ON THE SKIDS AGAIN
After one glorious night, Yanks return to losing ways
Now, the Yankees can add injury to their insulting play. Gio Urshela, the Yankee whose bat had started to heat up, left Wednesday night’s game with lower back tightness.
The numbers do not lie. The numbers say this Yankees team is last in the American League in runs scored and wins. They are in the bottom of baseball in slugging and on-base-percentage.
But to Aaron Judge those numbers don’t tell the important story.
“Forget about the numbers, forget about slugging, on-base and any of that, it comes down to did we win or did we not win,” a frustrated Judge said late Wednesday night after the Yankees lost the sixth out of their last seven games. “Did we get the job done or did we not?
“Right now we’re not getting the job done.”
Again Wednesday night, the Yankees looked listless on the job, falling to the Braves, 4-1, in front of a crowd of 9,634 that stayed warm by loudly voicing their frustration with the Bombers.
With the two-game series split with the Braves, the Yankees (6-11) have won just one of their first six series of the season. It’s their worst start through 17 games since 1991 and their 59 runs are the fewest for a Bombers’ team through 17 games since 1984.
The offense, which is built to bang away their other warts, continued to struggle with just five hits. In the five-game homestand, the Yankees managed to score just 11 runs on 20 hits.
Clint Frazier singled with two outs in the bottom of the ninth to drive in his first run of the season. In fact, it was his first RBI since Sept. 19, 2020. It also prevented the Yankees from being shut out for the second time this season.
The Yankees went 1-4 on the homestand.
“We had a couple opportunities, but not enough to really break through,” Aaron Boone
said. “We had the one basesloaded opportunity there where I thought we had some good at-bats to put ourselves in position. DJ (LeMahieu) hit the ball hard but right at the third baseman.
“We got to as a group just continue to lean on each other, trust in each other, and trust in just taking it one at-bat, one pitch at a time. We gotta play that way right now,”
They also have to find a way to keep the frustration that is raining down from their fans from infiltrating their game. That seventh inning started with a bad look as Gleyber Torres, clearly upset by his checked swing that resulted in a come-backer, jogged slowly up the first-base line. He was easily thrown out by Braves catcher Travis d’Arnaud.
“That is a moment I want to help my team,” Torres said, admitting he was frustrated. “I can put a little more effort running to first base.”
There was plenty of frustration to go around.
LeMahieu went 0-for-5, stranding four base runners, and Giancarlo Stanton went 0-for-4 with a strikeout and three runners stranded. Gary Sanchez went 0-for-3 with three strikeouts. Aaron Hicks, dropped down to the No.7 spot after being benched from the starting lineup Tuesday night, went 0-for-3 with two walks.
Corey Kluber continued to struggle, and has yet to get through the fifth inning this season. The twotime Cy Young winner who had pitched just one inning since May 2019 coming into the season, has yet to get through a fifth inning this year. Wednesday night he allowed two earned runs on two hits and four walks. He struck out two in 4.2 innings of work.
The week began with GM Brian Cashman preaching patience and confidence in this group. Now, as the Bombers head out on an eightgame road trip, Boone continued to talk about dismissing the numbers and trusting in the players.
“I think it’s the age old (adage) when you struggle offensively, there’s that look of a little bit of lifelessness, a little bit of lacking energy is what it looks like,” Boone said. “But I think it’s guys in the fight right now that are grinding away. So yeah, I mean it’s on all of us to make sure we’re not only locked in, which I know we are, but also while you’re taking your lumps and while you’re getting beat up a little bit to make sure your mindset is strong, but also positive.”