Can The Yankees Turn Their Season Around?

The All-Star break is behind us and it’s back to a season in which the Yankees are no longer the top dog in the AL East. And if they don’t get back to playing the baseball they were playing through May, it’s not crazy to see a scenario where they miss the playoffs altogether. Lets get to it. 

Just when we thought the Yankees had pulled out of their annual early summer death spiral when they pulled off that fantastic late-inning rally to complete a sweep of the Mariners, and then blew out the Cubs last Friday to win their fifth straight, there was a nasty regression to the mean last weekend.

Their offense went missing for two games costing them a series win, and it finished off a terrible 11-18 stretch that carried them into the All-Star break. Stretching things back to the close of business on May 28, the Yankees were seven games ahead of the Rays, eight ahead of the Blue Jays and 9.5 clear of the Red Sox.

When play resumes Friday in Atlanta, the AL East is a whole lot grimmer. Toronto leads the Yankees by two games, and the Yankees are just one ahead of third-place Boston and 3.5 ahead of Tampa Bay. It’s crazy how quickly things went to hell, and while all three of those teams - especially the Rays and Red Sox - have played really well, the Yankees have only themselves to blame for their tumble in the standings.

Now, the Yankees could certainly get back up on the horse and get back on track; I’m not going to say they can’t win the division or they can’t at least earn a wild-card berth. Of course they can, especially if Brian Cashman makes some meaningful moves at the trade deadline, though I’m not all that enthusiastic about what he’ll be able to pull off.

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This is a team with some obvious and impactful flaws, starting with the manager who I don’t trust as far as I can throw him. The Yankees are an awful 13-18 in one-run games, they’re 2-6 in extra-inning games, and against their AL East rivals they’re 10-16 including 3-10 against the Jays and Red Sox which is simply inexcusable.

“I feel like for the most part, we’ve played good baseball,” Boone said, which is what Boone would say if the Yankees were 30 games out of first place. “The two six-game losing streaks really kind of put a damper on it. In and around that, feel like we’ve been solid. We’ve dealt with some attrition, obviously, with some guys going down. We’ve given ourselves an opportunity to be the team we want to be, and we’re not a finished product yet. We have lofty goals and aspirations, and that remains the same. So hopefully over these final couple of months, we put ourselves in a position to be in the playoffs and play a consistent brand of baseball. That’s what we’re working towards.”

Here are some of my thoughts on the position groups:

Infield: The left side is a travesty

Cashman has made it abundantly clear his No. 1 priority at the trade deadline will be to add pitching. He says that every year, but I can tell you that the Yankees probably aren’t winning anything with their current situation at shortstop and third base.

Despite Boone’s incessant, irrational and nonstop defense of and excuse-making for Anthony Volpe, the hard truth is that he has been one of the worst players in MLB for most of the season. Since the start of June, Volpe’s .180 average ranks 180th out of 184 qualified players in MLB and his .236 on-base percentage ranks 178th.

If it was just the bat, that’s horrific enough, but he’s also been a negative defender as his 11 errors are tied for fourth-most among all positions, not just shortstop. And it goes way beyond errors; he has made so many poor decisions and lackadaisical plays like that soft throw to second on Sunday that allowed a baserunner to be safe, the type of play that loses games. Volpe isn’t going anywhere; the Yankees still love him and believe he’s going to come around and be part of their future, plus they have no one else to play at short on this team, or in the minors.

Third base is another story. Oswald Peraza has a nice glove, but he is flat out incapable of hitting. Among 380 players who have at least 100 at bats, his .149 average ranks 372nd and his OPS of .456 is 375th. That’s almost impossible to believe. He’s basically an automatic out in the way pitchers once were when they were batting. But at least pitchers could get down the occasional bunt; Peraza can’t even do that.

It’s clear Jazz Chisholm and his wild-child arm is not the answer at third as we saw when he was briefly moved there. Is Jorbit Vivas the answer? Probably not because like Peraza, the bat is deficient. And once again, there’s no one in the minors ready to come up, so Cashman has to acquire a viable third baseman. He has to. Is it Eugenio Suarez of the Diamondbacks? We’ll see.

Outfield: A logjam isn’t necessarily a good problem

Boone needs to stop over-thinking his lineups. Every day, left to right he should be playing Jasson Dominguez, Cody Bellinger and Aaron Judge. And when Judge DHs, then move Bellinger to right and play Trent Grisham in center. I know Grisham has had a surprisingly nice season, but he should be the fourth outfielder and a late-inning defensive replacement for Dominguez. Period.

Dominguez has struggled big time when he bats right-handed, but how is he going to learn if Boone keeps sitting him out against lefties? Same for his defense. He’s made an improvement in left, but he still makes way too many mistakes out there and that’s only going to get better if he plays more.

Bellinger has been one of the most pleasant surprises on the team. As I wrote the other day, I wasn’t expecting him to be this good, but he has earned his right to play every day and because of the overcrowded situation there have been eight games where he did not play at all, and four others that he did not start. Memo to Boone: Play the best players.

Catcher: Why are there three left-handed batters?

This is a fail by Cashman, and we knew this the moment the team broke camp. Any smart team - hell, even the dumb teams - has a catching platoon where one guy bats left, one right. That way you can map out a strategy on when to catch which guy. Austin Wells is going to get the majority of the starts, but when the Yankees face certain tough lefties, they should have a righty catcher to play. Instead, they have feel-good story JC Escarra and occasionally Ben Rice.

It’s ridiculous, especially when they’ve let a few right-handed backup options get away the last few years including Luis Torrens to the Mets and Carlos Narvaez to the Red Sox.

DH: When will Giancarlo Stanton get going?

Since Stanton made his debut on June 16, the Yankees are 8-13 in the games he has played, and 11-14 overall. I’m not insinuating this is all Stanton’s fault, but since he came back and reclaimed the DH spot, Boone has had to do a lot of lineup gymnastics, especially trying to find at bats for Rice. The Yankees were in a pretty good groove, and now with players having to share starts and at bats, it has created inconsistency.

Predictably, Stanton stumbled when he returned and until a recent surge he was hitting .222 with one home run. Now he’s up to .246 with four bombs and 14 RBI, but he needs to be more dangerous than that down the stretch.

Rotation: Luis Gil better be ready, and good

We all expected the rotation was going to be a problem area the moment Gerrit Cole was lost for the year, and Gil got hurt in spring training. It got worse when Clarke Schmidt went down a couple weeks ago, and to a lesser extent, there were the losses of Marcus Stroman and Ryan Yarbrough.

Given all that, it’s actually impressive that the Yankees are currently on the inside of the playoff bubble. The offense has been key to that, but they have gotten tremendous performances from Max Fried and Carlos Rodon, and Will Warren has been way better than anyone could have hoped.

Gil just made his first rehab start and it went well. He should be back in New York near the end of July and if and when that happens, he needs to the guy who won the AL rookie of the year award. If the Yankees hope to have any chance in a playoff series, they’re going to need at least three good starters and Gil is the best option to be the third.

That is unless Cam Schlittler sticks around and can pitch as well as he did in his MLB debut. Schlittler certainly has the stuff, so maybe the Yankees will catch lightning in a bottle with him. If it goes well, a foursome of Fried, Rodon, Gil and Schlittler would be pretty nice, and a combination of Yarbrough, Warren and Stroman can provide spot starts and then long relief in the postseason.

Bullpen: Calling all arms

Cashman needs at least two additions to the bullpen because the guys he has now are either injured (Fernando Cruz, Mark Leiter, Yerry De los Santos), wildly inconsistent (Ian Hamilton, Jonathan Loaisiga, Scott Effross) or overworked (Tim Hill, Luke Weaver, Devin Williams).

Weaver was terrible coming back from his injury but he has leveled off and should be fine, while Williams, after his egregious start, has been very good since the second week of May.

This group, as currently constituted, isn’t good enough. It has a cumulative 4.08 ERA which ranks 20th, its 1.300 WHIP is 15th, its strikeout-to-walk ratio of 2.46 is 16th, and its 3.86 walks per nine innings is 23rd.

They added Rico Garcia on Thursday, but who knows what that means? Garcia has around MLB since 2019 but has pitched in only 32 games for six different teams. He was with the Mets and made two appearances covering 4.2 scoreless innings, one of those coming against the Yankees on July 6. He’s a 31-year-old righty with a career 6.47 ERA. Seems like a mop-up arm at best.

The Yankees get back to work with three in Atlanta against the massively underachieving and disappointing Braves. This is a team many believed would dethrone the Dodgers in the National League, but instead is sitting with a 42-53 record which puts it 12.5 games behind the Phillies in the NL East, and 9.5 games behind in the race for the third wild-card spot.

It’s crazy that this has happened, especially when they got back two of the best players in MLB - outfielder Ronald Acuna and pitcher Spencer Strider, both who began the year on the IL after missing most of 2024. The Braves have a team OPS of .703 which ranks 20th while the team ERA of 3.88 is 15th.

Here are some of the Braves top players to watch:

➤ OF Ronald Acuna: In 45 games he’s slashing .323/.435/.590 with an OPS of 1.025 which would trail only Aaron Judge if he had enough at bats to qualify.

➤ 1B Matt Olson: After a brutal start he has heated up and leads the team with 17 homers and 61 RBI and he plays an excellent first base.

➤ DH Marcell Ozuna: He’s hitting just .239 but he does have 13 homers and 42 RBI

➤ C Drake Baldwin: He took advantage of an injury to Sean Murphy early and now he’s in the running for NL rookie of the year with 11 homers, 32 RBI and an .830 OPS.

➤ RP Dylan Lee: He’s not the closer, but he’s an excellent setup man with a 2.55 ERA and 0.921 WHIP.

The pitching matchups are scheduled to be:

The Yankees have not announced their starters for the games as I get ready to send this, but the Braves have.

• Friday, 7:15, YES: TBD vs. Spencer Strider (3.94 ERA) who, when healthy, is one of the best pitchers in MLB. He returned this year from Tommy John surgery, then suffered a hamstring injury in his first start and missed another month so he’s still trying to find his groove.

• Saturday, 7:15, YES: TBD vs. Joey Wentz (6.32) who is pitching for his third team this year (Pirates, Twins and Braves who signed him on July 11). If the Yankees don’t tattoo this guy, that would be worrisome.

• Sunday, 1:15, YES: TBD vs. Grant Holmes (3.77) who has made 19 starts and leads the NL with 50 walks in 105 innings. Yeah, these aren’t the Maddux/Glavine/Smoltz Braves of yesteryear.