Yankees Endure Miserable Weekend in the Bronx

It was obviously a pretty aggravating weekend of baseball as the Red Sox came into Yankee Stadium and pummeled New York’s pitching staff and won two of three games. And with the Rays and Blue Jays continuing their hot streaks, the Yankees’ lead in the AL East took a big hit last week. Lets get to it. 

We had some lively in-game chats throughout the Boston series, and I just wish more of you would contribute to the discussions. We have a few regulars in there every night and I appreciate them very much, but it would be fun to get more takes in the chats. Of course, you’d have to click the image below to set up your free account at my Mighty Networks site called The Ballpark. If you haven’t already, you’ve also missed all of the Pinstripe Past, Battling Bronx Bombers and Box Score Briefs newsletters that I’ve produced. So again, please, do it. Remember, everything still comes straight to your email.

There are very few things that piss me off more in my life than when the Yankees play like absolute turds and lose to the Red Sox.

That being the case, I guess one would say that I’ve lived a charmed life, but what can I tell you? I hate the Red Sox, I hate all things Boston, and yeah, I was royally pissed off watching this abomination of a weekend in the Bronx where the Red Sox - who came into the series in fourth place and sucking wind in the AL East - embarrassed the Yankees Saturday and Sunday night.

Disgusting is pretty much all there is to say about it, but I’ll give you much more here.

The Yankees have pitched well this season, and Aaron Boone said, “That’s fueled what’s been a pretty good run to get our record in a good place. It’s been fueled by the consistency of the starting pitching and that’s ultimately where it begins.”

But this was a deplorable series for both the rotation and the bullpen as across three games they allowed 27 runs on 32 hits (eight of those home runs) and 14 walks. Everyone stunk, plain and simple.

While it’s tempting, I’m not going to overreact too much to one series against an arch rival that enjoys nothing more than pummeling the Yankees whenever the opportunity presents itself, but this was certainly an eye-opening weekend that illuminated the fragility of the Yankees’ pitching, something that happened last year in the World Series, too.

Ryan Yarbrough has been a wonderful story, but he’s only going to fool hitters for so long and I never expected his magic carpet ride to last. And even though Will Warren was the Yankees’ only winning pitcher on Friday, he remains completely untrustworthy and the same can be said for Clarke Schmidt, another guy who you never know what you’re going to get from start to start.

“It’s tough out there,” rehabbing Gerrit Cole told Newsday columnist David Lennon Sunday. “And I think as the season goes on, the idea is to maintain how well these guys can pitch when they’re at their best. Try to shave one or two runs off the poor performances just to give ourselves a better chance to win those games. It’s shaking out all right so far. We were kind of maybe over-performing last year and then regressed, but we’re still winning games in both scenarios. Hopefully we continue to improve as we go forward and these guys get more innings under their belt.”

Can the eventual return of Luis Gil quell some of the concern? Perhaps, but is he going to be able to just jump right in and immediately become the force he was during his 2024 rookie of the year season. Think back to last season - he got off to a great start but he was nowhere near the same pitcher from midseason on so I have my doubts that he’s going to be a huge difference maker.

Can Marcus Stroman, who is apparently getting close to a return, help out? Come on, that’s not happening.

Out in the bullpen, this series unmasked some of the issues the Yankees are facing with Luke Weaver sidelined at least another month, and while Mr. Positive would never admit it, Boone’s circle of trust has to be shrinking. Ian Hamilton is a bum; Jonathan Loaisiga has become a gopher ball artist; and there’s been some notable volatility with Fernando Cruz, Tim Hill, Mark Leiter and Devin Williams.

That’s not all that unusual in MLB bullpens, but when you have a manager who burns through four or five relievers a game, it’s always a risk because how often are all of those guys going to get their specific task done? Somewhere along the way there’s usually a weak link in the chain and it’s a dangerous game to play, especially against a team that can hit, which Boston clearly did in these three games.

June 6: Yankees 9, Red Sox 6

➤ It certainly felt like a stress-free night for the Yankees when they scored five runs in the first and two more in the second to blow Walker Buehler off the mound. But while the Red Sox never took the lead, they certainly made it a little sticky in the middle innings before the bullpen locked it down.

➤ Great start as Trent Grisham walked, Aaron Judge doubled, and then when it looked like a wasted chance after Cody Bellinger and Paul Goldschmidt were retired, Jazz Chisholm came through a three-run homer on a good 0-2 pitch that was down. Hell of a swing there. And then Jasson Dominguez singled and Anthony Volpe hit a three-run homer. Wow.

➤ Two more runs in the second thanks to Buehler as he allowed two singles, a walk and a hit batter, and the Red Sox made an error and it was 7-0.

➤ Warren bounced back well from his disaster in Los Angeles, but after four scoreless innings he gave up the first homer of rookie Marcelo Mayer’s career in the fifth, and then he fell apart in the sixth, signaling what was to come from the Yankees’ staff the rest of the weekend. Jarren Duran led off with a triple, Rafael Devers walked, and a sacrifice fly scored Duran. Then Warren walked two more men so Brent Headrick was summoned, and he immediately gave up a two-run single to Romy Gonzales to make it 8-4.

➤ A Goldschmidt homer made it 9-4, but Headrick gave up a two-run blast to the devil incarnate, Devers and butts started squirming. However, Cruz whiffed two to end the seventh, then Loaisiga and Williams closed it out with minimal drama, a rarity in this series.

➤ Judge and Chisholm each had three hits, Chisholm had four RBI as he also had an RBI single in the second, and Volpe had three RBI, though the third came when he was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded in the second and he eventually had to leave the game with a sore elbow.

What they said in Friday’s clubhouse

• Chisholm on trying to swing more productively: “It’s really a mindset thing. On the home run, I was trying to hit a line drive to center field, a base hit. I wasn’t even trying to hit a home run. It ended up shooting off my bat and getting over the fence. That’s why I was so hyped coming around first base: It hit me, ‘70% is really enough to be a great baseball player. I really heard all my life that I need to tone down the way I play. You can be electric while being controlled at the same time. My 70% running is probably faster than a lot of the guys in the league. … If I stay fundamentally sound at 70%, I’m a pretty good baseball player.”

• Volpe on Chisholm: “If that’s 70%, it doesn’t look like it. It’s fun to watch and it’s fun to be his teammate. In his mind, it might be 70%. But what I think everyone in this clubhouse loves and respects about him is, it looks like every night he’s playing with his hair on fire.”

• Boone on Chisholm: “I think we all know exactly what he mean, and he’s right. A lot of times, less is more for guys - especially when you get in the batter’s box.’ Anytime you guys start asking Jazz questions, I’ll just pull up a chair and listen.”

June 7: Red Sox 10, Yankees 7

➤ This was a bad matchup from the get-go for a number of reasons. No. 1, I had a strong feeling that Yarbrough’s voodoo was going to end and he was going to get lit up because remember, his variety of junk is nothing new to the Red Sox. He has pitched against them 21 times in his career, almost all of that with Tampa Bay, and he had a 7.65 ERA against them with 16 homers allowed in 100 innings. He wasn’t going to be fooling anybody, and he didn’t. Second, the Yankees were facing Boston ace Garrett Crochet, though that wasn’t as problematic as I thought. Third, Boone decided that Chisholm needed a day off, even though his lineup was already weakened because Volpe did not start at short because of his sore elbow. That meant Oswald Peraza had to play short, so why in the living hell did Boone start Pablo Reyes at third over the resting Chisholm? What? Especially on a night where the defense had to be great because the ball was going to be in play with Yarbrough pitching.

➤ Sometimes, the Yankees do the dumbest shit imaginable. Boone explained this was a planned day off for Chisholm and the decision was made easier because the dominant lefty Crochet was pitching. Oh, OK. He just had a month off, he just had a four-RBI game Friday, and he’s 10 times the better player than Reyes even though he bats left-handed and Crochet is tough, but this was the decision? Reyes, who shouldn’t even be on the team. This is the shit that drives me nuts about Boone, or whoever is making the lineup decisions.

➤ And naturally, Reyes killed them in Boston’s five-run third inning. You could tell Yarbrough didn’t have it when he gave up a run in the second, but Austin Wells ripped a three-run homer off Crochet in the bottom half which, yes, stunned me. Then in the third, Yarbrough was awful and Reyes didn’t help.

➤ Devers got hit by a pitch, went to third on a double by Rob Refsnyder, but then got thrown out at the plate when the good ol’ contact play failed as Goldschmidt made a nice throw to nail him by a mile. Nice to see another team get burned by the contact play. The next batter, Gonzalez, hit a ball in the hole at short and Peraza fielded it and should have had a force at third. Instead, Reyes wasn’t on the bag and everyone was safe, and that cracked open the door for the five runs, RBI singles by Abraham Toro and Kristian Campbell, and a three-run double by Trevor Story on a hard-hit ball that Reyes couldn’t handle which went all the way into the corner. My guess is that Chisholm would have been on the bag at third for the force, and would have at least knocked down the Story hit and this could have been a very different inning. Oh, so much for resting Chisholm. He came in as a pinch hitter for Reyes in the seventh and stayed in to play third. Even though he struck out in both his at bats, you just shake your head sometimes at Boone’s brain.

➤ Rather than yank Yarbrough after the third when it was obvious he had nothing, Boone sent him out for the fourth and he gave up a walk and a two-run homer to Gonzalez to make it 8-3. His final line showed eight runs on nine hits and two walks. That wasn’t the last of Boone’s stupid decisions. In the ninth, after the Yankees had battled back within 8-7, he went with Hamilton who has basically been the worst reliever on the team all year. He got tagged for two runs on three hits and a walk, Story - who has sucked all season - delivering the dagger with a two-run single to give him five RBI.

➤ So in the end, it’s a loss, one that I expected, but what I did not expect was the Yankees scoring five runs on Crochet and making this a very winnable game had the Yankees managed the game better.

➤ It was close at the end because Wells had an RBI double and Reyes an RBI groundout in the fourth, and then LeMahieu came up with a clutch two-out, two-run single in the eighth off Justin Wilson who did his best to get the Yankees back into it. LeMahieu took second on the throw home so Wells was up with a chance to tie the game, but he struck out.

➤ Before the LeMahieu hit, Dominguez came up in the same situation, men on second and third. However, with the lefty Wilson on the mound, Dominguez batted right-handed, and as we know, he’s one of the worst right-handed batters in MLB. Predictably he struck out. I’m not sure what the Yankees have to do here, but at some point, maybe he just needs to stick to being a left-handed hitter because he has no platoon advantage when he bats righty. None. He’s hitting .143 with one homer as a righty batter compared to .280 with five homers as a lefty. Just commit to batting left.

What they said in Saturday’s clubhouse

• Yarbrough: “They just strung a bunch of hits together. You feel like you’re not giving up a lot of hard contact, but they’re just finding a lot of holes and putting things in the right place. Then you get some hard contact and things escalate. Just got to be better about limiting the damage, finding a way to get out of it.’’

• Boone on Hamilton: “A little bit of a struggle. Really not getting ahead, and when he did, makes a mistake.”

June 8: Red Sox 11, Yankees 7

➤ Carlos Rodon was due for one of these, and it was like so many of his past meltdowns. Things seemed to be going just fine as he worked 4.2 scoreless innings, and then he just crashed. He walked Rafaela and Campbell hit a two-run homer. And then in the sixth he hit Devers with a pitch, walked Refsnyder and served up a three-run homer to Narvaez and suddenly he was losing 5-3 and he was out of the game.

➤ And then the Yankees bullpen took over and puked all over itself, just a horrendous game. Cruz faced five men and three reached base so Hill was called in and he gave up a two-run single to Duran that made it 7-3. That was the first hit Hill has allowed in the 15 times he has pitched with the bases loaded since he joined the Yankees. It was that kind of night.

➤ Next was Loaisiga who worked an easy seventh but then gave up back-to-back homers to Toro and Story, right after the Yankees had gotten within 7-5 with two runs in the seventh. Finally, Headrick took over and threw BP - two runs on four hits including a solo homer by Devers, of course.

➤ Judge hit a two-run homer in the first for a quick lead, LeMahieu hit a solo shot that gave the Yankees the lead back in the fifth, and then Judge hit a meaningless two-run homer in the ninth. Unfortunately, that wasn’t nearly enough to overcome Boston’s five home runs which tied for its most in a game at the new Yankee Stadium, matching the total it hit on May 17, 2010.

➤ As poorly as the Yankees pitched all weekend, the Red Sox weren’t exactly lights out, either. Their pitchers gave up 23 runs on 31 hits and 13 walks, but that was to be expected. They’ve kinda sucked all year on the mound and they ended the weekend ranked 23rd in ERA at 4.13, but they were better than New York and that was why they won the series.

What they said in Sunday’s clubhouse

• Rodon: “Falling behind hitters and giving out free bases, it’s a no-go,” Rodon said.

• Boone: “They had their hitting shoes on. They beat us here this weekend.”

• Judge: “The message is, ‘Just keep going.’ Whenever you play the Red Sox, it’s going to be a series like this: back and forth. That’s baseball. Just go back to work.”

• Goldschmidt: “I wish we would’ve won, but obviously it’s fun to go out there and have the crowd into it. We know how much this series means to each organization, definitely the fans for each team.”

The Yankees have a day to recover from their ass kicking as they fly to Kansas City to open a three-game series with the Royals, another fourth-place team so that’s probably not a good thing based on what the fourth-place Red Sox just did to Boone’s boys.

The Yankees swept the Royals back in April, but it sure wasn’t easy as they scored four runs in all three games and happened to pitch well against a team that was really struggling to hit and score. The Royals are 34-32, and they’ve started to play better lately, but they found a way to lose a series to the White Sox over the weekend.

Here are some of the Royals top players to watch:

➤ C Salvador Perez: He’s not the hitter he once was, but he can still be dangerous and has 31 RBI.

➤ SS Bobby Witt: It hasn’t been a great season so far, but it has been a very good one as he’s slashing .291/.349/.492 for an OPS of .841 with 21 stolen bases.

➤ 1B VInnie Pasquantino: The slugger leads the team with 10 homers and 38 RBI.

➤ RF Jac Caglianone: The big prospect was just called up last week and he had a four-hit game Sunday, though he’s still looking for his first home run.

➤ RP Carlos Esteves: He has converted 19 of 22 save opportunities and has a 1.88 ERA.

The pitching matchups are scheduled to be:

• Tuesday, 7:40, YES: Max Fried (1.78 ERA) vs. Noah Cameron (0.85), a rookie who has made five starts and has been outstanding as his WHIP is 0.789. Yeah, not what the Yankees need.

• Wednesday, 7:40, Amazon Prime: Clarke Schmidt (4.04) vs. Kris Bubic (1.43) who has the best ERA in MLB with a 1.000 WHIP to go with it, so another potential nightmare night for the offense.

• Thursday, 7:40, YES: Will Warren (5.34) vs. Seth Lugo (3.46) who continues to be a stud for the Royals since joining them in 2024.