Roger Rubin: With these Yankees, there's competition for playing time and it has to be earned
Yankees' Trent Grisham watches his fourth-inning, two-run home run against the Baltimore Orioles at Yankee Stadium on Saturday. Credit: Jim McIsaac
It’s been more than two weeks of dominance now for the Yankees. It started with sweeping three games at home against the Royals and continued into Saturday with a Cody Bellinger-powered 9-4 victory over Baltimore before an announced sellout crowd of 46,049 at the Stadium.
Bellinger had four hits, including two home runs and a double, and drove in four runs as the Yankees won for the 12th time in 14 games. Dare we say it in May, this 22-11 team looks like one threatening to run away from the rest of the American League.
There are plenty of things about these Yankees that look familiar, with their 7.7 runs per game and their league-leading 53 home runs. But there also is something a little different about this season’s version that has emerged in this run. It’s an edge about their approach to things, one that suggests an enhanced drive to finally winning that first World Series title since 2009.
Take a look at the run and we see a club approach in which performance on the field is paramount and players maybe aren’t being afforded as much patience to be the version they’ve been expected to be. There is just a touch less hesitation to ride a hot hand or try something different.
Starting pitcher Luis Gil was the 2024 American League Rookie of the Year and looked for a stretch last season as if he could be that player again in 2026, but after three substandard performances in four opportunities, he got sent to the minors. Third baseman Ryan McMahon struggled at the plate and ended up not starting five games in a stretch of six. Most recently, presumptive starting shortstop Anthony Volpe had his minor-league rehab assignment extended through the weekend — even though the club believes he is ready to come back — because Jose Caballero has performed so well in his stead.
Those are the actions we’ve seen the organization take. Manager Aaron Boone insists that it’s not literally a change in approach, it only seems that way.
“You can’t go solely on day-to-day results — '[you’re] playing or not' — because that’s no way to go through a season,” he told Newsday before the game. “I can see where it might look that way sometimes, but that’s really more about the depth we have on the roster. We have options if we need someone.”
Without a doubt, this club is deeper than others because it has a more versatile bench.
The Yankees also have gotten starting pitching that has exceeded expectations as they await the return of Gerrit Cole and Carlos Rodon, who are both on minor-league rehab assignments and getting close to rejoining the rotation. Max Fried and Cam Schlitter were the “givens.” Now Will Warren is 4-0 with a 2.39 ERA in seven starts and Ryan Weathers — who earned Saturday’s win after allowing one earned run in five innings-plus — is 2-2 with a 3.03 ERA in seven starts.
Still, it seems as if nothing is being promised to anyone.
Where is the edginess likely to show up next? Probably the pitching staff when Cole and Rodon both return. Neither Warren nor Weathers has much experience with pitching in relief, but when I asked Boone if someone who isn’t used to working out of the bullpen is going to have to do so, he replied, “I hope so — that means all our guys are healthy.”
After another excellent outing in Friday’s win over the Orioles, Warren was asked about what the composition of the rotation could look like when Cole and Rodon return and replied, “I think we're going to have the best staff in all of baseball when they come back. And . . . the best pitchers are going to pitch the majority of innings, so I've got to make sure that I keep going out there and doing my job.”
Relief pitching was maybe the Yankees’ biggest question coming out of spring training, but statistically, the relievers have mostly been very good. Entering Saturday, the group was among the AL’s five best in ERA (3.69) and middle of the pack in batting average against (.244). Where it hasn’t performed well is dealing with inherited runners; the 34% that have scored ranks them 11th of 15 in the AL.
With the Yankees leading 6-1 after five innings, thanks to a two-run homer by Trent Grisham in the fourth and Bellinger's second solo homer in the fifth, Jake Bird allowed two inherited runners to score in the sixth and Camilo Doval gave up a run in the seventh as it became 6-3 and then 6-4. Then the Yankees broke it open with a three-run seventh.
“Leaving spring training maybe . . . we had some question marks down there,” Boone said of the bullpen. “It’s still going to evolve and get better, but by and large, those guys have done a really nice job.”
Boone called the returns of Cole and Rodon “a lifetime away” and didn’t say that the bullpen evolving and getting better was a reference to the time when that happens. But it could be. If the Yankees have six healthy starters by the end of the month, the way the club seems to operate, being one of the five best will be key to staying in the rotation.
Roger Rubin returned to Newsday in 2018 to write about high schools, colleges and baseball following 20 years at the Daily News. A Baseball Hall of Fame voter since 2011, he has covered 13 MLB postseasons and 14 NCAA Final Fours.
