It has been exactly a month so we are long over due for a trip down to Yankee Land.  A lot has happened since last we visited, some good, some bad.  We will get into all of it but first I would like to personally thank the Baltimore Orioles for not running away with the division.  I can’t say for sure they did not bet on the Yankees to win the East.  As we stand of this writing the Yankees and Baltimore are tied atop the AL East.  The Yankees are 6 games ahead of the Red Sox who are the first team out of the playoffs.  Their Magic number to secure a playoff spot is down to 35.  Let’s get into how we got here. 

The Yankees are 14-10 since the All-Star break. Not bad but not great.  Their biggest issue lately has been their pitching.  Both their starters and their bullpen have been up and down to say the least.  They need to figure out the pitching.  You cannot expect a team to score 8 runs a game, especially come playoff time.  In the 24 games since the Break the Yankees pitching has given up 6 or more runs in 12 of them.  Including a stretch of 8, 9, 0, 9, 7, 11 in six games against Angels and Rangers.  Since the break they have given up 130 runs, 35 home runs, 81 walks and have a 4.97 ERA.  In the last week they have a 5.52 ERA.  This just isn’t good enough.  This team will go as far as their pitching will take them; the offense is good enough to hang with anyone. 

Surprisingly, Carlos Rodon has been their best starter since the break.  He has 2 of their 4 quality starts and has pitched to a 2.22 ERA.  Rodon has been really good as of late as he has finally gotten away from being a two-pitch pitcher.  I am never going to trust him when he takes the mound but his continuing to be close to the guy they thought they were signing will be huge for the Yankees efforts to make the play offs and go far once they are there. 

Gerret Cole got lit up again by the Mets but if you take that outing out, he has been very good.  In his 17 other innings since the break, he has given up only 4 runs.  He struck out 10 batters in his last outing in 5.1 innings.  It’s needless to say the Yankees need Cole to be his dominant self if they want to make a run at the World Series.  As the season goes on, he gets closer and closer to being that guy again. 

Luis Gil has been the Yankees best starter all season and while he has had a couple of bad outings, he continues to be very good for them.  His last outing was rough, giving up 4 runs in 4 innings but he had returned to being very good in the 5 starts before that.  He still throws way too many pitches to go deep into games but if he can be very good for 5 innings every outing, the Yankees will take it.   

Cole, Rodon, and Gil will be the first three starters in any playoff series the Yankees play.  That is not a bad top three when they are all on their games.  The question is who would be a 4^th starter if they need one.  Strowman and Cortez have not been good this season.  Nasty Nester has had a weird season.  In the first half he was great at home and terrible on the road. Since the break he has been pretty bad both on the road and at home.  His last outing, however, was a 7-inning gem, given it was against a team that recently lost 21 straight games, it might not be a sign of things to come.  Strowman has been getting worse as the season goes on.  Things will have had gone terribly wrong for him to make a playoff start.  Hell, I am not sure he will finish the season in the rotation with Clarke Schmidt due back.   Schmidt is the wild card in all of this.  He is due back at the beginning of September.  If he can come back and pitch the way he did before getting injured (he had a 2.25 ERA), he should supplant either Cortez or Strowman in the rotation and be the 4^th starter in the playoffs.   

This brings us to the bullpen.  To say their bullpen has been bad is an understatement.  This really pisses me off because this is the one thing Brian Cashman is supposed to be good at and he has failed miserably this season.  There is just no consistency when Boone makes the call to the pen.  You never know if the next guy out is going to get the job done or get lit up.  Even Luke Weaver, who has been arguably their best reliever all season, absolutely torched a great start by Cole giving up 5 runs in a third of an inning.  My favorite bullpen development is this.  At the deadline the Yankees acquired Enyel De Los Santos from the Padres to strengthen the pen.  In my trade deadline review I questioned why the Padres, who are trying to make a World Series run, would trade a good reliever.  I also pointed out that San Diego did not use De Los Santos in high leverage situations.  Well, there was a reason they were willing to trade him.  The Yankees DFA’d him yesterday after giving up 10 runs and 19 baserunners in 6.1 innings.  Just awful.  But you could see it coming.  Luckily the Yankees didn’t give up anything to get him.  Leiter has been better since coming over but nothing great.  Again, what is supposed to be a Cashman strong point, was the one thing they really needed to improve at the deadline and he failed.  They have some bullpen arms who are due back soon.  The Yankees really have to hope they come back strong.  Oh, and Clay Holmes continues to prove me right when I said all offseason he should be moved to the eight inning and they should get a new closer.  I am sure that won’t come back to bite them in the playoffs. 

The good move they made at the deadline was Jazz Chisholm Jr.  He fit right in and excelled as a Yankee.  In his 14 games as a Yankee he hit .316 with 7 home runs and 11 RBIs and 5 stolen bases.  He has also played great at third base, a position he has never played in the Majors.  Notice all the past tense I used there.  That’s because Jazz has blown out his UCL and is most likely lost for the season.  One of these days I am going to write an article about my sports curse but that’s for another day.  The good news is Jazz injured his non-throwing arm so even if he needs surgery, he should be back by next April.

As good as Jazz was, the good news is the Yankees offense should be fine without him.  The Bronx Bombers are second in the Majors in runs scored putting up 5.16 runs per game.  Stanton’s return has helped deepen the line up.  He’s only hitting .225 since his return but has 2 homers, 3 doubles and 7 RBIs in the 11 games.  Most of that has come in the last week where he hit .278.  His return makes it harder for teams to pitch around Aaron Judge, and Juan Soto for that matter. 

Speaking of the big boys, Soto continues to be amazing.  In the 24 games since the break he is hitting .351 with 11 home runs, 9 doubles, a triple, and 21 RBIs.  That’s a 74 homer, 142 RBI pace.  Just sign this man.   

Soto was so hot against the White Sox that they actually chose to walk him to pitch to Judge.  It did not work out for them as Judge hit his 300^th home run and became the player to reach 300 homers in the fewest games ever.  He broke the record by 132 games.  Imagine if he could have stayed healthy.  If you thought Soto has been good since the break, Judge has been at least as good.  He is hitting a mare .446 since the break and getting on base at a .596 rate.  He has 9 homers, 25 RBIs, 4 doubles and even stole a base.  He and Soto batting back-to-back is like watching Ruth and Gehrig all over again.  Judge has even adjusted to being the DH as he is now hitting .333 when not playing the field.  

The biggest beneficiary of Soto and Judge’s dominance has been Austin Wells.  Since moving to the 4^th spot in the lineup, Wells has blown up.  As the cleanup hitter he is hitting .368 with 3 longs balls, 3 doubles, a triple, and 16 RBIs in 68 games.  He has been getting better and better with each passing month.  Having a catcher that can hit like this is still a big advantage.  Hopefully this is the type of hitter he is going to be going forward.  (.368 is asking a lot but a .300 hitter seems possible.)

The middle of the Yankees lineup with lefty Soto, righty Judge, Lefty Wells, and righty Stanton has got to be a nightmare for opposing pitchers.  It’s even harder to deal with when the rest of the lineup is producing.  Losing Jazz hurts this but the others have been productive lately.  Volpe came out of the break on fire but has since fallen off.  He is 2 for his last 26 and is apparently going to be one of the streakiest hitters in baseball.  LeMahieu has actually started to hit.  In the last 15 days he is hitting .303 with a dinger and 10 RBIs.  So he has made up for Volpe’s slump.  They really could use the two of them hitting at the same time but I’ll settle for one of them on when the other is off.  DJ hitting is big because Ben Rice has cooled off.  Having him and DJ platoon is probably the best way to go for the rest of the season. 

Verdugo and Gleyber have been hitting better lately as well.  In the last 30 days Verdugo is hitting .242 with 11 walks and a .314 OBP.  That’s not bad as the guy hitting in front of Soto.  He also has 8 doubles.   Gleyber, in that same time, is hitting .256 with 2 dingers, 3 doubles, and 10 RBIs.  They are not exactly putting up All Star numbers but it’s a big improvement over the first half of the season.   

Jazz’s injury has had two interesting effects on the Yankee line up.  First it has thrown Oswaldo Cabrera into the 3^rd base role.  Even before the injury, Cabrera has been making good use of his playing time.  He has hit .333 in his last 18 games and has brought his energy and athleticism back into the lineup.  The second development is that the Yankees have called up infielder Oswald Peraza to replace Chisholm on the roster.  Peraza had recently made a change to his swing, adding a toe tap, and had really taken off in Triple A.  In his last 21 games he hit .317 with 7 home runs and 20 RBIs.  That’s pretty good.  I don’t know how much playing time the kid will get the rest of the way but he looks primed to take advantage of it.

Speaking of minor league infielders, Caleb Durbin has finally returned from his injury and has begun raking in triple A again.  Jasson Dominguez is also back though he is off to a bit of a slow start since his return.  Not wanting to turn this into a novel, I will have a full Down on the Farm article coming next week.       

So that’s where we stand on this off day.  The hitting has rally turned around and is the strength of the team.  But great hitting can’t over come terrible pitching.  Especially in the playoffs when you face good pitching almost every game. The Yanks are in line to make the playoffs barring a historically terrible finish to the season.  From now until then they really need to figure out the pitching and especially the bullpen.  If they can hold teams to 4 or fewer runs, they should be able to make a real run at World Series.