Yankees Fall Well Short of Meeting the Orioles' High Standard

That was a harsh dose of reality for the Yankees this week as they came face–to-face with what I believe is undeniably the best team in the American League and were mummified on offense in losing three of the four games. At least they know what the standard will be if they harbor any hopes of winning the AL East. And in Box Score Briefs, some thoughts on the Cubs’ Shota Imanaga, Steven Kwan of the Guardians, and the resurgent - just kidding - Marlins.

May 2: Orioles 7, Yankees 2

The only thing that surprised me about this shit show of a series in Baltimore is that the superior Orioles didn’t win all four games. You can look at the scores, with the exception of Thursday’s 7-2 rout, and say “Wait a minute you pessimistic jerk, the Yankees kept the other three close and even won on Wednesday.”

OK, you could say that, but I won’t because what are we doing here if what we’re looking for from the Yankees when they play the best teams is to stay competitive and hope to pull out a game or maybe two?

What I take away from this series is that the Yankees saw how good they’ll have to be if they hope to stay in the same zip code with Baltimore this season, and based on how this went, they won’t be good enough. Lets be honest here, the Orioles didn’t even hit that well in this series and they still won three of four.

“They can pitch, they’re athletic, they’ve got thump,” Aaron Boone said in offering up deserved praise to the Orioles. “They’re a complete team that you know you’ve got to play well, and know they’re going to be there all year long. We look forward to more battles with them. They’re certainly formidable.”

Carlos Rodon stunk Thursday, but otherwise the Yankees pitched very well in this series. It wasn’t enough, though, because their offense was so laughably bad. Across the four games the Yankees scored six runs on 21 hits and went 1-for-18 with runners in scoring position. The six runs were the Yankees fewest in a four-game series since Sept. 12-14, 2014 at Baltimore. And it was the first time since May 12-15, 2008 in Tampa that they scored no more than two runs in a four-game series. Juan Soto batted .429 while the rest of the team hit .145. That’s next level gross.

And speaking of horrendous offense, if you’re not worried about Aaron Judge, man, you must have some incredible faith. He hasn’t looked worse for this length of time since 2016 when he first got called up and was completely overmatched, but that was expected because it was his first exposure to big league pitching. He learned his lessons in 2017 and became a star when he set the MLB rookie record with 52 home runs and he’s been great ever since.

However, having just turned 32 last week, Judge already looks like he’s in decline. No, I don’t expect this level of horror show to continue all year, but I also think it’s safe to say that we have likely seen the best of him already. I know this, the $360 million contract he signed last year which takes him through his age 39 season might end up being the worst one in Yankees history, even worse than the Giancarlo Stanton nightmare we’re currently enduring.

There’s no way a player his size, with his propensity for getting hurt, is going to age well, and I shudder to think what he’ll be in two or three years with the Yankees still being on the hook for four or five more years of payroll jail.

As usual, Judge isn’t worried. Of course he isn’t because the next time he shows a flash of emotion will be the first. I’m so sick of him being the most boring guy on earth. Just once I’d like to hear him say, “Yeah, right now I’m terrible and I need to get my head out of my ass.” Instead, we get the usual vanilla nothingness.

“Right now, when I’m getting that pitch to hit, I’m just missing it or hitting it right into the ground,” said Judge, who went 1-for-13 in the series and his average fell to an embarrassing .197. “I’m going to make a couple of adjustments and we’ll be right there. I’ve had stretches like these, plenty in the major leagues, plenty throughout my life. It’s part of it. I can’t sit here and dwell on it. It’s May. It’s a new month, time to get going.”

He’s as boring as the Yankees offense.

Watching this series, I can’t get to a place where I think the Yankees will actually have a chance to win the AL East, and it’s not just a knee-jerk reaction. After their 12-3 start which was certainly unsustainable, the Yankees are 8-10 in their last 18 games and that is far closer to the team I believe they really are.

If I had to guess right now on May 3, they’ll do well to win around 87 or 88 games and maybe that gets them into the postseason, but this team, with its maddening offense that disappears for games at a time, its rotation that can’t get deep into its starts, and a bullpen that has been too unpredictable is no match for the Orioles.

Baltimore has a roster we’re going to envy for years to come while we watch the Yankees grow older and slower and less athletic before our eyes.

“We have to get better,” Gleyber Torres said. “First series, we got punched in the face. We’ve got three more, so we have to figure out a way to beat them.”

Here are my observations:

➤ For a few minutes, I thought Carlos Rodon was going to be OK. He breezed through the first, then loaded the bases on two singles and a hit by pitch in the second but he escaped without allowing a run by striking out two men and getting a hard-hit liner to left. But after the Yankees had taken a 1-0 lead in the third when Anthony Volpe doubled and scored on a two-out bloop single by Anthony Rizzo, Rodon became a punching bag.

➤ Ryan Mountcastle had been 0-for-the-series when he golfed a two-out solo home run to dead center in the third, and then Rodon served up a pair of solo homers to guys who should not be hitting home runs off him, Jorge Mateo and Ryan McKenna. Then came the nightmarish fifth when the Orioles blew the game open with their only sustained offensive surge of the series.

➤ This looked like 2023 Rodon for the first time in 2024. Adley Rutschman doubled and scored on Mountcastle’s single, and then Torres made yet another boneheaded play when he dropped a toss from Volpe that probably would have been a double play. “You’ve got to secure the ball,” Boone said. “This is the big leagues. You’ve got to make the play, and he didn’t make the play.” Jordan Westburg made the Yankees pay and ended Rodon’s day as he followed that with a two-run triple that made it 6-1. He scored on a sac fly off Ron Marinaccio, and from there the Orioles called off the dogs. So much so that new mop-up man Michael Tonkin pitched two perfect innings.

➤ In the sixth Torres hit his first home run of the year, and first since Sept. 7, 2023, a span of 233 plate appearances. Thanks Gleyber, way to come through when it mattered the least.

➤ Before allowing three homers in a seven-batter stretch, Rodon had allowed just three to the first 147 men he faced this season. “Good hitting team, but got to be better with where I’m throwing the ball and try to limit the long ball and get out sooner,” Rodon said. “It sucks.” Yeah, it did.

The relentless schedule continues this weekend as the Yankees go back home to play a three-game set against the emerging Tigers. The Yankees have not had a day off since April 18 and their next one comes up this Monday, so they have to keep pushing through.

Detroit is off to an 18-13 start and has gone 10-4 on the road to help get to that record. It also has done it primarily with great pitching as the Tigers’ team ERA of 3.12 ranks fourth in MLB, their WHIP is third-best at 1.100, and their batting average against of .214 is fourth-best. And the Yankees will be seeing Detroit’s best three starters in this series, topped by Tarik Skubal who has been one of the best pitchers in MLB.

Skubal is 4-0 with a 1.72 ERA, a 0.740 WHIP, 41 strikeouts compared to just six walks, and the league is hitting .162 off him. If the Tigers get a lead, they also have two outstanding relievers in set-up man Alex Lange (0.75 ERA in 13 games), and closer Jason Foley (nine saves, 1.32 ERA). Yeah, this team is no joke.

Offensively, outfielder Riley Greene leads the Tigers with seven homers and a .906 OPS, though the Tigers have only 28 long balls as a team which ranks 22nd. First baseman Spencer Torkelson is supposed to be their best player, but he has yet to homer and is hitting .219 with a .589 OPS.

The pitching matchups are as follows: Friday at 7:05 on YES it’s Marcus Stroman (3.69 ERA) against Reese Olson (3.18); Saturday at 1:05 on YES it’s Clarke Schmidt (3.19) against Casey Mize (3.08); and Sunday at 1:35 on YES it’s Nestor Cortes (3.86) against Skubal (1.72).

⚾ I know the Mets have struggled at the plate, but that does not take away from the performance of Cubs rookie Shota Imanaga Wednesday night. He shut them out on three hits for seven innings and three relievers finished off Chicago’s 1-0 victory, one that wasn’t secured until a four-minute instant replay determined that Cubs catcher Miguel Amaya did not block the plate as the Cubs gunned down Pete Alonso trying to score the tying run on the final play of the game.

Back to Imanaga, what a start to his MLB career. The Japanese import is now 5-0 with a 0.78 ERA, a 0.750 WHIP, 35 strikeouts and four walks. I gotta admit as someone who is also a fan of the Cubs, this was not something I expected from the 30-year-old lefty.

⚾ Belated kudos to Clark Schmidt for something he pulled off on April 13 which, right now, looks pretty amazing. That day in his start against the Guardians, Schmidt struck out leadoff hitter Steven Kwan twice in the first game of a doubleheader that the Yankees swept. Why is that a big deal? Because since then, Kwan has struck out once in his last 72 plate appearances, zero in the last 62. In this day and age, that’s an amazing streak.

Kwan leads the AL with 45 hits and is second with a .349 average, his seven games with three hits or more also leads the AL and he’s just the fifth player in franchise history with at least seven such games through the first 30 games since Lyn Lary had 10 in 1937. As if that’s not enough, Wednesday night he made a diving catch in left field with the Guardians leading 3-2 in the 10th inning against the Astros, got up and doubled up Victor Caratini who had wandered too far off second base to end the game.

⚾ New Marlins GM Peter Bendix took a lot of grief for his press conference the other day when he insisted his team’s utterly awful 6-24 start was not something to overreact to, and that it was way too early to give up on the season. It was basically laughable because the Marlins season is already over. However, that doesn’t mean they can’t do what they did this week - sweep a three-game series from the equally egregious Rockies.

They won a crazy game Monday when they scored five in the bottom of the ninth to tie it, fell behind in the 10th, then walked it off in the bottom half 7-6. They won 4-1 Tuesday and then Wednesday won 5-4 with another 10th-inning walk off. The combined record of these two teams is now 16-48 so yes, it’s not quite as bad with the Yankees as I often portray it to be.