All or Nothing for the Bombers, today, it was not enough.

New York – Yankees were greeted with a suprise change to the starting pitching rotation when they entered the Stadium on Saturday, but that would not be the storyline in this game.

Injury Report:

• Clarke Schmidt was scratched from his scheduled start with Left Flank Soreness. He will make his next start on Tuesday vs. San Diego.

Notes/Analysis:

• FINAL: 3-2 TB
  • WP Littell (2-5) 4.61
  • LP Leiter Jr. (2-3) 3.95
  • SV: Fairbanks (7)
• Ryan Yarbrough made the start in place of Schmidt, allowing just one run in 4 innings of work, on a Sac Fly.
• Aaron Judge and Austin Wells both blasted Solo HR's
• The Yankees had a 2-1 lead in the eight inning, giving the ball to Mark Leiter Jr. Leiter allowed a single to Volpe (that Volpe was injured on, more on that later), then a stolen base, then a strikeout, then an RBI single to tie the game, but Volpe, who stayed in the game after an apparent injury boots a potential double play ball to end the inning, allowing the go-ahead run to score.
  • This is Volpe's second game in three games that he has committed an error that costed the team a run, and the lead. This is also Volpe's third game in a row with an error.
• Aaron Boone, once again, insulted the Yankee fan base by pinch-hitting Pablo Reyes (who struck out), in place of young Jorbit Vivas.
• The offense went down 1-2-3

The Yankees have a few big issues that were highlighted in today's loss:

1. They are STILL not fundamentally sound:
   1. While Bellinger and Rice were making gold-glove level playes, it gets overshadowed by losing two of the last three games on errors. I also observed that the team does not play situational baseball. In the bottom of the eighth inning, for example, Grisham hit a leadoff single. Reyes than came on to pinch hit. Why not drop a bunt down to move the runner over because Bellinger later singled and Grisham was able to go first-to-third. If he was on second, he could have scored the tying run, but the Yankees don't bunt or steel bases because why would they? They only got killed on the base stealing all game.
2. They rely too much on Homers:
   1. The Yankees have scored five runs this series. All five runs have come off Homers (3-run HR by Goldschmidt, Solo HR's from Judge and Wells).
   2. In order for the Yankees to keep winning games and be successful in 2025, they need to find ways to score besides the long ball.
3. Lack of Starting Pitching Depth:
   1. The Yankees are 7-0 when Max Fried starts, but they are 12-14 when someone else starts a game. While Rodon has looked as advertised in the past few games, nobody else does. Warren is still. molding, and he will have growing pains, but he has potential and needs to learn on the job, and quick. Cookie Carrasco is cooked and should not be getting starts for the 2025 Yankees any more, and Schmidt is an injury risk, although I have some doubts about today's injury based on the fact that Carrasco was scheduled to start on Tuesday, but he won't now because Schmidt was pushed to Tuesday. Could it potentially be because the Yankees don't trust Carrasco against the Padres, a really good team that the Yankees need to beat? How convenient.

Highlights: