1. The Yankees played a good team on Monday, so you can guess how it went. They lost 5-4 to the Blue Jays.
It’s understandable the Yankees lost. When you go 6-10 against the Red Sox, Angels, Orioles, Reds and A’s over your last 16 games, it’s easy to see how you would lose to a Blue Jays team that is now eight games above .500. A Blue Jays team that is now just two games behind in the AL East.
2. Through four-and-a-half innings on Monday, the Yankees led 2-0 and it looked like they may finish June with a winning record despite the last few weeks. It still looked that way when they led 3-1 going into the bottom of the sixth. But then it all fell apart as a result of poor defense and poor decision making. The Blue Jays scored four runs in the sixth with just one ball reaching the outfield grass in the air.
The inning started with Carlos Rodon still on the mound. Rodon had put eight baserunners on in five innings, but had limited the damage to one run. Aaron Boone sent Rodon back out to for the sixth even though a right-handed batter in Davis Schneider was due up. Rodon asked out of the Yankees’ frustrating loss last week in Cincinnati after 88 pitches due to the heat and here he was at 90 pitches and drenched in sweat in the climate-controlled Rogers Centre being asked to pitch another inning. Rodon couldn’t put Schneider away and gave up a leadoff double. Boone promptly removed Rodon after the double. Boone’s plan to steal outs with his laboring starter despite having a well-rested bullpen backfired the way it always does.
3. Boone’s plan after the fifth inning was clearly to try to steal outs in the sixth with Rodon and if he couldn’t steal them he would get the final 12 outs by getting one inning each from Mark Leiter Jr., Jonathan Loaisiga, Luke Weaver and Devin Williams. Except the plan never got that far. Rather than give Leiter Jr. a clean inning to work with and back-to-back right-handed batters to face, Boone brought in Leiter Jr. with the tying run at the plate.
Leiter Jr. got Myles Straw — the first batter he faced — to hit a ground ball to short. Anthony Volpe fielded the ball and then threw it wildly to third base, a play he has consistently failed to make (and no instances more memorable than Game 5 of the World Series). The errant throw allowed Schneider to score and Straw to move to second. The Yankees’ lead was now 3-2 with the tying run on second and no outs. Nathan Lukes followed with a single on the ground to left field to put runners on the corners with no outs. Leiter Jr. bounced back to strike out Will Wagner, but a wild pitch moved Lukes to second.
With second and third and one out, the speedy Ernie Clement hit a ground ball to Volpe. The ball would score Straw to tie the game. With no play to get Clement at first, Volpe decided to hold on to the ball to keep Lukes from advancing to third with only one out.
Just kidding!
In an attempt to be a hero like he always tries to be on defense, Volpe threw the ball to first with his below-league-average arm for a shortstop even though Clement was about to reach the base before Volpe let go of the ball. Once Volpe threw the ball, Lukes took off for third. Volpe’s decision to inexplicably throw across the diamond put runners on the corners again with one out.
Loaisiga then came in to relieve Leiter Jr. He got ahead of George Springer 0-2, but J.C. Escarra committed catcher’s interference to put Springer on and load the bases with one out. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. then singled in Lukes to give the Blue Jays a lead they wouldn’t relinquish.
4. If the ball is hit to Volpe in a big spot, you can be sure it won’t end well. I have never seen someone make so many defensive mistakes in crucial situations. If he’s not bobbling the ball, he’s throwing it away. If he’s not throwing it away, he’s making a low Baseball IQ decision on what to do with it. He’s the last person I want the ball hit to on the field on a team that is playing a middle infielder at third base, two of the oldest players in the league at first base and second base and a left fielder the team didn’t trust to play all nine innings of games defensively for the first month of the season.
It’s not just that Volpe sucks at hitting (13 percent worse than league average in 1,626 career plate appearances), is a horrific base stealer (caught in seven of 16 attempts this season) and has ruined countless close games late with his fielding, but his postgame interviews when he screws up are infuriating. (Who can forget his postgame last season when he walked home from third and didn’t score before the third out of the inning was made on the bases?)
After the loss, the media was at Volpe’s locker to ask him about his sixth-inning throws and choices.
“How frustrating was the sixth inning?” Volpe was asked.
“That’s baseball. It happens,” Volpe answered. “That’s baseball. It happens,” he repeated.
“That’s baseball” is the favorite go-to phrase of Volpe’s manager. It’s the easiest excuse for anyone in baseball to use and because Boone has needed to make a lot of excuses in his seven-and-a-half disappointing seasons as Yankees manager, it’s the one he has used most. So why wouldn’t the Golden Boy not use it? He hears his manger who has created a comfortable-with-losing culture say it nearly every time the Yankees lose. The team’s captain said it just last week when asked about the Yankees’ June swoon. Boone and Aaron Judge are the faces of this era of Yankees disappointment in which accountability is optional at best and Volpe was raised in this environment by those two. It makes sense he sounds just like them.
“Do you second-guess at all trying to make a play at first?” Volpe was asked.
“No,” Volpe said. “Not at all.”
“You thought you had a chance at Clement?” was the follow-up question.
“Yeah, I mean you gotta make that play,” Volpe said. “You gotta make a play on that ball.”
Umm, no you don’t? When Boone was asked if he thought Volpe had a play on Clement, the manager said, “No … From my vantage point I felt like he wasn’t going to have a play.”
“How would you sum up your first half?” Volpe was asked.
“I feel like I put myself in a lot of good positions to make a lot of plays,” Volpe said, “There’s obviously a lot of plays you want to have back.”
So he puts himself in position to make a lot of plays, but doesn’t make a lot of the plays? Got it.
“The error today, I’m going to go for that play every single time,” Volpe said.
It’s good to know that every single time a ball is hit in the hole with a runner already sliding into third base that Volpe is going to try to throw an already-safe runner out with his below league-average arm. Remember that quote the next time that same play happens because it’s going to happen again. Volpe told everyone he’s going to make the wrong choice the next time it happens because he said he’s going to make the wrong choice “every single time” that play occurs.
“The play at first base, you thought you had a shot on that play?” was asked one last time to try to get Volpe to save himself and admit wrongdoing.
“Yeah,” Volpe answered, avoiding admitting any wrongdoing.
5. Volpe could have said he needs to make a better throw to third base. He didn’t. He could have said he should have better understood the situations of both throws and should have put both throws in his pocket. He didn’t. He said he would do the same thing every single time in the future. He could have said he messed up and needs to be better, taken the blame and been accountable and no one would be talking about his apparently low Baseball IQ or his delusional self assessment.
Maybe it’s not Volpe’s fault he has no self awareness for his play. He was a first-round pick out of high school by the Yankees. He performed well in the minors. He was given the everyday job out of spring training two years ago and has never been threatened for even a second with being benched let alone sent down. He has been told his whole life how great he is, including by the Yankees. Now for the first time his ability is constantly and rightfully being questioned by the media and fans and he doesn’t know how to handle it or answer for it.
The Golden Boy never struggled in his baseball career before reaching the majors, and since reaching them, he has never for a second had to worry about losing playing time or his starting role. His name is on the lineup card every day and his manager defends him against any criticism like he’s his son. So why wouldn’t he be delusional about his performance?
6. I’m over Volpe. He does nothing well other than commit game-ruining errors, get caught stealing and hit weak ground balls to the left side. It’s gotten to the point that I’m checking in daily on George Lombard Jr.’s performance at Double-A since he’s the only way out of this mess. I could see the Yankees trading Lombard Jr. before he ever reaches the majors just so Volpe has no competition and can continue to be the team’s everyday shortstop. That’s how stubborn the organization is when it comes to trying to prove they weren’t wrong in their evaluation of a player who hasn’t improved offensively after more than two years and whose defense and baserunning has regressed.
7. Trent Grisham was 1-for-2 before leaving the game with a hamstring injury. Jasson Dominguez took over for him and picked up a pair of hits. It looks like Dominguez will finally get to play every day with Grisham likely to go on the injured list. Dominguez has hit .275 over his last 30 games, .341 over his last 15 games and .409 over his last seven games. He has a .338 on-base percentage and is 12-for-13 stealing bases. If only he was born in New York City and grew up in New Jersey maybe he wouldn’t need another player to go on the IL to become an everyday player.
8. Jazz Chisholm hit a two-run home run and Cody Bellinger added a solo home run. Judge went 0-for-2 with two intentional walks. Giancarlo Stanton had an RBI single. The 6-through-9 hitters of Ben Rice, Volpe, Escarra and DJ LeMahieu went 1-for-15 with four strikeouts.
9. Before the series started, I wrote:
I trust the Yankees’ starting pitching. I expect strong starts from everyone in the rotation, so I’m not worried about the pitching not showing up this week in Toronto. I’m only really worried about the offense.
The starting pitching was good enough and the offense provided enough runs to win, but the managing (not giving Leiter Jr. a clean sixth inning) was poor and the defense was sloppy, the way it has always been and always will be under Boone. Thankfully, the Rays lost so the Yankees’ lead in the division remains two games. Except it’s now two games over both the Rays and Blue Jays.
10. The Yankees will turn to Max Fried tomorrow who only seems to pitch after Yankees losses. The Yankees are 13-4 when Fried starts and 35-32 when he doesn’t. Kevin Gausman gets the ball for the Blue Jays. The Yankees chased him in the third inning back on April 27 in an 11-2 win, a game in which Fried didn’t allow an earned run over six innings. Let’s do that again: Score 11 runs, take Boone and the bullpen and the possibility of a defensive disaster out of the equation and prevent any more ground from being made up in the division.
