July 21st, 2025: Grisham, Bullpen, Vivas, Stroman, Stanton, Gil

Over the weekend the Yankees announced they have signed 18 of their 19 draft picks. Only 19th rounder RHP Hayden Morris hasn’t signed, and Adam Busack says Morris is going back to school. I’ll have a signing breakdown after the trade deadline. Just putting it on your radar that everyone but Morris has signed. Here is my draft recap. Here now is part of Tuesday’s post on Monday. I figured it was best to break out the Braves portion and run that now, before the Blue Jays series. I’ll have some trade deadline stuff in the regular slot Tuesday.

1. Weekend thoughts. Finally done with Atlanta. It felt like the Yankees were there all week between the All-Star Game and this past weekend. Good series win and a needed series win. The team that never came back earlier this year managed to erase a five-run deficit twice in a six-game span. Now they can work on not falling behind by five runs. Here are a few thoughts on the last few games.

Clark Trent

I’m mad the New York Post beat me to the Clark Trent header. That’s what happens when you don’t blog everyday. They did it because Superman’s in theaters. I doubt they realize Grisham used to go by Trent Clark. He was drafted as Trent Clark in 2015 and went by Trent Clark until 2017, when he took his mother’s maiden name for personal reasons. My Clark Trent is cooler than the Post’s.

Anyway, best win of the season Saturday. The Yankees were down 5-0 after the fourth and 7-2 after the fifth, then they scored four runs in the sixth, one run in the seventh, one run in the eighth, and four runs in the ninth to complete the comeback. The Yankees needed all those runs too. They had to outscore their own bullpen to get the win. Grisham’s ninth inning grand slam (video) was the biggest hit of the season.

“I like feeling calm,” Grisham told Greg Joyce. “I like to know that it’s the biggest moment of the game and just the slowness feeling that I feel in the box, that’s the funnest part for me.”

I don’t think it’s hyperbole to call Grisham’s grand slam the biggest hit of the year (so far). Friday’s loss was deflating, so was falling behind five runs so early Saturday. Then the bullpen kept letting the Braves tack on whenever the Yankees drew close. The grand slam was a total vibe-shifter. Also, it is the biggest hit of the year by Championship Probability Added, so the numbers back up the feeling.

The grand slam lifted Grisham to .255/.357/.476 (136 wRC+) with a career high tying 17 home runs. That includes a .323/.432/.548 (178 wRC+) line in July. He slumped in late May/early June, and now he's back to getting on base a ton and smashing taters. It is a game of ups and downs, and as long as the ups are longer and outnumber the downs, you live with the downs.

Because of the outfield rotation, Grisham was out of the lineup Sunday despite Saturday’s grand slam. It’s a bummer, but you know what? The playing time rotation is working. Grisham’s been awesome, Cody Bellinger has been awesome, Jasson Domínguez is getting better, etc. It stinks to see one of these guys out of the lineup every night. The rotation allows for optimal matchups and added rest. The rotation may be giving the Yankees the best version of everyone.

Will Warren’s terrible start forced the Yankees into what amounted to a second straight bullpen game Saturday and the first three guys out of the bullpen were each charged with a run. Order wasn’t restored until Luke Weaver entered with the bases loaded and one out in the seventh, and struck out Michael Harris II and retired Nick Allen. Weaver’s looked more like himself the last few times out. That is a welcome sight.

Through five innings Saturday, the Yankees looked lethargic and like a team headed for a fourth straight loss, and a four-game deficit in the AL East. Instead, they rallied to win Saturday, won again Sunday, and are 7-3 in their last 10 games. It’s funny how quickly things can change in this game, eh? Grisham’s grand slam is the big highlight, but it was a great job by Weaver and the entire offense that won that game.

"I think it just shows and encourages everybody that we’re in every game,” Grisham told Bryan Hoch. “We have a lot of fight. Every starter and every bullpen guy knows this offense is going to keep going and not quit.”

Chisholm vs. Pérez

Saturday night’s comeback was made possible, at least in part, by the Yankees having the Braves’ pitches. The arm waving we saw against the Mariners two weeks ago was back:

The arm waving isn’t subtle. Also not subtle is Jazz Chisholm Jr. leaning to his left while at second base to look into the pitcher’s glove to see his grip. Braves coach Eddie Pérez said something to Jazz from the dugout and I get it, they’re pissed, but Pérez caught 11 years in the big leagues. He knows as well as anyone that if a team picks up your signs or your grips or whatever, it’s on you to hide them better.

"I was just saying, 'Be smart,'" Pérez told Hoch about pointing to his head while yelling at Chisholm. "I like that guy. He's one of my favorites. And he got mad about it. I don't know why he got mad about it. So I was like, 'Take it easy,' and he started doing some shit."

Well, if you point at your head while yelling at a player, he could take it to mean you’re going to throw at his head, so I get why Jazz was upset. I’m going to give Pérez the benefit of the doubt and assume he wasn’t saying they’ll throw at Chisholm’s head because he’s a veteran player/coach, and those guys know better than to say they’ll go headhunting. That’s a major no-no across the league.

I’m surprised the Yankees stuck with the arm waving after getting caught by the Mariners two weeks ago. It couldn’t be more obvious and you’d think they’d want to keep it under wraps when they have the other team’s grips/signs. If there’s even a 1% chance that a more subtle relay (a tug on the earflap is common) causes a team to let their guard down at some point, it’s worth it. Well, whatever. Clean it up, Braves.

(MLB is investigating Pérez’s head-tapping gesture. My guess is nothing will come of it.)

Friday’s bullpen game

I am going to defend the decision to go with a bullpen game Friday. Cam Schlittler was scheduled to start the game, but he came down with a sore biceps during the All-Star break, and it was enough of a concern that the Yankees sent him for an MRI. It came back clean and Schlittler is slated to start Tuesday, but he had some soreness, and the Yankees pushed him back a few days. Understandable, that is.

The Yankees wanted to use the All-Star break to give Warren, who’s going to set a new career high in innings soon, extra rest, so they stuck to the plan and kept him on turn Saturday. When Schlittler reported his biceps soreness, Marcus Stroman was too far into his between-starts routine to move him up to Friday. Carlos Rodón pitched in the All-Star Game and wasn’t going to start Friday. Max Fried has the blister.

Schlittler’s biceps put the Yankees in a bind. This wasn’t a one-day problem either. Move Warren up a day to Friday, and the Yankees wouldn’t have had a starter for Saturday given Stroman’s schedule. Throw caution to the wind and start Rodón on Friday, and there’s no starter for Monday. Once Schlittler was pushed back, the Yankees needed a fill-in starter somewhere. They had two options:

1. Call up a spot starter, likely either Carlos Carrasco or Allan Winans, at some point over the weekend.

2. Run a bullpen game Friday with a rested bullpen the day after the All-Star break.

Neither plan inspires confidence. Carrasco and Winans haven’t stood out in their MLB duty and there are 2.5 reliable relievers in the bullpen (the 0.5 being Tim Hill against lefties). In hindsight, calling up Carrasco or Winans was the move (Winans came up Saturday anyway), though a bullpen game with a rested relief crew was defensible. It just didn’t work. I’m not sure Carrasco or Winans would have either.

“We were in a little bit of a tough spot,” Aaron Boone told Hoch, stating the obvious.

The problem is not so much Friday’s bullpen game itself. It’s that the Yankees do not have 13 able-bodied Major League caliber pitchers in the organization right now. They’ve lost too many guys to injury and they haven’t dug anyone up in-season. At this time last year the Yankees had already picked up Hill and turned his season around, and had gotten weeks of good work from Jake Cousins and Michael Tonkin. 

Who is that out-of-nowhere bullpen contributor this year? There isn’t one. Scott Effross isn’t moving the needle. Clayton Beeter and Geoff Hartlieb had (brief) opportunities this month and did nothing with them. They gave the Yankees no reason to keep them around. With Schlittler up, the Triple-A pitching staff is almost entirely veteran journeymen, not prospects, which ain’t great.

We’re all waiting for the Yankees to make a trade(s), though nothing is imminent, and this is when sellers typically wait for better offers. It’s a weird time of year. You just have to live with your problems for another week until the moves start happening. Friday’s bullpen game wasn’t so much a bad decision as it was a showcase of the lack of healthy pitching depth. A bullpen game was the least bad of several bad options.

Acuña’s throw and Jorbit’s non-slide

Two things are true. One, Ronald Acuña’s throw Friday was one of the greatest I’ve ever seen. Flat-footed deep in the right field corner, and he fired a strike in the air to third base (video). Great outfield throws are my favorite highlights. They can be breathtaking, and Acuña’s was as good as any I’ve ever seen. Elite arm strength, elite accuracy. A great player made a great play. An incredible throw, truly.

And two, there is no excuse for Jorbit Vivas slowing up as he got to third base, and not sliding. Third base coach Luis Rojas was telling him to slide …

… and yet Vivas jogged in casually. Instead of first and third with two outs and Aaron Judge at the plate, and a chance to get back into the game, the inning was over. It’s inexcusable, especially for a player on the fringes of the roster, and yet it is classic Yankees baseball. This team is an endless parade of dumb shit on the bases and in the field. I am tired of writing about it, but they keep doing it.

“He’s standing there and it looked like he wasn’t receiving the ball at all,” Vivas told Joyce about getting deked by the third baseman. “But that’s not on him. It’s on me there to make it to that base. Acuña has a really strong arm and he can make a throw from anywhere … I picked (Rojas) up, but I picked him up kind of late. The third baseman was standing there a little bit in the way. But it’s my fault.” 

Boone told Gary Phillips that he told Vivas, “You can never let that happen again,” and when asked if he considered pulling Vivas from the game, Boone said no. “I bench when guys don’t run hard,” Boone told Phillips, which is categorically untrue. In eight years as manager Boone has benched one player (Gleyber Torres) for not running hard. Is Gleyber the only Yankees to not run hard in eight years? lol no, no he is not.

The most charitable read is Boone’s tolerance for not running hard is very high. He’ll give guys a pass for anything but the most egregious lack of hustle. Not benching Vivas isn’t the important thing here anyway. It’s that these stupid, careless mistakes continue. It’s every single night. Friday it was Vivas. Saturday it was both middle infielders going to be the cutoff man (video) and also Warren not covering first. It never ends.

It is losing baseball and it is not a new issue. The lack of situational awareness and at times straight up laziness plague his team year after year. It reflects terribly on Boone and the organization as a whole that this continues, and there doesn’t seem to be any urgency to fix it. This game is hard enough. The Yankees makes it even harder on themselves with these little mistakes. I repeat for the umpteenth time: They have to clean this up.

Miscellany

Stroman has been a godsend since returning from his knee injury. He was fantastic Sunday on a day the bullpen needed a rest: 6 IP, 5 H, 1 R, 0 BB, 4 K, 1 HR (video). Stroman’s gone at least five innings in each of his four starts back and he’s allowed 1, 3, 2, and 1 runs in those four starts. Well done, Marcus … Giancarlo Stanton is annihilating the ball right now. He went 5-for-7 (.714) with a double and three walks in Atlanta. Stanton also went from a 1-2 count to a walk in the ninth inning of Saturday’s comeback. Big G is a dangerous hitter right now … First career two-homer game for Anthony Volpe on Saturday (video). He also drew his first walk since June 29th on Friday. He went 54 plate appearances between walks. That’s the thing about Volpe’s slumps. When he slumps, everything slumps. He doesn’t hit, he doesn’t walk, he doesn’t do anything … We’ll see what happens against Toronto’s three righty starters this week, but it was a straight Vivas/Oswald Peraza platoon in Atlanta. Vivas started against the two righties and Peraza against the lefty. Then again, the Yankees are very likely to have a new third baseman in 11 days, so let’s maybe not spend much time thinking about the Peraza/Vivas playing time distribution.

Injury updates

Schlittler (biceps) and Fried (blister) came through their weekend bullpen sessions well and are expected to start in Toronto … Luis Gil (lat) made his second Double-A rehab start Friday: 3.1 IP, 2 H, 2 R, 2 BB, 7 K, 1 HR (video) on 57 pitches. He’s expected to make another rehab start Wednesday. After that, he and the Yankees will get together and determine whether Gil needs more rehab work, or is ready to join the rotation … Yerry De Los Santos (elbow) started a rehab assignment in Double-A on Saturday. He allowed a homer and two runs in one inning. De Los Santos might be one of the 13 best pitchers in the organization right now. He could jump back into the bullpen once healthy and activated … Mark Leiter Jr. (knee) has been playing catch and could throw off a mound at some point in Toronto … Fernando Cruz (oblique) could begin a throwing program any day now. His latest tests showed enough healing to begin doing baseball things … And finally, Ryan Yarbrough (oblique) is coming along slower than expected. He’s playing catch but is not ready to throw off a mound yet.

Up next

A very important Blue Jays series, then the Yankees will come home this weekend for what feels like the first time in a month. Tough homestand too. Phillies and Rays. Here’s what’s coming up this week:

• Monday at Blue Jays: LHP Carlos Rodón vs. RHP Kevin Gausman (7pm ET on YES)

• Tuesday at Blue Jays: TBA vs. RHP Max Scherzer (7pm ET on YES)

• Wednesday at Blue Jays: TBA vs. RHP Chris Bassitt (7pm ET on Amazon)

• Thursday: off-day

The Yankees haven’t made it official, but all indications are Schlittler will start Tuesday and Fried will start Wednesday. Winans was called up Saturday, so I guess he would be the spot starter in the event Schlittler or Fried can’t go, which is not something I want to think about.

The Blue Jays have won 10 straight home games and, as a team, they’re hitting .275/.346/.458 (122 wRC+) at home and .246/.317/.357 (90 wRC+) on the road. I guess the Man in White came out of retirement (I kid, I kid). The Blue Jays are scorching hot. The Yankees can’t leave this series in first place, not even with a sweep because Toronto has the tiebreaker, but they can’t get swept again like they did three weeks ago either. These head-to-head games are the best opportunity to make up ground.

(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.)