needed only 68 pitches to do it. It was just bizarre how stupid the Yankees’ approach was with him. The Yankees were swinging at virtually every pitch (there were 54 strikes), and when you suck like they do, most of those swings result in outs. I couldn’t believe Cora took him out, but it didn’t matter because the Yankees did nothing anyway. Someone named Justin Slaten worked a scoreless eighth and in the ninth, Kenley Jansen mowed down Rice, Soto and Judge like they were Larry, Curly and Mo.

➤ I guess we can back off on the Rice Hall of Fame talk. He went 0-for-4 with two whiffs. We may want to back off on the Judge for MVP talk, too. He had a brutal last five games of the homestand - 2-for-22 with no RBI and seven strikeouts.

➤ As usual, the ESPN broadcast was over-the-top annoying with all its stupid in-game interviews and the other nonsense. But they did have an amazing stat. The Yankees have now gone 20 games without a stolen base, their longest drought since 1963. Of course, two things here. You can’t steal if you can’t get on base, nor can you steal when no one has any speed, so maybe that isn’t such an amazing stat.

The Yankees will have their fourth consecutive Monday off while they travel down to Tampa Bay for a three-game set against the Rays, part of a six-game roadie that ends with three big ones in Baltimore leading into the All-Star break.

This is not the same Tampa Bay team that has driven all of us nuts for several years. The Rays are middling at best with a 44-46 record after they just got swept three in a row in Texas by the Rangers, the defending World Series champs who began that series nine games under .500.

I’m happy to report that the Rays just aren’t very good. Then again, neither are the Yankees. The Yankees have won four of the first six in the season series, though those games were all played at a time when they were flying high, part of the 50-22 start to the season. Since then, the Yankees have been one of the worst teams in MLB by almost every measure at 5-15.

The Rays’ offense has struggled all year and ranks tied for 22nd in OPS at .679 as Randy Arozarena, Brandon Lowe, Josh Lowe, and Jose Siri have all under-performed. Of course, Arozarena will perk up this week because he’s another notorious Yankee tormentor. Yandy Diaz - another Yankee killer - started terribly but has picked it up of late and his hitting .270 with 43 RBI. On the mound, the Rays have been decimated by injuries all year which explains their 4.36 ERA, 24th in MLB. Their staff has served up 121 home runs, second-most behind only the last-place Blue Jays.

The pitching matchups are as follows: Tuesday at 6:50 on YES it’s Carlos Rodon (4.65 ERA) against Ryan Pepiot (4.40); Wednesday at 6:50 on Amazon Prime it’s Marcus Stroman (3.58) against Zach Eflin (4.19); and Thursday at 6:50 on YES it’s Nestor Cortes (3.41) against just off the IL Shane Baz (4.50).