The Yankees are 4-2 and have outscored their opponents by 3.5 runs per game. The bottom line is unequivocally, very good.
That said, and with the huge caveat that six games is a sneeze in terms of baseball season time*, there are some things we can keep an eye on that may have a big influence on the rest of the season.
(Tom Tango, in his book “The Book”, did a great job of demonstrating how even after 100 PA, there’s still much variance between a player’s actual performance and his results, so it’s going to be a while before we can glean anything meaningful.)
The run prevention needs to be better.
Allowing 5.33 runs per game is not sustainable long term, so both the pitchers (9th highest xwOBA against and 3rd highest walk rate in MLB) and the defense (23rd in defensive runs above average) need to tighten up. A good chunk of that will land on Max Fried, who we’ll come back to in a minute…
As I’ve been saying for over two years now, swing for the fences Anthony Volpe is a much better hitter than the shorten the swing and put it into play Anthony Volpe. Since last postseason, he’s demonstrably swinging harder, and although still isn’t selective enough, at least he does damage on mistakes. If he maintains this approach, he’s still young enough to develop, but even if he doesn’t this is a better option than the useless version of Volpe, who we saw over the last four months of the 2024 regular season.
Even when Rice’s results nose dived after a hot start in 2024, he still was drawing walks and hitting the ball hard, so his hot start to ’25 shouldn’t be a surprise. If he can continue to be a tough out with power, that can be a massive boost to the lineup given Giancarlo Stanton’s elbow issues and the likelihood that Paul Goldschmidt will crash to earth soon.
Michael Kay
No, Kay has nothing to do with the on-field results, but he does affect the mental health of Yankees fans every night. It must be noted that last night, Kay spoke glowingly about Cody Bellinger’s bat speed (Bellinger posted 13th percentile bat speed in MLB in 2024, 33rd percentile so far in ’25, FYI) and gave us an explanation as to why no one noticed Giancarlo Stanton was using the much discussed torpedo bat in last year’s postseason when he was vaporizing baseballs. According to Kay, the people in the know told him no one noticed Stanton’s bat last postseason, because the bat was black, and the games were at night. Kay passed this along as an unquestioned, and legitimate explanation.
No, I could not possibly make that up.
Those may be two examples from one game, but we all know that intellectual laziness and/or flat-out senseless statements are a nightly occurrence with him, and dammit, it needs to be said.
The aforementioned Fried takes the bump tonight in the road grays against the Pirates in the Steel City. Yankees hitters will be taking their hacks against Mitch Keller, who’s coming off a good start against the Marlins last Friday. First pitch, 4:12 pm.
Did I miss something? Let me know in the comments, or yell at me on the “My Baseball Page” on Blue Sky.
Recommended reading: “Satchel: The Life and Times of an American Legend”.
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