Yankees, White Sox Complete Surreal Series Dominated By Poor ...

Chicago White Sox third baseman Yoan Moncada (10) wears a face covering as he takes the field during ... [+] the first inning in the first baseball game of a doubleheader against the New York Yankees Thursday, June 8, 2023, in New York. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)

A surreal week began when a haze engulfed Yankee Stadium Tuesday night resulting in poor air quality from remnants of the various wildfires in Canada that reached Quebec.

On Tuesday, the Yankees and White Sox got through a game with Lucas Giolito pitching six hitless innings and cancer survivor Liam Hendriks getting his first save since returning on May 29.

Less than 24 hours later, Yankees manager Aaron Boone drove to Yankee Stadium for his usual midday arrival. About five hours before he was scheduled to manage a game, Boone glanced at the sky and had the same reaction as many others, something along the lines of whoa this is out of the ordinary or this is really weird.

Out of the ordinary and weird for sure but also unsafe.

“It was business as usual for me coming in. I got in around 12, 12:30, and didn’t really think too much of it,” Boone said. “I actually walked outside about 2 o’clock and was like — like everyone else, like — whoa.”

Those were Boone’s words shortly after Wednesday was postponed and rescheduled as part of a doubleheader Thursday. It was a doubleheader that skepticism existed about it actually being played due to the air quality seemingly not improving and New York City canceling other things.

Statistically the air quality was still sub-par but somewhat better than Wednesday and even Tuesday when according to the website IQair, New York City had the second-worst level of air pollution in the world, second only to New Delhi, India.

Perhaps nobody’s availability seemed more impacted than Hendriks, who completed chemotherapy from stage 4 non-Hodgkin lymphoma in April. Hendriks did not pitch but also did not necessarily rule himself available and the White Sox survived Kendall Graveman nearly giving up a game-ending three-run homer to Gleyber Torres.

“I have to look after my health with the lowered immune system and everything that went on yesterday and lingered on around last night and this morning,” Hendriks said. “I just want to make it abundantly safe to make sure that it doesn't effect for me the next coming weeks."

As for the Yankees, Torres near miss was part of a 0-for-15 showing by a quartet being counted on while Aaron Judge watches the swelling go down in his bruised right toe without a timetable from his return. The other members of the quartet are Anthony Rizzo, Giancarlo Stanton and DJ LeMahieu.

Torres homered in the nightcap and that stopped an 0-for-20 skid. He went hitless in his other two at-bats and has one hit in his last 23 at-bats. LeMahieu is in a deeper skid at 3 for his last 30 and 10 for his last 63 (.143) in his last 17 games and is down .234, Rizzo went 0-for-9 and has one hit in his last 23 at-bats while Stanton is still finding his timing after missing nearly two months with a dreaded hamstring injury.

Before those slides continued, Judge was vague in describing the recent days s for a few minutes about his condition since crashing into the right field fence in Dodger Stadium tracking down J.D. Martinez’s fly ball.

“No timetable really,” Judge said. “Which I think is best because there’s a couple things going on in there. Once it starts feeling better, then we can start progressing to doing some walking around and baseball stuff. I think we’re just kind of waiting on a lot of the inflammation and swelling to go down.”

In the meantime, the Yankees hope to get some wins in over the next two weekends against the skidding Red Sox and sandwiched around two wins against the careening Mets, who shortly after the Yankees got the bad air split lost a 13-10 football game in Atlanta to fall three games under .500.

And in those potential wins, the Yankees hope to see the healthy quartet go back to being productive while getting a mix of contributions from the likes of Jake Bauers, Billy McKinney and Willie Calhoun – a trio who was a combined 8-for-20 on Thursday.

“Opportunity knocks,” Boone said.

The opportunity knocks but it is designed be helping the remaining established hitters until Judge is fully recovered from his eighth career injured list stint.

“I think it’s just better to let it play its course,’’ Judge said of leaving an open timetable for now. “I’m trying to get back as fast as I can.’’