Yankees Reach a New Low as They Get Swept by The Reds

The Yankees stink, folks. I’m not breaking any news here. Getting swept by the Cincinnati Reds has established a new low point for the 2024 season, and it has become plainly evident that this team - despite Aaron Boone’s never-ending belief that everything will be fine - is collapsing before our very eyes, just in time for the hated Red Sox to come to town ready and willing to add to the Yankees misery. Lets get to it.

July 4: Red 8, Yankees 4

What am I supposed to say this morning? I mean quite frankly, I don’t want to say anything. My mother - probably like many of your mothers - always said, “If you can’t say anything nice, then don’t say anything” and I certainly have nothing nice to say about the Yankees.

But that rule doesn’t apply to sports writing and so, while the Yankees took the past few days off and allowed the Reds to complete a mind-numbing three-game sweep at Yankee Stadium, the Thursday finale on the Fourth of July a debacle almost from the moment it started, there are no days off for your favorite sports writer. Win or lose, I have to deliver, so here goes.

The struggle I face these days is trying to find different ways to say the same thing over and over and over. Seriously, how many more ways can I tell you how much the starting pitching has collapsed, how continually terrible the bullpen is, how incredibly anemic the lineup is? It’s hard, folks because I feel like I’m just repeating myself every day when I recap their latest nightmare performance.

And in the macro view, it’s like we’re on a constant loop with this team year after year after year. They start well, get our hopes up and tease us into thinking something is different, and then they revert to being the same disappointing and frustrating team they’ve been ever since Aaron Boone became manager in 2018. Meaning, they aren’t close to being good enough to win a World Series.

This three-game sweep at the hands of the Reds is, obviously, the low point of a season that is in full torpedo mode. How the Yankees could lose three straight games at home to a team that came to town six games under .500, especially at a time when their senses had to be heightened given how lousy they had been playing, is beyond comprehension.

The Yankees never even had a lead in any of the three games. It was just a deplorable no-show on every level and if they have any pride, they should be disgusted with themselves for the way this went down. Since June 13 they have played 19 games and they’ve lost 14 which is more losses in that stretch than any team in MLB. That’s right, the dregs of MLB, the Rockies, White Sox, Marlins and A’s - four teams that are a combined 116 games under .500 this season - have not lost 14 times since June 13, but the Yankees have.

“We have to play better on all fronts,” Boone said, an understatement of epic proportion. “It seems like we are playing catchup a lot. It’s a difficult way to play. But it’s on all of us. We understand that we have to play better, also with the realization that you are going to go through a tough stretch. But also understanding you need a kick in the butt and make sure we are coming in here with the right level of focus.”

“You got to get beat down a little bit to see what you’re made of,” Aaron Judge said. “We’re gonna find out real soon.”

They sure are, and my hunch is that Judge, Boone and all of us are not going to like what we’re about to find out.

Here are my observations:

➤ Marcus Stroman is clearly a pitcher you never quite know what you’re going to get from start to start. He’s had a few excellent turns this season, and he’s had some clunkers and this one fell in the latter category as he gave up five runs - all on home runs - during his five uninspiring innings. In the first 72 games of the year, Yankees starters allowed five runs or more just three times. This was the seventh time in the last 17 games it has happened, and in those 17 games the starters have been tagged for 21 homers.

➤ There were solo shots in the second by Nick Martini and Jonathan India in the third, two guys who now have a combined 11 homers on the season. And then in the game-deciding fifth, with two on and two out, Stroman left a cutter over the plate and Spencer Steer short-porched him for a three-run dinger that made it 5-0. Ballgame over.

➤ “I’ve got to be better in that fifth and give us a chance there,’’ Stroman said. “I was one pitch away from keeping it to two runs. I didn’t do my job.” No, he sure didn’t. The Reds began the series having hit just 79 home runs all season, but they mashed seven against the Yankees lame pitching staff.

➤ The Yankees, who started the week with the second-most homers in MLB with 124, hit none in the first two games before hitting three in this one, not that it mattered. Austin Wells and Ben Rice each went deep in the bottom of the fifth off former Yankee bust Frankie Montas, for Rice his first in the big leagues. Yeah, Montas. Remember him? One of Brian Cashman’s worst trade acquisitions and lowest moments of his career as the Yankees’ GM. Montas lasted five-plus innings and he wasn’t great, but he was better than Stroman and wound up as the winning pitcher. More salt in the wound in this series.

➤ Down 5-2, the Yankees ran themselves out of a chance to get closer in the sixth with the old “run on contact play” which continues to kill this team. Alex Verdugo doubled and was on third with one out when Anthony Volpe - who Boone finally took out of the leadoff spot and moved him down to sixth in the order - came up. As usual, Volpe made terrible contact and hit a bouncer right at shortstop Elly De La Cruz, but despite the infield being in on the grass, Verdugo still broke for home. It wasn’t even close. Out, threat killed. It’s beyond ridiculous how bad base running has become, not only with the Yankees but all teams.

➤ The Reds then blew it open in the seventh against the bottom of the bullpen. Tim Hill gave up two singles and with two outs, Jake Cousins came in and after he walked Steer, he gave up a three-run triple to Jake Fraley for an 8-2 lead and the fans let the Yankees have it with loud and well deserved booing.

➤ Juan Soto decided in the bottom of the seventh that trying to draw his one-millionth walk probably wasn’t going to help the Yankees so instead he crushed a two-run homer to center. Again, I’ll say it again, I wish he would stop showing off how good he is at drawing walks and start hammering the ball like he did in this spot. He’s too pure a hitter to constantly be looking for walks, especially on a team when there’s literally only one other guy right now who is capable of driving him in. Though that guy, Judge, went 0-for-7 in the last two games of the series.

➤ “I still feel like we are having some of the right at bats and we are scoring some runs through this, but we have to cash in and take advantage of those leverage opportunities that we get sometimes, especially when you are going through this,” Boone said. “You have to score a little bit right now.” Boone has to be the only person on the planet who thinks the Yankees are still “having some of the right at bats.”

➤ Interleague play began in 1997 and in that time, the Yankees had played 72 series of at least three games against NL teams, and this was the first time they’ve ever been swept. Well done, fellas.

Barely three weeks ago, the Red Sox trailed the first-place Yankees by 14 games in the AL East. As they arrive in the Bronx this weekend for a three-game set, the Red Sox are now just 5.5 games behind the second-place Yankees, and are just four games back in the loss column. That’s right - Boston, a team most predicted would easily finish in last place, has lost 39 games while the Yankees have now lost 35.

Boston won the first series between the teams and that was the exact point when the Yankees’ collapse began, that mid-June weekend at Fenway Park. Boston lost the opener when Verdugo had his revenge game, and then spent the next two nights kicking the shit out of the Yankees and while we didn’t realize it then, the fortunes of both teams completely switched directions.

The Red Sox finished off a sweep of the Marlins Thursday with a 6-5 victory in 12 innings and have now won 12 of their last 16 games. Rafael Devers, who is surely licking his chops over the prospect of facing the Yankees, has 18 homers and 51 RBI and a .947 OPS. Connor Wong is hitting a team-high .323, and Jarren Duran has become one of the most dynamic players in the sport. He has 10 homers, 40 RBI, 21 stolen bases, an .831 OPS and plays as good a center field as anyone in MLB. On the mound, the Red Sox team ERA of 3.57 is now better than the Yankees’ 3.59.

The pitching matchups are as follows: Friday at 7:05 on YES it’s Nestor Cortes (3.51) against Boston’s ace, Tanner Houck (2.47); Saturday at 1:05 on YES it’s Gerrit Cole (6.23) against Josh Winckowski (2.80); and Sunday at 7:10 on ESPN it’s Luis Gil (3.41) against Kutter Crawford (3.47). The way things are going in the moment, that looks and feels like three losses for the Yankees.