It was a disastrous weekend at Yankee Stadium for the men with stripes.
On Friday, in an 8-2 loss that was filled with fans against the Tampa Bay Rays, fans filled the field with baseballs and other objects in the eighth inning, creating a short delay. On Saturday, the New York Yankees were unable to resolve Tyler Glasnow and the Rays won 6-3. On Sunday, fans even mocked Gerrit Cole when he came out of the mound after giving up a double permit in the seventh inning to a struggling Yoshi Tsutsugo; the Rays won 4-2, and the Yankees left the field to another boos heart, instead of “New York, New York.”
First, give credit to Tampa Bay. The Rays are now 5-1 against the Yankees in 2021, having gone 8-2 against them last season, plus a win in the American League Division Series. Including this series, the Rays have now won seven straight games against the Yankees, returning to their 2019 final clash.
However, the current problems of the Yankees go beyond the rays that only have their number. The Yankees hold the worst record in the American League between 5 and 10, which is the highest number of games in a season that have had the worst record in the league since it began on the 9th and 17th in 1991. Although the general rule of baseball is not the first few weeks of the season (to remember, the last time the Yankees started 5-10 was in 1997, and they finished 96-66 and made the playoffs) you can search bosses. It must be worrying that the Yankees have fought in rotation, in defense and on the plate.
– Rotation problems have been documented. Headlines have an ERA of 4.74; pulls out Cole and comes out at 6.39. Note that Cole has started four of the team’s 15 games or 27%. The ratio will drop to 20% by the end of the season, assuming 33 of 162 starts.
–The current top lineup of receiver Gary Sanchez, center-backs Gleyber Torres and Rougned Odor and center-back Aaron Hicks doesn’t feel like a championship-level defense. The Yankees can avoid it a bit when Kyle Higashioka catches on and finally when DJ LeMahieu returns to second base after Luke Voit returns.
–The big surprise is a crime that hits only .210 / .296 / .346. It is the Yankees’ lowest batting average in 15 games since 1968 and the lowest PAHO in 15 games since 1973. The team’s strength is supposed to be strength, but its opponents have more homers (21st 16) and more doubles (22 to 19).
The slow start caused an apparent wear and tear from coach Aaron Boone after Friday’s loss. Asked about this after the match, Boone said, “This is out there.”
But camper Clint Frazier said, “It’s so cold that when he addresses us, everyone should listen.”
Frazier said they would be out on Saturday; instead, the Yankees have now followed their streak of defeats to five in a row.
“I’m frustrated, frustrated personally,” said LeMahieu, the 2020 AL beat champion who hits .288 with a home run. “No one will feel sorry for us. No one will throw us softer or simpler. We have to find it to keep improving and playing the way we are capable of.”
Although LeMahieu concluded that the team was “tight and pressing,” Cole seemed to take things a little more calmly, saying, “Play this game long enough, you’ll get some shit. You have to put on boots and wading through the mud. “
In fact, the 1997 Yankees are an example. After this 5-10 start, they won eight of their next 10 to bounce back more than .500 before the end of April. Back in 1996, here are the top five team records that started 5-10 or worse, courtesy of ESPN Stats & Information:
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2001 A: 102-60 (started 11-11)
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Angels of 2002: 99-63 (starting from 5 to 10)
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2000 Giants: 97-65 (started on 4-11)
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A of 2018: 97-65 (starting from 5 to 10)
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Yankees 1997: 96-66 (starting 5 to 10)
On the other hand … many more bad teams start from 5 to 10, as expected. I looked at all the teams that started exactly between the 5th and 10th from 1996 to 2019, with 62 teams counted. His final average record was 73-89. In addition to the three teams mentioned above, only four others would win 90 games: the 2013 Indians (92-70) and the Rays (92-71), the 2011 Red Sox (90-72) and the 2009 Rockies. (92-70).
This Yankees team reminds me a bit of the 2019 Boston Red Sox. Winning the World Series title, this Red Sox squad started off with a low stoppage, 5-10 to 15 games and 9-15 to 24. true sense, Boston never recovered from the slow start, dropping seven games from first place. in late April and never closer than three games the rest of the way, before finishing 84-78.
The Yankees are tied with the Rangers for the lowest OPS of the majors at 0.62. I’m sure the Yankees won’t be in that position at the end of the season. Giancarlo Stanton, Frazier, Torres and Hicks are reaching less than .200. Getting Voit, the home leader of the 2020 major league, will help.
Torres is the hardest to figure out, having hit 38 homers in 2019 at age 22 and looking like a future star. In fact, it has improved its persecution rate in both 2020 (from 31.3% to 20.1%) and again in 2021 (from 13.9%) and usually better plate discipline leads to better numbers; instead, he is sitting there with zero home runs and an RBI. Perhaps a more aggressive approach (which rotated more frequently on the first release in 2019) would work best for you.
Anyway, they are 15 games in a very long season. Yankee fans demand that Boone be fired. Columnists joke that Jay Bruce shouldn’t have retired because maybe he would have come to the cleanup this week if Boone wanted to shake things up. Twitter is full of comments like, “Yankees are 5-10, but they look worse” and “I’ve been literally waiting a lifetime for a bad Yankee season.”
Put it in your back pocket: the last time the Yankees lost the season was in 1992.
(And to mention it, it’s now a block that the Yankees win 12 of 14 and move to first place on May 4. Thank you later, Yankees fans.)