It was a disastrous weekend at Yankee Stadium for the striped men.
In an 8-2 loss full of boos on Friday in the Tampa Bay Rays, fans scattered the field with baseballs and other objects in the eighth half, creating a short delay. On Saturday, the New York Yankees could not solve Tyler Glasnow, and the Rays won 6-3. On Sunday, fans even picked up Gerrit Cole when he came out of the mound, after giving up the starting double in the seventh inning to a struggling Yoshi Tsutsugo; The Rays won 4-2, and the Yankees left the field to another chorus of boos, rather than “New York, New York.”
First, give Tampa Bay credit. The Rays are now 5-1 against the Yankees in 2021, having gone 8-2 against them last season, plus a victory in the American League Division Series. Including that series, the Rays now won seven straight against the Yankees, returning to their last showdown of 2019.
However, the Yankees’ current problems go beyond just their numbers. The Yankees hold the worst record in the American League at 5-10, which is the most games of a season they had the worst record in the league since the beginning of 9-17 in 1991. While the general rule in baseball is not the first few weeks of the season – as a reminder, the last time the Yankees started with 5-10 was in 1997 and they ended up finishing 96-66 and making the playoffs – you can look for patterns. It must be worrying that the Yankees fought in rotation, in defense and on the plateau.
– Rotation problems have been documented. Starters have an ERA 4.74; take Cole out and balloon at 6.39. Attention, Cole started four of the team’s 15 games or 27%. The ratio will drop to about 20% by the end of the season, assuming 33 starts out of 162.
– The current top-to-middle lineup of catcher Gary Sanchez, midfielders Gleyber Torres and Rougned Odor and center-back Aaron Hicks doesn’t feel like a championship-level defense. The Yankees can solve this a little when Kyle Higashioka catches and finally when DJ LeMahieu returns to second base after Luke Voit returns.
– The big surprise is a crime that hits only .210 / .296 / .346. It is the lowest batting average for the Yankees in 15 games since 1968 and the lowest OPS in 15 games since 1973. Power should be the strength of the team, but their opponents have more rounds at home (21 to 16) and more double (22 to 19).
The slow start led to an apparent elimination of manager Aaron Boone after Friday’s loss. Asked about this after the game, Boone said, “That’s for there.”
But outfielder Clint Frazier said, “It’s so cold that when it comes to us, everyone should listen.”
Frazier said they would be out on Saturday; Instead, the Yankees have now cut their losses to five in a row.
“I’m frustrated, personally frustrated,” said LeMahieu, the 2020 AL batting champion who hits .288 with only one home. “No one will feel sorry for us. No one will throw or throw easier for us. We must find in ourselves to continue to improve and play as we can.”
While LeMahieu concluded that the team is “tight and pressing”, Cole seemed to take things a little further, saying: “Play this game long enough, you’ll go through some crap. You have to put on your boots and get through the mud. “
Indeed, the 1997 Yankees are an example. After that 5-10 start, they won eight of the next 10 to climb back over .500 before the end of April. Going back to 1996, here are the top five team records that started with 5-10 or worse, courtesy of ESPN Stats & Information:
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2001 A: 102-60 (beginning 4-11)
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2002 Angels: 99-63 (beginning 5-10)
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2000 giants: 97-65 (start 4-11)
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2018 A: 97-65 (start 5-10)
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1997 Yankees: 96-66 (start 5-10)
On the other hand … many more bad teams start 5-10, as you would expect. I looked at all the teams that started exactly 5-10 from 1996 to 2019, with 62 teams that were told. Their final average was 73-89. In addition to the three such teams listed above, only four more would win 90 games: the Indians of 2013 (92-70) and Rays (92-71), the Red Sox of 2011 (90-72) and the Rockies of 2009 ( 92-70).
This Yankees team reminds me a bit of the Boston Red Sox in 2019. In a World Series title, the Red Sox started easily, 5-10 to 15 games and 9-15 to 24. In a sense, Boston doesn’t. -never returned from a slow start, missing seven games in first place at the end of April and never approaching three games the rest of the way before finishing 84-78.
The Yankees are tied with the Rangers for their lowest major OPS at .642. I’m confident the Yankees won’t be in this position at the end of the season. Giancarlo Stanton, Frazier, Torres and Hicks all hit below .200. Getting back Voit, the top league in 2020, will help.
Torres is the hardest to figure out, after hitting 38 home runs in 2019 at the age of 22 and looking like a future star. In fact, it has improved its follow-up rate both in 2020 (from 31.3% to 20.1%) and again in 2021 (from 13.9%) and usually a discipline better plate leads to better numbers; instead, he sits there with zero runs at home and an RBI. Maybe a more aggressive approach – he spun more often in the first pitch in 2019 – works better for him.
Anyway, there are 15 games in a very long season. Yankees fans are demanding Boone’s dismissal. Columnists joke that Jay Bruce shouldn’t have retired because he might have been able to clean up this week if Boone had tried to shake things up. Twitter is full of comments like “Yankees are 5-10, but they look worse” and “I’ve literally waited my whole life for a bad Yankees season.”
Put this in your back pocket: the last time the Yankees had a lost season was 1992.
(And mentioning this, it’s a lock now, the Yankees win 12 of 14 and take the top spot on May 4. Thank you later, Yankees fans.)