Yankees give Brian Cashman's harshest critics a reality check on Opening Night

Superstars like Dylan Cease, Pete Alonso Ranger Suarez came to the AL East division this offseason. While their division rivals made splashes, all the New York Yankees did was essentially run back a team that lost in the ALDS. This, obviously, led to immense criticism aimed at Brian Cashman's direction.

Well, the Yankees wasted no time when it came to proving Cashman's doubters wrong on Opening Day. Facing Logan Webb, one of the National League's best pitchers, New York exploded for five runs in the second inning. It's hard to get off to a better start than that.

Yankees offense gets off to fast start on Opening Day

Six straight Yankees reached base, and five of them scored. To put the Yankees' offensive onslaught into perspective, Logan Webb allowed five or more runs just four times in 34 starts in 2025. He did so three times in 33 starts in 2024. The Yankees scored five runs in a single inning.

They wound up scoring seven runs against Webb in five innings. Webb had not allowed seven runs in a game since 2024 prior to this outing. Sure, he left some more pitches over the heart of the plate than he'd like, but this Yankees lineup is also very unforgiving.

As if scoring seven runs against a pitcher of Webb's caliber isn't crazy enough, the Yankees had five runs on the board through two innings with Aaron Judge going 0-for-2 with a pair of strikeouts. Judge had an opportunity to really break the game open in that second inning, and again in the fourth. He's 0-for-3 with three strikeouts as of this writing, and the Yankees have seven runs on nine hits. That speaks to how deep this Yankees lineup is.

That traces back to Brian Cashman. Yankees fans were not happy that he ran it back, and I understood that frustration to an extent. The Yankees, an organization that says it's World Series or bust every year, haven't won a title in 15 years. It felt as if Cashman had a lack of urgency, especially when his biggest move, re-signing Cody Bellinger, took as long as it did.

The fact of the matter is, as boring as it is to run it back, especially when the team failed to get past the ALDS, Cashman's critics were ignoring just how good this lineup was in 2025.

Yankees ran back an already elite lineup

It's one thing to run it back with a lineup that failed to score runs. Not only did the Yankees score 19 runs in their four ALDS games, but they were nothing short of dominant in the regular season.

The Yankees led the league in virtually every notable offensive category, and did so by a wide margin. They scored more runs and hit more home runs than the Los Angeles Dodgers, the back-to-back World Series champions - the team everyone thinks is breaking baseball.

Sure, having Aaron Judge obviously helps, but they had talent up and down the order. Trent Grisham, a popular punching bag among Yankees fans, hit 34 home runs as their primary leadoff hitter. Jazz Chisholm Jr., another popular scapegoat, hit 31 home runs with a .813 OPS as a second baseman. Ben Rice came out of nowhere to hit 27 home runs and hit in the middle of New York's lineup. Giancarlo Stanton missed substantial time, yet he hit 24 home runs with a .944 OPS in 77 regular season games.

The Yankees had seven players hit 20+ home runs, and that number could've easily been nine when factoring in Anthony Volpe being just one long ball shy of reaching 20 and Ryan McMahon hitting 20 when combining his season with the Yankees and the Colorado Rockies. This is the lineup fans wanted to see broken up? Really?

Judge is the centerpiece, but the Yankees can beat any team from any spot in their order. On Wednesday, Judge struck out four times and NY still rolled. That's what makes them scary. I don't know how this season will end, but the Yankees are in World Series contention because they ran it back. Doing something like that after a disappointing postseason exit isn't easy, and Cashman deserves credit for what he did.

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