Aaron Judge, Yankees maintain that 'it's on us' to turn things around after standing pat at deadline

It's on us. 

That was the bottom-line reality expressed – at least for public consumption – by Yankees players late Tuesday night  after the front office’s relative inaction at the trade deadline.

“We added a couple arms, but like we’ve been saying all week and the past couple days, it’s on us as players,” captain Aaron Judge said. “We’re fully capable with the guys that we’ve got in this room to go out there and compete on a daily basis. The results haven’t come, obviously, all year, but we’ve still got two months left in the season and we’ve got a lot of work to do.”

Judge spoke Tuesday night after the Yankees fell to the Rays, 5-2, for their third straight loss. They are 1-4 since Judge returned and 5-9 in their last 14 games.

The Yankees (55-52), who added just White Sox reliever Keynan Middleton and Rangers pitcher Spencer Howard at the deadline, entered Wednesday 11 games behind the first-place Orioles in the American League East and 3 ½ games behind the Blue Jays for the league’s third and final wild-card spot.

The 29-year-old Middleton, described by one rival AL scout as “a decent addition to the pen but not a difference maker,” arrived from the White Sox in exchange for minor-leaguer Juan Carela, who is considered an average prospect at best (the 21-year-old righthander had a 3.67 ERA in 17 games -- 16 starts -- with High-A Hudson Valley).

Middleton, due to hit free agency after the season, posted a 3.96 ERA in 39 games with the White Sox. Howard, 27, was acquired from the Rangers for cash considerations. The righthander, immediately optioned to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre for organizational depth, had a 10.80 ERA in three relief appearances with Texas (he’s 3-11 with a 7.20 ERA in 38 career games over parts of four major league seasons).

“Our mindset is that we’ve got what it takes,” catcher Kyle Higashioka said of the lack of reinforcements, especially for the offense, which has been the overwhelming culprit for the Yankees being in last place in their division. “Obviously, the season isn’t exactly going the way we want it to, but that’s still got to be our belief right now, no matter what happens.”

Making the Yankees’ inactivity even more striking was when measuring it against what some of the clubs ahead of them in the standings did. The Rays, for instance, added starting pitcher Aaron Civale from Cleveland, and the Orioles bolstered their rotation with the addition of the Cardinals' Jack Flaherty. The Astros, of course, acquired Justin Verlander (his second stint in Houston) from the Mets to an already top-heavy rotation. The Blue Jays and Angels also procured some big names before the deadline.

“It’s tough when you look at the standings and see where we’re at, see what other teams are doing,” Judge said. “But we’ve got to stay focused on us. We’ve got plenty of stuff we need to work on here and we’ve got to continue to push forward with what we’re doing. We’ve got to execute our plan, we’ve got to prepare better, we’ve got to make adjustments, that’s the only way you get out of something like this. You look internally and then make the necessary adjustments.”

Adjustments that for the most part have been hard to come by in this up-and-down season.

“That it’s on us,” Aaron Boone said of the message taken from the front office’s lack of additions at the deadline. “It’s on the people in that room that we have to figure it out if we’re going to get to where we want to go. I know it looks bad right now, we understand that. But we have to find it from within now. It’s (the trade deadline) come and gone. It’s on all of us in that room to figure it out if we’re going to climb back into this thing.”