Time for the Yankees to start being the Yankees
NEW YORK — Other than DJ LeMahieu, whom the Yankees cannot afford to lose after this season, there is really one member of the 2020 Yankees who has overperformed this season and that is Luke Voit. Other than the two of them, the only two Yankees who have lived up to expectations or exceeded them are the two big guys, Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton. You know why? Because they’re hurt again. They’re always hurt. Anybody who is surprised they’re both back on the injured list has been watching the wrong movie.
The Yankees aren’t done, not by a long shot. Take a look at the schedule they were looking at after their floppy-clown-shoe performance against the Mets on Thursday afternoon, a schedule that include eight more games against the Orioles and three more against the Worcester Red Sox. Those games alone should get them closer to the Rays, their daddies. You might have looked at all the games against the Blue Jays and the three against the Marlins as a soft place to land when the short season started. Not anymore. You know why? The Yankees and Blue Jays and Marlins all brought the same number of losses into Labor Day Weekend.
You can talk about the injuries all you want. But the Yankees sent a world’s record for trips to the injury list last season and 103 games. Same old, same old, even with that much ballyhooed revamping of the training staff. The truth about the Yankees, so far anyway, is that there hasn’t been a more disappointing contender in the sport. If they are going to make a run, it starts now, and without excuses.
“Maybe the biggest mistake we made,” a Yankee fan I know said to me on Friday, “is that we expected the replacement guys to do it again.”
And now the replacement guys are getting hurt, too, most notably Gio Urshela, who has bone spurs in his elbow. Urshela was the biggest surprise of all last season. He was also hitting 42 points lower than he did in 2019 when the Yankees put him on the IL on Friday. Gleyber Torres was hitting .231 with one home run before he got hurt. Mike Tauchman hit 13 home runs last season off the bench. He had none through Thursday. Gary Sanchez was hitting so far below the Mendoza Line coming into the weekend (.130) that there is some talk about renaming it the Sanchez Line. And Brett Gardner, looking every single second of his 37 years so far, came out of the Mets series at .177.
Aaron Hicks, who apparently has a job for life in centerfield, came out of the Mets series at .216, and has made one swing that anybody remembers, against the Mets last Sunday afternoon. And know something about Gardner and Hicks: They were supposed to be two-thirds of a World Series, world championship outfield this season. If they are going to actually be that — if and when Judge comes back, though with him that if sometimes seems as big as he is — they need to pick it up. Like, right now.
Gerrit Cole, the $324 million man, has to pick it up, too. Cole has been fine so far. He has. He has not been great. Again: Raise a hand if you think he has looked like one of the best pitchers in baseball this season.
Give him all benefit of the doubt, about the rushed summer camp and all the rest of it. The Yankees didn’t give him the biggest pitching contract in history to pitch like this. It’s why the last three weeks of the regular season might be as meaningful to him as anybody in pinstripes.