Numerous potholes loom on road trip, but Yankees' tires haven't blown out yet

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — The Yankees left New York after Thursday’s late-inning collapse against the Nationals with their playoff chances virtually nil. According to FanGraphs, they're down to 0.2%.

By the time they next play at the Stadium, those odds may well be down to 0.0.

The Yankees started a 10-game trip Friday night against the Rays at Tropicana Field still very much looking like the last-place team they are, 61-66 entering the series and 10 games out of the American League’s third wild-card spot.  

And the trip, on the surface, doesn’t seem to shape up as one that will spark them to the kind of historic run that would be necessary for them to make a September push for the postseason.

The more realistic outcome is that when they return from this trip and face the Tigers on Sept. 5 at the Stadium, the Yankees will have been officially eliminated, or fairly close to it.  

That's because the Yankees, who haven’t won a series since sweeping the Royals from July 21-23 at the Stadium, are facing three teams playing significantly better than they are. And two of those teams have much to play for.

The Rays came into this series 78-51, just two games behind the AL East-leading Orioles. After that comes four games against the Tigers, who, though sitting at 58-69, have been far better in the season’s second half (19-19) than the Yankees (12-24).

Next?

The Astros, a team that has terrorized the Yankees like no other the last decade, beating them in the ALCS in 2017, 2019 and 2022. And they’re good again, 72-57 going into Friday and just one game behind the AL West-leading Rangers.

As for the Yankees, they’ve reached the “hey, look over there!” portion of the season. They brought up two touted prospects, outfielder Everson Pereira and infielder Oswald Peraza, earlier in the week, which served two immediate purposes.

The promotions distracted, albeit very much in the short term, from what general manager Brian Cashman on Wednesday correctly characterized as a “disaster” of a regular season. Perhaps more important, the call-ups — and there will be more when Sept. 1 rolls around — temporarily infused at least some enthusiasm into an irate,  depressed fan base.

“I feel like we've been frustrated a lot this year,” reliever Michael King said Thursday after throwing 2 2/3 scoreless innings in the 6-5 loss to the Nationals. “We're doing our work. We're trying to stick with our routine, trying to turn this thing around . . .  It just didn't all come together, and that's when you know you're going through it. When the pitchers do well, the hitters aren't; when the hitters are doing well, the pitchers aren’t. It's tough that way.”

It figures to get tougher still, though it is important to note King’s “we’re doing our work” comment.

It can quickly become fashionable to affix the “they’ve quit” tag on a losing team as a disappointing season grinds along, but that hasn’t occurred with the Yankees. More than just a few players still show up for early work, and the behind-the-scenes pregame preparation overall resembles what was seen in the halcyon days of early June when the Yankees were 36-25.

“The fight is there. The care is there. The intent is there,” Cashman said Wednesday. “Being a part of this organization for quite some time, I do know the difference.”

There was much to quibble with from Cashman in Wednesday’s news conference, but that topic wasn’t one of them

“Putting yourself into a player's seat, if they're at the plate, for instance, they do not want to fail, or if they're on the mound, they do not want to fail, either,'' Cashman said. "They're all collectively trying to do the best they possibly can to stop what's happening to us, or what’s occurring now for a sustained period of time.”