Have the Yankees hit rock bottom?
Yankees manager Aaron Boone of the Yankees argues with home plate umpire Derek Thomas and crew chief Jordan Baker during the third inning against the Houston Astros at Yankee Stadium on Sunday. Credit: Jim McIsaac
How bad did things get Sunday in the Bronx?
In the first inning, Yankees nemesis Jose Altuve walked to the plate amid the usual thunderous boos, then hammered Max Fried’s first pitch to him for a 394-foot homer that sailed into the leftfield seats.
By the ninth, after Jazz Chisholm Jr. and Giancarlo Stanton struck out looking, one lone fan right below the press box could be heard screaming, “Can someone swing a bat?”
Next up was Anthony Volpe, who obliged the frustrated spectator by whiffing on three pitches, flailing wildly on the last to mercifully end the Yankees’ 7-1 loss to the Astros.
Fortunately for him, the building was as empty as Aaron Boone’s playoff promises by that point. And with 44 games to go, why should anyone think these Yankees remain legitimate October threats?
Take Sunday, for example. The Yankees had $218 million ace Max Fried on the mound against the Astros’ Jason Alexander — the guy with the 5.97 ERA, not the actor who played Seinfeld’s chubby sidekick. It should’ve been the ideal get-well afternoon: Maybe Fried provides some length to recharge a tired bullpen, perhaps Aaron Judge hits his first homer since returning from the injured list last Tuesday and the Yankees snatch the rubber game from hated Houston.
Well, as you may have guessed, none of that happened. Going by the George Constanza code, the Yankees did the exact opposite.
Fried labored through 94 pitches in giving up four runs in a measly five innings, Judge went 0-for-3 (he’s hitting .200 in his first five games back) and the Yankees didn’t get the first of their three hits until Ben Rice’s one-out single off Alexander in the sixth.
“It’s tough, but there’s no excuses,” Judge said. “We’re getting paid to go out there and perform at our best and go out there and win baseball games. The fans are still packing out, showing support for us, and we’ve got to show up for them. Just go out there and do our job. I think that’s what it comes to — we’re not doing our job.”
It would be one thing if Sunday’s level of futility was an isolated incident. But this has been a chronic ailment for Hal Steinbrenner’s $316 million ballclub, and no one — not Boone, not Fried, not Judge — has provided one ounce of evidence that the Yankees are going to magically turn this pinstriped debacle around.
Sunday’s loss was the Yankees’ seventh in nine games. But if you go all the way back to June 13 — the diving board for this ugly spiral — they have the fifth-worst record (20-31) in the majors, with only the Rockies (17-32), Nationals (17-32), Mets (18-31) and Giants (19-30) below them. Two of those teams definitely will be home in October, and the Yankees — who hold a half-game edge over the Guardians for the last wild-card berth — are showing signs that they could be playing golf instead of baseball then, too.
“The game is littered with dead-and-buried teams,” Boone said after Sunday’s game. “We’re in a playoff position right now and we’ve been through a bad two months where we haven’t performed at a level we need to.
“But look at last year. Go back the year before, and the year before [that]. You can pick out a number of teams that were sitting in a worse position than we are right now that go on that run. We have the people to do that. No doubt in my mind.”
Boone himself didn’t stick around to watch his team bow down meekly to the Astros — at least not from the dugout, as he was tossed for an MLB-leading fifth time this season by plate umpire Derek Thomas in the third inning. Boone was fed up with what he felt was an erratic strike zone, though it didn’t seem to bother Alexander any.
Count Fried among the many Yankees not doing their job lately. Since July 1, a span of seven starts, Fried has a 6.00 ERA and has averaged 5.14 innings. Compare that with the 1.92 ERA and 6.35 average through his first 17 starts. For a struggling rotation desperately in need of a North Star, Fried’s performance has gone south, just like the rest of the staff.
“They really grinded me down and put together some good at-bats,” he said. “And in a game where I needed to have some good stuff and get better results, I didn’t.”
Boone’s ejection aside, it wasn’t any more complicated than that. The Yankees, as Judge alluded to, just aren’t getting the job done. In the last 10 starts, the rotation has failed to complete even six innings, putting additional stress on the bullpen. Since the All-Star break, the Yankees’ offense has been feeble, as they’re ranked 27th in batting average (.220) and 23rd in OPS (.690).
“We’re not doing the little things that put ourselves in a good position to win baseball games,” Judge said. “It’s going to take all of us. We just got to step up.”
The Yankees do have the fourth-easiest schedule the rest of the way, against teams that collectively have a .482 winning percentage, so there’s that. Then again, those upcoming opponents probably are pointing to Boone & Co. as the walkover W on their own ledger.
“We have a much higher standard for ourselves,” Boone said.
Right now, they’re pretty much at rock bottom.
David Lennon is an award-winning columnist, a voter for baseball's Hall of Fame and has covered six no-hitters, including two perfect games.
