Yankees picking the worst time to struggle vs. AL East rival Orioles
Yankees starting pitcher Marcus Stroman reacts on the mound against the Orioles during the first inning of an MLB game at Yankee Stadium on Wednesday. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
No playoff-bound team has played worse than the Orioles since the start of July as their lonesome, lowly sub-.500 mark would attest. That’s nearly three months of very mediocre baseball, seemingly enough to torpedo Baltimore’s chances to win the AL East.
But the Yankees, stubbornly refusing to accept this second-half gift from their division rival, have picked a terrible time to sink to the Orioles’ level.
Needing one measly “W” to lock up their second AL East title in three seasons and third in six years, the Yankees stumbled, bumbled and brain-cramped through the first two games of what was supposed to be a Bronx coronation, including Wednesday night’s 9-7 loss that only got close when Aaron Judge smashed homer No. 57, a three-run shot, in the ninth inning. The final week of September, with the AL’s top playoff seed on the line, is not the spot for the Yankees to revert to their May (9-19) form.
“Nothing’s been easy for us this year,” manager Aaron Boone said. “Shouldn’t expect it to be now. But we’ve kind of persevered and grinded our way through all of it. That’s 2024 for us. In a lot of ways, it’s been an outstanding year so far, but it’s been a challenge, too.”
Weren’t the Orioles supposed to be hungover from Tuesday night’s Champagne-drenched playoff clincher? Maybe Baltimore didn’t get the memo about this final Stadium visit serving as a concession speech. At this rate, we’ll be talking about the Orioles’ magic number, which now stands at four, and they own the tiebreaker over the Yankees with Gerrit Cole set to face off against Corbin Burnes in Thursday night’s series finale.
“Any time [No.] 45 is on the mound, I like our chances,” Judge said afterward. “He’s been throwing the ball well, just in time for the playoffs, so looking forward to having him out there.”
For now, the assumption is the Yankees will finish the job, but they again were the ones fumbling around their own backyard.
On Tuesday, Gleyber Torres displayed the questionable baseball IQ he’s infamous for by killing a rally with a stupefying attempt to score in the 5-3 loss. Not to be outdone, bat-first rookie Jasson Dominguez lit the fuse to Wednesday’s implosion, botching a deep fly ball in the leftfield corner that should’ve been caught — yet resulted in Colton Cowser’s two-run single that put emergency starter Marcus Stroman on his heels in the first inning.
The more Dominguez struggles defensively — this was not his first costly fielding blunder — the more Alex Verdugo creeps back into the October lineup picture for his superior glove. And if the Martian doesn’t make up that run differential at the plate, going with Verdugo becomes a no-brainer for the playoffs.
“I have no excuse,” Dominguez said of Wednesday’s gaffe. “That ball has to be caught like 100% of the time.”
With the AL East crown at stake, the Yankees looked like pretenders. Or perhaps Boone & Co. were knocked off course by the sudden scratch of Nestor Cortes, arguably the Yankees’ most effective starter the past month, as he’s now probably lost for the rest of the year due to a left elbow flexor strain. Getting the rotation dinged up, especially with less than 24 hours’ notice, is not something the Yankees dealt with much this season.
Aside from Cole’s delayed opening to the season because of his elbow scare, and Clarke Schmidt’s shoulder strain, the Yankees have sailed through this season, using only eight starters total — the second fewest to the Mariners’ seven. Turns out, switching on the fly wasn’t a recipe for success in Wednesday’s potential clincher, as pulling Stroman out of the bullpen’s cold storage put the freeze on the Yankees’ ever-pending celebration.
Stroman, a self-confessed creature of habit, probably didn’t relish the chance of returning to a starting role after getting the heads-up the night before taking the mound. And it showed.
The former Patchogue-Medford star didn’t get hammered by hard contact, but the Orioles harassed him for 10 hits — none for extra bases — and six runs over 3 1/3 innings. After Gunnar Henderson ended Stroman’s night with a one-out, two-run single through a drawn-in infield in the fourth, boos rained down from the packed Stadium — it was a Derek Jeter bobblehead night — and only got louder before Stroman finally disappeared down the dugout steps.
“It’s frustrating,” Stroman said of his performance, “But at the end of the day, I didn’t execute and didn’t do my job out there to keep my team in a position to win.”
If it wasn’t the loudest Bronx boo-fest for a Yankees starter this season, Stroman’s rocky departure was definitely in contention — and a disappointing finish to his debut season in pinstripes. He’s not likely to see the mound again in October, barring some catastrophic developments to the pitching staff, as his September demotion to the bullpen was basically the prelude to a long winter.
As for the Yankees who will be playing in October, closing out the AL East is becoming far too interesting. Or, in the case of these past two days, nauseating. As Boone mentioned, nobody expected it to be easy.
But this hard? That’s not what we’d call an encouraging tuneup for the playoffs.
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.
