Something is most definitely wrong with the New York Yankees. Sure we were all surprised and delighted when the Yanks started off the season 50-16, but never did we expect after this run that they would go on this bad of a skid. So where did the Yankees that were headlining every sports article and the top team in the world go?
One clear reasoning behind the downfall has been injuries and that has been a huge obstacle the Yanks have encountered in previous seasons including this one. Currently they have no King, Green, Severino, Stanton, Carpenter, Castro, and Rizzo has been on and off with an injury of his own as of late. When you take out two guys in Rizzo and Stanton, who are 2nd and 3rd on the team in homers and are in the top 20 in the AL for home runs, the offense is going to suffer and recently it has.
And then when you look at how good and shut down the Yanks bullpen was through their first 80 some odd games and now when you lose King and Green for the year you're missing two huge pieces that can come into high-intensity games and help you preserve a slim lead or get out of a jam. King was in the midst of his best professional season and Chad Green, although he went down early, is an all-star reliever that would hurt any team if he got hurt for them.
Severino is a huge loss for this team even after acquiring another starter in Montas because Severino has always found himself on the IL throughout his entire career and we haven't really seen a full season from him or seen him like his 2017 self. In brief glimpses in times when Sevy is healthy he is dominant and you just love to watch him pitch, but he is hurt too often. That leaves you now with no Jordan Montgomery and a questionable 5th spot in the rotation. Right now Domingo German is there but he is nothing like his 18-win season self and is not always very reliable as we have seen in glimpses this season.
Now you can't blame everything on injuries because to be honest lots of their losing hasn't had anything to do with them. In the first half of the season when the Yanks used to win games with ease, everything was working for them. Their offense and defense was dominant and nothing could alter it. Now its different and we saw that on display just last night. Last night Gerrit Cole and the bullpen pitched a gem in 13 innings against Seattle, yet the offense could not put up a single run! It has been a very one-sided team as of late, either the pitching is brilliant and the offense is sluggish, or the offense is great, but the pitching is terrible.
We just saw the offense putting up great numbers in the final game of the series against the Cardinals when they loaded the bases almost 5 times and put up 9 runs in one game, yet they still lost because their pitching gave up 12 runs. The team has to be more consistent and I'm not talking about just consistent on one side of the diamond, it has to be on both sides or you're just going to see this division lead slip even further. Something has to change and it has to happen quick as we are entering the final months of regular season baseball for the New York Yankees.
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