The Yankees’ pitching was once again brilliant in Seattle and it keyed a series victory over the Mariners who are a legitimate AL pennant contender, sending New York home with a 5-1 record after the first road trip of the year. Lets get to it.

Sweeping the offensively-challenged San Francisco Giants was obviously a great way to start the season, but lets face it - they didn’t exactly put up much of a fight against the Yankees.

Taking two out of three from the Seattle Mariners, a team most consider one of the top contenders for the 2026 AL pennant? That was way more impressive.

The Yankees finished off quite a season-opening road trip on the West Coast, winning five of the six games to jump into the early lead in the AL East as they sit one game ahead of the pain-in-the-ass Toronto Blue Jays who clearly look as if they’re going to be a problem once again.

But here’s the thing: I’m sure the Blue Jays are saying the same thing about the Yankees who just put forth six nearly flawless pitching performances, their six runs allowed the fewest ever by an AL team in the first six games of a season.

The dominance was otherworldly and as a staff they have three shutouts, a 1.01 ERA, a WHIP of 0.84 and a batting average against of .174, all of which lead MLB. They’re also the only staff that has not allowed a home run.

Leading the way are Max Fried and Cam Schlittler who won their first two starts without giving up a run - 25 combined scoreless innings with 25 strikeouts while yielding just eight hits and two walks. Imagine the audacity of Will Warren and Ryan Weathers to have allowed one run each in their lone starts!  

And the bullpen - which I’m not totally convinced is great, but I’m starting to feel a little better about - was nearly as superb as the rotation. It went 14.2 scoreless innings across the first three-plus games before Paul Blackburn faltered Monday night to lose the only game so far. Even after a blip on Wednesday from Camilo Doval and David Bednar, it’s cumulative ERA is fifth-best in MLB at 1.83 over 19.2 innings.

“What a week of pitching,” Aaron Boone said. “Credit to those guys for, along with Austin (Wells) and J.C. (Escarra) and the pitching group, coming up with a really good game plan and those starting pitchers going out there and executing at a really high level. The defense was excellent on the trip overall. Some timely hitting, a couple big homers along the way. Just really good baseball and a good way to open the season and head back home into an off day and hopefully start off a nice homestand.”


Obviously we can’t expect the Yankees to pitch like this every day and night; that would be historic. But if they can stay healthy, or at least reasonably healthy, and then add to the mix in the coming months with the returns of Carlos Rodon, Gerrit Cole and Clarke Schmidt, this pitching staff has a chance to be one of the best the Yankees have ever had.

You know I’m not prone to positive hyperbole, and it’s way too early to start dreaming about what might be, but a rotation of Fried, Schlittler, Cole, Rodon and then Warren, Weathers or Schmidt in the No. 5 spot is absurdly good. Perhaps I say this with a little recency bias, but when have the Yankees ever had talent and depth like this in their rotation? And since you can’t have a seven-man rotation, pushing a couple of those guys into the bullpen to fortify that group would be quite a scenario.

OK, that was a fun paragraph to write, so now is the time to remind everyone that the chances of all these guys being healthy at the same time is next to impossible. There will be injuries, there will be slumps, and there’s also a chance that the three starters currently on the injured list - Cole, Rodon and Schmidt - won’t be sharp when they return and will need time to find their groove. 

Same for the bullpen - there will be injuries and there will be slumps because while the first week was great, there are still some question marks out there when it comes to consistency including the three relievers who figure to be getting the bulk of the high leverage innings - Fernando Cruz, Doval and Bednar.

For one week, it has all looked glorious, so let’s ride with that as the Yankees head into their home opener in the Bronx Friday afternoon.

“I think the staff’s dominant and the bullpen’s been great as well,” said Schlittler. “The team as a whole, just feeding off each other and taking it each game, each start and keep rolling with it.”


➤ Well, the dream of 162-0 died late on the West Coast, and it died on a night where the offense stunk, again, and Aaron Boone left Paul Blackburn in to pitch in the bottom of the ninth inning of a 1-1 game. To the surprise of no one, he failed and the first loss of the year is in the books.

➤ I don’t know why Blackburn is on the team. This guy has never been good and his career 4.97 ERA and 1.419 WHIP is the clear proof. There are so many better options the Yankees could have in the bullpen, yet they made the ridiculous decision to bring him back for 2026 even after watching him pitch to a 5.10 ERA in eight appearances last year. Boone should have been thrilled that Blackburn worked around a walk in the eighth to get out of that unscathed, but to bring him out for the ninth was just stupid. Blackburn snapped the bullpen’s streak of scoreless innings at 14.2 to start the season.

➤ No. 8 hitter Leo Rivas led off with a single, and after Blackburn got No. 9 pest Cole Young out - the guy had three hits - Blackburn gave up a single to Julio Rodriguez and then a walk-off single to Cal Raleigh. I get not using David Bednar in a tie game on the road, but where was Cade Winquest? He hasn’t pitched yet, but he’s taking up a bullpen spot because as a Rule 5 pick the Yankees have to keep him on the roster by rule or risk losing him in waivers. But hey, if he’s unusable, why worry about losing him? If not Winquest in that spot, why not lefty Ryan Yarbrough, who has also yet to pitch? There were two lefties - Young and Brendan Donovan - due up in the inning and Yarbrough could have pitched multiple extra innings if need be.

➤ Ryan Weathers’ debut was spotty at best. He had no command early and through two innings he allowed one run on two hits and two walks and his pitch count was at 44. To his credit he battled and wound up getting 77 pitches in 4.1 innings, striking out seven without allowing another run. That’s because Fernando Cruz bailed him out of trouble in the fifth with two big whiffs. And then Jake Bird, Brent Headrick and Camilo Doval kept the Mariners down until the Blackburn show.

➤ The offense was brutal. Luis Castillo dominated for six scoreless, two-hit innings, and after he was out, the Yankees scored their only run in the seventh when Ben Rice singled, took second on a wild pitch, went to third on an infield out and scored on Amed Rosario’s sac fly. A nice manufactured run, but that’s all they got. Since the third inning of opening night, the Yankees have scored nine runs in the last 34 innings. The only guy doing anything is Giancarlo Stanton who has had two hits in each of the first four games. He has eight hits, the rest of the team has 22 combined.

➤ The Yankees’ baserunning follies reared up again. Stanton got thrown out trying to stretch a bloop single into a double, and Jose Caballero got picked off first base. 

➤The Yankees embarrassed umpire Mike Estabrook as they challenged five calls and won each one as Estabrook continually missed below the zone. To be fair, these are all razor thin misses, but they’re misses, and ABS is going to impact a million at bats this season in MLB.

Boone on staying with Blackburn: “I liked him through the bottom of the order there. They found a couple of holes and beat us. If we’re going to win that game, it just felt like our best way to go was with Black. I thought he managed contact for the most part there, even in that final inning.”

Weathers: “I definitely want to be more efficient and be in the zone a little bit more. I don’t want to hang my hat on 4 1/3 innings. I want to get deeper into the ballgame, and a lot of that comes from managing the pitch count myself and not falling behind in counts. I thought our whole team threw the ball well all night. Seattle threw the ball well. It was definitely a pitchers’ duel.”

➤ The pitching continued to be simply amazing as the Yankees delivered their third shutout in five games. By allowing just three runs, they tied the 1943 Cardinals for the fewest runs allowed through the first five games of an MLB season. Crazy.

➤ Max Fried - “an ace in control of the game” Boone said - toyed with a good Mariners lineup going seven scoreless innings allowing three harmless singles and a walk while striking out six. The Mariners were clueless and Fried became the first Yankee with six-plus scoreless innings in each of his first two starts of a season since Mel Stottlemyre in 1967.

➤ The offense showed a little life, Stanton again leading the way with his fifth straight two-hit game, just the fourth Yankees with multiple hits in each of the team’s first five games of a season, joining Alfonso Soriano (2003), Bill Skowron (1956) and Bob Meusel (1928). In this game, he got some help from Trent Grisham, Ben Rice and Cody Bellinger who all had two hits and that foursome combined for five runs scored and three RBI.

➤ Logan Gilbert is a stud but the Seattle starter has always struggled against the Yankees and it happened again. He got the first two outs in the first inning, but Cody Bellinger singled, Rice doubled and Stanton singled to make it 2-0. Gilbert settled in over the next three innings, helped by a pair of double plays, but in the sixth Grisham doubled, Bellinger singled him to third, and Grisham scored when Raleigh threw one into center field failing to nail Bellinger stealing. Rice walked and Stanton ripped an RBI double to left to chase Gilbert, and Jazz Chisholm greeted Cole Wilcox with an RBI single that closed the scoring.

➤ From there, Fried finished his 90-pitch outing, Headrick needed just 10 pitches in the eighth and Tim Hill needed just seven in a 1-2-3 ninth to finish the shutout.

Fried: “There weren’t times where I was just fighting to throw strikes; I felt like I was actually able to locate today, which made things a lot easier. We have a lot of really talented guys that are really motivated. We’ve been waiting for this opportunity to have the season start and go compete. We want to go win and we’re leaving everything out there. We got a lot of really good arms and we’re throwing the ball well right now, so we’re just trying to keep it rolling.”

Stanton: “They’ve made it easier on us, for sure. It’s a much easier at-bat when the other team has zero runs. I’m just staying back, being on time for heaters and keeping my barrel through the zone as much as possible.”

➤ This one definitely got uncomfortable at the end as the bullpen had its first real hiccup of the season and the Yankees hung on for dear life to win the rubber game of the series.

➤ The game looked to be in complete control once Paul Goldschmidt jacked a three-run homer off George Kirby, who was great until that happened in the sixth. They had scratched out a first-inning run when with two outs Bellinger walked, stole second and scored on a Rice double, but then the bats went mute until the sixth when Grisham and Rice walked before Goldschmidt’s bomb that made it 4-0.

➤ Cam Schlittler was once again outstanding, 6.1 scoreless innings, two hits, no walks, seven strikeouts, and just like Tuesday with Fried, the Mariners looked completely helpless. Boone lifted him at 79 pitches which was a little irritating, but they are still building him up after he had that short setback early in spring training due to a back strain.

➤ Cruz got the last two outs of the seventh, but the last two innings were stressful because neither Doval or Bednar were in top form. In the eighth Doval allowed three baserunners on two hits and a walk so Boone brought in Bednar and he gave up a two-run single to Raleigh that made it 4-2 before whiffing Rodriguez - who thankfully had an abysmal series - to end the inning.

➤ Rice capped a great first week for himself with a solo homer in the ninth and that provided just enough insurance because Bednar got knocked around for a run on two hits before getting Young on a deep fly ball to end the game, one that looked like big trouble when it left the bat. Bednar needed 40 pitches, so even with an off day Thursday, he’s probably not available Friday.

➤ Boone drew the ire of fans by sitting the red-hot Stanton. It didn’t make sense with a day off Thursday, but I guess the feeling was get him two full days off. He had Rice at DH and Goldy at first, even though Kirby is a righty, which is why the move didn’t make sense. Of course then Goldy had the biggest hit of the game, so Boone got the last laugh.

➤ Chisholm, who is off to a slow start - though not nearly as slow as Judge who is hitting .125 - singled to lead off the fifth and then promptly and sloppily got picked off first. Man, he can really be a maddening knucklehead sometimes. That’s a nitpick when you win five of six, but this shit on the bases needs to get corrected.

Boone on Schlittler: "It’s exciting to see how dominant his stuff is, just filling up the strike zone,” manager Aaron Boone said. “He got some early outs and that allowed him to get pretty deep into the game with a pitch count. He’s throwing the ball incredibly well. He set the tone for us.”

Goldschmidt: “It’s a good week for us, but we know there’s still six months to go. We’ve talked about doing the little things, playing the game and making those plays. It isn’t always about hitting a homer. Hopefully those things will pay off.”

The Yankees have a travel day off Thursday and then play the home opener Friday which begins a three-game series against the Marlins. Let’s hope this goes better than the series these two teams played last year in Miami, arguably the worst of the year for the Yankees who were swept three straight right after the trade deadline. The Marlins are no longer a joke as they’ve started this year 5-1, though that came against the dually woeful Rockies and White Sox. One break for the Yankees, they won’t face ace Sandy Alcantara because he pitched a three-hit shutout Wednesday against Chicago.

Here are some of their top players to watch:

➤ OF Owen Caissie: He was the key piece who came from the Cubs when Miami traded starting pitcher Edward Cabrera to Chicago, and Caissie already looks like the stud prospect the Cubs knew he was as he has eight RBI in the first six games.

➤ 2B Xavier Edwards: A rising player who has a career slash line of .300/.360/.374 through his first 245 MLB games and is hitting .409 thus far.

➤ C Agustin Ramirez: The former Yankees prospect was part of the 2024 trade that brought Jazz Chisholm to the Bronx. Last year he hit 21 homers and had 67 RBI.

➤ SS Otto Lopez: Last year he hit .246 with 15 homers, 77 RBI and 15 stolen bases and played a slick shortstop.

➤ RP Pete Fairbanks: The former Rays closer changed Florida addresses and he has two saves thus far. 

The pitching matchups are scheduled to be: