The New York Yankees will hope to have turned a corner ahead of the last month of the regular MLB season after officially finishing August with a 10-18 record, the worst in the American League this month after the Detroit Tigers (9-18).
The Yankees led 2-0 going into the sixth inning on Wednesday until two errors and a homerun by Shohei Ohtani reversed the game’s outcome. That was the nail in the coffin for what has been a miserable last 31 days for the Yankees.
The franchise has not had such a low winning percentage (.357) in a single month since September 1991 (9-19, .321).
Signings and acquisitions made ahead of the August 2 trade deadline were expected to stop the bleeding, notably the ones of pitchers Frankie Montas and Lou Trivino from the Oakland Athletics. However, the Yankees went on to lose nine of their next 27 games since then.
Bad losses against the Kansas City Royals and the Baltimore Orioles, as well as the team’s recent conclusion of its West Coast trip, where it split a four-game series against the lowly-ranked Oakland Athletics and lost two-out-of-three games against the Angels, have fans worried ahead of the postseason.
The Yankees have now lost nine of their last 27 games in August after losing 3-2 to the Angels
To make matters worse, the Yankees will now travel to the Tampa Bay area to face the pesky Rays in a three-game series starting Friday. Should the Rays beat the Yankees at Tropicana field in that matchup, as well as in two other games in September, then the Yankees will lose their six-game advantage, as the race to finish first of the AL East could potentially go right to the wire .
However, as shortstop Isiah Kiner-Falefa said while calmly sitting at his locker and reflecting on the team’s mistakes in a three-run sixth inning on Wednesday night, the Yankees are putting their hands up.
‘Brutal. I think all of us in here are not happy about last month,’ Kiner-Falefa told reporters.
‘It’s a long season and hopefully we can rebound from it. Maybe it might be a good wake-up call for us. Try to look at the positives out of it, but we’re not happy about the last month. We’re just happy to turn the page.’
At times this season, the Yankees had a sizable margin as high as 15.5 games in front of the second seed in the AL East, but now the prospect of potentially entering the postseason as a wild card is looming, should the losses keep coming.
Gerrit Cole told his teammates to remember they are in first place in the AL to get back on track
‘We’ll have to shower this one off,’ starting pitcher Gerrit Cole said after Wednesday’s loss against the Angels. ‘A new month coming up and plenty of games left.’
Cole added that the team cannot stay stuck on its awful August run, although he encouraged his teammates to learn from their mistakes. The 31-year-old right-handed pitcher further said the team must remember its current seeding as first in the AL East and remember that it is still in pole position to make a deep run in the playoffs when they get there.
Manager Aaron Boone added that certain players need to step up from their recent slumps and for others to come back healthy for the team to return to its top level, as once shown in April and May.
‘We’re a little banged up within the lineup and obviously missing some key pieces that we need to get back,’ Boone elaborated. That said, we have all the pieces right now to be able to go out and win baseball games and that’s what we’ve got to take care of.
Aaron Boone isn’t too stressed about the blip, as he’s waiting on injured players to return
‘The unfortunate part of the last several weeks for us, has been we’ve been losing those close games and that’s what we’ve got to find a way to punch through,’ he added. ‘I think a big part of that is just getting a few guys going from a performance standpoint, from a health standpoint.’
However, the former infielder-turned-into manager stressed that injuries are no excuses and that the team needs to hold itself accountable.
‘We’ve got to play better than we have lately, simple as that,’ the manager revealed. ‘We’ve got to start racking up some wins. Whether the calendar has an eight or a nine or a 10 on it, you gotta get a little better.’
Doubts on whether the team can successfully shrug off a lengthy, bad run remains to be seen, and will undoubtedly contribute to questions on whether the Yankees truly have what it takes to make a deep postseason run and reach the World Series.
‘It all comes down to how we answer and if we can go [to Tampa] and answer them and keep our lead, it’s all we can do,’ said Kiner-Falefa.
‘So at this point, we’ve just gotta play better, flip the page. Hopefully this next month, we can take momentum into the postseason and hold onto our lead.’
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