Yankees' lack of success is even getting to Aaron Boone
Yankees manager Aaron Boone. Credit: New York Yankees
Buckle up, ladies and gentlemen. We’re headed into uncharted territory with the 2022 Yankees.
Consider Saturday’s 5-2 loss to the Blue Jays the gateway into the great unknown, a turbulent place where no divisional lead is safe, the Bronx is growing increasingly hostile to its pinstriped heroes and Aaron Boone — the Mr. Sunshine of managers — has resorted to slamming his hand on the dais during postgame media sessions.
That last part was the most jarring image from Saturday’s defeat, only because it was so out of character for Boone, who typically delivers relentlessly positive sermons to the masses, regardless of the outcome. But everyone has their limit, and after the Yankees rolled over again for their 14th loss in 17 games — trimming their AL East lead to a mere seven games over the Jays — Boone played his last remaining card for the TV audience.
What prompted the outburst doesn’t really matter. Eventually, Boone was going to pick his spot. But for the record, it involved the Yankees losing their sixth series in a row — something that hadn’t happened since 1995 — and the manager was asked his thoughts on matching that level of infamy.
“No crap,” Boone said matter-of-factly. “I mean, we can ask all these questions ‘in regards to.’ We’ve answered them until we’re blue in the face. We gotta go out and do it. I gotta quit answering these questions about this date, and this ‘perplexion.’ We got to play better — period. And the great thing is . . . ”
This is when Boone smacked his open-faced right palm on the table for emphasis, hard enough to rattle the microphone and water bottle.
“ . . . It’s right in front of us,” Boone continued, his voice rising. “It’s right here, and we can fix it. It’s there and we can run away with this thing. And we got the dudes in there to do it. We got to do it.”
I don’t blame Boone. He’s only doing what everyone else probably is doing in their living rooms — throwing remotes, flipping snack bowls, flinging their Yankee caps at the TV. And with the outside world questioning how much the manager cares about turning this pinstriped mess around, Boone no doubt felt he had to lash out in some fashion.
It’s just not likely to make any tangible difference anyway. Not with the lifeless way the Yankees are going through the motions lately.
They did achieve something notable Saturday when Estevan Florial’s RBI single in the second inning actually gave the Yankee a lead, a rare occurrence during this deepening malaise. They hadn’t had a player bat with a lead since the previous Saturday. Florial wasn’t even in the original lineup but was added when Josh Donaldson had to be scratched due to a “stomach bug.”
But the accidental spark didn’t hold up, as Gerrit Cole — the ace paid $324 million to be the savior when necessary — spit up four runs in the fifth inning, the big blow delivered by Alejandro Kirk’s 349-foot double to Death Valley that drove in a pair. As a result, Cole failed to record a victory for his sixth straight start, equaling the longest streak of his career with the 2016 Pirates, a 78-win team.
During that fifth-inning meltdown, Cole also walked No. 8 hitter Danny Jansen and kicked around a comebacker hit by Vlad Guerrero Jr., a play that should have resulted in at least one out and possibly an inning-ending double play. Kirk followed with the knockout blow, and Cole later was seen in the dugout punching the ceiling with both hands multiple times. As for the Yankees snapping out of this funk, what else could he say?
“I feel like I gave you the same answer last week that I’m going to give you right now, so no disrespect,” Cole said. “But it’s just one game at a time for us right now.”
That mantra hasn’t been working very well. The Yankees have scored a whopping total of 21 runs in their last 11 games — the Orioles racked up 15 in Friday’s victory over the Red Sox alone — and their sudden vulnerability is injecting new hope into the rest of the AL East, particularly the Blue Jays after winning the first three of this four-game series.
Remember how the Yankees seemingly had sewn up the division before the All-Star break with a 15 1⁄2-game lead on July 8? Forget that. The only reason they still have a seven-game edge (six in the loss column) is due to the ineptitude of the Jays and Rays until now. With the Yankees playing 13 games under .500 (12-25) since July 8, Toronto is 20-14 and the Rays are 19-17 in that stretch. The division could be much tighter had those teams taken better advantage of the Yankees’ swoon.
But all bets are off now. While the Yankees still have plenty of time to straighten things out with 41 games left, there’s no guarantee they will. It doesn’t just happen automatically. Stuff happens. Teams collapse. And life is getting more difficult in the Bronx, where the Yankees are getting booed regularly — and noticing it, loud and clear.
“I’ve been hearing boos my whole career, even this year early on,” Judge said, alluding back to his own post-contract-talks friction. “It’s nothing new to me. You just block that stuff out. It’s just noise. We got a job to do on the field.”
Boone took that fight to the airwaves Saturday, trying to show everyone that the manager understands the gravity of the situation. But do the Yankees? We haven’t gotten the answer to that question yet.
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.
