TORONTO — For his next trick, Aaron Boone will pull the New York Yankees’ lineup out of his hat.

No, really — it could happen. The manager said he could “shake up the order a little bit” after yet another terrible offensive showing led to a 4-1 loss to the Toronto Blue Jays at the Rogers Centre on Saturday.

“I don’t want to just jump to putting some guys in bad situations or bad matchups for the sake of it,” Boone said. “We’ll see.”

Boone added that he’s been “grinding on it a little heavier night in and night out right now anyway,” referring to the increased amount of time he’s spent of late on batting order construction.

For all Boone’s well wishes, it hasn’t done any good.

The Yankees have scored two runs in their last three games. In each of those games, a Yankees’ starting pitcher has allowed no more than one earned run. Cam Schlittler’s performance was the latest outing wasted, as the right-hander provided 5 1/3 innings of one-run ball Saturday.

The pitching staff isn’t the problem. Their combined 3.28 ERA is the best in the game. Going into Saturday, Yankees starters had allowed two runs or fewer in 13 of their last 16 starts, including one run or fewer in 11 of those starts.

“Those guys are pitching amazing,” catcher Austin Wells said. “Every guy that goes out there, putting up zeros, keeping us close in the game all the way to the end. So, yeah, I mean, it’s frustrating.”

Would it help for Boone to shake things up?

“Maybe,” designated hitter Ben Rice said. “I don’t have any idea how it would go, but whatever skipper wants to put out there is what we’ll roll with.”

A few options:

Move down Ramos

Heliot Ramos is 2-for-32 (.063) with 11 strikeouts and three walks since the Yankees acquired him from the San Francisco Giants before the trade deadline. He’s also hitless in his last 24 plate appearances.

He’s mostly been slotted third in the lineup (four times in nine games). Maybe move him down in the order.

Ramos went hitless in four at-bats Saturday and didn’t appear to run out a ground ball that shortstop Andrés Giménez initially botched in the sixth inning. Giménez recovered to throw Ramos out at first base by a couple steps, but it might have been closer if Ramos was running hard the whole time.

“I thought Ramos had some really good swings (Friday) and nothing to show for it,” Boone said before Saturday’s loss.

“Was he running hard? Not exactly.”

Heliot Ramos is 0 for his last 23 pic.twitter.com/KO51papk9S

— Talkin’ Yanks (@TalkinYanks) August 15, 2026

Sit Chisholm for a bit

Sitting Jazz Chisholm Jr. would mean starting José Caballero at second base. The light-hitting Caballero wouldn’t exactly bring instant offense, but it might allow Chisholm to work behind the scenes without pressure for a while.

Chisholm went 0-for-3 Saturday, and he looked overmatched in his fourth-inning strikeout against Simeon Woods Richardson, who got him to 2-1 before blowing an 89 mph splitter past him.

“I believe in a lot of the names on this (lineup) card, and hopefully along the way here we get some guys back in the mix that add to that and fortify that,” Boone said. “I feel like the end product has a chance to be excellent, but we’re not there yet.”

Chisholm especially isn’t there yet. He went into Saturday with a 91 wRC+, ranked 19th among qualified second basemen. Last September, he hit .261 with five home runs and a .756 OPS in 25 games. The Yankees would be over the moon to get that again this September.

Give Rice a break

Maybe the Yankees can’t sit Rice on Sunday against Dylan Cease, perhaps the best righty starter in the league not named Schilttler.

Rice looks like he needs a mental break.

Sure, he clubbed a 105.4 mph lineout in the first inning and then hit one deep to right field in the sixth Saturday, but close doesn’t count. He finished the day 0-for-4, and he’s hitting .158 in 27 games since the All-Star break. He’s been tasked with being the Yankees’ best hitter with Aaron Judge, Giancarlo Stanton and Cody Bellinger on the injured list, and he hasn’t consistently stepped up.

“I’ve felt increasingly good,” Rice said. “Over the last couple series, I feel like the swing has felt good. Hitting some balls hard. Not getting rewarded for it. Just got to keep going. That’s literally the only thing you can do, is just keep going.”

Except the Yankees should give Rice a breather before he keeps going off a cliff.

Four months after the Los Angeles Rams made the bold decision to draft Ty Simpson with the No. 13 pick, the time finally came to see the franchise’s quarterback of the future in a real game setting.

Simpson’s run became the headliner in the Rams’ 20-12 preseason victory over the Kansas City Chiefs. He took all but two series of the work behind center, leaving just a brief start for Stetson Bennett. And Simpson ran a smooth operation by finishing 21-of-25 for 190 yards, two touchdowns, zero interceptions and a 125.0 rating.

It was clear the Rams wanted to use this preseason opener to get Simpson comfortable in an NFL-style offense. This was a reduced version called by new offensive coordinator Nathan Scheelhaase, with minimal opponent-specific game planning while facing the Chiefs’ backups.

But this was his first opportunity to play against a live pass rush, which tested one of the traits that drew Los Angeles to Simpson. The mobility was on display on many run-pass option and play-action rollout concepts designed around the intent to throw.

What was most encouraging about Simpson was how comfortable he looked moving to either his left or right. To most effectively fit the Sean McVay playbook whenever it is his time to start, Simpson will need to keep both sides of the field open and prevent defenses from dictating or eliminating the concepts they want to run.

The volume was another big shift, too, as Simpson has had a strikingly low number of reps in training camp despite the unsettled nature of the Rams’ backup quarterback position after Jimmy Garoppolo’s departure. My sense is they’ve been easing him in, knowing the complexity of McVay’s system and how difficult it has proven to be for any rookie to get on the field early on, let alone a quarterback.

But perhaps no position relies more on the presence of live reps to develop than a quarterback does, so giving Simpson 25 attempts was a start at doing that for him — intentionally after weeks of mostly sitting and watching.

Simpson looked operational for the most part. He bobbled the first dropback snap of the game, but it was a high snap, and he recovered before dropping it and then fired the ball quickly out of bounds. That was a glimpse at pushing through a message the Rams have given him: Don’t try to be the hero.

Simpson did bobble another handoff to running back Jordan Waters near the red zone, which contributed to Waters running into the backs of some of his linemen.

But beyond that, it was hard to find any glaring mistakes in Simpson’s play. He was efficient in his footwork on rollouts and scrambles, and timely in his throws, which almost all came off predetermined reads. The Rams clearly wanted to get him into a rhythm as a passer on the move, and it worked, finishing with an 84 percent completion rate.

The Rams kept the training wheels on him for a majority of the start, with almost every throw going within 10 yards of the line of scrimmage. Simpson did get the chance to rip a few passes to the intermediate levels in the fourth quarter, which led to hitting sixth-round rookie receiver CJ Daniels for a 16-yard pass on a deeper dig concept.

Simpson didn’t get to flash anything that went beyond a starter-kit kind of game plan for a rookie quarterback. But they often say in this league that you can’t tell who can play in the NFL in the preseason, only who can’t. Simpson didn’t look like a guy who can’t play, and that was the goal.

As for Bennett, he saw just two series, which included a three-and-out to start. He finished 4-of-6 for 38 yards, no touchdowns, no interceptions and an 84.0 rating.

It’s hard to know what to make of this battle for the No. 2 quarterback job. It’s possible the Rams have seen enough from Bennett already, or that Simpson could emerge from his play in the preseason. It still feels rather unsettled and unproven.

Max Klare impresses, Keagen Trost suffers injury

The Rams naturally spread the ball around to plenty of different targets, but the most impressive of them was a second-round rookie who also hadn’t gotten a ton of practice reps until this game.

Klare saw eight targets on Saturday and caught all but one of them. The only one he didn’t was an end-zone fade route that Bennett underthrew, and Klare did a nice job positioning himself and fighting for the ball to keep it from becoming an interception. He caught everything else, which was a mix of screens and flare routes, work in the short range that let him catch and run with the ball. He finished with seven receptions for 37 yards.

It’s going to be hard for Klare to see much action this season with how deep the Rams’ tight end room is, even with a greater shift to three-tight end sets. Los Angeles likes to draft this position a year early, since the transition, mentally and physically, at this position and in this offense is so extreme. I’d view Klare as a backup to Terrance Ferguson’s flex role, but perhaps he could see a few designs like these if he’s active on game days.

One disappointing development for the rookie class came when Trost, the Rams’ third-round pick, had to leave in the first quarter with a hamstring injury. Trost got the start at right tackle, where the Rams are training him to become Warren McClendon Jr.’s backup, with David Quessenberry focused on backing up Alaric Jackson on the left side.

It’s another potential hit to the Rams’ offensive line depth, with top backup guard Justin Dedich still having yet to suit up in camp after suffering a cut on his hand in early July.

Rookie second-rounder Max Klare is part of a loaded Rams tight end room. (Kirby Lee / Imagn Images)

Desjuan Johnson, Wesley Bailey flash

The Rams are so deep along the defensive line after the blockbuster trade for Myles Garrett that it’s easy to overlook some talented bodies they have fighting for back-end roster spots. But this game became a showcase for them. Edge rushers are among the better positions to evaluate in these vanilla settings because it’s still a matchup game for them, going one-on-one with opposing tackles, and Johnson and Bailey won in different ways that were impressive.

Johnson played on the edge in three-man fronts, a shift from how his career started as the final pick in the 2023 draft. He scored a sack when he burst off the line, slipped inside and around the tackle, and maintained good rush integrity to chase Garrett Nussmeier into raising the white flag.

Johnson has been working hard to slim down to try to add more versatility for a chance to crack this deep rotation. One of those workouts came early last week at the Rams’ facility with Aaron Donald, who continues to evaluate whether or not to return. Along with Braden Fiske, they ran ladder and cone drills to fine-tune their first-step explosion and side-to-side movement.

“Every workout that I have with him is a blessing and an opportunity to reach further heights,” said Johnson, who has five sacks in three seasons with the Rams. “Hard work pays off. Work in the dark and all of your hard work will come to light. Work when nobody sees you. Work when it’s hard. … Work while you can, because it’s not forever.”

Bailey continued to flash the body he’s shown in camp that looks too athletic to have gone undrafted out of Louisville this year. On one play, he held a stack position to force the quarterback to give up the ball to the running back up the middle on a zone read and dove forward to make the stop himself. He brought enough speed to the edges that he forced a false start later, as the backup tackles on the Chiefs saw a challenge in preparing for the attack.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Andy Reid is not one to typically go overboard with praise.

Especially during his postgame news conferences, the Kansas City Chiefs coach is usually tempers his enthusiasm about how good his team was or how certain players looked.

It was notable, then, that Reid went out of his way after Saturday’s 20-12 preseason home loss to the Los Angeles Rams to say he was impressed by his team’s young players.

And that was in the opening statement — before any reporter asked a question.

“We were able to get a good look at some of our young guys,” Reid said, “and I thought there was some real production there on both sides of the ball.”

The ultimate hope when the Chiefs traded cornerback Trent McDuffie to the Rams in March was to infuse the roster with some draft talent. K.C. had done the same when it dealt star receiver Tyreek Hill in 2022 — a move that ushered in a youth movement that helped the Chiefs to three consecutive Super Bowl appearances.

For a day (and yes, this was against the Rams’ backups), those early returns certainly appear promising.

Nearly all of the Chiefs’ drafted rookies who played Saturday showed flashes of being able to help right away. They included:

• Fifth-round receiver Cyrus Allen backing up a strong start to camp with two catches, including an acrobatic one over the middle;

• Second-round edge rusher R Mason Thomas getting immediate pressure on a pair of high-leverage downs — the exact moments when the Chiefs defense faltered last season;

• Fifth-round running back Emmett Johnson rushing 12 times for 59 yards, while showing better burst than any player from K.C.’s backfield last year;

• Seventh-round quarterback Garrett Nussmeier showing poise behind a shaky offensive line while consistently moving the offense on a 13-for-19 day with no turnovers.

Perhaps the biggest surprise of the group was Johnson, who has been running with the fourth-string offense for most of training camp. Johnson was elusive Saturday while slipping off of multiple would-be tacklers — a quality that the Chiefs’ backs lacked all of last season.

And the normally stoic Reid? Even he was ready to say that Johnson was “one of the positives coming out of this.”

“He’s patient, and then when he hits it, he hits it hard,” Reid said. “He’s got a toughness to him there. I know the offensive linemen appreciate that.”

The Chiefs also had good showings from a couple of other roster questions headed into Saturday:

The Chiefs’ Andrew Armstrong impressed as a receiver and as a blocker on Saturday. (Jay Biggerstaff / Imagn Images)

Earning his spot?

The Chiefs have long had questions about the back-end depth of their receivers room. For a day, though, Andrew Armstrong gave quite a showcase of what he could provide should he make the team.

Not only did Armstrong use his 6-foot-4 size to bring down a sideline catch early on, but he also went viral online afterward for his blocking, putting Rams defenders on their backsides twice on running plays.

Armstrong said those knockdowns were a specialty of his in college at Arkansas.

“I know coming in here, a lot of people are not expecting it,” Armstrong said in the locker room with a smile. “So that’s when you can get them.”

Armstrong said he modeled his blocking after Dallas Cowboys wideout George Pickens, who has displayed similar bouts of aggressiveness.

“I love to block. I love to do those things,” Armstrong said. “So if the coaches love that as well and I love to do that, I hope that would be a great asset to them.”

Armstrong’s potential as a tall receiver among a shorter group and also as a potential red zone blocker should only help his case for the 53-man roster. The second-year wideout — he was a 2025 undrafted free agent — joined the Chiefs on a future/reserves contract this offseason.

A downhill mentality

The Chiefs have spoken this offseason about building more of a fire-off-the-ball run game after adding free-agent running back Kenneth Walker III, but that only works if everyone commits to blocking.

K.C. appeared to have plenty of guys willing to battle in that area during this first outing. Allen pushed a bigger defender back into the end zone on a Johnson touchdown run that was called back because of a penalty. Second-year tight end Jake Briningstool also was a standout, clearing the way for Johnson on a second-quarter run by tossing a Rams player to the ground around the edge.

It’s still only a small sample and one preseason game. And the overall offensive line play wasn’t great, potentially exposing a current weakness for the Chiefs: depth on their O-line interior.

The commitment of non-linemen helping out the run game, though, has to be considered encouraging for a team that didn’t thrive in that aspect last season.

If it continues, we might be seeing some real change from the Chiefs, potentially driven by a pair of fiery coaching additions: offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy and receivers coach Chad O’Shea.