Yankees’ return to early-season selves must not be a one-off
The Yankees had been playing like a takeoff of a different Sinatra song, not the one that’s about being on top of the list and A-Number One, but the one about being on top of the world in April, May before being shot down in June and July. Something close enough to that.
But not on this Monday in The Bronx, where the 9-1 victory over the Rays served as a nine-inning microcosm of the early months of the season in which the Yankees broke 45-19 from the gate while establishing a 4 ¹/₂-game lead in the East by June 6.
That was before their rotation, bullpen and batting order all crashed at once through a 29-game stretch that included nine victories before Carlos Rodon dominated from the mound in a brilliant seven-inning performance to front a top-to-bottom 15-hit attack that featured five home runs, two from the resplendent Juan Soto.
The Yankees’ fall from grace featured a two-game sweep by the Mets in Queens the final week of June. Now here come the Metsies to The Bronx for the final two-game Subway Series installment on Tuesday and Wednesday.
“We’re just going to try to win games. Whatever happened in the past is in the past,” said Soto, whose seventh-inning moonball down the line in right off Kelly Zuber wrenched necks in the Yankees dugout from those attempting to track the trajectory. “We’re focusing on what is going to happen in this series, we’re going to try and win that series, too, and keep it rolling.”
Aaron Boone, the manager, sang the same tune.
“Well, we want to win but it’s not so much about the Mets, it’s where we are in our season and what we’re fighting for and have been going through,” he said. “It’s not overly personal for me.”
Major League Baseball has become a playoff sport much like pro hockey and basketball. The concept of a pennant race is anachronistic. It’s not necessarily about the long haul. It’s about finishing in the top six of a 15-team league and then putting together wins in series that might involve a best-of-three, a best-of-five and a pair of best-of-sevens.
It’s about having the right stuff in the final week of October and the first days of November. It is no longer our fabled Summer Game.
You’ve got to win series. Multiple.
The Yankees, after splitting this four-game set with Tampa Bay, have won one of their last 10 series, losing seven and splitting a pair. This will not do the rest of the way regardless of the playoff cushion the club holds.
If Monday was representative of the Yankees’ best version of themselves, they’ll need to do it again and again and again to convince folks that this team is for real after so having planted so many false flags the last number of seasons. This is hardly the first time their season has resembled a Six Flags ride.
Two years ago, the Yankees were 61-23 in the first week of July and were being compared to the 1998 team. They then won 12 of their next 37 games. Last year, the Yankees started 36-25 and crashed immediately after Aaron Judge crashed into the wall at Dodger Stadium. So this recent swoon isn’t new.
Still, this was a formidable outfit on the field. Rodon was a throwback to early in the season when he and the rotation dominated even with Gerrit Cole on the IL. Indeed, the rotation led baseball with a 2.77 ERA through their first 72 games. But before Rodon — who’d lost his last five decisions — took the mound, the rotation ranked dead last in the majors with a 6.96 ERA over their last 20 games.
The Yankees starters looked in the mirror and all — except for Cole and Luis Gil, in his past two starts after a three-start implosion — saw a fun-house reflection. Now it will be Gil and Cole lined up for the Mets the next two nights. Now it will be a batting order with perhaps some confidence lying in wait after Monday’s performance in which everyone had at least one hit other than leadoff man Ben Rice.
Soto had three hits and Judge had a pair. But also cleanup man Austin Wells had three hits, including a homer. Anthony Volpe had a pair of hits, including a homer that went back-to-back with Wells in the second. Oswaldo Cabrera had a pair of hits. Even DJ LeMahieu, restored to the lineup, smacked his first home run of the season.
