Wow, just wow.
It’s been said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. Well, in this case I think that definition should extend to us, the fans who continuously watch this team day after day and expect a different outcome. It’s been a long enough stretch now that we can stop with the nonsense. It’s not a blip. It’s not an outlier. They’re not going to magically flip the switch in September, this is the 2022 Yankees. This series against the Athletics was perfect.
It was a perfect representation of how the 2022 season has gone
Just as the Yankees were unbelievable in the first half of the season, the first two games of this series were great as well. Game one was an absolute romp where every ball seemed to find grass, the pitching was great, and everything seemed to click. They even managed to score thirteen runs without hitting a single homerun *shudder*. Game two had Judge’s 49th bomb of the season accounting for all the Yankee offense (something we’ve seen many times this year) which stood up despite a shaky bullpen.
However as good as the Yankees were in the first half, they came down just as hard post all-star break which this series mirrored in spectacular fashion. Game three was brutal. One hit and three walks in eleven innings. No, that’s not a typo, that’s actually what happened. Yankees ended up scoring two runs in the tenth inning thanks to a walk and a wild pitch breaking a 0-0 tie. The bullpen melted down blowing the save in the tenth and the game in the eleventh. Game four wasn’t much better.
The offense mustered up four hits, all singles and scored one run.
The lifeless performance is even worse when you take a look at the starting pitchers the Yankees faced in these last two games. Both Adam Oiler and Adrian Martinez came into their respective starts with an earned run average well into the sixes and an inability to throw strikes. The “patient” Yankee hitters only walked three times combined against the two starters and struck out nine times. Annoying to be completely shut down by two pitchers who should still be in the minors.
This series shows that the Yankees are not out of their rut. After the win in game two, the yanks actually had a nice five game winning streak going and some hope that maybe they were beginning to shake off their horrid August, but the last two games threw cold water on that quick. Unfortunately, that streak is just a mirage or perhaps a dead-cat bounce.
Coming up next for the Yankees is a series against the Angels in Anaheim and while they should on paper not be a tough series, if you can lose two games to that dreadful Athletics team against those horrible pitchers it’s hard to have any expectations. I’d certainly hate to go limping into a series with the Rays at Tropicana Field. The division, which the yanks currently hold a 7.5 game lead could be in serious jeopardy by the end of this road trip if the Yankees don’t break out of this malaise they’ve been in the last five weeks.
What do you think, leave a comment below?
