New York Post | Greg Joyce: The sports world is filled with great sibling rivalries: Eli Manning vs. Peyton Manning, Jim Harbaugh vs. John Harbaugh, Serena Williams vs. Venus Williams. Well, today begins a new chapter in intra-familial matchups: Yankees manager Aaron Boone takes on his brother Bret Boone, who was hired as the Texas Rangers’ hitting coach earlier this month. This will represent the first time the two brothers share a baseball field since 2005, and the first time that they do so not as players, but as coaches.
Unrelated to the Boone Bowl, but under this article includes a note that Ryan Yarbrough will return to the starting rotation after getting his spot skipped last time around due to multiple off days, with him scheduled to take the mound on Wednesday.
MLB Trade Rumors | Steve Adams: Southpaw Tyler Matzek, who was designated for assignment late last week to make room for Jonathan Loáisiga on the 40-man roster, rejected a minor league assignment and elected free agency after clearing waivers yesterday. The 35-year-old reliever was a bit of a mixed bag with the Yankees, allowing only three runs in six innings but allowing 11 hits and walking almost a batter per inning. While it’s always possible that he could return to the Bronx, left-handed pitchers aren’t exactly a dime a dozen, so it wouldn’t be a surprise to see another team take a swing on him.
SNY.com | Anthony McCarron: Aaron Judge will enter tonight batting a league-best .401, the best 46-game start to a season for the Yankees since Paul O’Neill hit .456 31 years ago. Although the now-YES broadcaster failed to keep that pace, finishing the strike-shortened season with a .359 average, O’Neill believes that Judge’s experience chasing Roger Maris’ home run record gives him a leg up in the most important part of battling to keep above the .400 line: the personal and media pressure such a run brings.
FOX Sports | Rowan Kavner: In many ways, power rankings aren’t the most useful thing to look at: they’re often highly reactive, paying way more attention than is warranted to the smallest ups and downs of a baseball season, all in the hope of generating new content. Still, these posts do nonetheless give us a bit of an insight into what stories the national media is paying attention to — and when it comes to the Yankees, this week’s highlighted story is Paul Goldschmidt’s resurgence.
The Athletic | Ken Rosenthal and Jayson Stark: (subscription required) During spring training, Major League Baseball tested the Automated Ball-Strike challenge system (abbreviated ABS), and it by and large appeared to be a success for the fans. Analysis of the data generated by the testing shows, however, that the system is not quite as accurate and precise as the public seems to think. Furthermore, the ABS system and the traditional umpire strike zone are slightly different. And so, players, coaches, and officials alike wonder the exact implications of these changes — and whether or not they are worthwhile.
Yahoo! Sports | Kristie Ackert: It’s a minor bit of news, but still worth noting anyway: Yankees outfielder Aaron Judge and his wife are involved in a legal dispute over renovations made to their homes in New York and Tampa. In essence, the Judges claim that the contractors deliberately overcharged them, while the contractors claim that the Judges haven’t paid them for their services. While, to this point, the legal dispute has not seemed to affect Judge’s performance at the plate, let’s hope that continues to be the case going forward.