Yankees: heading south

By BRUCE LOWITT

The New York Yankees, who came within three victories last year of winning their 28^th World Series (okay, they lost in five games to the Los Angeles Dodgers), entered 2025 with high hopes of ending a world championship drought dating back to 2009. But this season hasn’t gone as well as expected. Here’s a look back at their 2025 campaign.

March 2: Starting pitcher Luis Gil, reigning American League Rookie of the Year, suffers a strained large muscle on his back, called the latissimus dorsi, while trying to master the moonwalk popularized by Michael Jackson and is shut down for six weeks. “I love to dance,” he says, “but maybe not so much now.”

March 8: Oft-injured designated hitter Giancarlo Stanton says he might miss the entire season due to severe elbow injuries. He initially blames them on “bat adjustments” from last season but later admits he hurt himself while carrying his 2025 salary of $32-million in cash to the bank.

March 12: Ace pitcher Gerrit Cole is lost for the season after undergoing Tommy John surgery on his right elbow. The Yankees say the injury occurred in 2024 when he hurriedly endorsed one of the checks the team issued on his nine-year, $324-million contract. Max Fried replaces Cole as the Opening-Day starter.

March 22: Opening-Day starter Max Fried announces he expects to miss 15-20 weeks of the season after suffering fractures to his left femur, filbula, and tibia when he gets out of his Lamborghini Aventador parked on Fifth Avenue and is struck by an Uber being driven by a recently-fired federal worker. “Stupid move by me,” he says. Carlos Rodon replaces Fried as the Opening-Day starter against visiting Milwaukee. New York manager Aaron Boone tells reporters he urged Fried to use a chauffeured limousine, adding, “Shit!”

March 27: Carlos Rodon, five innings into a potential Opening-Day no-hitter, sustains a patellar fracture when a line drive off the bat of Milwaukee’s Garrett Mitchell strikes his left kneecap. The Yankees lose 1-0 on Brewers starter Freddy Peralta’s six innings of two-hit ball. Boone tells reporters Rodon will likely not return until September, adding, “Fuuuuuuck!”

May 18: The New York Mets complete a Subway Series sweep of their crosstown rivals as Juan Soto hits his sixth and seventh home runs of the four games at Yankee Stadium. Pete Alonso adds a grand slam in their 16-2 rout. The loss drops the Yanks four games under .500 at 22-26 and into a third-place tie with Tampa Bay in the AL East. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!” Boone tells reporters.

July 7: In an astonishing trade coming on the heels of New York’s seven-game losing streak to the Mets and Toronto, the fourth-place Yankees acquire two-time Cy Young Award winner Blake Snell from the Los Angeles Dodgers in exchange for infielders Paul Goldschmidt, Jazz Chisholm Jr., DJ LeMahieu, Anthony Volpe, and Ozwald Peraza, outfielder Oswaldo Cabrera, catcher Austin Wells, and shortstop prospect George Lombard Jr., plus Snell’s $52-million signing bonus. “We need pitching more than anything,” New York GM Brian Cashman says, “and although we hate losing Lombardi, we’ve still got (outfielder Aaron) Judge going for us and a lot of our guys in Triple-A (Scranton/Wilkes-Barre) are ready to move up.”

July 15: New York Yankees outfielder Aaron Judge is likely to miss at least the next seven weeks due to a fractured jaw and torn right trapezius he sustains after crashing into Atlanta’s Truist Park stands along the right field line chasing Bryce Harper’s first-inning fly ball in the All-Star Game.

Aug. 3: After winning his first four starts for the last-place New York Yankees, left-hander Blake Snell is sidelined by a recurrence of an adductor (groin) strain, the same injury that cost him multiple starts in three of the past four seasons. “At least I’m consistent,” Snell says before ducking a trash can thrown by Cashman.

Sept. 2: Rookie right-hander Will Warren, the only surviving member of the New York Yankees’ starting rotation and still winless in the majors, is sidelined by what team physician Christopher Ahmad calls “a ruptured krasnicki – and don’t ask me what that is because I’ve never seen one and my medical journals don’t even have drawings of it, much less a definition.”

Sept. 28: The New York Yankees manage to win their 42^nd game in the season finale, beating Baltimore 3-2 in 19 innings to avoid matching the Chicago White Sox’s record for the worst major league season ever. “This win will give us momentum heading into next season,” says Tanner Swanson, the Yankees’ former quality control coach and catching coordinator and their fourth interim manager of the season.