Alexander Wilson
One hit. That is what the New York Yankees produced against the Oakland Athletics on Thursday. One hit across nine innings while Ryan Weathers struck out seven batters and gave up only one run, turning in arguably the best start of his young Yankees tenure. Weathers deserved better and did not get it, and the loss dropped New York to 8-4 in what is quickly becoming a concerning stretch.
The top of the lineup did not do much either, but the bottom three hitters were catastrophic. Austin Wells, Jose Caballero, and Ryan McMahon combined to go 0-for-however-many-at-bats-it-took to confirm what many have been watching build all week. Randal Grichuk struck out three times batting sixth. None of it worked. None of it looked close to working.
Austin Wells
Wells is hitting .167/.286/.200 through the first eleven games and has not found his timing at the plate. The contact quality has been better than the results suggest, which is genuinely encouraging, but better contact and no production still means nothing in the box score on a day like Thursday.
The underlying numbers remain in Wells’ corner. His swing decisions have been sound, he has avoided the chase-rate problems that plagued him at points last season, and the hand position adjustment he worked on in the offseason looks mechanically cleaner than anything he showed in 2025. The issue is purely timing and variance.
Cold April nights do not help any hitter, and Wells is a hitter who needs a few weeks of consistent at-bats against live major league pitching before everything syncs up. I still believe the version of Wells who was a Rookie of the Year finalist shows up at some point. It just has not happened yet, and on a day like Thursday, patience runs thin.
Jose Caballero
Caballero is hitting .135/.200/.162, and at this point the conversation has to shift from temporary slump to realistic expectations. He has always been a below-average hitter. That was true before the Yankees acquired him from Tampa Bay at the trade deadline last year, and it remains true now. The organization knew what they were getting from a production standpoint and bet that his speed, defense, and energy would compensate for a bat that was never going to carry a lineup spot.
What they were not betting on was the glove failing them too. Caballero has committed errors in critical moments, and his defensive consistency at shortstop, which was supposed to be the floor of his contribution, has not been the reliable presence the team needed. He is a career backup playing a starter’s role out of necessity while Anthony Volpe rehabs, and the roster is showing exactly where that seam exists every night. Volpe cannot return soon enough, and when he does, Caballero goes back to the bench where his profile fits much better.
Ryan McMahon
This is where the concern becomes something closer to alarm. McMahon is hitting .069/.250/.069 with a -0.4 WAR through eleven games, and his Statcast data paints the portrait of a hitter who is making contact on almost nothing. His strikeout rate ranks in the 3rd percentile in baseball. His whiff rate ranks in the 10th percentile. The hard-hit rate is elite, which keeps the argument for patience alive on a technicality, but a player who cannot make contact does not get to benefit from his exit velocity.
The Coors Field question deserves more attention than it is getting. McMahon spent nine seasons playing half his games in the most hitter-friendly park in baseball, and there is a legitimate argument that the acquisition was flawed from the start because of how much Coors inflates offensive numbers. Players who produce average or slightly below-average numbers in Denver routinely look significantly worse everywhere else because the park is essentially giving hitters a two-week vacation from what major league pitching actually does to a baseball.
McMahon’s road splits throughout his career were never what his home production suggested. The Yankees were betting on a mechanical adjustment bridging that gap. Through eleven games, the gap looks wider than it did last July. At some point, the front office has to start planning for the version of McMahon that is actually here rather than the one they hoped to unlock.
The Bigger Picture
Ryan Weathers gave the Yankees every chance to win on Thursday. He kept the game at one run and gave his offense multiple chances to scratch something across. Seven strikeouts, one earned run, four innings with no damage. None of it mattered because the lineup could not produce a single hit when it needed to.
A team can win with one or two underperforming spots in the lineup. Three struggling hitters clustered together, combined with a bench option in Grichuk who struck out three times, is a lineup construction problem that will eventually catch up to a rotation carrying everyone. The Yankees need Wells to turn the corner, Caballero to at least put the ball in play, and McMahon to show some sign of life at the plate. If none of those things happen in the next two weeks, the trade deadline conversation is going to start in May instead of July.
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