Yankees, Atlanta are strikingly different teams on the baseball field

ATLANTA — Two teams shared the same field at Truist Park Monday night, technically playing the same game of baseball.

But the Yankees and Atlanta, clear to anyone watching, were on entirely different playing fields altogether.

The Yankees took an 11-3 loss Monday to what, top to bottom this season, is the best team in the big leagues.

As Aaron Boone put it afterward: “Right now, they’re the class of the league. Clearly. That’s where you want to be. They’re obviously putting together a pretty great season and have been now in that National League for the last several years, and have a lineup that’s really, really rugged and balanced. A little peek into where you’re trying to get to.”

Boone, though offering a fairly candid response, didn’t exactly answer the question as asked, which was: When you watch your team play that team, what’s the most significant difference you see in the two clubs?

Still, as the author Robert A. Caro (who started his career at Newsday) quoted Lyndon Johnson in his Pulitzer Prize-winning book, “Master of the Senate”: “The most important thing a man has to tell you is what he’s not telling you. The most important thing he has to say is what he’s trying not to say.”

And what Boone, in his sixth season as Yankees manager, likely was trying not to say is just how strikingly different the two teams are.

Beyond the obvious: One of the teams, Atlanta, came into Tuesday an MLB-best 76-42 while the Yankees, at 60-59, were 5 ½ games behind Toronto for the AL’s third wild-card spot.

“[Atlanta] has the kind of one-through-nine-no-easy-at-bats lineup the Yankees used to be known for,” one longtime NL talent evaluator said.

A longtime AL evaluator from a rival American League club took it a step further.

“They hit velocity much better than [the Yankees],” he said of Atlanta. “They’re younger. More athletic. The heart of their lineup is productive and plays every day.”

Before Atlanta All-Star second baseman Ozzie Albies was placed on the IL Monday with a left hamstring injury, he had played in each of his team’s first 117 games.

Albies is not alone in that regard as first baseman Matt Olson, rightfielder Ronald Acuna Jr and third baseman Austin Riley have not missed a game.

Indeed, “load management” is not a phrase heard around the club very often.

“If something happens and they need a day, we’ll give it a day,” Atlanta manager Brian Snitker said before Monday’s game, according to The Associated Press. “It hasn’t happened yet.”

Snitker, an organization lifer who counts the late Hank Aaron among his many mentors (Aaron, a club senior vice president, hired Snitker as an organizational coach in 1981), said he “very much” appreciates having so many high-profile players making every start.

“They want to do that, and they train to do that,” Snitker added. “I think it’s a very good thing. I think it keeps them strong.”

Boone, in saying “that’s pretty amazing,” noted the respective ages of those players — Albies is 26, Olson is 29, Acuna is 25 and Riley is 26.

“I think when you look at all those guys are in their 20s and in the prime of their career so it’s feasible,” Boone said. “But in today’s game that’s pretty impressive.”

Atlanta may be younger, but there is more to it than that. Though utilizing analytics and sports science — as all 30 teams do to varying degrees — Atlanta is not married to them like other teams (the Yankees prominently are one of those teams).

Its roster is more diverse, dynamic and athletic, as the talent evaluator above mentioned. And, broadly speaking, Atlanta, its dugout staff overflowing with big-league playing and/or coaching experience — things many in the Yankees’ analytics department behind the scenes are dismissive of — simply plays baseball better overall; everything from at-bat quality to defense to running the bases. Going even broader, it develops players better, and has for years.

“No real weakness,” Boone said before Monday’s game of Atlanta.

The Yankees used to be spoken of in such terms. Current indications are, regardless of Tuesday night’s result, they’re a ways from being spoken of that way again.

By Erik Boland

erik.boland@newsday.comeboland11

Erik Boland started in Newsday's sports department in 2002. He covered high school and college sports, then shifted to the Jets beat. He has covered the Yankees since 2009.