From Bryan Hoch:
A selection of vintage baseball jerseys hung in the visitors clubhouse as the Yankees arrived at Citi Field for Wednesday’s game. Players would dress like heroes of yesteryear on their flight north of the border, which makes sense, since Aaron Judge is sure making it feel like 2022.
Judge hit his Major League-leading 30th home run in the sixth inning of the Yankees’ 12-2 Subway Series loss to the Mets. Much like at the tail end of a season in which he chased Roger Maris’ single-season American League home run record of 61, Judge is trying to power his team out of a skid.
Though manager Aaron Boone said that Judge’s performance continues to be “remarkable,” the captain alone couldn’t rescue the Bombers from their ninth defeat in 12 games, and a fourth consecutive series loss.
After the Braves series, I noted that their recent struggles wouldn’t be that concerning so long as they didn’t keep them up. Well, they have kept them up, so THAT’S not good. Really, Luis Gil’s sucking was the worst case scenario for this game, and that’s exactly what happened. Gil has added OVER A RUN to his ERA in just his last six innings, which is insanely bad.
Beyond Gil, though, of course, the offense has just been putrid lately, and the game got off to a terrible start when the Yankees once again wasted the bases being loaded in the first inning with the first of TWO double plays for Alex Verdugo (I gave that DP the featured image). They simply cannot keep batting him high in the lineup while he is in the middle of this awful slump. The issue, of course, is that everyone besides Soto and Judge suck right now.
At least Boone benched Gleyber for a game. That was SOME sign of accountability.
The Yankees’ recent terrible play has been against some legit hot teams, so this Toronto series is huge, as Toronto has been awful lately, so if they can’t play well against Toronto, then that’s a really, really bad sign.
I’ve got to say I prefer a narrative like “they’re in some sudden, awful, bizarre simultaneous slump, where it’s just them being bad and they can’t be anybody” to a narrative like “they look great against bad teams but aren’t good enough to beat the really good teams.”
Fortunately, I really don’t think the latter narrative is true. But they have to ACTUALLY ACT AND DO SOMETHING. This team is awesome when it’s firing on all cylinders, but they need to fix the holes so that they can win when they’re not. Which is happening. And they’re not.
Fortunately, some of the holes are so huge that it would be easy to make a massive improvement.
But not if you don’t, you know… improve them.
And also, Mr. Cashman – I don’t mind you taking a flyer on an occasional also-ran, but it doesn’t replace actually looking for and actually making REAL moves.
I think he’s willing to make notable moves, but no one is willing to trade notable guys at the moment. He needed to make moves in 2022, and he did, but again, no one would make the moves until the deadline.
And then, of course, the guys he got then:
A. broke their wrist (Benintendi)
B. blew out their shoulder (Montas), and
C. Needed TJS (Effross).
Why would MiL for MiL not be more of an option?
A prospect at a position of wealth for a prospect at a position of need.
The Indians have, I believe, two promising AAA 3Bmen. The Yankees have a pretty good system with some prospects at least as good, or more numerous… and even if it’s not the Indians, why doesn’t that kind of thing seem to be a serious consideratin?
The Indians have, I believe, two promising AAA 3Bmen
Not seeing them on their prospect lists. One guy on FGraphs was 3B with a 45+FV, but that also indicated that he’s a terrible defender and probably headed to the OF.
I think the Yankees would be better off going back in time and drafting Gunnar Henderson instead of TJ Sikkema.
2022 vibes.
Judge will hit 60.
Yanks will win 94(?) and lose in the playoffs.
Exactly 60?
lol
lmao
Nomaas had lost faith in Cashman in 2015? They were right.
“Better [get rid of] a player a year too early rather than a year too late” applies to executives as well.
They don’t take the problems seriously as they come up and by the time the ship has sunk it’s too late.
2022 loomed and then it was here.
You look at Reddit and everyone responds to criticism of CashBoone with “how many did George win when he was firing everyone?”.
Well, we don’t fire anyone anymore. But we also have the longest drought since the Babe.
sigh.
I became a fan in 1971, in middle of the 1965-75 “no trips to the WS” drought. Then lived thru the horrible George years of 1982-1995 drought that only ended because George got banned and Stick Michaels ran the team. This 2010-? Is in a way worse bevause they make believe they are putting together a WS team and fool some of us into believing it, but always fall short due to Hal saving some money and more recently Cashmans arrogance.
Did you ever wonder how different things would be if they picked up Verlander at the 2017 deadline instead of Houston? I think it was $28m too much. Penny wise and pound foolish, in hindsight I guess
Silly comments on “pace.
Judge is way AHEAD of his 2022 pace. The game article says that in 2022 he hit his 30th HR on July 9 – that’s like two weeks away still.
Again, as we all know, he froze for over a month as he approached that record. Unlikely to happen again.
On the other hand, it would be nice to encourage opponents to pitch to him.
How soon before they walk him with the bases loaded?
I’ve been saying if Volpe makes out walking Soto and Judge is a winning move.
And even if Volpe doesn’t.
I seriously thought the Mets would walk him Tuesday in the 8th. I guess they figured that even if he hit one out they’d still have 6 black holes to face before coming back to the top of the order with only needing to get 4 more outs. Sure enough…
“Players would dress like heroes of yesteryear on their flight north of the border, which makes sense, since Aaron Judge is sure making it feel like 2022.”
And these guys are “professional writers.” It’s so bad.
It really was a weird ass article by Hoch. I guess the game itself was so gross, he needed to wax poetic about SOMEthing.
Strong like bull
A Volpe (R) SS
J Soto (L) RF
A Judge (R) DH
A Verdugo (L) LF
B Rice (L) 1B
J Jones (R) 2B
A Wells (L) C
O Cabrera (S) 3B
T Grisham (L) CF
Jones can play 2B ?? At this point I’d rather just call up Peraza to play 2B every day. Even if he doesn’t hit you upgrade the defense considerably over what Torres was doing. And there’s at least a chance he figures the offense out with MLB reps.
Also: how far the offense has fallen. But good to see Wells, Rice, and Cabrera in there. I’d rather see young guys suck than old.
Or Vivas? Cash picked him for a reason. He did?
Yeah, Jones is a second baseman/outfielder, which really IS odd how they haven’t used him at second until now.
I’m actually not all that against this lineup except, of course, Verdugo shouldn’t be batting cleanup. The guy grounds into two double plays and is batting under .200 for the month, so you move him UP in the order?!
It’s not the lineup so much as the roster that sucks.