I don’t even think miserable is a strong enough word to describe the Yankees’ performance over the weekend during a disgusting sweep administered by the Rays who are back playing their home games in a ballpark that has historically been a house of horrors for the Yankees, and was again. Right now the Yankees are bad and boring and that’s just about the worst combination possible. Lets get to it.

Is anyone else feeling duped by that 8-2 start the Yankees got off to?

What a disgraceful and deplorable weekend they spent in Tampa getting out-hit, out-pitched, out-run, out-hustled and out-managed by the bunting bastards, otherwise known as the perennially annoying Rays who I didn’t think we’d have to worry about this season, but apparently I was wrong.

The Rays are the only team in MLB that can bring knives to a gun fight and still find a way to win, and when it comes to the Yankees, all they need are butter knives to get the job done.

With their brand of mind-numbing small ball, they embarrassed the big-swinging, big-whiffing Yankees for three games and thus, Aaron Boone’s lackluster bunch of sleepwalkers have now lost five in a row and sit in a three-way tie atop the AL East with the Rays and Orioles.

What’s really sickening about this is the Yankees couldn’t have had a much easier beginning to the season because in their first 22 games, the only 2025 playoff team was the Mariners. They’re now 15 games into this opening stretch and they’re only 8-7 and have lost back-to-back series to the A’s and Rays.

As I say all the time, relentlessly, every god damn game counts. And this has been a ridiculous blown opportunity to establish a firm early grip on a division that has underwhelmed top to bottom so far.

“Every game matters, we know that,” Aaron Judge said. “We talk about it every season, we’ll talk about it every single month when we have tough losses like this. It’s nothing new for us. But it’s baseball. We just got to show up the next day and right the ship. You got to have a short memory and move on to the next one. It’s tough, but that game’s over with. Nothing we can do about it.”

In this series, the Yankees had their best pitchers starting the last two games - Max Fried and Cam Schlittler - and they lost both because their offense is remains unacceptably anemic with a cumulative .202 average that ranks 28th in MLB. It’s crazy how many of these guys are off to putrid starts. In Sunday’s lineup alone, Aaron Boone trotted out six who are hitting .179 or worst, two of them - Randal Grichuk and JC Escarra - hitting a cool .000.

It doesn’t matter how strong the pitching is - and in this series it wasn’t great as the Rays scored five runs in each game - you can’t win if you can’t hit. Across three games the Yankees were 3-for-23 with runners in scoring position and for the season, they’re now 25-for-123 which is .203, right in line with their overall horrendous team average.

There are several Yankees I could choose to be the poster child for this ineptitude, but I’ll focus on Jazz Chisholm because quite honestly, I’m getting tired of this guy’s act. At least a few times per week he does something that makes you want to scream, even beyond his .179 start with no homers. He looks like a guy who just doesn’t give a shit.

Just recently, he’s gotten picked off first base while adjusting his stupid oven mitt; he fielded a grounder and seemingly counted the stitches on the ball before throwing it first and the batter beat it out for a single; and then in Saturday’s game, he botched a play that could have resulted in a game-extending double play in the 10th inning, then admitted he wasn’t sure what the rules were on force plays as he was fiddling endlessly with his earring.

The situation was this: It was 4-4 and the Rays had men on first and third with one out, and Chandler Simpson - who is the fastest baseball player I’ve ever seen in my life - was the man on third. Thus, the only way the Yankees were surviving was if they could pull off a double play, and they actually had a chance before Chisholm blew it.

Jonathan Aranda hit a high chopper to Jazz so the only play was to tag the runner, Yandy Diaz, coming from first, and then throwing to first. It was right there to be made, but Jazz muffed the grounder, they got no outs and Simpson raced home with the winning run.

After the game reporters asked Jazz about the play, and he said, “I was really going to go try to tag the runner and just throw it to first. I don’t know what the rule is. If I went to first base first and threw it back to second, if it’s still an out, is it still a double play? I don’t know. Does it count as not an RBI?”

What? I don’t even know what the hell he’s talking about. How does he not understand this?

Trent Grisham was nearby and overheard his knucklehead teammate and he pointed out that no, if Jazz had thrown to first, the force would have been off at second and the runner would have to be tagged out, but that wouldn’t have happened before Simpson crossed home plate.

“Oh,” Chisholm said. “Well, what I was trying to do in my mind probably wouldn't have worked anyway.”

Naturally, Boone stood up for Chisholm before Sunday’s game. “He’s not confused on it. I think that’s kind of the default answer when he’s got (reporters) in front of him,” Boone said.

His default answer? What, to not know the rules or know whether the play he was trying to make would have been the right one?

“Look, it turns out to be a tough play,” Boone continued. “Watching it back, there might have been a chance to where if he gets it cleanly, he gets the tag off, it’s hard to know how exactly Diaz reacts in that moment. Once it chops like that, you know it’s going to be a tough one to turn the normal 4-6-3. Jazz is not a dumb guy. So it’s just sometimes how you present yourself in certain situations, coupled with he’s off to a little bit of a slow start, too. Some good play changes that narrative.”

He will start to hit better, I mean how could he not? And when that happens, he will help the Yankees, but I’m just kinda tired of Jazz because there’s too many brain farts in his game and I just don’t think he’s a winning player.

➤ The offense remained dormant for a third straight loss as it managed a measly five hits, giving them a grand total of 10 in those three games. They scored three runs, and just one of them was legit, Ben Rice’s pinch-hit solo homer in the eighth.

➤ The other two came in the first inning, with a whole lot of help from the Rays. Aaron Judge singled, stole second and took third when catcher Nick Fortes threw the ball away. He then scored on a sac fly by Cody Bellinger. Giancarlo Stanton walked and Amed Rosario followed with a routine line-drive single to left which Chandler Simpson turned into an RBI triple with an absolutely stupid diving attempt. You can make the case the Yankees might not have scored either run without Tampa Bay’s shoddy defense.

➤ From there, crickets. The Yankees went 0-for-21 with a walk and a hit batter until Rice’s homer with one out in the eighth. You would think that would have woken them up, but Judge and Bellinger went down meekly to end that inning. Then in the ninth, I just have no words for Aaron Boone. Stanton and Rosario hit back-to-back singles and Jazz Chisholm was able to beat out a double play grounder. With righty reliever Bryan Baker on the mound, Boone inexplicably let righty Randal Grichuk take the at bat instead of lefty Trent Grisham. Now, to be fair, Grisham is every bit as useless as Grichuk so I doubt it would have mattered if he had pinch hit, but at least you’d have the platoon advantage. Boone said later Baker has reverse splits so he stuck with Grichuk, but of course Grichuk struck out. Chisholm had stolen second during Grichuk’s wonderful swing and miss adventure, so Boone now sent Grisham up to hit for useless Jose Caballero. As I said earlier, it didn’t really matter because Grisham predictably popped out to end the game, leaving two men in scoring position.

➤ As for Luis Gil, he was, well, would erratic be the word in his season debut? Yes, I think it would. It had to be an uncomfortable night for the Rays because he was missing every which way with his 88 pitches - inside, outside, up, down - and he lasted only four innings. He gave up three runs on three hits and three walks with just strikeouts. He threw 35 fastballs and got just one swing and miss. In the first inning he retired the first two men, then walked Jonathan Aranda and got tagged for a two-run homer by supreme Yankee torturer Yandy Diaz. It is a never-ending mystery to me how some guys just kill the Yankees, and Diaz is right near the top of the list year after year. Seriously, it’s truly mystifying how that guy continually rakes whoever the Yankees have on the mound.

➤ The Rays went ahead 3-2 in the second when Gil lost a 10-pitch at bat with Taylor Walls who is one of the worst hitters in MLB - until he sees the Yankees. He wound up scoring after a single and a groundout. It stayed that way until the sixth when the Rays put up two and given how the Yankees were hitting, 5-2 might as well have been 50-2. The runs came off the combination of Brent Headrick and Camilo Doval with Headrick hurting his own cause when he muffed a bunt for an error. Yeah, bunts. Get used to that in this recap.

➤ In these three losses going back to the A’s series, the Yankees scored in just three of 27 innings, and the 10 hits included the Rice HR, Rosario’s triple (which wasn’t really a triple) and eight singles, and they struck out 35 times. Pathetic.

➤ Two bunts, a stolen base, an intentional walk, and two botched plays in the field. Not a single ball left the infield against David Bednar, but the Rays still managed to score two runs in the 10th inning to send the Yankees to their fourth straight loss. If you ever wonder why I repeatedly refer to the Rays as the most annoying team in baseball, these 10 minutes illuminate why.

➤ Max Fried went eight innings which was great, but I’m stopping short of calling his overall outing great. Sorry, it wasn’t. Twice the Yankees gave him a lead and he immediately coughed it up. After Wells made his first contribution of the season on offense with a homer in the second, Fried got tagged for a leadoff double in the bottom half by Junior Caminero who came around to score on a single by Jonny DeLuca. Fried gave up two hits and a sac fly in the sixth that put the Rays up 2-1, and after Caballero shocked us with a go-ahead two-run double in the eighth, Fried gave up another leadoff double in the bottom half to Nick Fortes, and pinch-runner Simpson scored on Diaz’s infield single to tie it at 3-3. He gave up six hits with no walks and struck out six, but with the Yankees offense in the toilet, Fried needed to be even better and he admitted it.

➤ Caballero, playing against his old team, was in a 1-for-30 nightmare when he delivered a line shot two-run double to left. Stanton - who after his hot start was lousy all week going 2-for-17 - drew a walk and Chisholm bounced a double to right. Wells then popped out on the first pitch he saw, just a brutal job by him, before Caballero bailed him out with his two-out hit.

➤ In the 10th, Caballero came through again. With Grichuk starting at second as the free runner, Chisholm and Wells produced two more shitty at bats but Caballero singled through the middle for a 4-3 lead, just the Yankees second hit in 12 at bats with runners in scoring position. Of course, the Yankees quickly went on to blow a lead for the third and final time.

➤ Bednar has not been very good (0-2, 5.40 ERA), but the bottom of the 10th wasn’t his fault. Simpson beat out - wait for it … a bunt - so right away it was first and third with no outs. Simpson stole second and then Walls also bunted for a hit as Bednar couldn’t make a play. That tied the game and with Simpson moving to third, there was no way he wasn’t eventually scoring. Sure enough, after an intentional walk to Diaz and a strikeout, Simpson raced home when Chisholm botched Aranda’s ground ball.

➤ Grichuk is now 0-for-12 through Sunday, yet for some reason Boone keeps letting him hit in big spots. Just like Friday, it happened again in this one. He pinch ran for Stanton in the eighth so he became the DH and his turn came around with men on first and third and two outs in the ninth. Rather than have Paul Goldschmidt pinch hit, Boone stuck with Grichuk and he flied out on the first pitch he saw.

➤ Sweep complete. Cam Schlittler got off to a sloppy start as he allowed three runs in the first two innings and while he held it there, he only managed to finish five innings before turning it over to a bullpen that once again showed that it’s not reliable.

➤ Simpson has quickly joined the growing club of Yankee killers as he continued to be a massive pain in the ass. He went 3-for-4, scored twice and drove in another as he was in the middle of everything the Rays did. He led off the game with a single and wound up scoring on a Diaz groundout, and in the second, after Cedric Mullins tripled and scored on a groundout, Simpson had an RBI single that made it 3-0.

➤ Rays starter Drew Rasmussen did what every pitcher does these days against the Yankees: He coasted for six shutout innings allowing just one hit. However, once he was out, the offense showed some life as the Rays had to turn to their own shaky bullpen. The Yankees got two in the seventh as Rice doubled, Judge walked and Bellinger had an RBI single, and Stanton had a pinch-hit RBI groundout. But then Wells pinch-hit for Escarra and killed the rally with a lineout.

➤ As they did the entire series, the Rays immediately answered with a run in the bottom half as Simpson tripled and scored on yet another productive out. They tacked on a fifth run in the eighth and those runs sure became important as they held on for dear life in the ninth.

➤ Against some guy named Mason Englert who has a 10.57 ERA, Rice singled and Judge woke up with a two-run homer. Rosario ripped a two-out double, but dipshit Boone let Ryan McMahon bat rather than Goldschmidt - you know, the future Hall of Famer apparently would have no chance against a right-hander with a 10.57 ERA - and of course McMahon and his .114 average grounded out meekly to end it.

➤ This loss dropped the Yankees to 0-6 in one-run games. Nice.

The Yankees returned home for a four-game series against the Angels, a team that I would normally say should be no problem, but the way the Yankees are playing, every team is a problem. Los Angeles just took of three in Cincinnati to get to 8-8 on the season, though its offense has been struggling like New York’s with a .210 team average.

➤ SS Zach Neto: This guy is as much of a pest as any of the Rays so this should be fun. He leads MLB with 15 runs scored.

➤ OF Mike Trout: He’s not hitting much (.208 with two homers) but he does lead MLB with 15 walks.

➤ OF Jo Adell: He has been the Angels best player as he leads the team with a .297 average and 19 hits, and he also plays some pretty damn good defense as you saw last week when he robbed three HRs in one game.

➤ OF Jorge Soler: He has 16 RBI which ranks tied for second in MLB.

➤ RP Jordan Romano: The former Blue Jay is the Angels closer and he has four saves and a 0.00 ERA in six appearances.