Three takeaways from the Yankees-Athletics series

Aaron Judge is zeroing in on a strong May after a ridiculous April

After a jaw-dropping opening month, Judge was due for a slump of some kind and indeed, he hit “just” .259 with two homers and a 1.000 OPS in his first seven games in May. Every major-leaguer, even those contending for batting titles, goes through a significant slide during the course of the season, often several of them. But Judge’s first real slump of the season apparently is on layaway. He went 2-for-5 with two homers in Saturday’s loss to the A’s, then produced his third four-hit game of the season on Sunday — and 13th such game of his career — raising his batting average to .409 and his OPS to 1.273.

“[Another] day at the office,” DH Ben Rice said with a laugh of Judge’s afternoon.

As usual, Judge was the least impressed with what he had done.

“There’s always room for improvement,” he said. “Always areas of your game that you can try to get a little bit better at.”

For now, Ryan Yarbrough likely isn’t going anywhere as the fifth starter

The slender 6-5 lefthander with the soft stuff and the low-arm-angle delivery is far from electric. His fastball rarely surpasses, or even reaches, 90 mph. But with so many pitchers in the game relying on blow-the-hitter-away velocity, few attack hitters the way Yarbrough does. He allowed one run in four innings in his first start against Tampa Bay on May 3 and got through five innings — and needed only 67 pitches to do so — on Sunday, allowing two runs and six hits. Few of those were the result of hard contact. Yarbrough, a little-publicized pickup on March 24, just before the end of spring training,  is 14-24 with a 4.72 ERA in his career as a starter, something he hasn’t done regularly in his big-league career since 2021 with the Rays, when he made 21 starts. With the Yankees sorely lacking in rotation depth, the opportunity is presenting itself again. “I’m definitely enjoying it,” he said of starting. “We’ll see how things unfold. I’m hoping to continue to run with it as long as I can and we’ll go from there.”

The Yankees need DJ LeMahieu and will be getting him soon

Before Sunday’s game, manager Aaron Boone repeated what he said Saturday: It’s possible that LeMahieu, who started the season on the injured list with a left calf strain and who has played roughly two weeks of rehab games — including Sunday with Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre — will rejoin the Yankees in time for their series opener in Seattle on Monday night. “There’s a chance of that,” Boone said. LeMahieu will play primarily at second base when he rejoins the team, which likely means the end of Pablo Reyes on the big-league roster (it could be Jorbit Vivas or Oswald Peraza, but Reyes is the most probable of the three to lose out with LeMahieu’s return). Regardless, with second baseman Jazz Chisholm Jr. out for at least another month and possibly longer with an oblique strain, LeMahieu, a three-time Gold Glove winner at the position, remains by far the best option there.

By Erik Boland

erik.boland@newsday.comeboland11

Erik Boland started in Newsday's sports department in 2002. He covered high school and college sports, then shifted to the Jets beat. He has covered the Yankees since 2009.