Just … make this make sense.

Colorado Rockies v New York Yankees
Colorado Rockies v New York Yankees / Mike Stobe/GettyImages

The New York Yankees followed up one of their most exciting wins of the season on Monday (after a weekend series victory, mind you) with one of their most confounding losses on Tuesday. They were blanked by Patrick Corbin, the worst full-time starting pitcher in all of baseball.

That game had some lineup questions, too. Manager Aaron Boone continued his trend of benching Austin Wells against left-handed pitchers despite the fact Jose Trevino is 0-for-11 in his last four games against lefty starters. Boone is also running the risk of actually making Wells bad at hitting left-handed pitching by never exposing his rookie catcher to it.

That’s … kind of what happened to Ben Rice, right? Though the rookie first baseman endured an expected slump following his three homer game against the Red Sox back in mid-July, he’s also not been afforded the opportunity to prove himself otherwise.

And it’s not like there’s somebody ahead of him in the pecking order. The other option is DJ LeMahieu, who is proving to be even more of a liability on the defensive end while also failing to truly break out of his season-long slump.

But that hasn’t stopped Boone from playing him. LeMahieu got the start on Tuesday, and though he went 1-for-4 with a run scored, he made an error that allowed a run to score. Fast forward to Wednesday, and there’s another lefty on the mound in MacKenzie Gore. But guess what?! He’s a reverse-splits guy, with lefties getting the better of him this year. Even that couldn’t change Boone’s mind.

Yankees fans are about to riot after Aaron Boone’s recent lineup choices

At least Wells is back in there. Thank goodness. But this just goes to show how Boone still has troubling putting all the pieces together on a given night.

Rice was given a lane last week and over the weekend when he played four games in a row, and though the results weren’t he most inspiring, fans would argue that it’s more worthwhile to see him logging reps right now rather than LeMahieu, who can no longer carve out a meaningful role for himself on this team. And with his future in question (and with Anthony Rizzo likely hitting free agency in 2025), Rice needs as much run as possible.

What’s even worse is that LeMahieu is a reverse-splits nightmare. He’s hitting .149 and slugging .194 against left-handed pitching in 2024. Those numbers improve to .236 and .292 against lefty starters, but that’s still not good. Rice is admittedly just as bad against left-handers as a whole, but he has just 42 plate appearances against them compared to LeMahieu’s 79.

It’s never going to be perfect; fans know that. And it’s definitely not reasonable or fair to target Boone every time there’s one lineup tweak that isn’t exactly popular. But the Wells benchings need to come to an end, accompanied by a bit more attention to detail with reverse-splits instead of just hitting the “stop” button for any lefty not named “Juan Soto” when there’s a southpaw on the bump.