I would like to start this post with the obvious disclaimer: I am not a data analyst, hitting coach, scout, or professional baseball evaluator. I am a computer science major who spends an unreasonable amount of time watching the Yankees, following their farm system, and thinking about player development. Take this for what it is: an amateur attempt to find a pattern in the data and add another data point to the collective baseball lexicon.

To those of us who pay attention to the Yankees farm and player development, it is no secret that there is a monumental gap between the Yankees pitching and hitting development. This is where I would like to give credit for the construction of (in my opinion) the best pitching lab in the league, where they continuously churn out quality major leaguers from late round picks, reclamation projects, and IFAs. Not to mention the development of top of the line rotation pieces like Cam Schlittler.

More importantly, Yankees pitching has an identifiable organizational fingerprint. Different pitchers arrive with different bodies, arsenals and mechanical profiles, but you can often see what the Yankees are trying to accomplish. They identify exploitable physical characteristics, measure pitch shape and movement, alter grips and arsenals, optimize pitch usage and build a repertoire around what an individual pitcher does best. What makes them even more impressive is that the Yankees routinely identify the specific variable limiting an individual pitcher and attack that variable without forcing every player into the same template.

I don't see that same system when it comes to hitters. That does not mean the Yankees are incapable of developing hitting. Ben Rice and Aaron Judge are evidence against that argument, and the organization has continued producing legitimate position-player prospects. Nor do I think their primary deficiency is swing mechanics. In fact, I think the Yankees are often quite adept at augmenting a player's swing to fit his frame and physical tools. Where I believe they lack is in integrating swing mechanics, contact ability, swing-decision optimization, and individualized attack-plan development into complete hitters. The Yankees appear capable of developing each of these traits in isolation; what I do not see is the same organizational ability to combine them around the strengths and weaknesses of the individual player.

Traditional plate-discipline metrics might classify a taken outside-corner fastball as a missed opportunity because it was a strike. But whether swinging was actually optimal depends on the hitter. What if the hitter produces almost no damage to that location due to their frame, swing, etc? Therefore, swinging at that pitch on a 0-0 count may be a negative-value decision if taking it gives the hitter a better chance of eventually receiving a pitch he can actually drive. This distinction transforms plate discipline from: Hit Strikes Hard (notably former Yankees hitting coach Dillon Lawson's mantra) to Make the Highest-Value Decision.

This distinction, I believe, is one of the areas separating the Dodgers from the Yankees. Los Angeles consistently produces hitters who combine swing decisions, contact ability, and damage, while the Yankees appear much more uneven across those components.

To explore that idea, I want to look at three polarizing Yankees hitters whose physical tools and underlying offensive ability suggest considerably more upside than their current production: Austin Wells, Spencer Jones, and Anthony Volpe. For each player I will try to answer the question: "What pitches is this player choosing to attack, where does he actually produce damage, and is his current approach maximizing the swing that the Yankees have helped him build?"

I do not know how to fix Austin Wells or Anthony Volpe better than Yankees hitting coaches do. However, the Yankees have already demonstrated, through their pitching operation, how powerful an organization can become when it takes an extraordinarily complicated athletic skill, decomposes it into measurable components and builds an individualized development system around those components. My question is why the Yankees have not yet produced the same integrated offensive-development fingerprint: one that identifies a hitter's strongest traits, isolates the specific variables limiting him, and develops his mechanics, contact ability, and swing decisions around that individual profile.

Section 1: Austin Wells

I am a huge Austin Wells fan. He is a plus defensive catcher, has a great rapport with pitchers, and has a beautiful, compact left-handed stroke built for Yankee stadium. And, if you look at his traditional plate-discipline metrics, there is nothing specifically alarming about his approach: Through 2026, Wells has chased 29.1% of pitches outside the strike zone, almost exactly in line with the MLB average of 28.6%. His overall swing rate of 46.8% is also essentially league average, while his first-pitch swing rate of 35.8% is only moderately above the league mark.

Yet Wells has hit just .184/.277/.316 in 2026. More importantly, Statcast assigns him a -12 overall batting run value.

I believe that the heart of his issues stem from the following stats:

So the problem isn't that he is chasing pitches outside the strike zone. In fact, he is actually generating positive value where taking the pitch is frequently the correct decision. His losses stem from inside the strike zone and the immediate surrounding of it.

And this is where I believe traditional plate metrics obscure his issues. I think that he is actually just not correctly allocating his swings.

Since the beginning of his major-league career, his zone-swing rate has continuously dropped, starting at 78.9% in 2023 to 66.4% in 2026. The current MLB average is 66.7%. The initial conclusion is that this indicates positive progress as he is lowering an excessively aggressive zone-swing rate, and could theoretically indicate improving selectivity.

But selectivity is only valuable when the hitter becomes more selective to the correct pitches.

If a player lowers his swing rate by eliminating swings on low-value strikes at the boundaries of his damage zone, that is good plate discipline. If he lowers it partly by passing on pitches he should destroy, that is passivity. Those two hitters can post nearly identical chase rates while making completely different quality decisions.

Now, let's take a glance at his pitch-type x location data, which I think paints a clear picture:

Wells' Performance on Fastballs:

That is a ten-percentage-point decrease in aggression against arguably the most favorable class of pitches a hitter can receive. More importantly, the reduction does not appear to be justified by an inability to handle those pitches as a group.

The change becomes even more pronounced against four-seam fastballs:

That is where the concept of swing-decision optimization becomes important. If Wells were becoming more selective by conceding difficult pitches and concentrating his swings on the pitches he handles best, this reduction in aggression would not necessarily be concerning.

However, while Wells became less aggressive against Heart-zone fastballs, he simultaneously became more aggressive against offspeed pitches around the Shadow of the strike zone.

So Wells became less aggressive against pitches in the center of the zone while becoming more aggressive against pitches near the boundary of the zone that he misses almost half the time.

The zero-strike data is arguably more revealing:

Even here, however, the answer is not as simple as "Wells cannot hit breaking balls." When Wells actually makes contact against sliders, he still hits the ball extremely hard. His hard-hit rate against sliders in 2026 is over 50%. His problem is that he struggles immensely to actually make contact with them. That suggests that the limitation is not purely mechanical. There is likely a pitch-recognition or interception component involved as well.

Changeups and curveballs appear somewhat different. Against those pitches, Wells is not only missing frequently but also producing poor contact when he does connect. That may require a different developmental solution entirely.

The goal should not be to teach Austin Wells to become equally good against every pitch. Against certain pitch shapes, the optimal solution may be improving recognition and contact. Against others, the optimal solution may simply be teaching him to concede them unless they enter a very specific location.

And this becomes even clearer when we divide the Shadow region into pitches inside and outside the strike zone.

That is a hitter whose swing decisions need to become better aligned with the pitches his swing is actually capable of damaging.

Interestingly, the same pattern does not appear against breaking balls.

In other words, his swing selection against marginal breaking pitches has actually moved in the correct direction. The problem is what happens when he does choose to swing. His whiff rate has increased and his expected wOBA on contact has fallen substantially. That is a fundamentally different developmental problem from what we see against offspeed pitches. Against offspeed pitches, Wells is increasingly choosing to swing at pitches he handles poorly and then struggling to make contact with them. Against breaking balls, his selection appears to have improved, but his ability to execute against the pitches he still chooses to attack has deteriorated.

The distinction matters because the solutions should be different. One is primarily a swing-decision and pitch-recognition problem. The other increasingly appears to be a contact and execution problem.

There is one important caveat to this whole argument: Wells' quality of contact has significantly declined in several areas, most notably against four-seamers, which he used to crush, and his overall barrel production has fallen as well. So no, there are obvious mechanical issues that are limiting Austin Wells and fixing his approach will not magically fix him. However, I think this serves my point because player development is about more than one variable. It is not solely about swing-decision optimization or his mechanics, but you can decompose the problem into multiple variables and adjust each one to get the maximum production from the player.

Those are not solved by one mechanical improvement to Austin Wells' swing.

If his greatest damage comes against specific pitch shapes and locations, the Yankees should be training him to recognize those pitches earlier and attack them more aggressively. If certain offspeed pitches near the edge of the zone produce enormous whiff rates and almost no damage, the goal should not necessarily be teaching him to suddenly hit those pitches. It may instead be teaching him to identify the visual cues that differentiate a hittable fastball from the offspeed pitch designed to tunnel off it, and then refusing to spend the swing unless the expected value justifies it.

Do not ask the hitter to become good at everything. Identify what he already does exceptionally well, identify the decisions preventing him from accessing that skill often enough, and design the plate appearance around maximizing it.

Section 2: Spencer Jones

Jones, like Wells, is also one of my favorite players. I was very high on him coming into this year due to his speed, defense, and monstrous power. I was not exactly phased by his less-than-stellar swing-and-miss metrics and was pretty excited to see how he'd fare against MLB pitching. He has had a much better outcome than Wells this year, but still has obvious holes in his game.

Before we get into this section, I would like to highlight one huge distinction from Wells to Jones. Wells appears to have both a contact-quality/mechanical problem and a swing-decision problem, while Jones’ profile gives me far less reason to advocate for major mechanical changes. If you augment Jones's swing to reduce his K% and increase contact, you are going to take away everything that makes him special as a 6'7 power hitter. The conclusion I will make at the end of the section is this: DO NOT FUNDAMENTALLY REBUILD HIS SWING. While janky and however awkward it may look, it produces immense power on contact on pitches within the strike zone. The point should not be to optimize his K% in isolation, it should be: which 5–8 percentage points of Jones' strikeouts can be removed without materially reducing his damage on contact?

There are a couple of points here that jump out from Spencer Jones's profile:

• He produces immense damage on contact on pitches in the zone, especially on low breaking balls and high fastballs
• He whiffs enormously on high fastballs, low breaking balls, and low offspeed balls outside the strike zone

This graph comes from the 867 pitches he's seen in 2026:

Overall, he whiffs a lot, but when he does make contact, it is going to be a pretty good outcome.

This table is from the pitches he has seen in 2026 that ended up in the heart of the zone:

The sample size is small, but when pitchers throw pitches in the heart of the zone, regardless of the pitch-type, Jones annihilates them. Crucially, his Whiff% are excellent compared to his overall whiff% numbers:

• Fastballs: 31.3% -> 20.5%
• Breaking: 44.9% -> 21.6%
• Offspeed: 50.8% -> 12.5%

The Yankees should be extremely reluctant to “fix” Spencer Jones by fundamentally rebuilding the swing that produces this contact quality.

Now, let's look at the weaknesses that I identified, starting with breaking balls below the zone:

*Only 10 batted balls in play

The stat to note here is the Whiff%, which goes from 16.7% -> 67.7%.

This discrepancy leads us to an important distinction in his profile: he does not struggle with low breaking balls, he struggles with low breaking balls below the zone.

Another way to look at this data is with his count data. For below the zone breaking balls with zero strikes: 31 pitches, 64.5% swing rate, 65.0% whiff%. Jones has no obligation to protect, and he is still swinging at 2/3 of the balls below the zone. On a 0-0 count specifically: 22 pitches, 63.6% swing, 64.3% whiff%. So on the very first pitch of the plate appearance, pitchers can throw a breaking ball beneath the strike zone and Jones is more likely to swing than take and almost two-thirds of those swings miss. That is the very definition of an inefficient swing decision.

This section is mostly to say that you don't need to teach him how to hit a low slider, but you need to teach him how to distinguish an in the zone breaking ball and a below the zone breaking ball, especially at the beginning of the count. My prediction is that pitchers will increasingly throw him this pitch at the start of counts until he adapts.

Let's move on to the high fastball above the zone:

*Only 2 batted balls in play above the zone

This profile is a little different from the low breaking ball, but the conclusion is similar. Jones can hit high fastballs that stay within the strike zone. They are clearly more difficult for him than low breaking balls, as evidenced by the 31.7% Whiff%, but when he does make contact, he still produces a respectable .364 xwOBA on contact.

Once the pitch moves above the strike zone, however, the expected value of the swing completely collapses. Jones swings at 30.1% of fastballs above the zone and whiffs on 46.5% of those swings. He has only put two of those pitches into play all season, neither of which was hard hit, producing a .004 xwOBA on contact. Obviously that contact sample is far too small to draw a definitive conclusion from, but the broader point is clear: Jones has demonstrated almost no ability to generate productive contact on this pitch.

Once again, the important distinction is not that Spencer Jones "cannot hit high fastballs." He can. The distinction is between a high fastball that remains within his hittable zone and one that crosses above the upper boundary of his swing.

Just like the low breaking ball, the goal should not be to teach Spencer Jones to suddenly become great at hitting pitches that are fundamentally outside of his damage zone. It should be to sharpen the boundary between the high fastball he can damage and the high fastball he should concede.

For a 6'7 hitter, that distinction is especially important. Jones has a naturally enormous vertical strike zone and pitchers can exploit that by forcing him to protect the upper portion of the zone before continuing above it. The solution is not "stop swinging at high fastballs." His .364 xwOBA on contact against fastballs in the upper third of the zone shows why that would be counterproductive. The solution is teaching him exactly where his upper damage boundary ends.

Now let's look at offspeed pitches below the zone, because this may actually be his least productive class of swings:

The sample is again relatively small, especially on balls put in play, but the contrast is enormous.

When an offspeed pitch stays in the lower third of the strike zone, Jones has shown that he can absolutely destroy it. He has produced a 75.0% hard-hit rate and a .655 xwOBA on contact against those pitches. His Whiff% is still high at 43.8%, which tells us that identifying and making contact with offspeed pitches is clearly difficult for him even when they remain in the zone. But the reward when he does make contact is enormous.

Move the same general pitch family beneath the strike zone and the profile collapses. Jones swings at 52.5% of offspeed pitches below the zone and whiffs on 71.9% of those swings. Even when he manages to put one in play, he has produced no hard-hit balls in the sample and only a .178 xwOBA on contact. This may be an even clearer example of an objectively low-value swing than his breaking-ball weakness. With the low breaking ball, Jones at least occasionally produces tremendous contact when he manages to reach the pitch. Against below-zone offspeed pitches, he is both missing nearly three-quarters of his swings and producing almost no damage when he does make contact.

That gives us three very specific classes of swings to target:

• Breaking balls below the zone
• Offspeed pitches below the zone
• Fastballs above the zone

And importantly, Jones does not need to become passive against those pitch families as a whole. He should still attack low breaking balls that stay within the strike zone. He should still attack low offspeed pitches when they remain within his damage region. He should still attack high fastballs that stay beneath the upper boundary of the zone.

The issue is not pitch type. It is pitch type × location × trajectory recognition.

Spencer Jones does not need a new swing. He needs to become better at identifying the pitches on which his existing swing has almost no chance of producing value.

Do not optimize Spencer Jones for contact rate. Optimize the expected value of his swings.

If the Yankees can eliminate even a portion of the swings Jones is currently spending on first-pitch breaking balls below the zone, offspeed pitches beneath his barrel, and four-seamers above his upper damage boundary, there is a plausible path to reducing his strikeout rate without fundamentally changing the swing. And if you can turn a 35% strikeout hitter into something closer to a 28–30% strikeout hitter without touching the elite contact quality, speed or defense? Sign me up.

Section 3: Anthony Volpe

Oh boy, I have very mixed opinions on this man. On one hand, he does not deserve nearly the amount of hate that he still receives, looking at you TalkinYanks (seriously what is up with that). However, he has been bad. Very very very bad, and it is understandable why the fanbase would be upset. Despite this, I am still rooting for him to succeed like any other Yankees player, so we will take a look at his profile to see if anything immediately jumps out to us.

After digging into the data, what's interesting is that all three of these hitters suffer from different issues. Particularly, Volpe is evidence that traditional plate-discipline improvement does not necessarily equal offensive development.

For all intents and purposes, Volpe's traditional plate discipline has improved from 2023 to 2026. This improvement largely stems from recognizing pitches outside of the zone:

Swing% of Pitches Outside of the Zone

Overall, each pitch has decreased over his career, so Volpe has been a meaningfully more selective hitter.

Again, an example of Volpe's decision-making improving on outside the zone pitches.

What about pitches in the strike zone? That is where Volpe's issues lie, let's look at fastballs in the heart of the zone:

He is less aggressive against these pitches, whiffing more against them, and having worse outcomes when he does hit them. Does this mean Volpe can't hit the fastball at all? Well, let's take a look at fastballs dead middle-middle, basically "here, hit this":

While the quality of contact still isn't great, it's solid and not as bad as the initial number. Though, he is still swinging at these less than at the start of his career and whiffing more. So, which fastballs does he actually struggle with? Let me introduce you to fastballs in the inside portion of the shadow:

Volpe is swinging at these marginal strikes much more than at any point of his career and his quality of contact is absolutely terrible. This is where I think the distinction between traditional plate discipline and swing-decision optimization becomes important again.

If we only looked at chase rate, Volpe has clearly improved. He is offering at fewer fastballs above the zone, fewer breaking balls below the zone, and fewer pitches outside of the strike zone in general. That is legitimate progress and the Yankees deserve credit for it. However, there is another side to plate discipline that chase rate does not capture: which strikes are actually worth swinging at?

The inside portion of the Shadow is technically still part of the strike zone, but Volpe has produced progressively worse contact against those fastballs throughout his career. His xwOBA on contact has fallen from .408 in 2023 to .196 in 2026, while his hard-hit rate has collapsed from 58.2% to 23.5%.

Yet his swing rate against those pitches has increased from 54.9% to 65.9%. That's the exact opposite of what we want!

This is where I think Volpe differs most from Wells and Jones. Jones is largely failing to distinguish pitches that finish inside his damage zone from pitches that fall just outside of it. Wells has begun reallocating swings away from pitches he handles well and toward pitches he does not. Volpe, meanwhile, has actually become better at identifying obvious balls. His problem is that his aggression inside the strike zone has become poorly allocated.

So what does this actually tell us about Volpe?

I think the answer is that the Yankees have successfully taught him the first half of plate discipline: identify balls and stop chasing them. What they have not successfully developed is the second half: rank the strikes.

At the same time, there is clearly a mechanical component here. Volpe's declining production against Heart-zone fastballs cannot be entirely explained by approach. His Whiff% against those pitches has increased and his quality of contact has become increasingly inconsistent throughout his career. That has to be addressed separately.

For Volpe, I draw three main conclusions:

• His recognition of pitches outside the zone has meaningfully improved.
• His aggression against Heart-zone fastballs has declined while his execution against them has also regressed.
• His aggression against inside-Shadow fastballs has increased dramatically despite the expected value of that contact collapsing.

The frustrating part is that Volpe has already demonstrated pieces of the hitter we want him to become. He has shown that he can control the strike zone better than he did as a rookie. He has shown that he can produce excellent contact against pitches in the Heart. What he has not done is combine those skills consistently. Volpe may be the clearest evidence that improving one component of hitting development in isolation does not necessarily improve the hitter.

Final Thoughts

Congrats if you made it to the end! After going through Wells, Jones, and Volpe, I think the biggest takeaway is that all three players have very different problems.

Austin Wells has both a swing-decision and execution problem. His aggression has shifted away from Heart-zone fastballs and toward Shadow-zone offspeed pitches that he struggles to recognize and contact.

Spencer Jones is almost the opposite. His swing already produces elite damage, and I would be extremely reluctant to fundamentally alter it. His problem is identifying the boundary between pitches he can destroy and pitches where his swing has almost no chance of succeeding, particularly low breaking balls, low offspeed pitches, and fastballs above the zone.

Anthony Volpe has actually improved his traditional plate discipline. He chases fewer pitches outside the zone than he did earlier in his career. His problem is that his aggression inside the zone has become poorly allocated, particularly against marginal fastballs where his contact quality has collapsed.

And that last point has changed how I think about the Yankees' organizational problem.

I originally approached this believing that the Yankees were simply bad at developing swing decisions. The data does not really support that conclusion. Baseball America's 2025 minor-league Statcast rankings actually had the Yankees third in swing decisions, second in barrel rate, fifth in 90th-percentile exit velocity, and fifth in expected wOBA on contact.

They were also 28th in contact rate and dead last in zone contact.

That is a really interesting organizational profile. The Yankees are developing hitters who make good decisions by broad metrics and absolutely crush the ball when they connect, but they are also producing an enormous amount of swing-and-miss. In a weird way, the Yankees' entire farm system looks a little bit like Spencer Jones.

Compare that with the Dodgers. Los Angeles ranked first in Baseball America's overall Hit+ metric while ranking reasonably well across essentially every individual component. They were not the best organization at swing decisions, contact, exit velocity, or barrels individually. They were just good at almost everything simultaneously.

The Yankees do not appear to be missing some piece of modern technology or one magical hitting philosophy. They clearly know how to develop power. They clearly teach swing decisions. They can improve mechanics. They have produced hitters with excellent individual traits.

The problem appears to be integration.

A complete hitting-development system should not optimize mechanics, contact, power, and swing decisions as independent objectives. Those components have to be developed around one another and around the specific player.

For Spencer Jones, reducing swing-and-miss at all costs would be idiotic if doing so destroys the swing that produces elite damage. His development should instead focus on removing specific low-value swings while preserving the traits that make him special.

For Austin Wells, better plate discipline does not simply mean swinging less. It means shifting aggression toward the pitches and locations his swing actually handles and developing the recognition necessary to avoid the ones it does not.

For Anthony Volpe, learning to chase fewer balls was real progress, but that improvement means much less if it is not paired with better aggression and execution against the strikes he can actually damage.

And this cannot begin when a hitter reaches Yankee Stadium. It has to be the organizational development philosophy from the moment a player enters the system. When the Yankees draft or sign a raw hitter, identify the innate traits that made the player worth acquiring in the first place. Preserve and maximize those traits mechanically. Determine where that resulting swing produces the most value, where it breaks down, and then develop the pitch recognition, contact ability, and individualized attack plan that allow the player to access his strengths as frequently as possible.

That is what the Yankees already do so well with pitchers. They do not force every arm into the same repertoire. They identify what makes the pitcher interesting, isolate what is preventing those traits from succeeding, and build around the individual.

The hitting side does not need one universal "Yankees approach." It needs an organizational system capable of producing thousands of individualized approaches.

Yankees (78-60) @ Angels (53-85) - Mon, Aug 31

Game Status: Final - Score: 10-1 Angels

Links & Info

• MLB Gameday
• Game Graphs
• Savant Gamefeed

Decisions

• Winner: Walbert Ureña (9-9, 2.85)
• Loser: Elmer Rodríguez (0-3, 5.40)

Division Scoreboard

NYM 3 @ TB 2 - Final

SEA 8 @ BOS 9 - Final/10

BAL 2 @ COL 1 - Bottom 9, 1 Out

Not playing today: Blue Jays

Next Yankees Game: Tue, Sep 1, 9:38 PM EDT @ Angels

^{Last Updated: 09/01/2026 12:52:05 AM EDT}

The Angels demolished the Yankees 10-1 to take the first game of the series in Anaheim. Elmer Rodríguez got the starting nod for the Yankees and faced off against Walbert Ureña. 

Cody Bellinger and Amed Rosario each singled in the top half of the first inning, then moved into scoring position with two outs thanks to a passed ball. But Trent Grisham went down on strikes, stranding Belli and Rosario. 

Rodríguez navigated around a two-out walk in the bottom half of the inning and recorded his first strikeout of the night, working a scoreless frame. 

The game remained scoreless until the bottom of the third inning, when Vaughn Grissom delivered a two-out RBI single to give the Angels a 1-0 lead that they would not relinquish. 

Rodríguez quickly picked up the first two outs in the bottom of the fourth inning, then ran out of gas. Rodríguez plunked back-to-back hitters, then allowed an RBI single to Zack Neto. Mike Trout followed with a two-run single to extend the Angels' lead to 4-0. Michael Fulmer replaced Rodríguez and recorded a strikeout to end the inning. 

Final line for Rodríguez: 3.2 innings pitched, allowed four hits, four runs, walked three, and struck out five on 91 pitches. He threw his sinker 53% of the time, the curveball 23%, the fastball 15%, the sweeper 5%, and the changeup 3%. Rodríguez topped out at 98.1 mph, sitting at 96.3 mph on his heater, and had 13 whiffs. 

With one out in the top of the fifth inning, Spencer Jones got the Yankees on the board with a no-doubt solo shot to right-center field, his eighth home run of the season. 

The Angels quickly got that run back and some against Fulmer in the bottom of the fifth inning. Christian Moore dunked an RBI double into right field, just out of reach of Jones, who attempted to make a sliding catch. Then one of the worst defensive plays you will see all year long from the Yankees made it 6-1. Fulmer fired a wild pickoff attempt into center field; Grisham then made a weak throw into the infield, thinking Moore wasn't going to go home, but he did and Luis Garcia Jr. made a wild throw home. 

Luis Gil took over for Fulmer in the bottom of the sixth, making his first career relief appearance and first appearance since April 26. With runners on the corners and one out, it looked like Gil induced an inning-ending double play, but José Caballero botched the ground ball, then topped it off with a wild throw, resulting in no outs and another run scoring. 

Gil came back out for the bottom half of the seventh and worked a scoreless inning. The Yankees closer, David Bednar, got the call for the bottom of the eighth and allowed a two-run double to Grissom to extend the Angels' lead to 9-1. Moore followed with an RBI single to give the Angels double-digit runs. 

The Yankees will look to bounce back tomorrow with Gerrit Cole on the mound facing off against Grayson Rodriguez. First pitch is slated for 9:38 p.m. ET on the YES Network. 

My thoughts on the game: I have said this a few times this year, but I think this game might take the cake for the worst loss of the season. Just a terrible performance from the defense and the offense. Rodríguez looked decent in the first three innings, but just completely hit a wall in the fourth inning. Fulmer allowed a run; he also didn't help himself with a wild pickoff attempt. Gil looked solid in his return with three strikeouts; he also allowed a run, but didn't get any help from Caballero. I understand the Yankees haven't used Bednar much lately, but wasting him in a game down six runs just feels flat-out stupid. Now, after throwing 28 pitches, he probably won't be available tomorrow. The Yankees now have just 24 games remaining; they need to go on a win streak before the AL East slips away from them. Thankfully, the Rays lost tonight, so the Yankees remain 4.5 games back. The Yankees offense didn't do much tonight with just six hits and one run. Jones accounted for that one run with a solo shot. Belli and Rosario each had multi-hit games. This was a game to forget. I envy the people who chose to go to sleep rather than stay up until midnight to watch this one. On to tomorrow; thankfully, the Yankees still have a chance to win the series with Cole on the mound tomorrow and Cam Schlittler on Wednesday.

The reality is Grisham hasn’t been equipped to adequately handle center field for over a year now. Among all regular center fielders, Grisham is the slowest runner by sprint speed, according to Statcast. In 2025, Grisham, again, was the slowest runner by sprint speed. The Yankees said Grisham’s injured hamstring last season contributed to his lack of speed. But Grisham has routinely said he’s fine physically. Playing center field in the majors requires covering significant ground in both gaps and back toward the wall. Without speed, center fielders will find themselves in trouble more often than not.

It’s not just a handful of plays that are contributing to Grisham’s poor defensive numbers, like an MLB-worst minus-6 outs above average among all center fielders.

“If you watch him play every day, I think he’s really good out there,” Boone said last week. “My expectation is that you trust him and feel like he’s going to be good moving forward. But there’s been a handful of plays that haven’t been made that probably lent to (the metrics).”

Struggling in the field would not be harped on as much if his bat made up the difference. After an 0-for-4 night with two strikeouts, Grisham is now in a 2-for-37 slump. His wRC+ is 98, meaning he’s 2 percent worse than the average MLB hitter this season.

“I feel like the last week’s been a little bit of a struggle going through it a little bit after several weeks of where the power was there and really controlling the zone,” Boone said on Monday.

Yankees (78-60) @ Angels (53-85) - 9:38 PM EDT

Game Status: Pre-Game

Links & Info

• Current conditions at Angel Stadium: 77°F - Clear - Wind 10 mph, Out To RF
• TV: Yankees: YES, Angels: ABTV, presented by Pechanga Resort Casino
• Radio: Yankees: WFAN 660/101.9 FM, WADO 1280 (es), Angels: KLAA 830, KWKW 1330 (es)
• MLB Gameday
• Statcast Game Preview

Probable Pitchers

• Yankees: Gerrit Cole - RHP (7-7, 3.19 ERA, 98.2 IP)
• Angels: Grayson Rodriguez - RHP (4-5, 6.03 ERA, 71.2 IP)

Division Scoreboard

NYM 1 @ TB 2 - Bottom 4, 1 Out

TOR 0 @ CLE 0 - Top 4, 0 Outs

SEA 7 @ BOS 1 - Top 3, 1 Out

BAL @ COL 8:40 PM EDT

^{Last Updated: 09/01/2026 7:35:27 PM EDT}

​

Aaron Judge said Flemming needs to "clean that up" and that he was "not too happy" to hear what was said.

And here's Carlos Rodón on people being upset about Chisholm's stolen bases:

“This is not the pat-on-your-back league, and we’re going to be nice to you. Everyone’s coming to take the food off your table, and they’re coming to take your money. That’s how this game is played. There are no nice guys.”

Cole pitched 7 innings and had 15 strikeouts and surrendered only 1 run, snapping a 4 game losing streak for the Yankees. Hopefully he gives us another performance like that tonight, almost five years to the day.