After long dry spell, Yankees have swagger back with sweep of Mets
Yankees players including Aaron Judge celebrate their 4-2 win against the Mets in an MLB baseball game at Yankee Stadium on Tuesday, Aug. 23, 2022. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
If this was all it took for the Yankees to wake up, Aaron Boone would have pounded on that table weeks ago.
Who knew? But whatever was wrong with the AL East leaders certainly appears to be over now, after a Subway Series sweep and the Yankees riding their first three-game winning streak in nearly a month.
“It’s been a tough stretch,” Boone said after Tuesday night’s 4-2 win over the Mets. “We’re grinding. I think these wins can kind of go a long way in helping you build a little bit of confidence and get that swagger back, hopefully. But you never try and look at it as being too upset or too satisfied.”
No, that last part is our job. To break down a year into 162 one-game seasons. Attaching do-or-die significance to a specific week or month. But it’s also fair to say that something was definitely off with the Yankees, since right around the All-Star break, when they went into a relative nosedive (12-25) and the division lead crumbled from 15 1/2 games to a suddenly vulnerable seven.
On the brink of being swept by the Blue Jays, Boone & Co. looked wobbly, more insecure than any other point during the season. The Bronx echoed with boos on Paul O’Neill Day and even general manager Brian Cashman took to the public stage before Monday’s opening pitch of the Subway Series to deliver a vote of confidence for his dazed roster.
Between Boone’s hand-slam and Cashman’s pledge of affirmation -- “I believe in this group,” he said -- the Yankees’ non-playing personnel had emptied the tank of motivational gestures. In the grand scheme, none of those measures amounted to half the value of a broken-bat single or a framed third-strike call. Either this “group” was going to snap out of the weeks-long funk or the dispiriting plunge would continue.
Fittingly, it took a piece of Cashman’s malfunctioning trade-deadline haul to put the brakes on the slide when Andrew Benintendi’s two-run homer, his first in pinstripes, was the winning blow in Sunday’s 4-2 victory over Toronto. A few days earlier, there was a belief that Josh Donaldson’s 10th-inning walk-off grand slam, rescuing the Yankees from what would have been the most demoralizing loss of the season, had officially stopped the tailspin. Instead, Donaldson’s dramatic blast was followed by three straight losses, leading up to Benintendi’s first real Bronx embrace.
That’s more what Cashman had in mind, and after an unsettlingly cool start, Benintendi has rewarded the GM by being the spark to the Yankees’ abrupt turnaround, hitting .500 (7-for-14) with two doubles, a homer, three runs scored and five RBIs in his last four games -- three of those coming against the Mets. Growing up with the Red Sox, Benintendi shouldn’t be fazed by this market’s pressures, and his skill set from the leadoff spot was the perfect trigger during this three-win rebound.
“He’s been big time,” Aaron Judge said. “It’s impressive what he does. I told him, hey, keep leading us. Just keep doing your thing.”
A’s export Frankie Montas also did Cashman a solid Tuesday by pitching more like a Cy Young candidate from a year ago rather than the Sonny Gray 2.0 from his previous three starts. Montas allowed two earned runs over 5 2/3 innings to trim his Yankees’ ERA from 9.00 to 7.32 and twice wriggled free of early trouble, whiffing six and walking one.
Montas’ performance, though positive, isn’t going to make anyone ignore Jordan Montgomery’s star turn in St. Louis -- he’s 4-0 with a 0.35 ERA since the trade. But at least a few of Cashman’s deadline deals are contributing while the Yankees wait for centerfielder Harrison Bader to shed his orthopedic boot and reliever Scott Effross to return from the IL (shoulder strain).
And those aren’t the only key pieces on the horizon. Giancarlo Stanton (Achilles tendinitis) is set to return Thursday night in Oakland when the Yankees kick off a 10-game road trip (starting with seven on the West Coast vs. the A’s and Angels). Luis Severino (lat muscle strain) is looking to rejoin the rotation in mid-September, so that should provide just enough runway for a playoff tune-up. Surprise slugger Matt Carpenter (fractured foot) is sounding like an optimistic maybe.
In the meantime, life is going to get a lot cushier for the Yankees over this next week in California. The chop-shop A’s have the second-worst record in the majors (45-79 entering Wednesday) and the feeble Angels -- now led by former Yankees coach Phil Nevin as interim manager -- were only seven wins better.
“I think that edge, and that chip on our shoulder, that’s when the New York Yankees are at their best,” said newly-promoted reliever Clarke Schmidt, who earned the win Tuesday by firing three scoreless innings. “A lot of people fear us when we come into stadiums, and to have that momentum behind us, I think this is the beginning of something good.”
The Yankees probably would prefer to think of this three-game winning streak as more like the continuation of the something great they built during the season’s first half. They went from having baseball’s best record to now ranking fifth (76-48) while slipping three games behind the Astros for home-field advantage in October.
But there’s also six weeks left in the season, and with Judge chasing the triple crown of Maris, the MVP and a record-breaking contract, the Yankees are relying on the supporting cast to regain its mojo for the September stretch run.
“I think the swagger has always been there,” Judge said. “It just took a little reminder of who we are and what type of baseball we play. We got it back.”
Now it’s matter of keeping that swagger, along with the Yankees’ winning brand of baseball, from now through October.
David Lennon is an award-winning columnist, a voter for baseball's Hall of Fame and has covered six no-hitters, including two perfect games.
