Yankees go from ecstasy to a gut punch of a loss
New York Yankees manager Aaron Boone gestures on the field during the ninth inning of a baseball game against the Baltimore Orioles, Sunday, July 14, 2024, in Baltimore. Credit: AP/Nick Wass
ARLINGTON, Texas
One game out of first place is not a bad spot to spend the All-Star break. The vast majority of teams, during most seasons, would sign up for that on Opening Day.
The problem with the 2024 Yankees? It feels like a consolation prize. Hal Steinbrenner didn’t lay out $313 million, the third-highest payroll in the sport, with a participation trophy in mind.
Even worse? Finishing the first half with Sunday’s kick in the teeth at Camden Yards, where the Yankees were three outs away (and then one out away) from recapturing the AL East throne after taking a two-run lead on Ben Rice’s three-run homer in the top of the ninth.
The fact that Aaron Boone & Co. even got back to that point, after an abysmal month of baseball, wouldn’t have been possible without the Orioles’ own malaise during that same period.
And yet, with the division on the line, the Yankees proved they actually were capable of sweeping the weekend rock fight in Baltimore — until the Dive Bombers showed up again for that surreal ninth inning.
The Orioles didn’t win Sunday’s game as much as the Yankees gift-wrapped Baltimore’s walk-off 6-5 victory, thanks to a stunning collapse engineered by Clay Holmes, Anthony Volpe and Alex Verdugo.
At first glance, those three would seem to be an unlikely trio of arsonists. Holmes is an All-Star, Volpe is a Gold Glove winner and Verdugo, well, that makes one very plausible culprit, anyway. But this was not a case of the baseball gods randomly spinning a wheel to come up with their scapegoats.
Instead, the Yankees — sometimes willfully ignorant of their dashboard warning lights — got a sobering reminder of who’s derailed the stellar start to the first half, when they went from a season-high 28 games over .500 (50-22) on June 14 to stumbling through an 8-18 skid heading into the break.
There’s plenty of blame to go around. From an offensive standpoint, anyone other than Aaron Judge, Juan Soto and Rice could use a look in the mirror.
The Yankees did get some offense from an unlikely source Sunday, as Trent Grisham reached base four times and drove in two runs with a second-inning RBI single and a fifth-inning home run. He also drew a leadoff walk in the ninth to help set the stage for Rice’s homer.
But when you consider that Holmes blew his sixth save Sunday — tied for the most in the majors — and was sabotaged by the gloves of Volpe and Verdugo, two near-zeros at the plate, this was just another flare-up of an ongoing brushfire.
You could suggest it was extremely unlucky for it all to go sideways in succession during this particular ninth inning. Or maybe the universe was trying to tell the Yankees something. As in, this current roster ain’t it, and general manager Brian Cashman has two weeks to find some help before the July 30 trade deadline.
At least Sunday’s brutal defeat, which gave the Orioles a 6-4 season edge with one more three-game series left (Sept. 24-26 in the Bronx), served to amplify the sense of urgency.
“That’s a killer, right?” Boone said afterward. “Let’s acknowledge that. And it’s been a rough several weeks here for us.”
Boone spitting some truth is a start. Coming from a manager who can sugarcoat a car crash, we’ll take that as Boone admitting Sunday’s loss was the Yankees’ worst of the season.
Maybe one game won’t define the first half, but it had so much potential to be a post-break springboard. They fought to the brink of sweeping a pivotal series after literally going toe-to-toe with the Orioles during Friday’s benches-clearing melee, sparked by a Holmes fastball to the head of Heston Kjerstad, putting him in concussion protocol.
Before Opening Day, I picked the Yankees to win the AL East, and where they stand now, record-wise, they’re certainly still on course to make good on my prediction. But that also relies on the presumption that the Yankees can return to playing like (or closer to) that 28-over-.500 team again, when the rotation was among the best in the majors, Soto’s every swing sounded like cha-ching and Judge soared on his Triple Crown trajectory.
Stacking those 50-plus wins for a rainy month helped. The Yankees expect to get Giancarlo Stanton back from the IL shortly after the break, and the sooner they can bump Verdugo (.533 OPS since June 14) out of the cleanup spot, the better off that lineup will be. Volpe’s plate trauma is real, however, with a slash line of .173/.216/.227 during the past month, making Sunday’s uncharacteristic ninth-inning bobble error stand out all the more.
And to think the Yankees were poised to win a start by Carlos Rodon, something they hadn’t done since June 10. If Volpe scoops a routine two-out grounder in the ninth or Verdugo doesn’t totally misread Cedric Mullins’ fly ball, letting it sail over his head for a walk-off double, the Yankees would’ve been right where we expected them to be for the start of the second half. They’re still close, but any positives just feel that much further away now.
David Lennon is an award-winning columnist, a voter for baseball's Hall of Fame and has covered six no-hitters, including two perfect games.
