The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
5-10 start has Yankees players, fans restless
It’s the franchise’s worst start to a season in 24 years.
NEW YORK — The New York Yankees’ players and staff are restless. So are fans. A 5-10 start, the franchise’s worst in 24 years, has shaken a team that expects to contend for a World Series title.
“Right now we would be a team that an opponent would want to play because obviously we’re not firing on all cylinders,” general manager Brian Cashman said Monday. “So if you have a chance to catch us right now, you’re catching us at the right time ... and we look forward to that changing.”
Batting, pitching and fielding have faltered. New York’s .210 batting average is next-to-last in the American League, and a team with a dearth of left-handed hitters is batting just .202 against right-handed pitchers. The Yankees’ 55 runs entering Monday tied Detroit for the AL low.
Ace Gerrit Cole is 2-1 with a 1.82 ERA and the rest of New York’s starters are 1-6 with a 6.39 ERA. Twelve errors have led to 10 unearned runs. Only the bullpen, which has a 2.43 ERA that is third-best in the major leagues, has performed to expectations.
“There’s a lot of tossing and turning going on,” Cashman said, “but we’re going to do everything in our power to avoid that finger pointing or having those frustrations boil over into something negative and make sure that we just rally the troops around each other and try to be there in a strong, supportive way, because right now we earned any negative criticism.”
Cashman accepts the carping — but said it was unacceptable and illegal for fans to throw balls on the field during Friday’s 8-2 loss to Tampa Bay, which caused the game to be stopped for 2 minutes, 15 seconds.
“I don’t care how bad you’ve played, no one has earned having things thrown at them on the field in that one particular game,” he said.
New York has lost five consecutive games going into today’s interleague series opener against Atlanta. A loss would drop the Yankees to 5-11 for the first time since 1972.
Cashman thought back to other slow starts. In 1997, the Yankees lost 10 of their first 15 games and finished 96-66 and earned a wildcard berth.
“I don’t remember any of those because ultimately we got back on track,” he said. “We got through it. We found a way to be ourselves and be what we’re capable of.”
Nearly the entire batting order is slumping: Aaron Hicks (.160, including 3 for 32 right-handed), Clint Frazier (.167, no RBIS), Giancarlo Stanton (.176, three homers, 12 RBIS), Gleyber Torres (.196), Gary Sánchez (.237), Gio Urshela (.250) and Aaron Judge (.255, four homers, eight RBIS).