UGLY ALL OVER
More Yankee mistakes,
DUNEDIN — Aaron Hicks had the bat taken out of his hands with a chance to tie the game in the eighth Tuesday night. The slugger, who sat out Monday night’s game because of his strong feelings about the police killing of an unarmed 20-year old Black man on Sunday in Minnesota, was at the plate with two on and two outs, when Gary Sanchez got picked off. Hicks, who had doubled to set up the Yankees first run of the night, flipped this bat in frustration.
The mistakes are proving costly for the Yankees, who dropped their fourth out of their last seven games with a 7-3 loss to the Blue Jays at TD Bank Ballpark.
“It’s tough. I think right there a score of 6-3 and I was the tying run and I wanted to come up big right there in that situation for my team,” said Hicks who had three hits, “and I wasn’t able to get the opportunity to.”
That was the fifth time in 11 games the Yankees have committed a baserunning mistake for an out. They also grounded into three double plays Tuesday night. They have 14 DPs already this season to lead the majors. And a team that is built to win on pitching and power had very little of that Tuesday night.
“Overall, we’ve had our really good games, and then we’ve had some mistakes. I mean, that’s how it goes. But I feel like our mistakes right now are pretty glaring in some of our losses, but, that’s baseball,” said DJ LeMahieu, who had two hits. “I know our team’s gonna start clicking here real soon. Hopefully sooner rather than later. We’re real close”
Jameson Taillon got hit hard and could not get out of the fourth inning. The Bombers did not hit a homer for the fourth game this season — all were losses.
Taillon allowed five earned runs on eight hits. He walked one and struck out three and needed 84 pitches to get through 3.1 innings pitched.
He did not get a lot of help. Gio Urshela, making his first start at shortstop since 2018, was charged with an error, which easily could have gone to second baseman Rougned Odor.
Hyun Jin Ryu shut down the Yankees bats for six innings before Sanchez, who reached on a Bo Bichette throwing error, scored
on Odor’s ground out in the seventh. The Bombers got to the Blue Jays bullpen in the eighth with LeMahieu’s double setting up Giancarlo Stanton’s two-run single.
That set the table for Aaron Hicks to come up as the tying run with two outs, before Sanchez tried to take second on a wild pitch, which did not get very far from Blue Jays catcher Danny Jansen, who threw Sanchez out to kill the rally.
“Giancarlo was going to third and had a little bit of a hesitation, a couple steps toward third and, and that kind of froze Gary,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “You just have to be in a better position in your legs to be able to move up. . . It’s important, obviously, not to run off the guy in front of you. But you just got to be heads up and in a better position to take advantage of that.”
Perhaps most concerning, however, is that the Yankees have not gotten the starting pitching they need.
Gerrit Cole was dominant Monday night, shaking off a wobbly first inning and a half to retire 15 straight. Through his first three starts, Cole is 2-0 with a 1.47 ERA and 29 strikeouts and has allowed one home run in 18.1 innings pitched. The rest of the rotation is a combined 1-4 with a 5.94 ERA, having given up 10 homers and striking out 35 through 33.1 innings pitched.
The starters have not only become a big question mark hanging over this team, but they have put the bullpen in the hole as well. While the relievers have been excellent — the Rowdy Tellez homer off Lucas Luetge was the first run they had given up in 14 straight innings — the Yankees have leaned heavily on them. The Bombers have already had to option German to bring up an extra arm to refresh the pen.
“They’ve had to pick up some innings for starters not named Gerrit a few times,” Taillon said. “I was able to get that pitch count up and wasn’t able to match the innings with that. They did a good job to cover the innings and to keep us in the game there and make it interesting late, but if our bullpen is gonna pitch really well, not just now, but throughout the entire year, we need to optimize the way they’re being used, instead of just forcing them to run out there early in games.”