The potential salvation of avoiding a four-game sweep at the hands of the Boston Red Sox on Sunday night cannot mask the fact that the Yankees are a bad baseball team against winning clubs.
New York’s first three games of this set in the Bronx against their bitter rivals continued to confirm that, as they were outscored by a combined 19-4. With it, the Red Sox leapfrogged the Yankees for second place in the American League East and for the top Wild Card spot.
Entering Sunday night’s series finale, they nursed a half-game lead over the Seattle Mariners, who hold the third and final Wild Card berth in the AL.
The Yankees have lost eight straight against the Red Sox prior to Sunday night’s action, resulting in a 1-8 record overall this season. Couple that with a 3-7 showing against the AL East-leading Toronto Blue Jays, and Aaron Boone’s men are a miserable 4-15 against the division’s top two teams.
“It’s not ideal,” Yankees slugger Giancarlo Stanton said. “It’s unacceptable. We all know that.”
But it’s so much worse than just in-division struggles.
The Yankees have not won a series against a team above .500 since July 8-10 when they swept the Seattle Mariners. Even that was their first series win against an over-.500 team since June 10-12 against the Kansas City Royals.
Against teams over .500 this season, the Yankees are 32-35, which has played a major role in their mid-summer nosedive that has featured losing records in June, July, and August.
“We’ve got to play better,” superstar Aaron Judge said. “It doesn’t matter who we’re facing: The Rays, Red Sox, Tigers, whoever. We’ve got to go out there with our best… I’m definitely angry. Especially against your rivals, don’t like the showing we’ve had here at home. So just got to step up. That’s it.”
The Boston series has sucked the wind out of New York’s sails after preying on losing teams. They were on a five-game winning streak and had won seven of their last eight games, which featured matchups against the Minnesota Twins, St. Louis Cardinals, and Tampa Bay Rays.
An over-reliance on the long ball has exposed an otherwise mediocre offense that has been shut down by the Red Sox. The Yankees were first stymied by Brayan Bello, who went seven shutout innings on Friday. Then, Garrett Crochet allowed just one run in seven frames with 11 strikeouts.
“It feels really crappy,” Boone said. “We’ve got to get past it. We’ve got to play better against quality opponents in our division, but we can’t go erase what’s been a really crappy weekend for us so far.”
The slim silver lining in all of this is that the Yankees play in an underwhelming American League, where they still hold a nearly 90% chance of making the playoffs despite going 27-35 across their last 62 games.
“We’re not running out of time, but if we don’t play better, we’re gonna fizzle out and we’re not going to get to where we want to be,” Boone said.
