A drill down on a bad play.

"It also included him laying down a questionable sacrifice bunt in the fourth inning with one out and the Yankees trailing by three runs."

I would love to see Volpe sacrifice more often. I've said this many times.

He has a preposterously low number of sac bunts in his career given his inability to hit with RISP and his position in the lineup.

If he's going to be in the starting lineup (less likely as his performance continues to diminish), then just bat him ninth and force him to sac bunt as often as possible. Stop swinging for the fences every time, little man.

The errors are bad. The on-base percentage is bad. The high number of strikeouts is bad.

If Volpe was a smart, clutch, instinctive player, then he may add value beyond the box score. The intangibles that Yankee fans claim to understand so well.

But he's one of the stupidest players I've ever seen.

A sac bunt in the fourth inning trailing by three runs ... WITH ONE OUT! ... is not "questionable." That's what pitchers did before the universal DH. Only pitchers and only before the universal DH.

If he was bunting for a hit and missed, sometimes that happens. It makes no sense given his 0-for-career success rate bunting for base hits (as far as I know).

If he didn't know how many outs there were, that's a ridiculous trademark of the 2025 Yankees.

But what seems most likely is that he knew how many outs there were, he knew the score, he knew the game situation, and still thought it was a good idea.

It's not "questionable" and it's not "aggressive." It's stupid. It's really bad. I might refer to it as Little League stupid, except I think the Little Leaguers are smarter than this.

Also, it adds up when it's day after day and every routine ground ball to shortstop is a stressful adventure for everyone. It's rare to see the starting Yankees shortstop charge a routine ground ball, field it cleanly, rhythmically step into the routine throw to first base and hit the first baseman in the chest.

So it's not even the throw itself, which is a physical error that is going to happen from time to time.

It's not even the frequency of these ridiculous physical errors which indicate that this guy just isn't cut out to play in the major leagues.

It's the 50 or 60 bad plays throughout the season that don't count as errors.

It's this "fielder's choice" that had the Red Sox baserunners openly laughing at him.

"Every once is a while, Coney, you just out-think the play."

Who?

Who's "you" in this offhand comment? 

Who does this, Paul O'Neill?

I don't have to reflexively compare Volpe to the HOFer Jeter. I know you did that right away, yes? "Jeter would have never made a mental error like that."

This is true.

A high school backup shortstop would not have made a mental error like that.

Maybe wiffle ball in the backyard where you could get an out by throwing the ball at the baserunner? You aggressively try to peg the baserunner in the back before he or she gets back to the lawn chair that is second base?

This is the level of baseball aptitude we're dealing with, and this guy has been the starting shortstop for the Yankees for three seasons.