Yankees Thoughts: Juan Soto and the Losers

The Yankees were embarrassed by the Mets in a 12-3 loss and finished this season’s Subway Series without a win. They have lost four of six since the All-Star break and 23 of 34 dating back to June 13.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. Another game, another loss. At this point I expect the Yankees to lose every game the way a Rockies fan expects their team to lose every game. (Ironically, the worst team in the National League scored 20 runs against the Red Sox on Wednesday and won a series against them, something the Yankees have been unable to do.) The Yankees are 11-23 over their last 34 games, a .324 winning percentage over 21 percent of the season. In their last 40 games, they have a slightly better .375 winning percentage over a period of time equal to 25 percent of the season. Whether you want to look at it from a standpoint of one-fifth of the season or a quarter of the season, the Yankees have been a bad team for a long time.

2. That’s because collectively, the team is a group of losers led by the biggest loser of all in their manager. Outside of Juan Soto, of course. The generational superstar continues to produce in all situations and boasts a .306/.414/.571 slash line in late-and-close situations. (For comparison, Aaron Judge is batting .216/.322/.431 in late-and-close situations). Soto is a proven winner, having helped lead the Nationals to a World Series win over the Astros in 2019, a series in which he hit .333/.438/.741 with three home runs. (The Yankees as a team hit three home runs against the Astros in the 2022 ALCS.) He’s the only Yankee excused from criticism for this season.

3. On Wednesday night, having lost 22 of 33 since June 13, having lost three of five since the All-Star break and having lost every game to the Mets this season, you would think the Yankees, behind their so-called ace, would play, pitch and manage with urgency. They didn’t.

A day after Boone posted the worst lineup imaginable because of a left-handed opposing starter, he abandoned that lineup despite facing another left-hander. If the lineup he posted on Tuesday was what he thought was the best possible lineup to beat a lefty, why didn’t he go back to that same lineup on Wednesday?

4. Jahmai Jones was on the bench, J.D. Davis was oddly bumped down from cleanup to seventh, and Austin Wells and Oswaldo Cabrera were back in. Boone made sure to keep Ben Rice out though. He can start against Chris Sale or take the last plate appearance of a game against Jake Diekman, but he can’t face Jose Quintana or Sean Manaea.

5. Boone decided to use Davis as his designated hitter for this one. Most teams use a slugger in that role, the Yankees use Jones and Davis. Why did Boone choose Davis over Rice? Here is his answer:

“Yeah, I mean, also want to get where you’re trying to leverage situations. I think you look at Manaea too, pretty small sample like you look at his career, it’s pretty stark the other way. So you kind of peel the onion back a little bit and is that what he’s going to be moving forward? We’re not trying to predict what happened yesterday. We’re trying to what happened moving forward, and the reality is we brought J.D. Davis, especially when Rizz went down, to be this kind of, and this is a guy that recently has had a good amount of success. So, but also trying to get young players in positions to where they can be successful as well. And to have, you know, leverage situations as the game unfolds too.”

You may think I made a few typos or forgot to include some words in there. Nope. That’s exactly how Boone answered the question of “What made Davis the call over Rice today?” The person with that thought process is in charge of the culture, clubhouse, lineup card and in-game decisions for the New York Yankees.

6. Gerrit Cole melted down in a big game on a big stage in spectacular fashion, which is what he does best. Cole started two of the four Subway Series games this season, lost both and allowed seven home runs. On Wednesday, he gave up three of those home runs and six earned runs in total, yet his manager had the balls to say, “I thought stuff-wise and fastball profile [were] good.”

7. The offense took another night off. It was the eighth time in July (18 games) the Yankees scored three runs or fewer. When the Yankees score four runs this season they are 53-13, an .803 winning percentage. Four runs. That’s all. Four measly runs and they have an 80 percent chance to win. And yet, in more than one-third of their games to date they weren’t able to do that.

8. Soto went 2-for-3 with a double, home run and walk and Gleyber Torres hit a home run and produced just his second multi-hit game of July. The rest of the offense went 2-for-25.

9. The two AVs — the Golden Boy Anthony Volpe and the unbenchable Alex Verdugo — combined to go 0-for-9 with four strikeouts. I keep hearing about how good Volpe has been since the All-Star break as if there isn’t 1,060 plate appearances worth of data of his suggesting a few good games isn’t him suddenly figuring out. And it was just last week Boone said Verdugo would “go on a heater” after the All-Star break. He’s 2-for-25 since the break.

10. Boone is a dreamer. A dreamer, a believer, a bullshitter and a delusional, happy-go-lucky, comfortable-with-losing moron all rolled into one. As the losses mount, the more agitated he gets that he has to answer questions about the losses. It’s as if he should only have to meet with the media when the team wins.

Following Wednesday’s humiliating 12-3 loss, Boone was as annoyed, frustrated and angry as he’s ever been as Yankees manager. He followed the lead of his general manager’s expletive-filled tirade over the winter by dropping expletives of his own, using “shit” twice in different tenses. Boone refrained from dropping an F-bomb, but did manage to throw in “frickin” two times in his response to a question about the team’s 11-23 collapse.

“We’ve got to play better. OK?”

Yes, yes you do.

“We have it right in front of us.”

Ah, the old “right in front of us.” Boone dropped his favorite phrase for the first time in 2024 on July 7. He used it for the first time last season on July 15, and in 2022, he used it on August 20. Once Boone resorts to telling everyone the season is still in their control, the season never recovers.

“We’re a really good team that has played shitty of late.”

A really good team? I wonder where he got that idea from? Maybe from his boss, the team’s general manager who told the media in the offseason the Yankees “are pretty fucking good” despite posting an 82-80 record, missing the postseason and being the worst Yankees team in more than three decades. Really good teams don’t go 11-23 during any part of the season.

“Of late” means this has only been a recent thing. The Yankees’ collapse dates back to June 13. That’s 21 percent of the season.

“We need to be better.”

We know. You keep saying that. Your captain keeps saying that. Your players keep saying that. Your pitchers keep saying that. And yet, no one is playing better.

“I’m not going to define stretch, this or that.”

I will define it. The Yankees have been a bad team since mid-June. Whether you want to go back 34 games or 40 games, they haven’t been good for at least one-fifth of the season.

“We gotta go win, right?”

That is the objective of the sport.

“And we’re right there. We’re watching other teams struggle around us.”

And there it is! The excuse! The Yankees think because the Orioles haven’t been playing well and because they are only three games behind them in the loss column that it excuses their own play since mid-June.

“We know we’ve got to be better. OK?”

Please stop saying this.

“We’re pissed off in there.”

Yes, I’m sure you’re really pissed. You told us the 2022 and 2023 teams were pissed too. Where did that lead to? In the first instance it led to you using “highlights” from the 2024 ALCS as motivation for your team in its own ALCS, and in the second instance, it led to you managing a team to a playoff-less season, despite 40 percent of the league making the playoffs.

“We got a lot of pride in there.”

That’s nice.

“We have a lot of expectations in there.”

No you don’t. Listen to yourself. Listen to any of your players talk after losses. All you and they talk about is tomorrow and the next game until there aren’t any tomorrows or games left. There’s no urgency and there certainly aren’t any expectations.

“So stretch, slump, recent. I don’t give a shit.”

Clearly, you don’t give a shit, considering you used a guy with a career 48 OPS+ as your designated hitter and leadoff hitter on Tuesday, and used a player released by both the Giants and A’s this season (who is 1-for-16 with eight strikeouts as a Yankee) as your cleanup hitter on Tuesday and then played him again on Wednesday.

“It’s, we’ve got to play better the rest of the way.“

For the last six weeks you have been saying you need to play better and you have only played worse.

“And it’s right there. I’ve said it’s right in front of us. It is.”

Yes, a third straight season collapse is right there.

“It’s right in front of us. Right?”

Yes, you just said that.

“For as bad as it’s been, we’re also in a great position.”

A great position? On June 14, you had a 13-game lead in the loss column on a postseason spot. It’s down to three games.

“And we’ve got to go play baseball the way we’re capable of playing.“

I think you’re playing baseball the way you’re capable of playing.