ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — New York Yankees star Aaron Judge shrugged. The 6-foot-7 slugger was standing in front of his locker in the barebones visitors clubhouse at Tropicana Field. It was quiet, his teammates were packing their bags, and he’d just been asked how he feels his team has handled its sudden collapse.
“Nobody’s happy about it,” Judge said after the Yankees lost to the Tampa Bay Rays, 5-4, on Thursday night.
“But we’re not feeling sorry for ourselves or for anybody else because nobody else is.”
Catcher Jose Trevino offered a similar, but more terse observation.
“If anything,” he said, “people want to see this. We’re the Yankees. People don’t care. If we win, yeah, we should have won. If we lose, they like that.”
Aaron Boone discusses the loss to the Rays with @M_Marakovits and the rest of the media. #YANKSonYES pic.twitter.com/BXCu31jTHw
— YES Network (@YESNetwork) July 12, 2024
Three games separate the Yankees from the All-Star break and being able to put their terrible last month behind them for at least a few days. Those games start Friday, and they will all take place in Baltimore against the first-place Orioles, the team they trail by two games in the American League East.
The ugly tale of the tape:
- The Yankees are an MLB-worst 6-17 in their last 23 games.
- The last time they won consecutive games? June 11-12 in Kansas City.
- They are 0-7-1 in their last eight series.
“We’ve got to get going in the right direction right now,” manager Aaron Boone said. “That’s kind of where the focus is.”
Here are the Yankees’ biggest concerns as they head into their biggest series of the season so far.
Recent history with the Orioles
The O’s have owned the Yankees this season. In seven games, the Yankees are 2-5 against them. They lost three of four games at Camden Yards from April 29 to May 2. Overall, Baltimore has outscored them by quite a margin: 39-21. The Yankees were just 6-7 vs. the Orioles in 2023.
But there’s a silver lining. The Orioles are struggling, too, having lost five of their last seven games. Since starting 45-22, they are 12-14.
Boone didn’t find solace in the fact that the Orioles haven’t been great lately either.
“We’ve got to take care of our own house,” he said.
Aaron Judge’s slump
Judge will wake up hitting .129 (4-for-31) over his last eight games. Of course, he’s capable of breaking out and dominating the entire weekend. But with the rest of the Yankees’ offense inconsistent, at best, around him (except for you, Juan Soto), it seems like it’ll be a tall order for the Yankees to best their division rivals without significant contributions from their captain.
Then again, it wasn’t all bad for Judge on Thursday night, though he was 0-for-4. He drew a walk and hit a ball to the warning track.
Boone said it was simply a dry spell for Judge.
“That’s part of it,” he said. “We’ve got to be able to pick him up on certain nights, too.”
Since playing center field on back-to-back days June 25-26, he’s played DH in 10 of 13 games. Trent Grisham has taken over as the team’s regular center fielder.
“If I play outfield (or) DH,” Judge said, “if that gives us the best lineup to go out there and win a ballgame, we’re going to do it.”
Judge is still in the midst of an MVP-type season, hitting .304 with 32 home runs, 83 RBIs and a 1.086 OPS in 93 games.
Juan Soto’s aching hand
Soto grimaced on a pair of swings in the seventh inning Thursday. His right hand was in pain. It’s hurt since he banged it sliding into home plate June 28.
Soto stayed in the game, and it didn’t seem to affect him much, if at all, throughout the day. After all, he went 2-for-3 with a walk, a double and a 425-foot two-run home run.
Boone has said tests didn’t show any structural damage for Soto, but the slugger said he expects the pain to linger. For how long?
“I won’t say the rest of the season,” he said. “I think as we’ve been improving, I think it’s go in the next couple of weeks or the next couple of months. We will see. I hope I don’t have to deal with it the whole season, but we’ll see.”
Soto said it hurts when he swings and misses. Boone said Soto can’t make it any worse by playing.
“If there was potential to do more damage, he wouldn’t be out there,” Boone said.
Soto added that he does plan to play in the All-Star Game on Tuesday in Texas.
‘Missing opportunities’
In three games against the Rays, Yankees starting pitchers didn’t get more than one out into the fifth inning. They also had just two hits in 17 at-bats with runners in scoring position. On Thursday, they were 1-for-9 with RISP.
“We’re missing opportunities,” Judge said. “That’s what it comes down to.”
Trevino said the Yankees would be playing with a “chip on their shoulder” to right the course before the break.
“We have a bunch of good players in this clubhouse,” the catcher said. “A ton of guys who are pulling the same way. We have (Judge) leading us. Soto. The pitchers. This thing will turn around for us. We’ve just got to keep going.”
(Photo of Aaron Judge sliding into third base: Jim McIsaac / Getty Images)
