Downfall in Pinstripes: Inside the New York Yankees' Struggles
The New York Yankees entered the 2024 MLB season with high hopes, hoping to make up for missing the playoffs last season for the first time since 2016. Despite losing starting pitcher Gerrit Cole to an elbow injury at the start of the season, the Yankees were playing beyond expectations for the first two and a half months of this season. The Yankees had an amazing 45-19 record going into their series against the Los Angeles Dodgers in early June. They were leading the AL East by four-and-a-half games and appeared to be world-beaters. However, even with MVP-caliber play from superstar Aaron Judge so far this season, who has 32 home runs and 83 RBIs, the Yankees have had a terrible time getting back into the swing of things since the Dodgers series, which saw them atop the MLB standings entering early June.
The Yankees as a team have collapsed, going 4-13 in their last 17 games since the weekend series against the Dodgers. After winning a four-game series against the Kansas City Royals in mid-June, the Yankees have only prevailed in one of their last seven series. Furthermore, the Yankees have suffered losses in seven of their previous eight home games, including four in a row. The Yankees' problems have been a serious mix of pitching and offense, rather than just one of them. During this stretch of games, the Yankees have a run differential of -38 and a league-worst 6.69 ERA. Since getting destroyed by the Baltimore Orioles on June 20th, when the Yankees lost 17–5, rookie pitcher Luis Gil, who was leading the Yankees' rotation while Cole was out, has had difficulty regaining control of the ball and finding his rhythm. Gil pitched a career-low one-and-a-third innings and gave up seven earned runs against the Orioles. Since then, Gil has thrown eight-and-a-third innings, giving up six hits, nine earned runs, and seven walks while failing to finish the fifth inning in his last two appearances.
Due to Giancarlo Stanton's hamstring injury, which has sidelined him since June 23rd, the Yankees have had to rely on Judge and star outfielder Juan Soto to shoulder the offensive load for the previous month. Still, the Yankees haven't found much success offensively, despite Judge and Soto's best efforts. The Yankees have a dismal batting average of .221, which ranks 26th, a .315 on-base percentage, and a .383 slugging percentage in their last 19 games. The Yankees have dropped to 54-35 and are currently in second place in the AL East as a result of this awful stretch of play, with the Orioles leading the Yankees by two games going into Friday's games.
The Yankees will start an in-division stretch of games to close out the first half of the season with nine games remaining before the All-Star Break. The stretch of games starts this weekend against the Boston Red Sox and ends with a road series against the Tampa Bay Rays and the Orioles. The three-game series against the Orioles at Camden Yards next weekend has become even more important because the Orioles have won five of the first seven meetings and only need two more victories to secure the regular season series tiebreaker against the Yankees. The Yankees will need to start playing better in the batter's box and on the mound if they expect to end this poor run of games, and general manager Brian Cashman will need to try and add to the team in a number of ways during the trade deadline.
