![Rodon can't watch](https://rlyw.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/rodon-cant-watch-1024x505.jpg)
From Bryan Hoch:
The Yankees’ summer slide has prompted growing frustration within the clubhouse, boiling over after yet another rocky start prompted starter Carlos Rodón to punch the dugout bench with his non-pitching hand.
Rodón stewed after giving back an early lead, surrendering four first-inning runs in New York’s 5-3 loss to the Rays at Tropicana Field. The Yankees have lost 17 of their last 23 games since June 13, when they held the Majors’ best record (49-22).
“It has not been fun, that’s for sure,” Rodón said. “I’m just not really giving my team a chance to win, giving up runs early. I’ve just got to put up a zero in the first and try to stretch something together. I keep saying, put it behind me. I have to.”
Playing in front of an audience that included managing general partner Hal Steinbrenner, general manager Brian Cashman and numerous other club executives, the Yankees fell to 13-17 against American League East opponents this season.
Here is the staggering part of the whole story:
As he has in previous starts, Rodón provided length by incorporating his curveball and changeup more; he acknowledged that an apparent solution to his first-inning woes would be to do so earlier. Rodón navigated four innings, tossing 95 pitches.
“I try to attack fastballs in the zone and they’ve been getting on some heaters,” Rodón said. “When we get out there in the second, we start mixing. I think I’ve got to make that adjustment as the game begins, ready to use the whole arsenal from the get-go.”
Hole. E. Shit.
Are. You. Fucking. Kidding. Me?!
“Well, this one approach has worked terribly for four starts in a row, maybe I should change it for my next start?” I mean, is Carlos Rodon the dumbest pitcher ever? You have an approach that works, you have an approach that gets you destroyed EVERY FUCKING TIME, and you…stick with the approach that gets you destroyed every fucking time? Are you just a SIMPLETON? How dumb can you be?
Meanwhile, we’re really starting to see the effects of Soto and Judge never getting any pitches to hit, and now they’re both in little slumps, as well, which is devastating to the offense, of course. DJ had two hits, and his OBP has GOT to be the highest on the team of the non-good hitters, so they really need to move him to the leadoff spot, and move Rice to cleanup, with Gleyber behind him.
Try to bundle together the guys who might THEORTICALLY get a hit. Verdugo and Volpe aren’t that anymore. You’d like to believe that these guys won’t all continue to be the worst hitters in baseball after a few of them had very good starts (Verdugo and Volpe, in particular).
The hitting AND the pitching all going from the best in the league to the worst in the league in three weeks’ time seems hard to believe. There likely is a mixture of some injury bad luck, and also them probably playing better than their abilities earlier, and worse than their abilities now. If it just balanced out to somewhere in the middle, though, they’d be doing a lot better than now.
Just try to not be the worst team in the Major Leagues. That shouldn’t be too hard to do. Amusingly, the Orioles continue to fumble ahead of the Yankees, as well, and it’s the Red Sox who look like they’re poised to catch BOTH teams, as the Red Sox have decent pitching and an actual functioning offense.
There will be reinforcements at the trade deadline, but no one is arriving BEFORE the trade deadline, so they just have to hope some of these guys start to hit (also, for the love of god, just fucking lead DJ off, like he should have been all fucking season, even when he sucked. Their best lineup coming into the season was DJ leading off, and they have proceeded to not try it at all. It’s just mind-boggling in its stupidity. I get trying it, and then changing it if it doesn’t work, but they’ve never even TRIED what was their best lineup setup for the past two years, DJ leading off ahead of Judge (now Soto and Judge). Just fucking TRY it!
The featured image is Carlos Rodon, making like Yankee fans everywhere – we don’t want to see you pitch, either.
Remember when Judge was on a roll and everybody else was bad, and he said HE had to step it up?
Aaron, please step it back down again.
“The hitting AND the pitching all going from the best in the league to the worst in the league in three weeks’ time seems hard to believe. There likely is a mixture of some injury bad luck, and also them probably playing better than their abilities earlier, and worse than their abilities now. If it just balanced out to somewhere in the middle, though, they’d be doing a lot better than now.”
Umm… yes. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly.
They could probably still win with Cashman. But winning with Boone is an unfair ask.
As unpleasant as it is to say, the potential offseason acquisition that would increase the Yankees’ prospects the most would be dumping Boone for Alex Cora.
Yes, the Houston cheating, he was right there. But he’s also everything Boone isn’t.
Also, that was a great looking Rice HR. But three sharply hit singles would have boosted my confidence in him more after the past few days.
I haven’t been watching but had Rice changed his approach at all
– does it look like he’s swinging for the fences more now than he was the day he came up?
How bad do they have to play to get Boone fired? How about Cashman? Would missing the playoffs do it? do they need to finish under 500? Whatever it takes I’ll sign up for.
This is the 3rd straight year of this happening and it didn’t appear that Boone is in any peril. Just painful.
Agree, it’s crazy. Of course, even if his job were in danger, they shouldn’t make that obvious until they act on it.
I also was thinking about that – that maybe after the 3 HR game Rice adopted more of an all-or-nothing kind of approach. If so, let’s hope it’s temporary.
does it look like he’s swinging for the fences more now than he was the day he came up?
I don’t think so, Rice has always been projected to have above-average power and good control of the strike zone. I don’t think he’s doing anything different than when he was in minors. I think it;s more getting hittable pitches.
All he’s done is hit since he started regular season games. I won’t pretend he’s going to be a Paul Goldschmidt at first, but a kid who can hit .270 with a .350 OBP and knock 15-25 HRs is very valuable guy when he doesn’t cost much.
For Boone to get fired, they’d need to miss the playoffs. Cashman probably is safe no matter what, for THIS year, at least.
This is the final year of Boone ‘s contract, although the Yankees have an option for 2025. So technically he doesn’t need to be fired.
Yeah, which is why I think that this might actually be the end of the road for Boone if they miss the playoffs. He’s an easy scapegoat.
SI : The response of the Yankee brass has been pretty boilerplate, but one of the team’s stars is being a little more vocal. Juan Soto spoke after New York’s loss to the Red Sox on Sunday, saying that while he still believed the club can turn this cold streak around, nobody on the team is having fun. Soto’s been one of the most important parts of this team’s record, and when the usual smiling, swaggy slugger is this frank, things need to change.
He won’t be back.
I love the guy, but it’s not like he’s exactly hot himself at the moment. He hasn’t shown up in big moments in any of these recent losses.
As for his chances of returning, I imagine it’ll all come down to how they finish the season. His mood might surprisingly be a lot better if they do well in the playoffs. The money will definitely be there. Hal is many things, but he’s not SO stupid as to miss out on Soto if Soto is willing to return.
Soto has been awful quiet with the bat the last month. His walk rate is buoying his overall OPS, but his power has been limited and his BABIP has been atrocious. Since June 14th, the first Red Sox series: .186 ba .406 OBP, .386 SLG and a .173 BABIP.
The money may be there but it won’t be the most money. It’s more like he’ll say Judge and Cole will be a year older and there’s a dearth of good young players.
Isn’t the thing Boone is allegedly good at is managing shit like player egos and clubhouse mood?
Cashman had some interesting comments about Gleyber sucking in his walk year. Cashman compared it to Sevy and Bader ALSO sucking in their walk years. He noted that sometimes the pressure helps players, but sometimes, it sinks them.
Might be worse for Gleyber because he really likes being a Yankee.
volpe, unable to make adjustments
rodon, unable to make adjustments
boone, unable to make adjustments
hal, unable to make adjustments
what fun
Seriously what’s the story with Volpe? How do you go from OPSing 812 in May to 547 in June to 345 so far in July at age 23, not age 33. Is he a head case or is he just really easy to pitch to as long as you follow some plan. It’s kind of like an accelerated Gary Sanchez deterioration except Sanchez was never this bad. Is some of this on Boone and the coaches?
Even in the minors Spencer Jones after a good June is hitting 103 in July and he doesn’t seem any better this year than last even though they changed his swing ‘for the better’ by lowering his hands.
Inquiring minds desperately want to know.
All’s well Yankees sign Tim Mayza.
Oh, lost in all of the awfulness of the last few days is the news that Beeter is probably done for the season, and presumably a good chunk of next season.
Yeah, saw that. It sucks. Maybe he can pull a Gil and come back throwing strikes a bit better.
Who cares about Beeter when have Mayza. Maybe just seeing Mayza will get Aaron judge going bigly!
LF Alex Verdugo L
RF Juan Soto L
DH Aaron Judge R
1B Ben Rice L
2B G. Torres R
SS A. Volpe R
CF T. Grisham L
C Jose Trevino R
3B DJ LeMahieu R
What the fuck, Boone? What. The. Fuck?!
It’s like knowing there is a problem, but your solution is insane.
“Oh no, I’m locked out of my house. I guess I should burn a hole through my wall to get back in.”
Technically, you have solved one of your problems…
I guess I’ll look on the bright side, and at least they HAVE moved Rice to where he belongs.
And heck, for tonight’s game, at least, Verdugo DOES have a higher OBP than DJ (it won’t be there for long, but for now, it IS higher).
“It’s like knowing there is a problem, but your solution is insane.”
Like?!
Hasn’t Verdugo had a few multi-hit games lately? In the lead-off spot, he might go more for avg than power. Might not be a bad thing. (Maybe. One can hope.)
Verdugo 302 OBP leading off, Rice cleanup, DJ 9th.
RAB Verdugo’s weak ground balls to second will now be one out instead of two.
Giancarlo Stanton could be ready for games shortly after the All-Star break, Aaron Boone said. It remains to be seen if he’ll have a rehab assignment. https://x.com/GaryHPhillips/status/1811142280029360635
And he’ll come back too soon and for 3 weeks he’ll make Trent look like Soto
Some guys don’t handle batting cleanup very well, Verdugo is one of those guys.
Is the hand injury Soto suffered adversely affected his hitting? I think a perusal of the games since indicates it has, 8 games, 5 hits, 2 XBH. Hopefully it is just short term.
Boone Soto’s doing well overall
https://x.com/garyhphillips/status/1811155827203379455?s=61&t=fhOaqwtc8q2TMSXUDRjPeg
Now THAT’S what you want from a lead-off hitter – see lots of pitches, get things started.\
Jerk.