About Last Night: Yanks Lose 6-4
- Paul Semendinger
- Apr 22
- 3 min read
By Paul Semendinger
April 22, 2025
***
About Last Night:
Well, the Yankees made it interesting, at least, but they dropped the first game of their series in Cleveland, losing to the Guardians 6-4.
Quick Stats:
LP - Clarke Schmidt (0-1, 7.45)
NYY HR - Jazz Chisholm, Jasson Dominguez
The Big Story:
Maybe the end result of the game (a loss) was apparent after the top of the first - two Yankees walked, another reached on an error, and yet, they failed to score.
The Guardians though, got two base runners of their own (both walks) in the first and also failed to plate a runner.
Both teams went down in order in the second inning.
In the third, that Judge guy doubled, but the Yankees didn't score. The Guardians, though, did score. Jose Ramirez hit a three-run homer. Kyle Manzardo then followed that up with a homer of his own. (Cleveland 4, NYY 0)
Cleveland scored another run in the fourth, on three hits. (Cleveland 5-0)
When the bottom of the 5th rolled around, Clarke Schmidt was out of the game. Yoendrys Gomez came in, allowed no runs in the 5th, but Jose Ramirez singled home Steven Kwan to make it 6-0 in the 6th.
The Yankees came back with two runs in the top of the seventh (Volpe single, Dominguez homer) (Cleveland 6, Yanks 2) and two in the eighth (Goldschmidt single, Chisholm homer) (Cleveland 6, Yankees 4), but that's where the scoring stopped and the Yankees lost the game.
Player(s) of the Game:
Jose Ramirez (2-for 5, 4 RBI)
Notable Performances:
Steven Kwan (2 hits, 2 runs)
Paul Goldschmidt (2-for-3)
Oswaldo Cabrera (2-for-4)
My Take:
Get used to the roller coaster ride, my friends, this is the 2025 Yankees. The Yankees do not have good enough starting pitching for this to go any other way. When the Yankees play soft-hitting teams like the Royals and Rays (last week), the pitching can look good enough. It isn't. One hope was that Clarke Schmidt would come back from injury and be good enough to be a number two starter. Last night he wasn't up to the task.
After Max Fried, these are the Yankees starters:
Carlos Rodon is averaging less than 6 innings per start.
Clarke Schmidt is averaging less than 5 innings per start
Will Warren is averaging less than 4 innings per start
Carlos Carrasco is averaging less than 5 innings per start
Marcus Stroman averaged 3 innings per start
The starting pitching, simply, is not doing the job. Those stats are bad. The bullpen is already starting to run a fumes. It gets worse...
Starting Pitcher ERA's:
Rodon - 4.34
Schmidt - 7.45
Warren - 5.17
Carrasco - 6.53
Stroman - 11.57
None of those pitchers have demonstrated that these early season numbers are a result of small sample sizes. The concern is that the Yankees need not just one, but multiple of these pitchers to turn it around. That's a task that is looking very unlikely. And no help is on the horizon.
***
The Yankees had 14 base runners last night, but only scored when players hit home runs. That is also not sustainable. A team must find ways, other than the home run, to score. One mark of the Aaron Boone era is that the Yankees rely too much on the home run. A team can't hit too many homers, but they can rely on the homer too much. That trait has been a Yankees problem that is now in its eighth year.
***
The Yankees, as I have stated, should be good enough to reach the playoffs, not because they are good, or good enough, but because the competition isn't as good as the Yankees. In other words, the Yankees aren't as bad as most of the rest of the league.
Since the Yankees are a very flawed team, in an even more flawed league, there will be times when they will get on roll and look terrific for a week or so... but then reality will hit, again, and this team will show its true ability level. That happened last night.
The Yankees are 5-0 in games Max Fried starts. The rest of the time, they have played to a 9-9 record. Win, lose, win, lose, win, lose... up and down, up and down... that's a roller coaster ride. That's the 2025 Yankees.
Next Up:
Will Warren takes the mound tonight against the Guardians at 6:10 p.m.
Paul, we have previously established that we both believe that the Dodgers go all in and we have doubts about, at least some of, the Yankees decision makers.
if that is given, here we sit in a season where we have not had a single pitch thrown by the cy young winner from 2 seasons ago or the ROY from last season. we have not had a single AB from the ALCS MVP, and we are 2 games out from the best record in MLB
I think it is unfair to say we are not really good at all, but merely less bad than all the other bad teams. that seems unfair to these players. I think the players deser…
Yes, we need improvement from the non-Fried starters (though in fairness, two of the 9 losses were horrific blown wins, Leiter vs. Arizona and Williams vs. Tampa Bay). I also was thinking about dominant aces, of which the best example in my lifetime is Guidry 1978. The Yankees went 30-5 in his starts, but even there, they still went 70-58 otherwise. Assuming a Guidryan performance from Fried at 32 starts, that means 27 or 28 wins and 5 or 4 losses. That means that to get to 94 wins (last year's AL East-winning number), the Yankees must win at least 66 of the other 130 games. That's doable if they can avoid a grotesque bullpen meltdown in 11% of …
if the starters average only 5 innings/gm
the bullpen will be required to cover 648 innings during the regular season
and that would require that 11 relievers average nearly 60 innings apiece
that might be feasible, because the organization has that many relievers either on-hand or expected to return from injury
but it's not really desirable
to have to rely so heavily on the 11th-best reliever,
or the 10th
or the 9th
it's possible to succeed while employing 25 pitchers during the season.
the 2024 World Series champions did that
however, it probably requires an offense that papers over the unevenness of the pitching by scoring 5 runs/gm
or more
winning baseball games is easier with a few good pitchers
We knew the first point you make (starting pitching) might be an issue w/ Cole and Gil going down and Rodon being so inconsistent- However, your second point (HR or bust) is equally troubling- Thus far, Volpe, Wells, Bellinger, Chisholm are not hitting for any kind of average- Still early but not a good sign, as you mention, that anything has changed
Schmidt, in reality is still in his own personal Spring Training. Remember last year with Cole, his first 2-3 regular season starts were not good, but he was still going through his own Spring Training.
But I cannot say this enough - as the years go by, how the Yankees prepare their Starters in Soring Trading is utter garbage. It's not any better in the minors. All this non baseball training crap really does piss me off. I'm seeing in Warren a lot of what I saw in Schmidt 2 years ago. I HATE, HATE, HATE all this non FB crap and reliance on pitch usage.