Hour 1: Bullpen Repairs

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**Michael Kay** (0:41)
Anna, good afternoon everybody. This is indeed The Michael Kay Show. We thank you for joining us on this Wednesday, August 26th, 2026 It's me and you for two. Those are the rules of engagement. It's the fastest moving two hours in sports talk radio ever, ever. And you know why? Because I have great co-hosts. You, you the listeners are the co-hosts, and you know the membership number 1-800-919-3776.
Again, 1-800-919-3776.
All right, there are some losses that are bigger than others.
They all count the same, but when they happen, they sting a little bit more. And yesterday's Yankee loss to the Astros stings just a little bit more than a loss in July. Because yesterday, the Yankees had 3 separate leads, 3-2, 5-3, 6-5, and they blew all 3 leads, ended up losing the game 9-7. Now, you do lose games, not a big deal. But when the Yankees score 5 runs or more, as I told you yesterday, coming into that game, they are 45-5. That's a 900-winning percentage. Well, after last night, it's 45-6. But the stat doesn't make it painful. The circumstances make it painful. The circumstances being that Tampa Bay lost to Detroit. Detroit had come into that game having lost 6 in a row. So they would do, and they beat Tampa Bay 4-1. So it was right there in front of the Yankees to move to within two games in the loss column, a first place in the American League East. Because we all know, we've known for months, the Yankees are making the playoffs. They have too big of a lead over the third wild card team to drop out of this. It's just too big of a lead. So we know they're making the playoffs. What they should be trying to do, and I know what they are trying to do, is to win the American League East. You win the American League East, you're going to have the best record in the American League. You're going to have one of the two best records in the American League, and you are going to have a buy. You want to avoid a wild card series at all cost. Now, to make matters worse, Tampa Bay lost and the Boston Red Sox won. They beat the Miami Marlins by four runs in 11 innings. Jaren Duran with a grand slam in the top of the 11th inning ended up winning it for them. And why that's significant is all of a sudden, the Yankees now just have a two game lead over the Red Sox. And why that's important, I think you all know, if you're listening to the show, you certainly know.
You have four games of the Red Sox this weekend. Saturday, there's a doubleheader, day night doubleheader. So it's Friday, Saturday afternoon, Saturday night, and Sunday.
So if the Red Sox gain another game over this time, then just splitting those four games, they're in good shape. Then if they win three out of four, they're even in better shape. And the last thing the Yankees want, the absolute last thing that the Yankees want is to play a wild card series at Fenway Park. Of course, they can win. But last year, it was at Yankee Stadium, and it took the full three games, and it took an otherworldly brilliant performance by Cam Schlitler of eight innings, no runs and 12 strikeouts to get the Yankees to the next round. But by dealing with a wild card series, forget about where it's played, you've got to pitch your best pitchers. And when you pitch your best pitchers, well, they want to give import to winning a division. So they want to give a negative vibe to being a wild card. So if you're in the wild card and you win that series, you've used your best three starting pitchers if it goes to full three games.
So you're starting the division series against say, okay, let's say Tampa Bay. You're starting that series probably with Carlos Rodan starting that game, rather than Garrett Cole or Max Fried or Cam Schlittler.
So there you have it right there, why it's getting really, really sweaty in the American League East. That was a tough loss to take. They got a four for five performance out of Luis Garcia Jr. who you could tell that was a good pickup by the Yankees. This kid is 25 years old. He's got a swing that's perfect for Yankee Stadium. They've got two years of control left with him. He can do a lot of damage for the Yankees wherever they play them next year. If they try them at second base, if they keep them at first base, if they DH them, this guy can hit. Start off slowly with the Yankees. He did have a homerun the first game, but for the most part, he calmed down. Now, I think you're going to see what this kid's all about. He's going to finish with 30, maybe 110 That's pretty good. Just imagine him if he could be even average at second base next year. Those kind of numbers coming out of your second baseman. But the biggest concern for me in that game, and I'm not blaming anybody for it, because the way the Yankees have been constructed, and we gave you the stats yesterday, I'm not going to give them to you again. They play really close games because since Judge has been out, they don't score a lot of runs. They usually score about 3 runs a game. They've had so many games with a separation of 1 run or 2 runs. So when that happens, you've got to go to your bullpen and your high leverage guys a lot. And I think that the dog days of August, dog days of summer, you're going to start to see some regression. And you just hope that it's not a permanent regression. I think we've seen in the month of August, how much Fernando Cruz has struggled. And he struggled last night, gave up a home run to Jeremy Pena, which erased a 5-3 Yankee lead. Cruz has allowed a run in 8 of the last 16 times that he's pitched. That has not been good. It has not been good. In the last 13 and 2-3 innings of 5.43 ERA, he's also made 61 appearances. And his splitter is not splitting. It's not dropping the way it was.