Hour 2: Oh that Jazz!

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
So you're saying with Hilton Honors, I can use points for a free night stay anywhere? Anywhere. What about fancy places like the Canopy in Paris?

**SPEAKER_2** (0:08)
Yeah, Hilton Honors, baby.

**SPEAKER_1** (0:10)
Or relaxing sanctuaries like the Conrad and Tulum?

**SPEAKER_2** (0:13)
Hilton Honors, baby.

**SPEAKER_1** (0:15)
What about the five-star Waldorf Astoria in the Maldives? Are you going to do this for all 9,000 properties?

**SPEAKER_3** (0:22)
When you want points that can take you anywhere, anytime, it matters where you stay. Hilton for the stay.

**SPEAKER_4** (0:29)
This is The Michael Kay Show Podcast.

**Michael Kay** (0:32)
I gotta get more Kay.

**SPEAKER_4** (0:33)
Listen live weekdays at 1 on the ESPN New York app and your smart speaker.

**Michael Kay** (0:39)
It's an interesting thing that I just took notice of. Mike Annori, who's a well-regarded assistant coach with the Minnesota Timberwolves, has signed to be the Portland Trail Blazers head coach. He signed a one-year deal. Why would you do that?
Maybe you have a lot of faith in your ability, but it's a one-year deal with team options for each of the next two seasons. So it's in effect a one-year deal. Now, you're taking over a pretty good team. Thiago Splitter did a good job when he took over that team. They couldn't come to a contract agreement. It looks like the owner of Portland, who's also the owner of the Stanley Cup Champion Hurricanes, is somewhat tight with some money when it comes to spending on certain things. He's only willing to give a one-year guarantee to the guy that he wants to be his next head coach. Does that mean that you didn't have that much faith in the guy? Really weird. It's not weird on Portland's part, because if you can get somebody to accept that, great, it's a win for you. But why would Michael Norrie, who's well respected and is considered a head coach and waiting, why would he do that? Why would he take a one-year deal?
There's no security at all. When somebody gets hurt, you have a bad season, you're out. Absolutely out. Let's talk some Yankees.
So on yesterday's show, I mentioned that the Yankees might start losing some dreams right now because the margin of error is so razor thin because they've pushed their depth to the limit and they're playing people in positions where either they're not quite ready for it or they're trying to put a square peg in a round hole. And necessity is the mother of invention. So Jason Dominguez is not a good right fielder. He's not. There's no other way to say it. And he's playing right field. He's playing every single day. Now, I think he's a good hitter. I love the way he hustles. But as a right fielder, if you watch him at the stadium against the Reds, a lot of really weird roots didn't really make a throw, a good throw, when he said he was throwing to second, he missed the target by 40 feet. The ball ended up at third. And I am not here to criticize Jason Dominguez. Not at all.
Because he's a neophyte. They're trying to teach him right field. Why? Because they don't have enough outfielders.
Grisham's out. Judge is out. Those are two huge losses. Stanton remains out.
And the reason why I say that the Yankees might lose some more games than you're used to, take a look at last night's lineup against Framba Valdez. Did you see who was batting fifth in the lineup? It was Anthony Volpe. Now, Anthony has actually been hitting quite well for the Yankees, but if he's your number five batter, then that tells you exactly where your offense is at this point. And the Yankees have scored in their past three games, six total runs. And the thing that gets the Yankees through these games is great starting pitching. And Garrett Cole made his first bad start since coming off the IL from Tommy John surgery. He was not good yesterday. Gave up nine hits and five runs in four and a third innings. Leadoff batter got on every single inning.
He had good velocity throwing a fastball at 99, so that wasn't an issue, but he just didn't pitch well. Wasn't locating well. So when your starter gives up those sorts of runs and your offense is kind of stagnant because you just don't have the bodies to put out there, you're going to lose games.
So we looked at the three games against the Reds, an under 500 team and said, well, they'll take care of business there. Well, they lost two or three. Now you look at the Tigers and you go, well, Tigers are having a bad year. They'll take care of business. They play the Tigers six times in a week and a half. Well, they're not as bad as you think. They had an awful May, an awful May. But you know what they are in June? They're 12 and 6