Late update: About 3 hours after I posted this, the Yankees released pitcher Marcus Stroman, to make room on the roster for Luis Gil, set to come back from injury and make his 1st start of the season, this Sunday in Miami.
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Good or bad, the Tampa Bay Rays usually give the Yankees trouble. Coming off a bad series against the Toronto Blue Jays, the Yankees needed to be better.
They also needed to be active as the trading deadline approached. They were. This time, general manager Brian Cashman cannot be accused of neglecting his duty. How well he did it will be determined over the next 3 months, but, clearly, he did try:
* July 25: Sent pitchers Griffin Herring and Josh Grosz to the Colorado Rockies for 3rd baseman Ryan McMahon. He gave up nothing of foreseeable value, and got a good-fielding hot corner man, with a low batting average but some power. This fills a huge need, position-wise.
* July 26: Sent pitchers Clayton Beeter and outfield prospect Browm Martinez to the Washington Nationals for infielder Amed Rosario. As far as I can tell, those spellings are correct. This seems like a very little for very little trade, so let's move on:
* July 28: Sent pitcher Carlos Carrasco to the Atlanta Braves for a player to be named later. No problem: Carrasco did little for us, so if the PTBNL does anything for us, it's an plus.
* July 28: Sent pitcher Gage Ziehl to the Chicago White Sox for outfielder Austin Slater. Not much worth discussing here.
Then, on Wednesday, July 30: Cashman made 5 trades:
* Sent catchers Rafael Flores and Edgleen Perez, and outfielder Brian Sanchez, to the Pittsburgh Pirates for pitcher David Bednar. Flores is 24 and was batting .211 in Class AAA, Perez is 19 and batting .209 in Class A, and Sanchez is 21 and batting .281 in Class A, so the Yankees look like they didn't give up much.
What they got is a righthanded reliever who turns 31 in October, was tied for the National League lead with 39 saves in 2023, and, this season, is 2-5 with 17 saves for a 47-62 team, a 2.37 ERA, and a 1.105 WHIP. He's a Pittsburgh native, so he was doing this for his hometown team. He could be the closer we've been looking for, as neither Devin Williams nor Luke Weaver have looked like it.
* Traded catcher Jesús Rodríguez, infielder Parks Harbor, and pitchers Trystan Vrieling and Carlos De La Rosa to the San Francisco Giants for pitcher Camilo Doval. Doval, a Dominican, has an ERA that is a little high, but his WHIP is low, he had 15 saves for a decent Giants team, and was the other guy with whom Bednar was tied for the 2023 NL saves lead with 39. So: Give up 7 guys who aren't making the major leagues anytime soon, get 2 guys with 32 saves before August. Sounds good.
* Sent infielder Roc Riggio and pitcher Ben Shields to the Colorado Rockies for Jake Bird. Not much for not much.
* Sent infielder Oswald Peraza to the Los Angeles Angels for outfielder Wilberson De Pena and "international pool money." Peraza didn't do much for the Yankees. De Pena is 18 and batting .227 in the Rookie League. The international pool money will be more valuable.
* Sent outfielder Everson Pereira and a player to be named later to the Tampa Bay Rays for infielder José Caballero. Pereira is 24, and has played just 23 games in the major leagues, all with the Yankees in 2023. An injury set the Venezuelan back last season. With Class AAA Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, he's batting .254 with 19 home runs and 52 RBIs, so it looks like he's recovered, but the Yankees did not see fit to call him up this season or last. Looks like another of Cashman's precious prospects that didn't pan out.
Cabellero is about to turn 29, a utility infielder from Panama, and was leading the AL in stolen bases for the 2nd season in a row. TV cameras caught him hugging his Rays teammates in the dugout, as he was traded in mid-game on Wednesday.
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As for the games. Cam Schlittler started on Monday night, and didn't get out of the 5th inning. Both teams scored 2 runs in the 1st inning, but the Yankees couldn't get anything together after that, and lost, 4-2.
Max Fried started on Tuesday, against Joe Boyle, which led to some "boiled or fried" jokes. Fried was not at his best, but he did pitch into the 7th inning, to give the bullpen something of a break. Cody Bellinger and Anthony Volpe hit home runs, and the Yankees won, 7-5.
The Wednesday night game is one for the YES Network's Yankees Classics. Will Warren allowed just 1 run over the 1st 6 innings. But the Yankees trailed, 1-0, going to the bottom of the 8th. Trent Grisham led off with a home run to tie the game. This was followed by 3 straight singles, by Ben Rice, Bellinger and Giancarlo Stanton, and the Yankees led, 2-1.
But Williams couldn't hold it in the 9th. Cliché Alert: Walks can kill you, especially the leadoff variety. Williams walked Junior Caminero, and served up a home run to Josh Lowe. It was 3-2 Tampa Bay. But with 1 out in the bottom of the 9th, Volpe hit another homer to send the game to extra innings.
The (Cliché Alert) stupid ghost runner rule came into play, and it did Weaver no favors, as he led a run score in the top of the 10th. But the ghost runner taketh away, and the ghost runner giveth: With 1 out in the bottom of the 10th, Bellinger hit a triple that scored Grisham, and the game was tied again.
Tim Hill held the Rays off in the top of the 11th. With Jazz Chisholm at 2nd base as the ghost runner, and Kevin Kelly trying to close it out for the Rays, Jasson Domínguez was walked to set up a double play. McMahon was in position to become a Yankee hero for the 1st time. He did, singling Domínguez home. Yankees 5, Rays 4.
In that game, according to OptaSTATS, the Yankees became the only MLB team in the modern era -- not specifying when that era began, 1900, 1920, 1947, 1969, 1995, whatever -- to erase a deficit in the 8th, do that again in the 9th, do that again in the 10th, and then win in the 11th. Of course, the ghost runner rule had something to do with that, and it's hardly out of the realm of possibility for such an occurrence to happen again soon.
This led to an afternoon "getaway day" game for the series finale. Marcus Stroman went 5 innings, and allowed 4 runs, all in the 4th. But, like Fried on Tuesday night, he got plenty of support. The Yankees scored 3 runs in the 1st inning, 3 in the 2nd, 1 in the 3rd, none in the 4th and none in the 5th. That 33100 scoreline is not a ZIP Code in active use, but if it were, it would be in Miami.
Stanton and Rice hit home runs, and the Yankees won, 7-4. So they took the last 3 games of the 4-game series, and did it without Aaron Judge, Luis Gil, Gerrit Cole, Clarke Schmidt, or a reliable closer. Judge and Gil are coming back soon, Cole and Schmidt are not. As for a reliable closer, well, as I said, Cashman did try, and we shall see.
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So, as we enter August, the Yankees are 60-49, on a pace to go 89-73. Not good enough. They are 3 1/2 games, 3 in the all-important loss column, behind the Blue Jays in the American League Eastern Division, with the hated Boston Red Sox just 5 games behind. If the current standings hold until the end of the season, the Yankees would have the 4th seed in the AL Playoffs.
Tonight, they begin a roadtrip: 3 games in Miami against the Marlins, and 3 in the Dallas suburbs against the Texas Rangers. Then they come home for a stand against Houston and Minnesota. The trading deadline, like the weather has been, was hot. The Yankees were hot in the boardroom, and may be heating up on the field.
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