This was quite a few days for the Yankees. First and foremost, they obliterated the Orioles in a four-game sweep that looked like men against boys to improve to 24-11 on the season. Then, they made the correct decision to leave Anthony Volpe in the minors. And finally, there was the sad news of the passing of former Yankees broadcast icon John Sterling. Lets get to it.

Back on April 10, which began a truly miserable weekend in Tampa as the Yankees would ultimately get swept by the ever-annoying Rays, Anthony Volpe was in the dugout hanging out with the team before he went off to begin his rehab assignment, first at Double-A Somerset and later at Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes Barre.

GM Brian Cashman met with reporters on that Friday and he was asked if, when Volpe was deemed ready to play in the big leagues, would he get back the shortstop job he’s held for the previous three years. “That’s always been the plan, but ultimately, that’ll be the manager’s call,” Cashman said.

Well, the plan has changed. Volpe is ready, his 20-day rehab window concluded Sunday, and the Yankees had to make a decision - either call him up or officially demote him to the minors. In what seems like a decision where Aaron Boone had a big say, Volpe is going to be wearing the Rail Riders uniform for the foreseeable future.

When Cashman spoke, Jose Caballero was in the midst of pissing away his chance to remain as the starting shortstop. He was slashing .150/.209/.175 and had a pathetic .384 OPS in 12 games, and if that continued, then it was almost certain that as long as Volpe showed something, he’d get his job back.

But that didn’t continue. In the 21 games since, Caballero has slashed .316/.358/.526 with an .884 OPS and has, at least according to the metrics, been one of the best defensive shortstops in MLB. Meanwhile, Volpe hasn’t exactly lit it up as he’s slashing .250/.306/.318 with an OPS of .624 against minor league pitching.

Sorry, but there’s no reason to make a change right now and the Yankees know it. This is merely the latest example of how the mindset in the Bronx has changed this year. Boone has taken a harder edge and he’s no longer managing to a script. If a player is not performing, he’s not starting. Period. Look no further than how he has handled perpetually weak hitting third baseman Ryan McMahon, occasionally benching him in favor of Amed Rosario. Or sending Luis Gil to the minors because he hasn’t shown much of anything since midway through 2024. Or sending Randal Grichuk to the unemployment office after his lack of production. And now Volpe.

“At the end of the day, we’re going to try and do what’s best for our team and then individual players that we care about, too, and know that are going to be important contributors to our team,” Boone said Sunday. “We have a lot of really good players right now competing for real roles and real spots. I think that competition ultimately is going to be a great thing for us.”

It’s quite a departure from the kids glove approach they had with Volpe during his first three seasons which was ludicrous considering that since 2023 when Volpe debuted, he is one of 118 players who have at least 1,500 plate appearances and he has the worst on-base percentage (.283), the second-worst batting average (.220), the third-worst OPS (.662) and the seventh-worst slugging percentage (.379). Like, what are we doing here?

Finally, the bulb has turned on for the Yankees’ hierarchy. They realize that Volpe was a drain on offense that not even his decent defense could overcome, especially when in 2025, his defense took a notable dip. They know that right now Caballero is a better and more useful player than Volpe and I’m guessing that Boone and Cashman didn’t have too much to debate on that topic, thus the decision that was made.

“Caballero is playing the heck out of the position and is playing really well,” Boone said. “That complicates it. … José has [earned] himself more playing time. I love the idea of José being in a super-utility role because he’s so good at it, but you also can’t ignore he’s played so well defensively at shortstop [and] been a real spark for us offensively.

“We’re off to a really good start, and he’s been right in the middle of that defensively and offensively, so he’s earned some opportunities there. It’s really as simple as that, and then you’re weighing what’s the best thing for our team moving forward.”

➤ My attention wasn’t exactly focused on this because I was fully invested in the Sabres eliminating the Bruins in Game 6 of their Stanley Cup playoff series. Great night for the Sabres, and for someone like me who hates all Boston sports teams with an irrationality that puts my mental state in question, it was a bonus that it was the Bruins.

➤ From what I saw in the condensed game, it was a great night for the Yankees, too. I love when they grab a game by the throat early and just slowly choke the life out of it, and that’s what they did. It was 1-1 in the second after Pete Alonso’s moon shot homer off Will Warren and the Yankees responded with four runs and the Orioles were pretty much cooked because Warren was great the rest of the way.

➤ Jose Caballero homered, Trent Grisham doubled, Paul Goldschmidt walked, and Ben Rice lined a three-run shot to the short porch. Ballgame. Warren went 6.1 innings and gave up just one earned run on three hits and a walk with nine strikeouts. He has been so good and such a surprise after his really rocky 2024 debut when he looked overmatched.

➤ The Orioles cut it to 5-2 in the seventh with the help of a Grisham error, but the Yankees recouped that run in the bottom half with a two-out rally - walks to Aaron Judge and Cody Bellinger, and a single by Amed Rosario. Boone could have pinch-hit Ryan McMahon in that spot against the righty, Albert Suarez, but he knows McMahon is useless despite the platoon advantage and Rosario puts the ball in play, which is what he did.

➤ Camilo Doval looked great in the eighth. A 1-2-3 with two strikeouts, needing just 11 pitches. The guy is such a mystery because one night he looks like this, and the next night you want to throw him off the observation deck at the Empire State Building.

➤ Bellinger was the man of the match in this one - the second four-hit game of his Yankee career, two homers, a double, a single, three runs scored, four driven in. Coming into this series he had been scuffling in a 4-for-29 slump but he had two hits Friday and then this explosive performance Saturday. And of course, his play in the field is superb all the time.

➤ Ryan Weathers was OK. That’s about all I can say, but as No. 5 starters go, you’ll take this almost all the time. He only completed five innings because he needed 40 pitches in the first two innings so his pitch count became a thing and when Taylor Ward and Gunnar Henderson started the sixth with back-to-back singles and Ben Rice botched a throw after a grounder hit by Adley Rutschman to load the bases, he was at 90 pitches and fading, Boone yanked him. He wound up being charged with three runs on three hits and two walks, but Ward and Henderson were both unearned because of Rice’s error.

➤ Of course, they scored because Jake Bird failed. Again. He took over and granted, based loaded and no out is not ideal, but he immediately got Alonso to hit into a DP with a run scoring, so that was acceptable. What wasn’t acceptable is that he issued a walk and gave up an RBI double to Samuel Basallo before getting the third out. I often point to one stat that I think is vital in assessing the effectiveness of relief pitchers. How many inherited runners did they allow to score? Well, Bird has now allowed four of the six runners he has inherited to score.

➤ Doval pitched part of the seventh, and if anyone wants to volunteer to escort him to the observation deck at the Empire State Building, be my guest. This guy is just so schizo. Walk, stolen base which was all on him and his slow delivery, strikeout, another stolen base on him, RBI groundout, walk of shame back to the dugout. Tim Hill came in and did Tim things: He threw one pitch and got a grounder to end the inning but now the Orioles were within 6-4. Just a bad job by Bird and Doval.

➤ Didn’t matter, though, because the Yankees put it away with three in the seventh. Rice walked and stole second, Judge walked and Bellinger hit an RBI single. He then stole second and Jazz Chisholm singled for two more runs, Bellinger scoring when right fielder Tyler O’Neil bobbled the ball and then threw to second base which Bellinger gladly took advantage of.

➤ The Yankees got off to a 5-1 lead thanks in large part to Grisham as he doubled and scored on a Bellinger double in the third, and in the fourth he crushed a long two-run homer following a double by McMahon as the Yankees had 11 hits in all.

➤ The Yankees turned a tight 4-3 game into a blowout with a seven-run eighth inning fueled by a two-run homer and an RBI double by Jasson Dominguez. It was their highest-scoring single inning of the season, the first time they’ve sent at least 10 men to the plate in an inning, and it capped a day when they pounded Baltimore’s weak pitching staff for 15 hits.

➤ Nine men had at least one hit, eight men scored at least one run, and seven had at least one RBI. That’s what I would call a balanced attack, and it was nice that Dominguez was in the middle of it all as he had two doubles batting right-handed, plus his lefty-swinging homer.

➤ Trey Gibson became the first Orioles starting pitcher to make his MLB debut at Yankee Stadium since before the team moved to Baltimore from St. Louis in 1953. He gave up a solo homer to Rice in the second and a two-run homer to Judge in the third before getting lifted in the fifth with the game tied at 3-3. It was tied because Max Fried was not sharp as he allowed three runs on six hits and three walks, throwing a season-high 107 pitch yet only lasting 5.1 innings. Just a grind throughout for him.

➤ The bullpen picked him up, though. Fernando Cruz inherited two Fried baserunners - one on a throwing error by McMahon - but got an inning-ending 5-4-3 double play. After the Yankees went ahead 4-3 in the sixth when Dominguez doubled and scored on a McMahon single, Brent Headrick recorded five outs, continuing his superb and surprising season.

➤ Still, it was 4-3 when the bottom of the eighth started, but not for long as the Yankees pummeled Andrew Kittridge for seven runs on seven hits as he recorded just one out. Chisholm singled and Dominguez homered, then it was three straight singles to load the bases before Kittredge got his lone out on a sac fly by Grisham. Goldschmidt had a two-run single, Chisholm a sac fly and Dominguez an RBI double to close it.

➤ Rice left the game with a hand injury and while x-rays were negative, there was no further update. He said he was fine, but players always say that before they end up on the IL. Hopefully that’s not the case with Rice because he’s been one of the best hitters in MLB thus far and it would be a titanic loss for the Yankees, but he did not play in the finale Monday.

➤ The night began with a beautiful tribute to John Sterling, the 87-year-old former Yankees broadcaster who passed away Monday morning following a heart episode a few days earlier. There are few announcers who had a more distinctive play-by-play style than Sterling what with his signature home run calls and his “Ballgame over, thuuuuuuuuugh Yankees win” bellow following victories. He wasn’t for everyone, but he was our goofy guy across 36 years and 5,631 games including one consecutive games announced streak of 5,060 which seems about as unbreakable as Cal Ripken’s consecutive games played streak. “For all those people … that he meant something to,” Michael Kay said on his radio show Monday afternoon, “believe me, it meant the world to him to be the voice of the Yankees. It really did. There will never be anybody like him.”

➤ As for the game, nothing to see here as the Yankees completed the rare four-game sweep. Man, the Orioles just looked pathetic this entire series. They didn’t belong on the same field with the Yankees as the final tally was 39-10. Aaron Judge hit a two-run homer in the first, his MLB-leading 14th, and the Orioles were pretty much done.

➤ This was the first time the Yankees won four straight games by five runs or more since July 2017, and it was their first four-game sweep with a run differential of at least plus-29 since April 18–21, 2003 at the Twins. In winning 14 of their last 16, they have outscored their opponents 106-40. Yeah, times are good right now.

➤ Like Fried on Sunday, Cam Schlittler was not sharp. Even though his velocity was at its very best this season, the Orioles had way too many good at bats against him as they had seven hits and drew three walks, season highs for both against Schlittler. However, he gave up just one run because he was bailed out by two double plays - one in the third hit by Rutschman, one in the fifth hit by Alexander. In both instances, Baltimore had gotten two men on with no outs and didn’t score. And then in the sixth, two singles and two walks forced in a run, but Bird came in and struck out Jackson to leave the bases loaded.

➤ Fired up by that, the Yankees put up three in the bottom of the sixth off Shane Baz to blow it open as McMahon had an RBI single and Caballero an RBI double. And then in the eighth, with ex-Yankee Lou Trivino making his Oriole debut, the Yankees tore into him for six runs on seven hits and three walks, all of the runs coming after two were out. The big blows were Judge’s two-run single and Bellinger’s two-run triple. Trivino’s ERA is a cool 81.00.

➤ McMahon is starting to come around a little. He played the last three games and went 5-for-12, and he also made an incredible play in the seventh to rob Beavers of a double.

The Yankees will finish up their six-game season series against the Rangers in quick fashion, playing them for the second time in a span of three series, this time in the Bronx. Since they lost two of three in Texas last week, the Rangers continued to muddle along as they dropped two of three in Detroit, scoring just one run in each of the last two games as their offensive struggles continue.

They are 16-18 but that leaves them in second place in the terrible AL West, just two games behind the A’s. The Rangers rank 24th in on-base at .313, 25th in slugging (.373) and 25th in OPS (.686), and that has wasted a bunch of good pitching as the Rangers have the fifth-best team ERA at 3.66 and sixth-best WHIP at 1.220. By the way, the Yankees lead in both those categories.

➤ 1B Jake Burger: Leads the team with six homers and 20 RBI but he was just 1-for-11 against the Yankees.

➤ SS Corey Seager: He is a great player but he has always struggled against the Yankees with a career .196 average which is his lowest against any team. He has just one homer in 99 plate appearances.

➤ 3B Josh Jung: He was a problem in the first series going 4-for-10 with three RBI. He leads the team with a .325 average, a .381 on-base and a .916 OPS.

➤ OF Brandon Nimmo: Came over in a trade from the Mets and the Mets probably wish they had him back as he’s hitting .300 with an OPS of .836.

➤ RP Jakob Junis: He is tied with Jacob Latz with three saves, and he is one of four key relievers on the team who has an ERA below 1.85.