September 2nd, 2025: Judge, Gil, Volpe, Williams, Grisham, Chisholm

On this date in 1996, David Cone returned from his aneurysm and threw seven no-hit innings in Oakland. Here’s the box score. The Yankees were reeling at the time. They’d lost 15 of their previous 23 games, then Cone returned and the tide turned. A coincidence, most likely, but maybe not? Magical things happen during magical seasons. Anyway, here is today’s shorter than usual post coming out of Labor Day weekend.

1. Weekend thoughts. It’s funny. Winning six times in any seven-game span is an objectively great outcome, even against bad teams like the Nationals and White Sox. But because the Yankees won the first six games and lost the seventh, I’m mildly annoyed. Losing the first game and winning the next six would’ve been much better for the vibes. Sequencing matters in this stupid sport.

Anyway, the Yankees did what they had to do against the Nats and ChiSox and gave themselves breathing room in the Wild Card standings. They also inched closer to the Blue Jays, though I’m not focused on the division right now. We’ll see where the AL East race stands after the Blue Jays come to the Bronx this weekend.

These were the Wild Card standings going into Monday’s action (I didn't wait around for the games to end on the holiday, sorry):

1. Yankees: 76-61 (+3 GB)
2. Red Sox: 76-62 (+2.5 GB)
3. Mariners: 73-64
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4. Rangers: 71-67 (2.5 GB)
5. Royals: 70-67 (3 GB)

Texas just lost Nate Eovaldi (shoulder) and Corey Seager (appendectomy) for the rest of the season too. The Yankees have the tiebreaker over both the Rangers and Royals, so those 5.5 and six-game leads are really 6.5 and seven-game leads, respectively. The magic number to clinch a postseason berth is only 19, you know. Hopefully we can shift our focus to the AL East magic number soon. For now, it’s 19 for the postseason.

Sunday’s loss snapped a nine-game winning streak on the road. That dated back to the Texas series (David Bednar's 42-pitch save) and was the Yankees’ longest road winning streak since a nine-gamer in 1998. Go figure. The Yankees had a 1-11 stretch on the road earlier this year. Now they just wrapped up their longest road winning streak since 1998. I’ll say this much about the 2025 Yankees: They’re not boring. Weird, historic stuff every week.

The Yankees were Mike Tauchman robbing a Giancarlo Stanton home run (video) away from a four-game sweep Sunday (I thought we were cool, Sockman?). It all evens out though. The Yankees were a Lenyn Sosa fly ball landing just foul (video) away from a loss Saturday. A good week, it was. Even with Sunday’s loss. Here are a few thoughts on the last few games.

Judge ties Yogi

Three homers in the last five games for Aaron Judge, who still doesn’t look completely locked in but is beginning to look more Judge-like. Sunday’s homer (video) was No. 358 in his career*, tying Yogi Berra for fifth most in franchise history. Here is the Yankees’ all-time home run leaderboard:

1. Babe Ruth: 659
2. Mickey Mantle: 536
3. Lou Gehrig: 493
4. Joe DiMaggio: 361
t-5. Yogi Berra: 358
t-5. Aaron Judge: 358 and counting

It had been Ruth, Mantle, Gehrig, DiMaggio, and Berra atop the franchise home run leaderboard in that order since July 29th, 1966, when Mantle hit his 494th home run to pass Gehrig. The same five names in the same order for almost 60 years. I can’t imagine there's another franchise out there that could make that claim. Now Judge is tied with Berra with plenty of career remaining to add to his total.

“The way Yogi played the game, what he meant to the pinstripes, you know how much it meant being a New York Yankee to him,” Judge told Bryan Hoch following Sunday’s game. “I feel the same way. I’m honored to wear this jersey. It’s pretty cool to be on that list.”

The Yankees have 25 games remaining and Judge has a very good chance to pass DiMaggio this year and take over sole possession of fourth place on that list. Can Judge hit seven homers in those 25 games? Well, of course he can. We know that. Will he? If he does, he’ll join Ruth, Mark McGwire, and Sammy Sosa as the only players in baseball history with four career 50-homer seasons. Crazy, man.

Sunday’s homer also broke a tie with Berra for sixth place on the franchise’s all-time Baseball Reference WAR leaderboard. The only guys ahead of Judge are those four up there, and Derek Jeter. Judge is at +60.0 bWAR now. Jeter finished with +71.3 bWAR. We know Judge has +10 bWAR seasons in him. He’s done it twice. There’s a non-zero chance he catches Jeter around this time next season.

For now, the focus is on this year, and getting Judge back to MVP form (he’s opened up a +7.9 fWAR to +7.2 fWAR lead over Cal Raleigh) so the Yankees can return to the postseason and hopefully get over the hump. I don’t want the Judge era to peak with a World Series loss in 2024 the way the Don Mattingly era peaked with an ALDS loss in 1995.

“He’s definitely getting there. He’ll get there,” Aaron Boone told Hoch about Judge. “He’s going to find his way through and at some point here get really hot.”

* Sunday’s homer was also Judge’s 16th first inning homer this year. He’s now only two away from tying his own record.

Gil’s velocity and zone rate

Luis Gil was effective again Sunday (5.1 IP, 4 H, 2 R, 2 BB, 7 K, 1 HR on 98 pitches) and his velocity was down again Sunday. He threw only two four-seamers in his eight-pitch first inning and they were clocked at 91.3 mph and 91.8 mph. Gil’s changeup – his changeup – averaged 91.6 mph last season. Now he’s throwing fastballs at that velocity. Again, the Yankees said Gil was taking something off to throw strikes.

“Still finding it a little bit,” Boone told Greg Joyce after Sunday’s game. “Kind of a crafty performance where he’s trying to find his delivery. Trying to be in the zone more, so he’s adding and subtracting a little bit with the fastball. Made a lot of good pitches though, and for the most part limited the traffic. Hopefully we can just start to build where the command and control is there with the stuff following.”

Sunday was Gil’s sixth big league start this season. Here are his average fastball velocities and fastball zone rates in those six starts:

If Gil is holding back on his fastball in an effort to throw strikes, it ain’t working. His fastball zone rate was higher earlier this season, when his average fastball velocity was in line with last year. And not only has cutting back on velocity not led to more fastballs in the zone, his fastball whiff rate is down too. Four whiffs on 23 swings against the fastball Sunday (17%). Gil’s heater had a 29% whiff rate last season.

Gil reached back for 97.3 mph in the sixth inning Sunday, so it is in there, but that was also more or less his average fastball last season. Last year Gil reached back for 99-100 mph. I dunno, man. Cutting back on velocity to throw more strikes isn’t showing up in zone rate and the reduced velocity has naturally led to more contact. On one hand, the results have been good. On the other hand, Gil’s last two starts have also come against the Nationals and White Sox, so.

The velocity is at least a little red flag-y. Gil missed four months with a lat strain, and although the Yankees and Gil insist he’s healthy, I have a hard time trusting this team with injuries. At best, they misdirect, at worst, they outright lie. Gil has mostly pitched well. I just can’t just ignore it when a guy’s max fastball is around last year’s average fastball though. Something feels off.

“I’m feeling more comfortable, definitely,” Gil told Joyce. “Finding a better groove. Attacking the zone. And every outing, I keep getting closer to where I was last year. That’s what we’re striving for.”

Miscellany

Anthony Volpe went 6-for-14 (.429) with two doubles and a homer in Chicago. He went 6-for-62 (.097) with two doubles and a homer in his previous 18 games. For the umpteenth time, I will say this needs to be the start of something and not a blip. Too many blips, not enough sustained success three years into Volpe’s career … Devin Williams has been really bad in high leverage spots this year, though Saturday’s blown one-run lead was mostly bad BABIP luck. He gave up a double that stayed juuust fair and a ground ball single back up the middle on fastballs here:

It be like that sometimes. Even with Saturday, Williams has allowed one earned run while striking out 20 of 30 batters faced (!) since taking the loss in extra innings against the Astros on Aug. 8th … In hindsight, it’s easy to say the Yankees should have intentionally walked the righty hitting Lenyn Sosa in the eighth inning Sunday rather than let Tim Hill pitch to him (the lefty hitting Colson Montgomery was on deck), but almost no manager would intentionally put the winning run on base. Hill just has to make a better two-strike pitch. His platoon splits are enormous:

• vs. LHB: .168/.217/.177 (.179 wOBA) with 20.8 K%, 5.8 BB%, 66.7 GB%

• vs. RHB: .287/.331/.530 (.363 wOBA) with 7.2 K%, 6.4 BB%, 62.3 GB%

Hill has allowed seven homers to righties this year and zero homers to lefties since Freddie Freeman got him on May 12th, 2023. The three-batter minimum cuts into Hill’s effectiveness quite a bit. He would have been a left-on-left god back in the day … Trent Grisham hit two homers in Chicago, and I can’t say enough about his season. He’s hitting .246/.356/.477 (134 wRC+) with 28 homers, a career low 21.6 K%, a career high 13.9 BB%, and a career low 6.8% swinging strike rate. Swinging strike data goes back to 2002 and I count only 52 times that a player hit 30 homers with a sub-7.0% swinging strike rate (Albert Pujols did it 11 times). Just insane power production for a guy with this little whiff in his game (Grisham strikes out as much as he does because he takes so many pitches) … And finally, seven homers and 11 steals (in 11 attempts) in the last 19 games for Jazz Chisholm Jr. He has 26 homers and is 25-for-29 (86%) stealing bases. The fourth 30/30 season in franchise history is within reach. 

Injury updates and roster moves

Sounds like the Yankees avoided disaster with that 102.1 mph line drive off Cam Schlittler’s right forearm Saturday (video). He stayed in and completed his outing, though he had to be sore the next day after a direct shot like that … Austin Slater (hamstring) started a rehab assignment with Scranton on Friday. He is 2-for-5 with a walk in two rehab games while playing five innings in left and seven innings in right. Slater will play at least one more rehab game Tuesday … I did not realize this at the time, but Brent Headrick (forearm) was eligible to be activated Sunday. He’s still on the injured list. I guess that contusion is taking a while to heal. Headrick will presumably go to Triple-A whenever he’s activated … And finally, Ryan Yarbrough (oblique) was activated and J.C. Escarra were called up Monday. They’re the two extra September players. Escarra is just keeping the roster spot warm for Slater.

Up next

The gauntlet begins. Four straight series against almost certain AL postseason teams, the kinda teams the Yankees have not handled particularly well this season. The four-series stretch begins in Houston:

• Tuesday at Astros: LHP Max Fried vs. LHP Framber Valdez (8pm ET on YES, TBS)

• Wednesday at Astros: RHP Will Warren vs. RHP Jason Alexander (8pm ET on Amazon, MLBN)

• Thursday at Astros: LHP Carlos Rodón vs. RHP Cristian Javier (7:40pm ET on YES, MLBN)

Boone said the Yankees won’t play Stanton in left field at what is now called Daikin Park, which surprised me. It’s tiny out there with the Crawford Boxes. They’ll keep Stanton in right field this series. The Yankees have not lost a game in Houston since the 2022 ALCS. They went 3-0 there in 2023 (the Jasson Domínguez debut series) and 4-0 there last year (the sweep to start the season).

At risk of jinxing it, I will point out the Astros have really struggled offensively the last few weeks. They’ve averaged 3.11 runs in the 19 games since leaving the Bronx earlier this month, and they’ve scored two or fewer runs in 11 of those 19 games. Yordan Alvarez returned last week and still hasn’t gotten going at the plate. That makes me nervous. He’s way too good to slump for more than a week or so.

“It’s baseball, man,” Carlos Correa told Chandler Rome (subs. req’d) after the Astros were shut out by the Angels on Sunday. “It’s hard to tell when the whole lineup is scuffling like that and the at-bats are not as good as we’re accustomed to seeing. There’s obviously some adjustments that need to be made. It’s very easy to say it, but we can do a lot better than we’re doing.”

If you have your eye on the AL East title, this series with the Astros is important, and not just for the wins in the standings. The Yankees went into Monday a game up on Houston, and what’s the point of winning the division if you don’t get a Wild Card Series bye? Every win this series helps in the AL East race and also creates separation with the AL West leading Astros, and makes a bye more attainable.

Going 6-6 in these next 12 games would be a good outcome, albeit not one that makes us feel warm and fuzzy inside. Holding your own against good teams and beating up on bad teams is a tried and true path to the postseason, especially with this watered-down three Wild Card era. The Yankees did what they had to do against the Nationals and White Sox. Now they have to do the same against the Astros.

2. Rapid fire thoughts. There were a few moves around the league this past weekend – the Phillies signed Walker Buehler after the Red Sox released him and old pals Isiah Kiner-Falefa (Pirates) and Tim Mayza (Phillies) were claimed on waivers, among others – though the Yankees didn’t add any new players prior to Sunday’s 11:59pm ET postseason roster eligibility deadline. Not too surprising. They don’t have room in the bullpen for Yerry De Los Santos or Brent Headrick as it is, and Austin Slater’s coming back to round out the September bench. You never know when they’ll drop a surprise waiver claim on you (see: Duke Ellis last August), but nope. Nothing this year.

(Send your requests for Friday's mailbag to RABmailbag at gmail dot com. The random Yankee series is on hiatus, but feel free to send in requests for when it returns.)