New York Yankees manager Aaron Boone watches during the ninth inning of the team's baseball game ... [+]
Aaron Boone did not quite bang his hand on the desk inside the visiting clubhouse at Citi Field like he famously did on Aug. 20, 2022, when he used his hand to bang the podium at the Yankee Stadium interview room.
Instead, he reached back and calmly invoked some of his frequent sayings by talking about the adversity that shows up for every team. And for the past two weeks, this is what the Yankees are, a team well above the .500 mark facing their first bout of consistent struggles.
And after that Aaron Judge spoke with a tone of calmness which is exactly what you would expect in a manner similar to how Derek Jeter spoke in the midst of rough stretches during his playing career.
The adversity was magnified with two ugly games in Boston and even more so with a dreadful performance in the Subway Series against the New York Mets, though some focus was reduced slightly with the NBA draft and last night’s stunning trade between the Nets and Knicks for Mikal Bridges.
Even with the NBA taking some focus off the area sports scene, the struggles are noticeable because of some of the final scores. There was a 9-3 loss in Boston, then a 17-5 loss to the Baltimore Orioles Thursday afternoon, and an 8-1 loss to Atlanta that was behind a paywall for TV audiences the next night.
The Yankees followed up that loss with a routine victory other than Giancarlo Stanton straining his hamstring, resulting in an absence of at least a month and potentially making the Yankees more reliant on Aaron Judge and Juan Soto than ever.
Reliance on the dynamic duo was highly apparent in the two losses to the Mets. Judge and Soto were a combined 5-for-10 with Judge getting four of those hits while the rest of the Yankees were a combined 4-for-50.
New York Yankees' Aaron Judge smiles as he runs the bases after hitting a grand slam during the ... [+]
This is what happens when virtually everyone slumps at once. For two-plus months Alex Verdugo was a savvy addition and still probably winds up that way but in the land of the Yankees, you’re only as good as last night and he is 3-for-26 in his past seven.
Then there is the case of Gleyber Torres, whose confounding season took a new turn with a hitless night and not running out a ground ball which all involved parties said stemmed from a groin injury. Still, it is part of a season when Torres will become a free agent and it is a player who once hit 38 homers in 2019 with several against the Orioles and was about as steady and durable of a player in last season’s 82-win disaster.
Those are some of the issues getting magnified along with the pitching hitting its first significant adversity by producing the third-worst ERA (5.08) in baseball this month only ahead of the Colorado Rockies and Arizona Diamondbacks. In that span, the Yankees have allowed 31 homers and the second-most runs at 127.
This is a month that began with an eight-game winning streak and then Juan Soto’s forearm inflammation cropped up, causing him to miss a compelling series with the Dodgers. The Yankees seemingly recovered from the series with the Dodgers by winning four of five highlighted by Verdugo’s big return to Boston on June 14 but then came two lopsided losses.
After splitting against the Orioles, the Yankees allowed 17 Thursday afternoon and concerns about rookie Luis Gil’s innings began cropping up, something that continued again when he struggled in a 12-2 loss to the Mets that is among the ugliest of the 63 regular season defeats against their crosstown rivals
Also thrown into the pitching mix is two starts by Gerrit Cole, who in theory remains in spring training mode after missing two months because of right elbow inflammation that appeared midway through spring training.
The recent struggles are making the Yankees look similar to 2022 when they were essentially a .500 team after winning 64 of their first 92 by the All-Star break and now it is intriguing how they get through this first significant rough patch.
On the other side, the Yankees’ worst stretch is coming amid a remarkable turnaround by the Mets, who were seemingly cooked after dropping 11 games under .500 after getting swept by the Dodgers and the various events unfolding there.
Since then they are a stunning 17-6. While they possessed better talent than a group well under .500, it did not look like a pulsating stretch was on the horizon and this is highlighted by hysteria about the presence of a fast-food chain’s mascot is as thrilling as some of the games the Yankees won before hitting their first run of adversity.
In the meantime, the Yankees are a first-place team because they figured out the best time to slump is to coincide it with a five-game losing streak by your nearest pursuer which is what the Orioles did after their 17-run showing before beating Cleveland.
It is hard to tell when adversity ends and prosperity begins but the saga of the Yankees ‘162 one-game seasons tells a two-week story of a faltering team driving some of their fans crazy and frustrating themselves with a series of unfortunate events.
