ESPN | Jorge Castillo: Perhaps unsurprisingly, one of the first questions to arise in the wake of Austin Wells’ surprise IL trip pertained to whether the Yankees’ best healthy hitter could help take up some slack at catcher. While Aaron Boone did not shut the door on Ben Rice donning the tools of ignorance, he mentioned “It’s not on the board right now.” Elaborating, Boone discussed the concern that regular time behind the dish could impact Rice’s torrid bat.
“Do we want to do that with what he means to, obviously, the middle of our lineup?” Boone said. “So we’ll continue to evaluate that and ultimately decide if the risk is worth that, or if we think it’s worth it.”
Back to Wells for a second though, there was some curiosity about the timing of his IL placement, which saw J.C. Escarra return to the team almost immediately after being demoted during Friday’s postgame. It seems that the situation developed quickly. Here’s what Boone had to say:
MLB | Rob Terranova: While the Yankees were busy losing to the Red Sox in the Bronx Friday night, the Yanks’ Triple-A affiliate was much more successful. 2021 second round pick Brendan Beck tossed seven no-hit innings against Syracuse, the Mets’ Triple-A club. After Beck left, having thrown 93 pitches, reliever Carson Coleman entered and proved up to the task he’d inherited. Two hitless frames letter, Scranton/Wilkes-Barre had itself a no-hitter, the RailRiders’ first in five years. It continued a strong start to the season at Triple-A for Beck, who made his MLB debut versus Texas in early May.
MLB | Bryan Hoch: Spencer Jones finds himself back in New York for the second time this season, called up to replace Aaron Judge on the 26-man roster. On his way back to the bigs, Jones found himself on the receiving end of some advice from Oswaldo Cabrera, currently toiling in the minors. “New York doesn’t need any heroes. They just need you,” Oswaldo told Jones, who admittedly struggled in his initial experience against major league pitching. For what it’s worth, Jones went 3-for-3 with an RBI double Friday night. Hopefully, he can provide some thump to the Yankee lineup this time around.
The Athletic | Brendan Kuty ($): By this point, it’s part of Cam Schlittler Lore that the flamethrower grew up in New England, Massachusetts specifically. Less well known perhaps (I certainly hadn’t heard it prior to this) is that Schlittler was named for a Boston sports hero, namely Cam Neely. The NHL Hall of Famer played 10 of his 13 seasons in Beantown. Schlittler’s father was a big fan of Neely and in a nice coincidence, Mrs. Schlittler liked the name Cam as well. Et voila. Now a team president for the Bruins, Neely remarked that he’ll be following the Yankee fireballer’s career with interest. Hopefully Neely can watch his namesake win a World Series or three in his time as a Yankee.
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