Anthony Rizzo screamed after hitting his helmet five times into the bat rack in the dugout. Rizzo was hit by a pitch earlier in the third inning of Monday’s game. But home plate umpire D.J. Reyburn decided that he had leaned into it. Rizzo chased a breaking ball out of the strike zone when the at-bat was extended, and he struck out.
After that, a fly ball got Aaron Hicks turned around. It hit the warning track in center field, giving David Peralta a stand-up triple and giving the Rays a chance to score a run. When the Yankees loaded the bases with one out in the bottom of the inning, Hicks had a chance to make it up, but he blew it again. He hit a weak ball into a double play, ending the inning. This is the fourth time this season that he has done this with the bases full, the most in the league.
Rizzo and Hicks said everything you need to know about the Yankees. They’re all over the place. And after losing to the Rays 4-0 on Monday, the Yankees are now 8-16 since the All-Star break. In the American League, only the Tigers (7-19) have done worse over the same time period.
How far the Yankees have gone down is hard to understand. They are nothing like the team that was once on track to be the best MLB regular-season team ever. Instead, they look like the team from last year, which struggled through the season only to be eliminated in the wild-card game, which had always seemed like the most likely thing to happen.
A few months ago, people were saying that the Yankees were like the 1998 team that won 114 games. Now, they’d need to finish the season with a 28-18 record to reach 100 wins.
Due to the Yankees’ fast start, it’s hard to imagine them not winning the AL East, even after a few mediocre weeks. The Yankees still have 15 games against the Rays and Blue Jays, 10 games back. Either team can still make a comeback, but it will be difficult.
The Yankees should be more worried about their offense outside of Aaron Judge. Fans seem to agree. Judge batted in the eighth inning with a runner on first. The crowd stood as Judge hit into a 4-6-3 double play. The Yankees had four outs to erase a 1-0 deficit. With their recent play, even a slim margin felt insurmountable.
It’s been painful to watch the team. Isiah Kiner-Falefa has driven in all three runs that the Yankees have scored in the last 34 innings. In the last nine games they’ve played, four times they’ve been shut out. Katie Sharp of Stathead says that in their last six games, they’ve only scored a total of eight runs, which is the fewest runs they’ve scored in six games since August 2015.
Injuries are everywhere. Giancarlo Stanton, out for 20 games with Achilles tendinitis, could begin rehab this week. Stanton’s full workout before Monday’s game was a big step in his recovery. DJ LeMahieu had an inflamed right big toe. Matt Carpenter won’t return until mid-September, at best. All three are key to the Yankees’ playoff hopes.
Healthy people must produce. Gleyber Torres, Josh Donaldson, Andrew Benintendi, and Aaron Hicks all need to hit better. Otherwise, his playoff role seems unlikely.
The pitching staff has done its job. In its last seven starts, it has given up only 13 runs and gone at least six innings in six of them. But they can’t directly control run support, which has been the biggest problem lately.
The Yankees have been playing like a team that knows it won’t have to play in the wild-card round for a few weeks. The way they played in the first half of the season gave them the right to do that. But at some point, they need to get back to being a powerhouse. Right now, they’re like a team whose fans do The Wave in the seventh inning of a 1-0 game against a division rival because there’s not much else to cheer about.
What do you think, leave a comment below?
