The headline entering this three-game series is that Mariners’ catcher Cal Raleigh leads Aaron Judge by two home runs this season, so last night, the Yankees rallied behind their captain with three home runs. One might expect a baseball team from Seattle to be used to rain, but the Yankees used their home field advantage to capitalize on a 35-minute rain delay. In the top of the fifth inning, Will Warren had a 2-1 count on JP Crawford with two outs and runners at the corners when the tarp was rolled out over the field. After the rain delay, it took Warren just one more pitch to retire Crawford. He finished the night with 5.2 scoreless innings.

After the Yankees got swept in a four-game series in Toronto for the first time ever, and lost their American League East division lead, manager Aaron Boone told his team that they are “the best team in the league.” “There’s been years where we haven’t been equipped to go through this,” said Boone. “[This] group is, and we will.”

But what if this team isn’t equipped to overcome this adversity? What if this team’s identity resembles their performance in June better than that of April and May? The Yankees seem to find themselves in a rut like this every single June and July. That is not an attribute of the best team in the league. Neither is the current state of the Yankees’ offense or bullpen amid this horrific stretch.

This one hurt. A lot. Last night, the Yankees fell to the Blue Jays 11-9, and with the loss, Toronto has tied them for the American League East lead. The Yankees now have losses in 13 of their last 19 games.

What started as a miserable night turned incredible and then heartbreaking. It was the Yankees’ most emotionally exhausting game since Game 5 of the World Series. It started with Will Warren, who gave up seven runs in the first inning and another in the third. Things felt quite bleak in Yankee Land as Alejandro Kirk two-run doubled and Addison Barger three-run homered before Warren could secure a single out. With one out, Davis Schneider delivered a two-run blast for Toronto to make it 7-0.

When refining his approach at the plate, Milwaukee Brewers manager Pat Murphy must have told Caleb Durbin that “it’s all in the hips," because he assigned him the nickname “Happy.”

Happy Durbin. And why not? Durbin is living the dream, and he has been on a tear since his walk-off home run on June 7. He holds a .296 average over his last 30 days, “I mean, [the home run] didn’t hurt [my confidence],” Durbin said. “I think you just chase the feels, and I’ve definitely felt more comfortable. You don’t really feel settled in as a rookie, but you definitely feel like you’re getting back to what you do best, and that’s kind of been the case for me.”

The Yankees’ inability to drive home runners in scoring position continues to haunt them, and yesterday was no exception. They went 2-for-17 with runners in scoring position, en route to a 12-5 loss. According to New York Yankees Stats, since June 13, the Yankees as a team are batting a league-worst .166 with runners in scoring position with a .254 on-base percentage, a .482 OPS, and 54 strikeouts.

Here’s a crazy stat from OptaStats: Aaron Judge is the first MLB player in a single season ever to record 30 home runs and 110 hits before July. In yesterday’s 12-5 pounding of the not-so Athletics – not the Oakland Athletics, not the Sacramento A’s, but The Athletics – Judge crushed a couple of home runs for his 29th and 30th of the year. His 44th career multi-home run game passed Lou Gehrig for the third most in franchise history, and the Yankees took the series from the Athletics.

Max Fried continues to show why he deserves not just to start the All-Star Game for the American League, but to win a Cy Young at the end of the season. Last night, Fried threw seven innings, allowing just one unearned run while helping the Yankees secure a 7-1 victory to avoid a series sweep in Cincinnati.

The Yankees wasted a terrific performance by Carlos Rodón in which he shut out Cincinnati through six innings. After 88 pitches, with the Yankees leading 3-0, Aaron Boone decided to relieve Rodón in the seventh inning. Boone said the heat tired Rodón out, and Rodón agreed, saying, “I was huffing and puffing a little bit. Usually, I go back out there in those situations. I want the ball, but I could tell I was gassed.”

Yesterday morning, the Yankees followed Clarke Schmidt’s seven no-hit innings with a 4-2 eighth-inning comeback win over the Baltimore Orioles. The win marked the Yankees’ first series victory in nearly two weeks.

After a win on Thursday to escape a six-game losing streak, the Yankees won consecutive games on Saturday and Sunday. On Saturday, they scored nine runs with four home runs while Clarke Schmidt didn’t allow a hit across seven innings. His pitch count reached a career-high 103 pitches after the seventh inning, so Aaron Boone pulled him. JT Brubaker allowed Baltimore’s only hit of the game.

Well, at least they scored two runs. Last night, the Yankees surrendered the series to the Los Angeles Angels with a 3-2 loss, and they have now lost each of their last six games. Their lead in the American League East is down to 1 1/2 games.

In the eighth inning, Anthony Volpe committed an error on a potential double-play ball that handed Anaheim the lead. The bases were loaded, and Tim Hill was on the mound. He got Adell to ground a pitch to shortstop, an easy play for Volpe. Except that it wasn’t so easy. The Yankees’ telecast caught Volpe glancing at the daisies behind home plate as he couldn’t glove the ball cleanly for an out at second. He then tried for the out at first, but his throw to Peraza was too hard and too far away, marking his ninth error of the season, the most among American League shortstops.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. But fool me three times…

The Yankees lead the American League in runs scored, but in three straight games, they have been scoreless. Last night was worse than Monday as the Yankees went a whopping 0-for-3 with runners in scoring position. That’s four total hits, including two from Giancarlo Stanton, against Kyle Hendricks, whose 5.20 ERA was one of the American League’s worst before this ballgame.

According to Katie Sharp, the last team to win the World Series after facing three straight regular-season shutouts was the 1913 Philadelphia A’s. There is no modern-day precedent for the Yankees when it comes to their current situation. Adversity is important for a team that wants to contend for a championship, especially if that adversity comes early in the season. The Yankees have officially been humbled. Now, they need to overcome their offensive drought.

It didn’t matter that Giancarlo Stanton struck two hits in his season debut. It didn’t matter that Clarke Schmidt tossed 7 2/3 scoreless innings. It didn’t matter that the bullpen didn’t give up a run until the 11th inning. The Yankees couldn’t score. “Obviously, it’s part of the game,” said Schmidt, whose outing matched Max Fried for the longest by a Yankees starter this season. “You go through streaks like this, where sometimes you’re mashing the ball and things are falling, and then sometimes things aren’t going your way.”

It all ended with one pitch from Hunter Strickland to Anthony Volpe, with the bases loaded in the 11th inning, but a lot went wrong offensively for the Yankees in extra innings. They stranded two of four total no-out runners at second and are now 1-5 in extra-inning games this season. According to Katie Sharp, the Yankees are hitting .077/.194/.077 through 26 extra innings at-bats this season.

If you were to ask me before this series if I would substitute getting swept by the Red Sox for Boston trading Rafael Devers to San Francisco, then I would have said yes. If you were to tell me before this series that Aaron Judge would go 1-for-12 with nine strikeouts, but Rafael Devers would get traded to San Francisco afterward, then I would have been on board.

Thankfully, the Yankees pitched well this weekend, because their offense didn’t show up to the tea party. The Yankees scored one run on Friday, three on Saturday, and zero on Sunday.

Runs can be scored in many ways. Last night, the Yankees beat the Kansas City Royals 1-0 to sweep the series, and their only run came off Pablo Reyes’s legs. “Phew, we’ll take it,” said Aaron Boone after the Yankees won 1-0. They now have their 10th single-season 6-0 record against any opponent in franchise history.

Reyes should never have reached home plate in time. He stumbled while rounding third base, getting caught bouncing left and right down the third base line. “Keep going, keep going, keep going,” cried third-base coach Luis Rojas. And  Reyes kept going.

Last night, the Yankees scored five runs against the league’s ERA leader, Kris Bubic, en route to a 6-3 victory and a series win over the Kansas City Royals.

It didn’t take long for the Yankees’ offense to start producing. In the second inning, Cody Bellinger tripled and Jazz Chisholm Jr. walked, placing runners at the corners. Anthony Volpe grounded out to score Bellinger, and with two outs, DJ LeMahieu walked, placing runners at 1st and 2nd. Then, Austin Wells, the five-RBI hero from Tuesday’s game, doubled to center field to score Volpe, and Paul Goldschmidt singled to clear the bases. The Yankees were up 4-0.

Then, Ben Rice singled to left field, plating Goldschmidt for a 5-0 lead, and Aaron Judge worked a walk, helping the Yankees bat around. Cody Bellinger ended the frame with a groundout.

After Yankees losses this season, Max Fried boasts a 0.83 ERA across eight starts. With a 10-2 win against the Royals last night, the Yankees have 40 wins on the season.

Aaron Judge’s 469-foot bomb lit the sky in Kansas City, but the Yankees’ battery was the true royal couple. Max Fried allowed just two runs across seven innings, and Austin Wells posted his first career five-RBI game. He hit a three-run home run and a two-run double.

“You walk into starting 16 in a row and have your ace go out there and give you seven,” said Aaron Boone. Fried’s performance not only helped the Yankees win this game, but his length provided much-needed bullpen assistance as Boone only had to use two relievers.

Several reports suggest the New York Rangers and Anaheim Ducks are in advanced discussions on a trade that would send Chris Kreider to Anaheim. There is no deal in place yet, but interest and a framework are present, according to Frank Seravalli.

This indicates a trade could be finalized as soon as tomorrow (Wednesday). There is no bigger sign of a rebuild on Broadway than a Chris Kreider trade, especially with his 15-team no-trade list still intact.

Over the last few days, many people have criticized Aaron Boone for the Yankees’ series loss to the Boston Red Sox this weekend. After a 9-6 win on Friday, they lost 10-7 and 11-7 on Saturday and Sunday, respectively. The Yankees couldn’t get length from Ryan Yarbrough or Carlos Rodón, so they overworked their depleted bullpen.

Yarbrough doesn’t pitch beyond 90 mph, and he requires impeccable command to secure outs. He lacked that command on Saturday night, allowing eight runs on nine hits. In the bottom of the eighth inning, the Yankees cut the deficit to one run, but Ian Hamilton put them down 10-7 with a poor ninth inning appearance. One question Yankees fans are asking after this weekend is why Boone decided to use Hamilton in that spot.

The best way to extinguish the pain of a 4-0 loss is with a 4-0 win. Last night, Max Fried and the Yankees took the rubber match from the Cleveland Guardians. Fried threw a season-high 103 pitches, and after getting out of a first-inning jam, he finished with a six-inning one-hit gem.

In the first inning, Fried hastily eliminated Steven Kwan and Angel Martínez with a couple of strikeouts, but José Ramírez prevailed with a 38.8 mph infield single. Fried tried to pick Ramírez off at first base, but a fielding error by Ben Rice sent him to second base. Ramírez then stole third before Fried walked David Fry, putting runners at the corners for Carlos Santana. Fry managed to steal a base of his own, but Fried didn’t waver, forcing Santana to pop out to Rice.