From Bryan Hoch:
When Aaron Judge surveys the Yankees’ lineup, he sees each spot occupied by someone trying to be a hero. It’s an admirable quality, but it also might not necessarily be what they need right now.
The Yankees absorbed their fifth consecutive defeat on Sunday, a 5-4 loss to the Rays at Tropicana Field that completed a three-game sweep. As they head back to the Bronx for a week-long homestand, the captain said he’d like to see their hitters get back to basics.
“We need to simplify some things at the plate,” Judge said. “We’re trying to hit every single pitch we see up there and getting ourselves in some bad counts and bad situations. As a group, if we simplify our approach a little bit, hunt the pitch that we’re looking for and pass the baton, I think we’ll be in a better spot.”
He’s right, of course, but that’s just a fucking baseball slump in a nutshell, right? Once you are stuck in a slump, you start pressing, and then things begin to spiral. We see it with Judge himself, where he starts to expand the zone when he gets frustrated. We have seen it MANY times with Stanton.
The problem with this team isn’t even their shitty hitters on the bottom of the lineup, but it is that their main guys in the middle of the lineup are all shitting the bed during this streak, outside of Ben Rice. If Ben Rice and, say, Giancarlo Stanton were hot this past week, the Yankees would EASILY have won 2 of the 5 games they just lost.
If Ben Rice and Cody Bellinger were hot, same thing. If Ben Rice and Aaron Judge were hot, same thing.
But only Ben Rice was hot this past week, and that’s not enough. THEN you need contributions from the rest of the order, and they sure as fuck were not getting them.
And yet, even with that in mind, MULTIPLE times the Yankees had the tying run in scoring position in the ninth inning (or the go-ahead run in scoring position in the ninth inning) and the Yankees EVERY FUCKING TIME chose to go with Randall Grichuk twice, Ryan McMahon twice, and JC fucking Escarra once (the Escarra one will be one for the ages. “Where were you when Aaron Boone decided to call on JC fucking Escarra to pinch hit with the game on the line in the bottom of the ninth inning?”).
The Yankees have just lost five straight games, FOUR OF THEM by a single run, and in NOT A SINGLE ONE OF THEM did Paul Goldschmidt get to pinch hit.
I want to make things clear. I know that Goldschmidt, who only won the MOST VALUABLE PLAYER AWARD four years ago, is not the hitter he once was. There is a VERY good chance that he would have been retired in every single one of the instances that I mentioned. But that’s fucking baseball for you. You take your best licks, and if you lose, you lose. But when you DON’T use your best guys and lose, then you are always going to think, “What if I WASN’T such a fucking moron and used Paul Goldschmidt instead of JC fucking Escarra?”
Here, with the tying run on second base and two outs, the Rays opted to walk Austin Wells to face Ryan McMahon, and Boone decided to NOT pinch hit Goldschmidt, even though, had Goldy tied the game and it went to extras, Rosario could have moved to third, Judge moved to right field, and they would just lose the DH (and since that would be Goldy’s spot, it wouldn’t be up for a while anyways). It was the obvious move, but Boone apparently just hates Goldschmidt, and thinks he can only hit lefties (despite hitting a three-run home run off of a good righty for the Mariners).
McMahon came up, and promptly grounded out to end the game.
Now, as I have noted, these negative results are obviously unlikely to continue. You can think McMahon is only an 80 OPS+ hitter, but he is currently a 14 OPS+ hitter. That shit ain’t right.
Similarly, you can think Randall Grichuk is washed, and maybe he is, but he’s HITLESS IN HIS FIRST THIRTEEN AT-BATS. He can’t possibly be THAT washed. JC Escarra, similarly, has not gotten a hit yet. That’s NOT normal.
So I’ll be frank, I knew they were fucked in this game because of Drew Rasmussen, who owns them when they’re doing WELL, let alone a slump, but I think they’ll be fine overall. The pitching is just too good, even if Max Fried and Cam Schlittler both choked this weekend (but “choked” in both cases meant “gave up three runs”).
If Weathers can even come CLOSE to how good he looked against Oakland, the rotation could soon be Cole, Fried, Schlittler, Rodon, and Weathers, with Gil and Warren in the minors (and one of them being trained to come back as a short man for the rest of the season).
They just need to weather this little storm, and, of course, get at least ONE MORE FUCKING GUY WHO COULD HIT.
Oh, and, of course, maybe PINCH HIT PAUL GOLDSCHMIDT IN THE NINTH INNING OF THE NEXT CLOSE GAME, YOU DICK!
McMahon’s game-ending first pitch groundout is the featured image.
Oddly enough, the Brewers ALSO started the season 8-2, and have ALSO lost five straight games. Weird.
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