The best part of that Yankees game was the gathering of players from the 2009 team who joined Michael Kay and Paul O’Neil in the YES booth. I was particularly a fan of Jorge Posada and his openness to the modern way catchers play – Sado himself said he would take the one-knee-down stance and expressed a wish he had played in the PitchCom era. Unless you actually watched what was happening on the field, you probably had a good time. If you did, you saw a sluggish 9-2 home loss to one of the worst teams in baseball.

Will Warren’s day is probably best summed up by this: He blocked twice in one inning. That’s never good and was a pretty strong indication that Warren just isn’t ready for the MLB level right now. Six runs allowed in three innings also highlights a problem with relying solely on FIP – Warren had six strikeouts with a single walk and didn’t allow a home run.

But it’s just weird to watch him pitch. Four doubles in 18 batters kept getting him in trouble, and while his changeup was a real problem for the Rockies hitters, the only pitch that worked against it was his four-seam, because neither the sinker nor the sweeper fooled anyone. Warren essentially became a pitcher who threw only two pitches and whose other pitches were devastating.

I don’t know what the answer is, but whatever it is, it doesn’t feel like it’s coming this season. You can see some MLB talent in there, but it’s going to take a winter of work and maybe more to put it all together into a product. In many ways, I see similarities to a younger Clarke Schmidt in 2020 and 2021, and the question is whether Warren and the Yankees can replicate some of the success this time around.

It wasn’t as though the Yankees got much done against Bradley Blalock, who continues to prove a smart choice for the Rockies at the trade deadline. Aaron Judge crashed into a fielder’s decision in the first inning and had two players on base and no outs, thwarting an attempt to gain momentum early. Austin Wells couldn’t get the third base runner in with one out, and the comeback came to nothing. Blalock then inexplicably struck out in the second inning, the proverbial shutdown inning after the Rockies had allowed him two runs.

With the score at 6-0, Jazz Chisholm Jr. managed to get the Yankees on the scoreboard with an RBI double in the third inning, and Alex Verdugo briefly gave us hope for a comeback in the fourth inning:

That was Verdugo’s first home run since July 6, ending an 0-for-21 batting record. That cut the deficit to four, and with a team that has Juan Soto and Aaron Judge, that’s not a game-over situation. Then the Rockies hit two more home runs, one by Jake Cave (exactly zero puns are tolerated today), and the game was all but over.

This is one of those games where my feelings depend on what happens tomorrow. You want to blow teams as bad as the Rockies off the field, but if the Yankees come away with a clean sweep tomorrow, you nod off, get another series win, and move on to Washington. If they lose, suddenly today’s win becomes one of those games you might look back on in September when the division is tied on the final weekend.

I need to add a visual element to this, so here’s Jazz making another beautiful play on third base:

He is cool.

It’s not much consolation to me that the Yankees only scored 5 runs in 18 innings against the worst pitchers in MLB, but Marcus Stroman is coming off two strong starts against Texas and Detroit, so hopefully he can put in a better performance than Will Warren. The series finale is tomorrow at 1:05 p.m. Eastern Time in the Bronx.

Result