The New York Yankees have had a bad, bad month that has become all too common under manager Aaron Boone. And yet, their long-term position before the All-Star Break seems just fine.
This is because as much as the Yankees have been slumping, so have their rival Baltimore Orioles. The O’s currently lead second-place New York by two games in the AL East, right as both teams are set to play a three-game set before the Break.
Granted, the Yankees have been playing badly far longer than Baltimore has. They’re on a God-awful 7-18 run. Baltimore had a five-game losing streak mixed in over the same stretch, but otherwise has been fine.
That is, until the team’s offense hit a wall this week and let the Chicago Cubs pull off a three-game sweep at Camden Yards. Baltimore was outscored 21-2 in the series and shut out in the second and third games.
Cut to the Yankees, who weren’t much better in yet another series loss to the Tampa Bay Rays. And even in the team’s two defeats, anyone with eyes could see stronger at-bats from tNew York’s lineup. Juan Soto, despite a nagging hand injury, seems to be getting his swing back along with Gleyber Torres and, yes, even DJ LeMahieu.
Aaron Judge was surprisingly the odd man out, and what’s more puzzling is he is 4 for his last 31.
New York’s problem at the Trop, and actually for most of this cold streak, was pitching. Carlos Rodon was too aggressive too early with his fastball and had a rough first inning, but was fine once he started using his breaking pitches. Nestor Cortes was hit early on the road again because, surprise surprise, he’s hell bent on becoming a traditional fastball/cutter guy instead of spinning his changeup and slider/sweeper into oblivion.
All this to come to one simple conclusion. The Baltimore Orioles are allegedly the better, hungrier, younger team, and they got clowned by the last-place Chicago Cubs. And at home! A chance to pull away in the division was completely blown.
Cut to this weekend’s series in Baltimore, a true win-win for the Orioles. The worst that can happen is they’re swept, but they’ll still be just a game out of first place after the Break. They won’t be buried by any means.
Contrastingly, the same goes for the Yankees. Getting swept by the Orioles is their absolute worst-case nightmare scenario. #YankeesTwitter will explode with demands to fire Aaron Boone and Brian Cashman, trade Carlos Rodon, and get rid of everyone in-between.
The Yankees would still only trail Baltimore by five games. That may seem like a lot, especially with baseball so competitive today, but look back only to 2009. New York trailed the hated Red Sox by three games at the All-Star Break and were 0-8 against Boston on the year.
The team rallied all the way to winning its 27th World Series.
That isn’t to say these 2024 Yankees are destined to be the last team standing in October. There’s still plenty of room for improvement and even more baseball left to be played. The season is a bell curve and the Yankees could finish any one of billions of different ways.
Don’t believe me? Look at Baltimore getting swept by Chicago. The Orioles’ lineup is competitive, and yet only managed those two runs in three games.
Clearly, the fans need a reminder on just how baseball works and just how bad the Yankees were a year ago. The playoffs never seemed meant to be.
This year, the Yankees are in second place, have had a truly awful few weeks, and are still the top-scoring offense in baseball, with Baltimore not far behind at No. 2.
Instead of losing the division this week, New York is keeping it interesting. And maybe with the help of some cooling Baltimore bats.
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