Soto is Spectacular but Yankees Offense is Still Underwhelming

The Yankees won another series as they took two out of three from the Rays. I’m not sure how they did it with the offensive performance they put forth all weekend, but they found a way to have two big innings and that was enough to win a pair of games to improve to 15-7 and hang on to first place, a half game ahead of the Orioles. Lets get to it.

Once again, the Yankees make it difficult for your favorite crankpot - that would be me - to see the positivity in what happened over the weekend as they won this series against the Rays. Not impossible because 15-7 is nice, but difficult.

I get called out on Twitter/X for being pessimistic and snarky about the Yankees and sure, I deserve some of that because I certainly skew towards negativity. It’s just who I am.

But come on, I can’t be the only one who watches these games night after night and sees that this offense is just not very good. Come on subscribers, you can’t leave me to defend this hill by myself.

Look at what happened in this series and I think you would agree that winning like this is not sustainable for the long term. The Yankees batted 26 times against the Rays - eight innings Friday and Sunday, 10 on Saturday - and they scored in just three. In the other 23 innings, they put up a big, fat zero, and the majority of those were 1-2-3.

All of their runs in the 5-1 victory Friday came in the seventh inning, and thanks to two Rays errors they were all unearned. Saturday they were shut out on four hits and lost 2-0 in 10 innings. Sunday, they pushed across a run in the first inning, then four more in the fifth which turned out to be just enough to escape with a 5-4 victory.

Every win is great, and yes, 15-7 is among the best records in MLB, but this offense is essentially the same inconsistent, often brutal-to-watch mess that it was in 2023 with the exception of adding superhero Juan Soto.

The Yankees’ slash line through 22 games is .239 average/.333 on-base/.373 slugging for an OPS of .706. Do you want to know what their final line was in 2023, one of the worst offensive seasons in recent memory? Well, I’ll tell you. It was .227/.304/.397 for an OPS of .701.

I know you haven’t forgotten how maddening this team was in 2023, but the 2024 numbers are eerily reminiscent, aren’t they? And they indicate that while 2024 feels better because Soto is so great, not much has changed. If you take Soto’s .337 average out of the mix, the Yankees’ batting average falls from .239 to .226.

And where are the home runs? This is a team built for power, yet they have only 22 which is tied for 13th with, among other teams, the tanking A’s.

They have to get this figured out because as we’ve clearly seen, this team is going to need to score plenty of runs because the starting pitchers are nearly as inconsistent as the offense and don’t provide enough length, and the bullpen is nowhere close to as deep and daunting as it has been in recent years as it currently ranks dead last in MLB at 6.91 strikeouts per nine innings.

April 19: Yankees 5, Rays 3

The Lead: Juan Soto is truly unbelievable

This was one of those nights where the box score did not tell the story of the game. For most of the night, the Rays dominated as they out-hit the Yankees 14-5, but the indomitable Soto refused to let the Yankees lose a game they probably should have lost.

I tweeted following his mammoth three-run homer into the upper deck in right that every time Soto is up I just expect him to come through. And I haven’t felt that way about a Yankee in a long, long time, including Aaron Judge.

Judge has been a great Yankee, but my confidence level in him on an at bat to at bat basis has never approached what I’m feeling these days when Soto steps into the box. Even in his 62-homer season, I did not expect Judge to do something positive in every at bat, but with Soto, I do. The guy is a machine, a batting savant, and while I knew he was a great player when he was with the Nationals and Padres, now that I watch him every night, it’s spellbinding must-see TV for sure.

“It’s like a main event when he walks up to the plate,” Aaron Boone said. “This is Broadway.”

Clarke Schmidt said what every Yankee fan is thinking right now regarding trying to sign Soto in the offseason to a long-term contract. “I guess sign on the dotted line, however much he wants,” Schmidt said. “He always comes through. Very rare to see a player of that caliber.”

Game notes and observations:

➤ Schmidt was good as he threw five scoreless innings before Richie Palacios got him for a long solo homer to right in the sixth. He gave up seven hits and did not walk a batter which was nice after he walked five in his last start. He also struck out seven as his knuckle-curve was very effective. But once again, he would get ahead of hitters, then start to nibble, his pitch count climbs and Boone had to take him out with one out in the sixth. I just wish Schmidt could occasionally go six or seven innings because this Yankees bullpen scares me.

➤ Speaking of which, Dennis Santana did a nice job in relief as he left one Schmidt runner stranded in the sixth, then induced an inning-ending double play in the seventh. However, Ian Hamilton was awful and very nearly handed the game back to the Rays. Right after the Yankees put up five runs in the seventh, Hamilton threw batting practice in the eighth. Line drive after line drive with a walk mixed in and the Rays scored twice to get within 5-3 and had men on first and third when Hamilton finally got out of the mess with a ground ball to third.

➤ That passed the baton to Cardiac Clay Holmes in the ninth with a two-run lead to protect. By the end of the night, Holmes’ ERA remained 0.00. Hard as it may be to believe, he has not allowed an earned run in his first 11 appearances and he was leading MLB in saves with eight, but I swear Holmes has to have the worst 0.00 ERA in baseball history. Every game is a nail biter with this guy, and Friday was no different. Ex-Yankee Ben Rortvedt and Yandy Diaz opened with singles and I’m sitting there swearing and saying “Here we go again.” But, as he’s done all year, he got himself into a jam and got himself out, though he was lucky the line drive by Palacios was hit right at Anthony Volpe who then flipped to Gleyber Torres for a game-ending double play.

➤ As for the offense, mostly horrible. They were blanked for 5.1 innings by soft tossing Tyler Alexander who gave up just two hits and a walk and the only inning they scored in was the explosive seventh against Chris Devenski with plenty of help from the Rays infield. So yeah, it took some very good fortune as the five runs came on just two hits. The first run came on Oswaldo Cabrera’s grounder that was booted by the second baseman, Volpe came up with an RBI single, and then Soto launched his three-run homer.

➤ News before the game that DJ LeMahieu - surprise, surprise - was not ready to begin his rehab assignment because another MRI showed he’s not ready to do that so it might happen this week. I’m not holding my breath.

April 20: Rays 2, Yankees 0

The Lead: Saying goodbye to John Sterling

This was no way to bid farewell to the longtime radio play-by-play man. If only the Yankees could hit as well as they do tribute days, right? It was a very nice pregame ceremony for the retiring Sterling, but then he and all of us were subjected to another deplorable offensive day by the Yankees.

And what a shame it was that they wasted a great outing by Nestor Cortes as he threw seven scoreless innings allowing six hits with no walks and nine strikeouts. It was reminiscent of his eight two-hit shutout innings against Miami on April 8, but this might have been better because the Rays lineup is superior to the Marlins. All for naught because the Yankees offense was once again putrid.

Cortes has been a mixed bag so far because while his starts against the Rays and Marlins were masterpieces, his other three have been pretty ho-hum as he failed to get past the fifth inning against the Guardians, Diamondbacks and Astros and allowed 11 earned runs in 14 innings. “Hopefully today, I can continue to do that and go back to my old self like I was in 2022,” Cortes said.

Yeah, that’s what we all hope because this team has enough flaws to derail it and it needs Cortes to be reliable.

Game notes and observations:

➤ Cortes retired the first eight men and 12 of the first 13 and was at just 51 pitches through four innings. In the fifth he hit his first speed bump but negotiated through back-to-back singles by striking out Jose Siri and Rene Pinto to strand men on second and third. Two more singles in the sixth put men on first and second with one out, but once he again he got out of the jam.

➤ The bullpen took over in the eighth and Luke Weaver looked great in a 1-2-3, and so did Holmes in the ninth, though naturally it wasn’t a 1-2-3 because that simply isn’t possible with Holmes.

➤ So, after nine scoreless innings, Caleb Ferguson was chosen for the 10th and, as he has all season, he sucked. It took four pitches before the automatic runner at second scored thanks to a double by Jose Caballero. And after an out and a stolen base, Ferguson gave up an RBI single to Rortvedt who, before he left the Yankees a month ago was quite literally one of the worst hitters in all of baseball with a career average of .146. This single was his third hit in the two first games and he’s hitting .324 for the Rays. As for Ferguson, he has now allowed at least one run in four of his last six appearances and his ERA is 6.23.

➤ Boone sat out the still struggling Torres and played Jahmai Jones at second, and he also had Trent Grisham and Austin Wells in the lineup. They went a combined 0-for-7. Volpe’s tumble off the cliff this week continued, another 0-for-4. And then there was Judge who continues to look utterly clueless as he struck out in all four at bats and heard boos from the crowd, many of whom were taking home his bobblehead. Man, tough crowd, but he deserved it, and he admitted afterward that he did.

April 21: Yankees 5, Rays 4

The Lead: Holding on for dear life

Hey, progress. The Yankees scored in two innings! That’s right, two, and that was just enough to outlast the Rays who closed with a flurry of punches that almost knocked the Yankees out.

With the exception of his two brain farts in the third inning when he gifted the Rays the only run they scored off him, Luis Gil had a very nice outing. Putting behind him the nightmarish seven-walk performance against the Blue Jays last week, Gil was much sharper as he lasted 5.2 innings and gave up only two hits and three walks while striking out a career-high nine.

“It feels great to be able to get the win,” Gil said. “Every time you have an opportunity like that, you just want to go out and battle.”

Gil is the No. 5 starter so it’s unfair to expect a whole lot from him, but you can see the talent oozing out of him and if he can give the Yankees outings like this one, they’ll take that every time.

Game notes and observations:

➤ Volpe is experiencing a gruesome market correction after his hot start. He went 0-for-5 and is now in a 2-for-25 slump with one RBI. And the trouble goes back a little further than that. Ever since he was moved to the leadoff spot April 10, he has cratered. After batting .375 in the first 11 games, Boone moved him to the top and since then he’s hitting .200. Coupled with Torres’ 11 games, the Yankees’ leadoff hitters are batting .198 which ranks 24th in MLB. Last year, Yankees leadoff men batted a cumulative .227 which ranked 27th. More proof that this offense really isn’t much better than last year’s.

➤ In the first inning, Soto and Giancarlo Stanton drew walks and Anthony Rizzo - who has done nothing all year - came through with an RBI single up the middle.

➤ Gil gave that run back in the third through his own fault. Caballero led off with a double, and after he struck out Diaz, Gil threw the ball into center field trying to pick off Caballero for an error. Then after he whiffed Randy Arozarena, he got preoccupied by Caballero dancing off third and balked him home. Oh, that was so frustrating.

➤ He also was called for a balk in the fourth but escaped unharmed. In the sixth, Gil got two quick outs but then back-to-back walks ended his day at 97 pitches so Weaver came in and made things interesting. On what should have been a routine third out, Weaver dropped Rizzo’s toss at first for an error to load the bases, but he got Curtis Mead to line out to left.

➤ At that point the Yankees were up 5-1 thanks to a big two-out rally in the fifth. After Soto and Judge grounded out, Rays starter Aaron Civale hit the wall. He walked Stanton, Rizzo and Torres, then gave up a two-run single to Alex Verdugo, and RBI singles to Jose Trevino and Cabrera. All three of the hits came on first pitches.

➤ Of course, if you thought the most annoying team in baseball would go quietly, you were wrong. Weaver pitched a 1-2-3 seventh but then Santana was terrible in the eighth as he gave up three runs. The big at bat came from Isaac Paredes who fouled off six straight two-strike pitches before finally drawing an 11-pitch walk. That led to Amed Rosario’s two-run double and Mead’s RBI single before Santana finally got Rortvedt on a liner to right to end it.

➤ In the ninth, with Holmes unavailable, Boone turned to Victor Gonzalez and keeping in line with Holmes’ policy of never making things easy, he walked Arozarena with two outs before ending the game when he knocked down a grounder hit by Harold Ramirez, scrambled toward first to field the ball and then flipped to Rizzo just in time for the final out. Phew!

Hapless Oakland comes to Yankee Stadium for a four-game set starting Monday night and I know it’s tough to sweep a four-game series, but the A’s are barely a major league team. At the very least, three out of four is an absolute requirement for the Yankees, especially since they hit the road for two tough series in Milwaukee and Baltimore.

The A’s just got swept three straight by the Guardians and are 8-14 and the only reason they aren’t in last place in the AL West is because the Astros are 7-16. They have a few decent players such as catcher Shea Langeliers who leads the team with four homers and 10 RBI, and second baseman Zach Gelof has a nice future, though he’s off to a poor start. Not that he’s alone. Gelof is one of five starters who is batting under .200.

As a team the A’s are slashing .207/.277/.343 for an OPS of .620 and their 63 runs are second-fewest in MLB. On the pitching side, they haven’t been quite as egregious, but their staff ERA of 4.18 ranks 20th and their 1.370 WHIP is 25th.

The pitching matchups are expected to look like this: Monday at 1:05 on YES it’s Carlos Rodon (3.66) against ex-Yankee J.P. Sears (4.35); Tuesday at 7:05 on YES it’s Marcus Stroman (2.42) against Paul Blackburn (1.08); Wednesday at 7:05 on Amazon Prime it’s Clarke Schmidt (3.15) against Joe Boyle (7.23); and Thursday at 7:05 it’s Nestor Cortes (3.41) against Alex Wood (7.89).