Plan B Becomes Plan A

 

Barring one lousy week in April, the Yankees have been outdoing everyone's expectations to begin the season. Even their own. The thought going into 2026 was that Jose Caballero would be a replacement level patch for Anthony Volpe, Cam Schlittler would only do so much to cover for Gerrit Cole, and the bullpen would be rougher without Luke Weaver. Well...looks like the team's just leveled up then.

Cam Schlittler has picked up exactly where his 2025 left off and has been wonderful for us. Through 9 starts he's got a 1.40 ERA, 59 Ks and 5 wins [I'm writing this as his latest start is going on, I hope it becomes 6 [EDIT: DAMMIT DOVAL!!]]. He's young, durable, practically unhittable, and leads the league in ERA and WHIP. I'd hoped for a young pitcher like this, and he's definitely fit that bill. We're getting Carlos Rodon back today, and hopefully he's gonna make up for lost time with some 2025-esque starts. Even then, Rodon will make the already strong rotation even better, as Fried, Warren, Schlittler and Weathers have been very nice thus far. In the absence of Cole, we needed consistency, and right now we have it. May it persist.

The 'Cabby replacing Volpe' thing was something I didn't expect in concept but makes a lot of sense the more I think about it. Cabby's not just a great base stealer, he's a versatile, multitalented player who has so many uses. It's a bigger version of Gio Urshela in 2019. Cabby's hitting .264 with 4 homers and 14 RBIs, plus 13 steals. He seems to fit right in. And let's not forget Ryan McMahon slowly coming to life in May, Paul Goldschmidt being responsible for 2 RBIs last night, and Spencer Jones stepping in to hopefully show the big leagues what all the fuss is about. And if Topps thinks of a reason to make the cutoff for Update last week, robbing us of 2026 Spencer Jones cards....I will be quite upset.

It's very easy to whittle this team down to Judge and Rice and Bellinger, and while that looks nice on a magazine, it's a full team effort right now. All the pieces are coming together and keeping this team ahead of the pack. They've got one of the best records in baseball, one of the best pitching staffs in baseball, and some of the best power hitters in baseball. Now...it is only May, and this team has a habit of dropping momentum out of nowhere, so I seriously hope they remember that this is a marathon, and they need to pace themselves rather than burning themselves out too early. This could be the team that could go mano e mano with LA in the end, and we don't want them peaking here.

Coming Tonight: How did the Braves really managed to have two incredible 1st basemen in a row, back to back? They couldn't do that at third after 2012!