September 24, 2026

59 thoughts on “Yankees (90-67) vs. Rays (96-61), Wednesday, September 23, 2026, 7:05 PM”

    1. Among other things it reinforces how thinking and strategy are just not being taught to young ballplayers these days. He mentions his son Jack didn’t have a chance to practice calling his own pitches until AA. Not in little league, not high school, not college. Young pitchers have not been given the opportunity to take responsibility for their own course, and hence no chance to learn for themselves. Just follow orders and shut off the brain.
      Of course it’s just a microcosm of broader societal stupidity – how calculators have discouraged learning arithmetic; how Google Maps stifled a generation’s spatial learning; how AI is now ruining another generation’s education; and even outside of the corruption of society by big tech, how the withholding of public education funds based on standardized testing results ruined education from the prior generation forward. Rely on garbage metrics and get garbage results out. Which seems very much to be the Yankee Way under Cashman.

  3. Giancarlo Stanton and Trent Grisham took live at-bats today in Somerset. Aaron Boone said Stanton hit a HR. “They’re knocking on the door.” Yankees are also considering using Carlos Lagrange on a playoff roster.

    Seriously? Lagrange has pitched one inning since late June. Stanton hasn’t played since mid April. I could see using Grisham to platoon with Ramos.

    1. The only door Stanton is knocking on is the ER. Which is weird because they usually have automatic doors.

  6. I guess he does always light it up in the playoffs but come on, you’re asking him to face the best pitching in the league without even a rehab game?

    1. Who’d you rather see come up in the playoffs down 1, 2 outs, man on 2nd: Stanton who’s been reduced to just a torso after having his limbs removed and has to use one of those Stephen Hawking wheelchairs where he blows in a tube to swing a bat or a healthy, eight-hours-of-sleep, hydrated, Austin Wells?

    2. This whole Stanton crushes it in the playoffs is old news and not as true as people think,

      2025 5 for 26
      2024. A great series vs KC (6 for 16) a weird series vs Cleveland 4 for 18 with 4 HRs, then 5 for 21 in the WS.
      2022 6 for 32
      2021. Yeah that’s the one! A fantastic single game played in the wrong park.
      2020. 8 for 26 with 5 HRs

      So a few great series and a few nothing burgers. Career playoff OBP is 322 (below career and) though with a massive 605 SLG (well above career avg).

      Sorry but playing him after he’s missed 6 months is just pure hope and a prayer, maybe he runs into one? But mostly gonna be lots of swings and misses. which is why the Yankees might do it.

    1. Seriously? Meredith never said a word. Was they Captain and centerfielder Aaron Judge or GM Mr Judge speaking?

  13. This might be the most meaningless 5 games I can recall in a long time. Though not meaningless to McMahon who can get his WAR above 0.0 if he plays well. Just crazy! $16m for a 0 WAR player.

    1. In the macroeconomic picture McMahon’s contract seems like a good decision. $16M for zero WAR is a bargain considering the going rate for one WAR, which is to say an explicit cost of ~$45 billion to date plus 3 billion per additional month, compounded by supply shocks, compromise of global strategic goals, and loss of hegemony, to say nothing of the cost in lives of soldiers and civilians.

    1. I would pay $16 million to achieve zero war in 2027. But I don’t have $16 million so I’ll just have to vote.

    1. He basically punted 4 spots in the batting order. Looking at 2025 if you’re the GM and thought that your C, 3b and SS could hit in 2026 you’re an idiot. The CF fooled you off of 2025, but had you looked at his 2023-2024 you would have known it was an outlier. A GM not past his prime would have traded for a C who can hit in the offseason and not waited for a trade deadline move that never happened.

      Why does this annoy me so much? Because judge and Cole may keep getting worse and the window is closing..

  19. I don’t know why it bugs me so much, but I hate when the catcher points down as if he were the umpire telling the 1B/3B umpire to say whether it was a swing. If I were the ump, I’d dock them a ball every time they do that

    1. Needed the work, I imagine. And when Cam pitches a no-hitter tomorrow, Bednar won’t be needed (yes, the Yankees will have scored a run or two for Cam).

  23. Boston wins 1-0 Sonny fucking Gray, Whitlock (not Kriske Cash), and Chapman. If Cleveland could’ve won things might’ve got interesting. Would’ve been better for Boston, and us, if Boston dropped to 4th.

    1. Astros miss chance to seize control of AL West

      Josh Hader allowed a bases-loaded walk and Josh Naylor’s walk-off single as the Astros fell in 10 innings in Seattle, remaining in a tie with the Rangers atop the AL West but still holding the tiebreaker.

    1. We’re pretty close to that happening! Wow. Worst record ever to make the playoffs? No idea but the 73 Mets were pretty blah but over 500.

    2. We saw it happen in 2020, but that was a weird year that doesn’t really count (and that Astros team almost made it to the World Series with a losing record!).

      The Astros and Rangers can each only now TIE the worst record to ever make the playoffs in MLB history, the 82-80 Padres of 2005. And let’s face it, it is unlikely that either of these shitty teams is about to end their years 4-0. Much more likely is that they both go 3-1, and the Astros make the playoffs at 81-81. Fucking gross.

      The crazy thing is that, due to this shitty seeding system, where the third division winner gets the #6 seed in the first round and the #2 seed in the second round, the Astros would actually have a very decent shot at making the ALCS with a losing record, while the 2005 Padres were at least a quick sacrificial lamb to the #1 seed (even there, that was part of the BIZARRE playoff rule at the time that lasted for WAY too long that said that the #1 seed couldn’t play the Wild Card winner if the Wild Card winner came from their own division. I have absolutely no idea what the point of THAT was. It would often result in fairer seeding situations, like the 100 win 2005 Cardinals playing the 82-win Padres instead of the 89-win Astros, but still).

    3. I’m confused. 81-81 is manifestly one game worse than 82-80. 82-80 is the worst we’ve seen, then 81-81 would be the new worst.
      If we’ve seen a team with a losing record make the playoffs, however, then 82-80 CAN’T be the worst record with which a team ever made the playoffs.

    4. The 2020 season doesn’t count, since it wasn’t a full season. The worst record otherwise is 82-80, a record that Houston and Texas can only tie now if they win all of their remaining games, which they are unlikely to do. So we’re likely looking at an 81-81 team making the playoffs, which would be the worst record to make the playoffs in a full season (and we very might actually see an 80-82 team make the playoffs. Fucking gross).

  26. Seeing the Blue Jays go from 6 inches away from winning a WS (IKF learned baserunning from Boone) to missing the playoffs reminds me how spoiled we’ve become by the Yankees.

    2. Good times! Except game 7 2001. I wish Rivera just threw to 1b.

      I’ve told my family that if I get dementia they can play game 5 of the 2000 WS every night for me, and I’ll be happy every day!

    3. That game was one of those sci-fi someone-changed-the-timeline plots, with the “sensitives” all mumbling: this isn’t right, this isn’t the way it’s supposed to be.

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