Entering the MLB All-Star break, it's all right there for the Yankees
Yankees right fielder Aaron Judge reacts after striking out during the fourth inning against the Chicago Cubs at Yankee Stadium on Sunday. Credit: Brad Penner
If the season ended today, the Yankees would be the American League’s top wild-card team and would host the Red Sox in a three-game first-round playoff series at Yankee Stadium.
So for a team that had the AL’s best record in 2024 and reached the World Series, you could say the Yankees are worse off than last season.
But the 2025 season doesn’t end today. The All-Star break begins on Monday, and the Yankees are, as manager Aaron Boone put it over the weekend, “incomplete.”
The first half — at least the portion of the season before the All-Star break — has the Yankees at 53-43 after Sunday’s lackluster 4-1 loss to the Cubs at Yankee Stadium.
The second-place Yankees have 66 games left starting Friday in Atlanta. They are two games behind AL East-leading Toronto and a game ahead of the Red Sox, who have won 10 in a row. (The Yankees were 10 1⁄2 games ahead of Boston on June 6, but the Red Sox — who have taken five of six games between the teams this season — have gone 23-10 to the Yankees’ 14-20 since then.)
The trade deadline is July 31. Brian Cashman, you’ll soon be on the clock.
The Yankees have holes. Glaring holes, some might say. But they also have hope.
Yankees starting pitcher Will Warren reacts during the fifth inning against the Chicago Cubs at Yankee Stadium on Sunday. Credit: Brad Penner
“There’s been a lot of good,” Boone said. “There’s obviously been two weeks where we really struggled. But we set out in spring training and the start of the year to get back to the playoffs and go chase after a world title. And all those hopes and dreams are right there and still exist for us. So if nothing else, we put ourselves in a position that that is something that is attainable for us. A long way to go. Still got to keep getting better. But we’re in position to do what we need to do.”
The great, good, bad and ugly have been easy to spot for the Yankees.
Great: Aaron Judge and Max Fried.
Good: All-Stars Carlos Rodon and Jazz Chisholm Jr., plus Trent Grisham, Cody Bellinger, Ben Rice, Jasson Dominguez, Paul Goldschmidt (especially early) and Devin Williams (especially lately).
Bad: Injuries to starters Gerrit Cole, Luis Gil, Clarke Schmidt, Marcus Stroman and Ryan Yarbrough. Anthony Volpe’s season. Third base.
Ugly: A pair of six-game losing streaks. Three shutout losses in a row. The over-the-top negative fan reaction to Volpe’s season.
“I feel like for the most part, we’ve played good baseball,” Boone said. “The two six-game losing streaks really kind of put a damper on [it]. In and around that, feel like we’ve been solid. We’ve dealt with some attrition, obviously, with some guys going down. But the one thing, we’re sitting here, however many games in with a long way to go, we’ve given ourselves an opportunity to be the team we want to be, and we’re not a finished product yet.
“We have lofty goals and aspirations, and that remains the same. So hopefully over these final couple of months, we put ourselves in a position to be in the playoffs and play a consistent brand of baseball. That’s what we’re working towards.”
The challenges started in spring training when Cole had to have Tommy John surgery. Gil, the reigning AL Rookie of the Year, has missed the whole season with a lat injury; he made his first rehab start on Sunday. Schmidt recently was lost for the rest of the season after also undergoing Tommy John surgery. Stanton’s season started on June 16 because of soreness in both elbows.
Fried stepped up and became the staff ace after signing an eight-year, $218 million free-agent contract. He is 11-3 with a 2.43 ERA but left his last outing on Saturday because of a blister. The Yankees hope rest during the break will be enough to heal the hurt.
“Look,” Boone said, “right out of the jump, we had Gerrit going down, Luis Gil going down . . . We were searching for things a little bit there early, and how is it all going to shake out? The one thing we’ve been able to count on is Max being an ace. And he’s been everything we could have hoped for.”
As has Judge. After flirting with a .400 batting average as late as June 10, when he was at .396, he cooled off to a somewhat mortal level. Still, after hitting his 35th (and 350th career) home run on Saturday and going 0-for-3 on Sunday, he goes into the break batting .355 with a 1.195 OPS.
A second MVP award in two years and third in four years beckons if Judge stays healthy and productive.
A chance to turn his regular-season dominance into the postseason success that has so far eluded him is calling out to Judge if the Yankees make it.
They should make it. And then we’ll see what they make of it in October. That’s the real season, anyway.
Anthony Rieber covers baseball, as well as the NFL, NBA and NHL. He has worked at Newsday since Aug. 31, 1998, and has been in his current position since July 5, 2004.
