Hour 1: Yankees & Mets Heading into All-Star Break

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This is The Michael Kay Show Podcast. I got to get more Kay. Listen live weekdays at one on the Espn New York app and your smart speaker.

**Jake Asbin** (0:41)
No Michael Kay, Jake Asbin in for Michael taking you until 3 p.m. We got a lot to get into Michael, of course, enjoying some time off. It is the baseball all-star break. We're going to start with some baseball this afternoon. We'll mix in some football as well. I even got some thoughts on Conor McGregor and that debacle that was his UFC return over the weekend. Aaron Rodgers is off the hook as far as being memed into oblivion with him coming out with the flag for the Jets a couple years ago. It's now being replaced by Conor McGregor's octagon walk-in because I think Rodgers honestly lasted longer than McGregor did, if you think about it. So we'll talk more about that later on in the show. But it's funny. I was thinking about this coming into the studio today. The last time I was on the air was Thursday. The last time I hosted on this radio station was Thursday from 1 to 3 filling in for Kay as the Yankees were playing an afternoon game against the Rays. They looked like they were headed for a total disaster. They were struggling. They were not hitting. We were all screaming and yelling. The Yankees had they lost that final game to the Rays, would have fallen six games behind Tampa in the loss column.
Tampa Bay had Ace Drew Rasmussen on the mound. He has owned the Yankees in his career.
And the Yankees hit them for six runs and got them out of the game in the third inning.
Yankees put up a bunch of runs of their own that day and they win the game. And they actually salvaged, if you could call it that, or maybe say it's a success. They split forward with Tampa and that was gigantic. I still wasn't fully buying into the Yankees and I'm still full disclosure, not all the way there. But let's give them credit because they earned the split and then they sweep the Nationals over the weekend rallying from deficits in each of their wins. The eighth inning for the Yankees was euphoric all three games.
So because the Yankees were able to win on Thursday and then sweep over the weekend, I think you feel a lot different about this scene going into the All-Star break than say this time on Thursday when I was last on the air. You forget a little less about the 15 of 20 games they dropped June into July.
You feel like hey, just three games behind the raise, four in the loss column, the division is still certainly obtainable. At least that's how I feel as a die-hard fan of this Yankee team. They still have a lot of work to do. They still need major improvements by the trade deadline. I still don't fully trust this line up in a big spot to get key hits even with Aaron Judge. They got to prove it. And with Judge, the biggest thing that will happen for the Yankees now over these next couple of days is not Ben Rice in the home run derby tonight. It's Aaron Judge's health because they're going to go for imaging this week. And if Aaron Judge gets a positive report from the doctors, his progress towards returning where the year ends obviously drastically changes the outcome and the feel we have around this Yankees team. They need Stanton back, yes, but they need Aaron Judge back. They need him healthy. They're going to get freed back at some point. Rodin doesn't sound like he's far away. All that's great. But the Yankees need Aaron Judge. And now at least by going out there and winning the games that they just won over the weekend, you feel a lot better about this team and the Yankees are going to be put to the test right away with the Dodgers coming to Yankee Stadium for three games starting Friday. And they've lost a bunch of games in a row. They got swept over the weekend. A lot of sweeps in baseball. Obviously, the Mets getting swept by Boston also happened. We'll get into that at some point.