The eighth inning of Tuesday night’s game in Cincinnati was the perfect encapsulation of how bad things have been going for the Yankees lately.
Down by three, Cody Bellinger led off with a double before Aaron Judge walked, bringing the potential tying run to the plate. But Giancarlo Stanton struck out, as did Jazz Chisholm Jr., and Anthony Volpe ensured that the golden chance was wasted when he grounded out to end the inning.
The Reds went on to win 6-1, while the Yankees stranded nine men on base and went 0-for-12 with runners in scoring position.
“You’re going to have those stretches,” manager Aaron Boone said. “I think, overall, we’ve been pretty good in those areas. “I thought our best at-bats were getting on base and putting the pressure on. They had them swinging and missing tonight when we had really good opportunities to score. That’s where we want to be a little better.”
But this is getting past the point of simply shrugging one’s shoulders and claiming that these struggles are “just baseball.”
The Yankees rank dead last in Major League Baseball this season when it comes to stranding runners in scoring position per game at 4.06. Over their last 12 games, their OPS with runners in scoring position is .391, nearly half of their season mark of .731.
It is the clear crux of their recent swoon, which has seen them go 4-8 during that stretch, which also includes them batting just .167 (17-for-102) with runners in scoring position and .222 with runners on base to go with a strikeout rate flirting with 30%.
“You’re not always going to drive the guy in or move him over, but as long as we’re continuing to have good at-bats and try to move guys over and knock them in, I like our chances,” Aaron Judge, who accounted for the Yankees’ lone run on Monday, said. “We had some opportunities, and we just couldn’t capitalize. Got to switch that up.”
