Brian Cashman's Appearance Didn't Shake the Yankees From Their Doldrums

I have written negatively about the Yankees a whole lot since I debuted the newsletter in 2022, but we have reached the nadir with this team. Tuesday they lost for the 17th time in 23 games, and this time they did it with Hal Steinbrenner and Brian Cashman on hand at Tropicana Field. We can only hope this latest shitty performance spurs change such as dumping the manager, but alas, that probably won’t happen and the collapse will continue unchecked. Lets get to it.

July 9: Rays 5, Yankees 3

Brian Cashman said his plan all along was to join the Yankees in Tampa for this series against the Rays because he was headed down there to continue preparation for the upcoming draft which starts Sunday.

Bullshit. That was certainly a convenient excuse, but I guarantee you, if the Yankees were playing in Baltimore first this week, Cashman would have gone there, too, because this is a pattern Cashman has established in the past: When the Yankees are in desperate straits like they’ve been for more than three weeks, playing as abysmally as they have, Cashman descends from his ivory tower to let the players know that this has been an unacceptable brand of baseball and it has to come to an end or changes will be made.

Over the past three years, fast starts and terrible finishes have become a trend for the Yankees. In 2022, a year many of us will never forget, they started 61-23, crumbled to 38-40 the rest of the way, and after surviving the Guardians in the first round of the postseason, they were swept by the Astros in the ALCS. Last year they were 36-25 before going 46-55 to miss the playoffs. And now this year, they started 49-21 but have gone 6-17 since.

“It’s been a struggle, obviously,” Cashman told reporters. “Thankfully, we got out of the gates really strong. Hopefully that cushion will allow us to work through this, hopefully sooner than later, because it’s gone on long enough. It’s been a tough stretch for us. You can hit some rough spots, and we’re certainly as rough as they come right now.”

And then their mind-melting malaise continued in this game thanks to yet another horrendous outing from Carlos Rodon who once again brought a shovel out to the mound and dug the Yankees into a cavernous hole from which they could never climb out of.

The screams from fans for Aaron Boone to be fired - my voice is hoarse from this because I’ve been at it for two-plus years - are louder than ever. The slumping Phillies fired Joe Girardi in June 2022, replaced him with bench coach Rob Thomson (both of those men, of course, once worked for the Yankees) and the Phillies ended up going to the World Series.

But no, nothing will happen. The Yankees don’t believe in the potential power of a midseason managerial change so they’ll continue to allow Boone to steer the ship right off the cliff while fans are starting online petitions to demand his firing because unlike the brain trust, they know the Yankees are going nowhere with Boone at the helm.

“It starts with me, and I filter in through the coaches,” Boone said. “It’s about us trying to get these guys prepared the best we can, setting a tone with how we present ourselves. But it’s on us as coaches to put our players in the best position possible to go out there and be successful. We gotta continue to try and do that to the best of our ability and trust that the ball is going to start to bounce our way a little bit and we can get it rolling here.”

Here are my observations:

➤ Rodon puked all over himself at the start which is nothing new for him as he has now given up 19 runs in the first inning this year, third-most in MLB, and his first-inning ERA is 9.00. Handed a 1-0 lead thanks to a two-out RBI single by Gleyber Torres, this is how Rodon responded in the bottom half: The first four batters went single, RBI double, single, three-run homer. In the span of 14 pitches the Rays had four runs and right there, I told my wife, “Well, you’re off the hook tonight, honey, because I’m not watching any more of this shit.”

➤ Exactly one month ago, June 10, we all thought Rodón was in the midst of a massive bounce back season after his nightmare 2023 Yankee debut. His ERA was 2.93 and the Yankees were 11-3 in his 14 starts. Since then, he has lost all five of his starts and has an ERA of 10.57 and is quite literally the worst pitcher in MLB. His season ERA of 4.63 is now third-worst among all pitchers with at least 100 innings pitched. “I need to be better,” said Rodon. “Just not really giving my team a chance to win, giving up runs early.” Gee, ya think?

➤ My fear is this is who he is now. The Yankees paid him $162 million for past performance, and I don’t think he will ever pitch the way he did for the White Sox and Giants which led to that contract. His once legendary tough guy confidence is shattered, and it has become clear that opposing batters are all over his two-pitch mix of fastball/slider. Honestly, it’s amazing that he’s been able to excel as long as he did as a starter having mastered only two pitches, and now he’s just throwing batting practice as he tries to get changeups and curveballs into his repertoire, obviously with little success.

➤ Of course, even if Rodon had pitched well, the Yankees gave him no support. The first-inning run came about thanks to a walk to Juan Soto and a single by Alex Verdugo before Torres, back in the lineup after two days off, delivered his single. From there the Yankees flailed helplessly against Rays starter Ryan Pepiot, he of the 4.40 ERA, over the next five scoreless innings when they managed two hits and two walks.

➤ Finally in the seventh with the Rays into their bullpen, the useless Trent Grisham singled and Ben Rice ripped a two-run homer to cut the gap to 4-3. But just when you thought maybe they’d have a rally in their brittle and broken bones, Boone made one of his patented stupid pitching decisions. He lifted Michael Tonkin, who has been their best reliever for the last two months, because he had the audacity to allow a two-out single to Jose Siri which raised his pitch count to 32. Boone brought in Tommy Kahnle, who last we saw was serving up a game-losing two-run homer against Boston. On the first goddamn pitch he threw, some nobody named Jonny DeLuca, a .181 hitter, doubled to right and Siri did something pretty much no Yankee can do - he scored all the way from first with a big insurance run.

➤ Naturally, the Yankees did nothing in the ninth with Soto lining out to center to end the game, continuing his own terrible play of late. I’ll bet you didn’t realize that all he does these days is walk as he’s now in an 11-for-63 slump.

➤ This loss dropped the Yankees record to 13-17 against the AL East this season.

⚾ Meanwhile in Boston, the Red Sox beat up on the A’s 12-9 and they are now just 3.5 games behind the second-place Yankees and just two games back in the loss column as they have played three fewer games than New York. It is now entirely on the table that red-hot Boston could leapfrog the Yankees before the All-Star break which would be an absolutely amazing achievement.

“We talked about being greedy a few weeks ago, we saw a window (to move up) in the standings, but I think the window is getting bigger,” said manager Alex Cora. “It's actually a door and we can actually accomplish this. We’re going to keep looking up there and keep playing good baseball and let's see where it takes us.”

The Red Sox were 14 games behind the Yankees on June 11, but while their arch rivals have imploded, they have gone 16-6 since. In this game, all nine starters had a hit and a run scored before the second inning was over as Boston scored 11 of its runs. They hadn’t done that since 2003. “We are a dynamic offense,” said Cora. “We're going to have some big innings.”

⚾ The Orioles remain only three games ahead of the crashing and burning Yankees because they’ve experienced some struggles of their own. They got whipped 9-2 at Camden Yards by the anemic and vastly underperforming Cubs on Tuesday, their third loss in the last five games. Yeah, I know, losing three of five constitutes a rough period for the Orioles.

⚾ Out in San Francisco, the Blue Jays’ miserable season continued with a 4-3 walk off loss. They are in last place in the AL East at 41-50, 16 games behind the Orioles. Yusei Kikuchi struck out 13 men and took a 3-1 lead into the bottom of the eighth before giving up a solo homer to Tyler Fitzgerald. Then in the ninth, Trevor Richards tried to close the game out but the Giants used two singles, a walk, and a stolen base to tie it before Richards threw a wild pitch which allowed the winning run to score. Man, that’s brutal.

⚾ Don’t look now, but the defending World Series champion Rangers may finally be waking from their season-long slumber. They won their fifth in a row as Adolis Garcia’s solo homer in the eighth gave them a 5-4 victory over the Angels. Max Scherzer pitched into the seventh inning allowing three earned runs which was a good sign for Texas as he tries to regain his form after sitting out the first half of the season.

⚾ And the other team in Texas, the hated Astros, continue their long climb back from their 12-24 start as they beat the Marlins 4-3 as Alex Bregman hit a go-ahead two-run homer in the seventh. The Astros are now just two games behind first-place Seattle in the AL West with the Rangers another 3.5 games behind them.