"King said that the Yankees have been holding meetings in the clubhouse, led by veterans Brett Gardner, Aaron Judge, Gerrit Cole, Darren O’Day and Luke Voit, all of whom he described as 'very vocal.'
'We’ve been having some conversations,' King said. 'I’ve got a lot of respect for everybody in that locker room. I still have a lot of faith that we’ll get it together, but it has not clicked yet. And it’s frustrating.'"
It reminded me that Darren O'Day is on the Yankees.
"With Judge, the Yanks not only have a financial consideration with Gerrit Cole, DJ LeMahieu and Giancarlo Stanton all locked for big dollars for a while, but more of a structural issue. How long can the Yanks expect someone of Judge’s size to maintain athleticism and be a useful fielder? Because it is not like they can flip him to DH. For Stanton is near unmovable with his trifecta of large salary through 2027, poor health and a no-trade clause.
Judge is not the Yankees’ problem. But Gleyber Torres has lost value. Gary Sanchez has not regained enough to get much back in a trade. The Yanks missed their best window with Miguel Andujar, Clint Frazier and Luke Voit."
But we all agree that the season is slipping away.
I think the Yankees want to keep Judge because he's popular with the fans, but ... yeah.
Oh, and put Stanton in LF already. If he gets hurt, that's a real shame. The Yankees might fall into fourth place in the AL East, and that would be intolerable.
The Yankees faced a mediocre lefty at Fenway Park and could barely get the ball out of the infield. A mediocre lefty who, presumably, is not using Spider Tack.
The Yankees should collectively bat around .300 vs. lefties and the team should have a .700 winning percentage when they face a lefty starter.
Instead, they all strike out on three pitches whenever they get runners on base.
The Yankees shouldn't be worried about the Spider Tack crackdown. Cole will figure it out. They should celebrate by scoring six runs per game instead of four runs per game.
I'll also point out that he stole 100 bases (all by himself) for the Yankees. In the parts of four seasons that he actually played.
As we approach the midway point of the 2021 season, the Yankees have a total of 16 stolen bases.
"'That’s a serious punch in the mouth,' Aaron Boone said. 'We’ve had a number of times this year where you can say it even though it’s only June you got your backs up against the wall. We’re in the toughest division in baseball with some really good teams that are ahead of us in the standings and we’ve got to dig ourselves out and we’ve got to be more consistent and we’ve got to keep our foot on the gas.'"
The Yankees are in fourth place in a five-team division.
Is the AL East really the toughest division in baseball?
I think the NL West is the toughest division in baseball.
In any case, it's quite irrelevant. It's the most whiny, pathetic excuse I've ever heard.
Error, walk, infield single, walk, sac fly.
Stirring example of tight, professional baseball on display in the NL East.
Mike Lupica has nothing to say about it:
"And now we wait to see what kind of run the Mets and the Yankees will give us. Football training camps are still a month away. It is baseball that carries us now.
The question is this: How far?"
That's always the question.
Before I read the rest of the article, I can guarantee that Mike Lupica does not provide an answer.
"Maybe the Yankees are set to mash again, as baseballs spin less than they were spinning even a month ago, and balls are starting to fly out of the park again. But they didn’t get a home run at Fenway on this night. And they were all righty hitters in the ninth with the game on the line against the Red Sox righty closer, Barnes."
Maybe lots of things, I guess.
"Chapman, who did not allow an earned run in his first 18 appearances, blew his third save in his last eight opportunities. He issued a bases-loaded walk to rookie back-up catcher Sebastian Rivero, who has yet to get a major league hit, to tie the game.
After a long meeting on the mound with the infielders, Yankees manager Aaron Boone made the decision to intentionally walk Carlos Santana. It was a decision that Chapman disagreed with, Boone admitted.
'I just made the decision. You know, frankly, when I got back to the bench,' said Boone. 'I just felt like the matchup called for it and I didn’t want to get caught in a situation of pitching around and now all of a sudden you got a wild pitch scenario and we’re tied. So I just felt it was the right move. Obviously backfired a little bit, but I just felt like it was the right thing to do in the moment.'"
Boone does not deserve to be let off the hook by his team's bottom-of-the-ninth comeback. As for Chapman, is a fraudulent Choke Job Walk Machine.
Gleyber is an unpleasant surprise. Odor and Wade are certainly replaceable. It's also an unpleasant surprise that it has come to this.
Yankee fans finally got what they were asking for: A re-arranged lineup!
Explain this lineup to me vs. a right-handed pitcher.
It probably doesn't matter much. This lineup can't hit good pitchers and this team can't beat playoff-caliber teams.
I'm happy that strikeout machines Judge and Stanton are at least broken up ... but if you're just going to put Sanchez between them (batting third?), then you're just making it easy for the righty strikeout pitchers that come out of the bullpen late in the game.
"Baseball pitchers think they get to be the victims now on the sticky stuff?
How does that work, exactly?
'It’s so hard to grip the ball!' Gerrit Cole said this week.
Wait, it wasn’t hard for Koufax and Gibson and Seaver and Pedro?
And I hope Tyler Glasnow comes back even better and healthier than ever after 60 days on the IL.
But if he can’t throw a baseball the way he was throwing it without putting some kind of substance on the ball, then he needs to find another way to throw it."
Well, Pedro was quite possibly on steroids, but he wasn't on the Yankees, so Mike Lupica doesn't really mind.
Aside from that, the ball has changed. It is more slippery. This article is from back in 2017, and while neither the article nor my google search qualify as in-depth, definitive research, it's better than Mike Lupica's research.
Aside from that, there's a good chance "Koufax and Gibson and Seaver and Pedro" -- nice nod to Hemingway with the lack of commas, you dork -- used substances on the ball. Some pitchers want a better grip, some want a slippier grip
All of it is a moot point anyway. MLB doesn't care about cheating and neither do the fans. The pitchers found something that works too well. The league is taking action because the games are boring.
"The Yankees (33-32) have lost seven of nine and 13 of 18. They are in fourth place, 8 1/2 games behind AL East-leading Tampa Bay, their largest deficit since September 2018."
They may not be used to losing ... but they're also not used to winning. Let's just put it that way.
"When asked if he felt there was anyone who was getting used to or accepting the team's struggles, Boone bristled when answering no.
'I know them too well and I don't think there's any getting used to freakin' losing. Hell no,' he said. 'Get the hell out of here with that.'"
He said the H.E.Double-hockey-sticks word.
That pottymouth must really be angry.
I don't see any indication they will turn it around.
It isn't a short-term slump anymore.
Their run differential for the year is minus-four.
They are 6.5 games out of first place.
They are still in the running for a wild card, but not distinguishing themselves from, say, the Royals.
The pitching is good overall. The offense is bad, the base running is bad, the fielding is bad, the fundamentals are mostly bad ... and we've been complaining about these things for ten years.
... and there is certainly no guarantee that the next batter would have won the game.
But this is a big spot and this third strike call is embarrassingly awful.
"Combined, the Yankees have the second worst batting average (.176), OPS (.531), and slugging percentage (.231) at first base in all of the big leagues."
If this is second worst, I wonder which team is the worst.
I mean, sure. Give Gittens a chance over Mike Ford and Rougned Odor. I'm not expecting much.