About the Off Day: Meanderings of My Mind

Meanderings of My Mind

By Tim Kabel

May 9, 2025

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Yesterday, the Yankees had a day off, after taking two of three from the San Diego Padres. The Yankees split the six-game homestand. They will now play six games on the West Coast against the Athletics and the Mariners. The Yankees are 21-16 and in first place in the American League East, two games ahead of the Boston Red Sox. Since there is no game to recap today, I will now dart from topic to topic like my kitten Clancy chasing the light from my laser pointer. 

·       When my daughter was little, I took her to see the movie Stuart Little. In the movie, George Little, played by Jonathan Lipnicki, becomes positively giddy when he wakes up on the morning that his parents are planning to adopt a little brother (pun intended) for him. He begins leaping up and down and screaming “It's today, it's today.” over and over. I imagine that Aaron Boone will have the same reaction this weekend when DJ LeMahieu is activated off the IL. It's not even worth taking a bet: As the late Cajun chef, Justin Wilson used to say, “I Gare-on-tee” that LeMahieu will be immediately inserted into the starting lineup. Once he is in that lineup, you will need the jaws of life to get him out of there. Anticipating the return of DJ LeMahieu is just like waiting for an impending visit from an annoying, ne’er-do-well uncle. You don't really want him to come but there's really no way around it. Your mother (or in this case, Aaron Boone) is thrilled to see him, but no one else is. You know something is going to go wrong; you just don't know when or what, but the prospects of success are not great. DJ LeMahieu has been on a downward spiral since 2020 and each year he has been getting worse. He is old, washed up, and injury prone. Yet, Boone sees him as a savior. With the injury to Jazz Chisholm, Jr., LeMahieu will definitely play. I suspect that he would have anyway but that is a moot point now. Brace yourself, he's coming. If he struggles after he gets here, Boone will simply regurgitate the same old tired statements about how LeMahieu was really close, or he looked good walking into the cage at batting practice, or he held the bat three inches higher than he did last season. The only question remains which position will he play and where he will bat in the lineup. I can easily imagine a scenario in which Boone, in his unrestrained giddiness, installs LeMahieu as the leadoff hitter. I need to purchase a very large bottle of Tylenol.

·       I worked for thirty years in the field of child welfare and have absolutely no regrets. I am now writing full-time. I'm very happy. However, I opened an e-mail yesterday that left me slightly wistful. My younger son attends the University of Connecticut, where he will be entering his junior year in the fall. The university frequently sends out emails asking for donations or trying to get me to buy a sweatshirt. Yesterday, they sent one announcing a new academic major in the field of Equine Management. Connecticut actually has a very large population of horses. The students in this major will study equine physiology and work in the fields of horse management, training, breeding, and nutrition. If that major had been available forty years ago, I would have hopped right on it. The university has a herd of seventy horses, competitive riding teams, a public riding lesson program and an active Morgan horse breeding program. Oh well, maybe I will have a grandchild one day who can enter the program.

·       It's nice to see that I'm not the only one who feels that Aaron Boone is inadequate in the area of developing young players. I have read many articles and heard many discussions on sports radio about how Boone is mishandling Jasson Dominguez. If you remember, when Anthony Volpe was named the starting shortstop in 2023, he was endorsed by both Brian Cashman and Hal Steinbrenner. I believe that Boone went along for the ride. Dominguez has shown some real flashes of ability and talent this season. On Tuesday night, he had hits from both sides of the plate. Even Boone said that he sparked the rally that led to the Yankees’ comeback win. Yet, Boone continues to pull Dominguez in and out of the lineup. I realize he has to find at-bats for everyone, but it often seems that just as Dominguez is about to go on a run offensively, he is benched for a game. On Monday night, Dominguez was benched against Nick Pivetta, but was called upon to pinch hit in the ninth inning in the cold, rainy conditions against Robert Suarez, the Padres’ closer, who has 14 saves and an ERA of 0.56. Dominguez struck out.  The next night, Dominguez was batting cleanup against one of the Padres’ best pitchers, Michael King. There is no rhyme or reason to the way Boone uses Dominguez. Young players need to be in the lineup consistently to develop. Since Anthony Volpe has been in the Major Leagues, he has missed a total of six games. Dominguez has missed seven games already this season. At this stage in his career, Dominguez excels against right-handed pitchers. He should play against almost every right-handed pitcher. His batting from the right side of the plate is developing. He did have a big hit batting right-handed Tuesday and is getting better. The best way to utilize him would be to work him in carefully and gradually against selected left-handed pitchers until he gains sufficient confidence and experience. I'm still very confident that Dominguez will have an excellent year and a very good career as a Yankee, but it will have little to nothing to do with Aaron Boone’s support and guidance as a manager.

·       The warm weather is here, and we are getting more access to fruit, I think I will make some strawberry-rhubarb jam. When I was a kid, my father had a rhubarb patch in our yard. Basically, my father had a garden for everything. He grew his own strawberries. He had fruit trees. He had acres of tomatoes. He even had three kinds of raspberry bushes. My mom used to make baked rhubarb and stewed rhubarb. I still remember how good that was. The stewed rhubarb was comparable to applesauce in texture and consistency. Of course, because of the tart nature of rhubarb, you needed a lot of sugar in there. If I can find enough rhubarb, I will probably freeze some of it and make a peach-rhubarb jam later in the year.

·       The A's are playing in Sacramento this year. Every time I hear Sacramento, I hear Steve Somers saying “Sacra-tomato.”

·       I read a very concerning story that the Yankees may consider trading Paul Goldschmidt later in the season when Giancarlo Stanton is ready to return to the lineup. The premise of this story was that Ben Rice would then shift to first base and Stanton would be the DH. I'm struggling to find the right words to express how much I loathe that idea. I cannot even plumb the depths of my hatred for this idea. First, we don't know when or if Stanton will actually rejoin the lineup. A lot of things have to happen before that occurs. Second, Goldschmidt is not only the second-best hitter on the team, but he’s also the second-best hitter in the league. Rice is doing extremely well also. Why would the Yankees have to bump either one of these players to make room for Stanton, who conceivably could reinjure himself at any point. In addition, Aaron Boone and Stanton are now saying he might be ready by the end of this month. That is three weeks from now. Stanton didn't have any Spring Training. He hasn't played in any rehab games. Apparently, Boone and Stanton feel he won't need many rehab games because he doesn't play the field. That is ridiculous. Based on his history, Stanton always takes a long time to get his timing and his swing down. It doesn't make sense to clog the lineup with a struggling Stanton while benching either Goldschmidt or Rice. That is about the worst idea I ever heard. Building a boat out of notebook paper and taking it for a spin in shark-infested waters is a better idea than that. The only idea that would be worse would be to trade Goldschmidt to make room for Stanton.

·        The other day, my wife was attempting to make the bed with the assistance of Clancy. He was very enthusiastic and kept leaping and bounding all over the bed, diving under the covers and swatting at her hands. I was in the next room but, I thought I was watching or listening to an old Looney Tunes cartoon with Yosemite Sam. For those of you old enough to remember, the tirades that Yosemite Sam used to have were quite comparable to the one I heard coming from my bedroom.

·       Now that the return of DJ LeMahieu is imminent, the question is who will be bumped from the roster to make room for him. I imagine it will be either Pablo Reyes or Oswald Peraza. If it is Peraza, he will either be designated for assignment or traded, as he is out of options. I think that Peraza is a far superior player on both sides of the ball than Reyes is. However, Aaron Boone seems to have a very favorable opinion of Reyes, which could work in his favor. If Peraza is the odd man out, I hope he goes to another team and excels. I would hate to see the Yankees lose Peraza because it is almost inevitable that something unfortunate will happen with LeMahieu. I'm certainly not wishing an injury on the man but, he is old, brittle, and injury prone. He hurt himself taking a swing in Spring Training. He needs a stunt double to take batting practice. If he is lucky enough to avoid an injury, he may simply be completely washed up and ineffective. For all of Aaron Boone’s rabid enthusiasm at the return of LeMahieu, let's not forget that he hit..204 last year. It's nice that he had a few hits in the minor leagues. We will see what happens when he gets to the Major Leagues. I have predicted that the Boone-Swoon is coming, and it is. DJ LeMahieu’s return may be the harbinger of that event just as a robin hopping across my lawn in search of a worm is the indicator that spring has arrived.