August 25th, 2025: Red Sox Series, Fried

It’s behind the paywall, but the Baseball Prospectus crew had an interesting piece last week on what they called Adversarial Pitch Location. In a nutshell, they measured the pitcher’s ability to attack the hitter’s weak spots. Command guys Jose Quintana and Kyle Hendricks are atop the leaderboard and grip it and rip it relievers like José Alvarado are at the bottom, so that passes the sniff test. The Yankees are mostly middle of the pack (Will Warren is in the 55th percentile, tops on the team). Interesting stuff, and yeah, I can totally buy the Yankees not pitching to hitters’ weaknesses enough. They do a lot of dumb things. Here is Tuesday’s post on Monday. I figured it was best to run this right after the Red Sox series rather than wait one more day. The other thing I’m working on and planned to include in Tuesday’s post will be in Friday’s post instead, so this is just a Red Sox series recap.

1. Weekend thoughts. Remember last week when we were talking about the Yankees sitting in the top Wild Card spot and maybe even making a run at the Blue Jays? These bozos weren’t having any of that. It’s never good when the highlight of the weekend was a squirrel running on the field (video). Here are the Wild Card standings following the weekend pantsing:

1. Red Sox: 71-60 (+1 GB)
2. Yankees: 70-60 (+0.5 GB)
3. Mariners: 70-61
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4. Royals: 67-64 (3 GB)
5. Rangers: 66-66 (4.5 GB)
6. Guardians: 64-65 (5 GB)

The Yankees lost eight straight games against the Red Sox prior to Sunday’s win. It was the first time the Yankees lost eight straight to Boston in a single season since 2009 (they also lost eight straight spanning 2020-21). Good omen? Yeah, sure. If it helps you sleep at night.

The Red Sox have the tiebreaker, so that half-game deficit is really a 1.5-game deficit. The second Wild Card is so weird. If you’re not going to get the top Wild Card, you’re almost better off sliding into the third Wild Card and facing the worst division winner (AL West this year) than the best Wild Card team. You’re on the road either way. Wouldn’t you rather take your chances with the Astros/Mariners than Boston? A topic for another time, that is.

Divisional play began in 1969 and the worst winning percentage the Yankees have ever had against the AL East is .414 in 1990. They must win five of their final 17 divisional games to avoid a worse finish. Doable, but man, these AL East losses hurt. If the Yankees were merely 4-6 against the Red Sox instead of 2-8, they’re four games up on Boston in the loss column instead of tied. Yuck. Here are a few thoughts on a bad weekend.

Salvaging a terrible weekend

It wasn’t long ago that the Yankees would literally fight the Red Sox. Now they don’t put up much of a fight against the Red Sox. This past weekend dropped them to 2-8 against Boston this season. As usual, the Yankees beat themselves as much as the Red Sox beat them. It was another series of dumb shit on the bases and in the field.

• Thursday: Nine walks allowed and four errors committed.

• Friday: No outs on a grounder to short, doubled off first on a line drive, and more.

• Saturday: A pop up that wasn’t caught, an error, and a balk.

That pop up Austin Wells couldn’t catch Saturday was a difficult play (video), those pop ups behind the plate and into the sun are brutal, but championship teams make difficult plays, and too often the Yankees don’t make routine plays. The ball dropped in, the at-bat continued, a walk followed, two runs followed that, and the Red Sox were off and running. Yet another costly non-out.

Peak Yankees stupidity was Anthony Volpe not getting an out in the ninth inning of a one-run game Friday because he threw behind Jarren Duran at second (video), and tried to catch him too far off the bag. It was a play so stupid that Duran laughed about it on the field. This is what the Red Sox think of the Yankees:

Wells got doubled off first base on a line drive to short earlier in the game. Jasson Domínguez again threw to third when he should have thrown to second, allowing the batter-runner to get to second in a one-run game. Between the baserunning and defensive nonsense, and the lack of production, the Yankees’ most important young players have been so unimpressive this season. How discouraging.

“It’s obviously not the right play, but it’s a little bit of a heady play too,” Aaron Boone told Gary Phillips about Volpe’s play on Duran. “He almost caught a guy off in scoring position there. I mean, are we going to really dive into that one a lot? I mean, I get it. He wasn’t out, but it’s kind of a heads-up (play), almost got a guy napping.”

The excuses for Volpe are endless. Domínguez and Wells have both (justifiably) lost playing time in recent weeks, yet Volpe has been in there day after day with Boone making excuse after excuse. He’s hitting .208/.274/.400 (86 wRC+) this season, the third lowest OBP among qualified hitters, and his defense and baserunning have slipped. But hey, Volpe makes “heady” plays (that don’t result in outs and leaves the opponent literally laughing on the field).

The Yankees have a viable alternative to Volpe now in José Caballero, who, funny enough, is under team control longer than Volpe (one extra year). I don’t think Caballero is great or anything, but his OBP starts with a 3 (.333), he leads baseball with 40 steals, and he’s reliable defensively. If Domínguez and Wells can lose playing time, Volpe should too. These games are too important now. Put the best team on the field and give Caballero more starts at short. Sunday’s day on the bench shouldn’t be a one-off for Volpe.

“We’ll see,” Boone said yesterday when asked if Volpe will start Monday (video). “I haven’t made any definitive (decisions). Let me kind of get through today and do all we can to win tonight and we’ll see heading into tomorrow.”

(Volpe did not start Sunday but he came off the bench late for defense. Even when he’s out of the lineup, he finds his way into the game. Volpe has started 125 of 130 games this season and he's come off the bench four times. Once this year did he get the full game off, and that was due to injury.)

It’s not all on Volpe though. After taking great swings in St. Louis and Tampa, Aaron Judge no-showed against the Red Sox, going 2-for-14 with two walks and six strikeouts in the four games. I know he’s not 100% healthy, but if you’re healthy enough to play, you’re healthy enough to be expected to perform. Judge is a great player and a historically great hitter. He is not above criticism though. The Yankees needed more from their captain this past weekend.

Trent Grisham and Jazz Chisholm Jr. made up for quiet weekends (in Jazz’s case, a flat out bad weekend) with two-homer games Sunday (videos). Giancarlo Stanton is hammering everything. Ben Rice is hammering almost everything. Luke Weaver got the biggest outs Sunday after melting down Thursday. Devin Williams is doing the redemption tour thing (again). The starters other than Will Warren were good to great. Good stuff happened Sunday. It was just too late to feel good about the weekend overall.

This weekend didn’t alleviate any concerns about the Yankees being a paper tiger that bullies bad teams and folds when they get punched by good teams. Look at how they have handled the AL’s current postseason teams:

• vs. BOS, DET, HOU, SEA, TOR: 12-20 with -24 run differential

• vs. Everyone Else: 58-40 with a +125 run differential

That 11-20 includes 5-1 with a +17 run differential against the Mariners too. The road to the postseason is paved with wins against bad teams and you do get a fresh start in October. Those head-to-head records all reset. These Yankees certainly haven’t given us reason to be confident in them against top competition though. They are too often clearly – clearly – the inferior team.

The Yankees run the bases like I do in The Show and they play defense like the controller is unplugged. Every team loses 60+ games every year, but the Yankees almost seem designed to lose games in a way that agonizes their fans and leaves their opponents laughing. They embarrass themselves on the field on the regular, especially in anything that can be considered an important series. They are an exhausting, oftentimes unpleasant watch.

“We're not running out of time,” Boone told Bryan Hoch after Saturday’s loss. “But if we don't do better, then it's going to fizzle out, and we're not going to get to where we want to be."

Classic Boone. “We’re not running out of time, but we’re [defines running out of time].” Isn't it incredible this guy is still the manager? Eight years is a long time for a good manager who’s won the World Series (Joe Maddon lasted five years with the Cubs!), neither of which applies to Boone. Firing him won’t fix anything, at least not in the short-term, but the Yankees gotta at least pretend to care, right? I can’t believe I’ve gone full “if George was alive” mode. Look at what this team has done to me.

There have been worse Yankees’ teams in my lifetime, but I don't remember enjoying one less than I have this team. They’re talented, but they’re also very dumb, they make the same mistakes constantly (and then pretend they don’t happen), and they’re about as glassjawed as any contender could ever be. How do you fix that without a top to bottom overhaul? How do you change the culture? Is it as easy as bringing in a few new players? 

“We’ve got to play better,” Judge told Hoch on Saturday. “That’s what it comes down to. Coaches can’t fix that, fans can’t fix that, media can’t fix that. It’s the players in this room. We’ve got to step up.”

The “we’ve got to play better” line has been broken out several times this year. Brendan Kuty (subs. req’d) notes Judge also said it on June 24th, July 3rd, July 5th, and Aug. 5th, and the Yankees have yet to play better. At this point, what reason do we have to believe they can? They’ve lost the benefit of the doubt. What they say during media scrums is irrelevant. Their play on the field does all the talking, and their play tells us they can't meet the moment.

Fried finds it

There was a silver lining to the Red Sox series: Max Fried pitched well for the first time in weeks. I didn’t think he was at his very best, there were still too many walks (three for a guy with a 6.2 BB%) and long counts, but it’s hard to argue with the final product: 6 IP, 4 H, 0 R, 3 BB, 7 K (video) on 99 pitches. It was Fried’s first scoreless start since June 5th against the Guardians.

Last week I noted that Fried’s fastball command has been poor the last few weeks, possibly because he’s throwing too many cutters and losing feel for his four-seamer and sinker. Sure enough, he cut back on the cutter against Boston. Fried threw 14% cutters Friday. It was 31% on the season going into that game (his most used pitch). The cutters he did throw weren’t particularly well-located …

… which sorta sums up the problem. Fried was having trouble locating the pitch he throws most often. He has plenty of other weapons, so he scaled back on the cutter and mostly replaced it with sinkers. His 26% sinker rate Friday was his highest since a 30% game against the Dodgers on May 30th. The sinker was really effective too. Seven whiffs on 15 swings and a 78.2 mph average exit velocity allowed.

“I feel like a lot of times, I’ve been trying to use the fastball too much,” Fried told Hoch. “I just wanna get back to throwing a bunch of different pitches in different counts, and being okay with taking some gambles.”

That 14% cutter rate was his Fried’s lowest of the season. He threw all seven pitches Friday, including six pitches at least 10% of the time. It was only the third time in 26 starts he threw six pitches at least 10% of the time (also June 25th vs. Reds and July 12th vs. Cubs). It was the first time this year Fried threw seven pitches at least 7% of the time. They’re all quality pitches too (sweepers and traditional sliders are lumped together here):

My guess is this was not a one-start blip. The cutter is going on the back-burner and Fried will take a more kitchen sink approach. Having seven pitches is hard. Throwing seven pitches regularly is really hard. Throwing seven pitches regularly with command is special. Fried can do that. It is why he has a career 139 ERA+, fourth highest among active pitchers. This ain’t some slop-throwing junkballer.

Fried lost his command for a few weeks and exactly how much overusing the cutter caused that, we’ll never truly know. As adjustment was made though. Fried cut back on that cutter, leaned into his sinker, and got good results for the first time in almost two months. I bet we see more of the same moving forward. And if Fried regains the handle on the cutball and can bring it back at some point, great. If not, well, he’s not short on other offerings.

Miscellany

Honestly, Saturday’s 12-1 loss wasn’t as bad as the score indicates. I’m not gonna get upset about Paul Blackburn taking one for the team, and turning a 5-1 game into a 12-1 game with a seven-run top of the ninth in his fourth inning of work. Saturday ain’t on him. Blackburn earned his World Series ring … 24 walks in the last seven starts and 38.2 innings for Carlos Rodón. It’s a 14.6 BB%. The Yankees as a team have been walking way too many batters the last few weeks, and Rodón is the biggest culprit. 14.6 BB% in his last seven starts after an 8.6 BB% in his first 20 starts … I understand replacing Stanton for defense. I thought it was overly conservative to replace him for defense in the top of the eighth Sunday when he was due to hit in the bottom half, especially with a three-run lead. With a one-run lead, okay, fine, but isn’t Stanton more likely to score you a run with his bat than cost you three runs with his glove in that one half-inning? It all worked out in the game, so whatever … You’ve lost three straight games. David Bednar was already warming when Chisholm hit his second two-run homer to turn a 5-2 lead into a 7-2 lead Sunday. Can’t you just bring Bednar in and nail down that much needed win instead of getting cute with Camilo Doval? Doval eventually finished the game, but he wobbled, and Bednar was warmed up and was one batter away from coming into the game anyway! Boone is forever trying to steal outs with lesser pitchers, no matter how badly the Yankees need that night's win … And finally, the Red Sox called up outfield prospect Jhostynxon Garcia over the weekend and he went 0-for-4 with two walks and four strikeouts in his first MLB action. He’s a righty hitter, though he’s similar to Spencer Jones as a huge power guy with concerning contact inability. Garcia’s Triple-A chase and contact rates are in the same range as Jones. So, perhaps Garcia is a good proxy for how Jones would handle MLB pitching right now. We'll see how he performs the next few weeks.

Injury updates

Judge (flexor) started throwing to the bases for the first time Sunday. Here’s video. You can see it’s light tossing more than full effort throws. That’s Step 1 though. Throwing to the bases is an important rehab milestone. No one will say when Judge will return to the outfield, but he is getting closer … Fernando Cruz (oblique) will be activated Monday. I think Yerry De Los Santos might go down for him? If it’s a Blackburn DFA, then it should have happened Sunday with a fresh arm coming up for the day. Then again, the Yankees seem to like playing shorthanded … Austin Slater (hamstring) has resumed baseball activity. This is Week 3 of what the Yankees said would be a 4-6 week absence.

Up next

The Yankees are playing bottom-feeders this week, which means they’ll inexplicably lose (at least) one game, and spend the rest of the time pretending their season is back on track and everything’s fine. Here is what’s coming up between now and Friday’s post:

• Monday vs. Nationals: RHP Cam Schlittler vs. RHP Brad Lord (7pm ET on YES)

• Tuesday vs. Nationals: RHP Luis Gil vs. LHP MacKenzie Gore (7pm ET on YES)

• Wednesday vs. Nationals: LHP Max Fried vs. RHP Cade Cavalli (1pm ET on YES, MLBN)

• Thursday at White Sox: TBA vs. TBA (7:40pm ET on YES)

Wednesday’s game is somehow the last midweek afternoon game for the Yankees this season. Nothing but night games during the week after that, even on getaway days. Lord (3.46 ERA and 3.65 FIP) has been a pleasant surprise and Cavalli (2.82 ERA and 3.61 FIP) has looked electric at times in his first year back from Tommy John surgery. The Yankees, once again, get the other team’s top starters.

2. Rapid fire thoughts. The Orioles signed catcher Samuel Basallo, one of the top prospects in baseball, to an eight-year extension worth $67M last week. I forgot about this until Kiley McDaniel mentioned it, but the Yankees had a deal in place with Basallo for the 2020-21 international signing period. MLB and the MLBPA then agreed to push the start of the signing period back from July 2020 to January 2021 because of the pandemic, and also prohibited bonus pool trades until 2023. Once that happened, the Yankees couldn’t add the additional bonus pool money they needed to sign Basallo, so their agreement fell apart and he went to the O’s. The Yankees also forfeited $1M in bonus pool money to sign Gerrit Cole that signing period, and yeah, you let your 2026 catcher get away to sign prime Gerrit Cole in 2020. Anyway, with Basallo locked up, I gotta think we’ll hear some Adley Rutschman trade rumors this offseason. The Orioles would be selling low, but he’s only two years away from free agency. His trade value may not get any higher. The Rangers need a catcher and have some young arms to trade. Hmmm.

(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.)