Bill Madden, Daily News:
It's time to come to grips with the fact this simply isn't going to be the Yankees' year – and not just because they failed to score with the bases loaded and nobody out in the ninth inning Thursday against a Tampa Bay Rays team that did everything they could to help them out.Associated Press:
For a lot of reasons, we are not going to see a repeat of last year's magical run through the postseason ...
[Gleyber Torres is] a shell of the player who lit up the Bronx with his clutch hitting and defensive flair from April 22-July 4. ... Greg Bird, who showed so much promise ... is looking more and more like a Kevin Maas flash in the pan bust this year.
Bird's foul pop-up on the first pitch thrown to him in the ninth inning Thursday touched off the Yankees' pathetic game-ending pratfall against somebody named Adam Kolarek, the sixth Rays pitcher of the day, who entered the game with a 5.63 ERA and proceeded to accomplish one of the most remarkable Houdini-like saves in baseball history. ...
[W]hat has to be most concerning for the Yankee high command right now is the overall malaise inflicting the team. Okay, Judge is out, but hardly anyone is picking up the slack – which is what good teams do.
Thursday, the Rays, who are not a very good team, did everything they could to try and lose the game, getting two runners picked off base, botching what should have been a routine inning-ending double play in the eighth, and manager Kevin Cash once again pulling his ace, Snell, after just five innings to turn things over to his "Bum of the Inning" club. And still the Yankees, again and again, failed to capitalize. The fire of last year is gone, and you wonder if subconsciously they are taking on the "everything's going to be okay" personality of the manager.
All we know is, suddenly, the Yankees march to the wild-card game is feeling very empty.
Where is bottom?
A listless Yankees lineup lost again to the Tampa, despite loading the bases with no-out in the ninth inning ... It was the Rays' first series win at Yankee Stadium since 2014. ...
The struggling Yankees lineup, still without injured sluggers Aaron Judge and Gary Sanchez, scored just six runs during the three-game series.
Meet the second-half Yankees, who lost 3-1 to the Rays on Thursday in The Bronx, to fall to 13-13 since the All-Star break, including 7-9 this month.Kristie Ackert, Daily News:
After nearly two days of flailing at the plate against Tampa Bay, the Yankees, whose run of average play extends to 25-24 over their past 49 games, finally seemed to wake up in the last two innings — when they trailed by three runs. ...
[The Yankees loaded the bases with no outs in the ninth] with singles by Didi Gregorius and Gleyber Torres and a walk to Neil Walker.
That brought up Greg Bird, stuck in a miserable slump and booed off the field after grounding out to end the seventh.
Bird popped out in foul territory against lefty Adam Kolarek for the first out. ...
Brett Gardner and Austin Romine followed with strikeouts to end it. ...
[A] day after going hitless in nine at-bats with runners in scoring position, the Yankees went just 1-for-11. ...
[T]he Yankees sit just three games ahead of Oakland for the second wild card, something Boone insists is not on his mind.
After the Yankees' offense had been shut down for most of the day and they were finally getting something going in the bottom of the night. Down two runs, with the bases loaded and no outs, it was Greg Bird's chance to turn his season around.Mike Vaccaro, Post:
Instead the first baseman jumped at the first pitch he saw and popped out on a foul ball in front of the visitors dugout. The boos cascaded on him as he walked back to the dugout. Brett Gardner and Austin Romine both struck out and the Yankees lost ...
In their last 16 games the Yankees have hit just .223, the second-worst team batting average in that span in the American League ...
The problem for the Yankees is that there is no real help on the horizon.
The recipe was there for a long, hot day ... Day game after a night game after a blown chance to pick up ground on the devil Red Sox. A bear of a lefty pitcher, Blake Snell, on the mound. Ninety degrees, something close to 174 percent humidity. ...
So maybe it wasn't unusual that Yankee Stadium chose not to harness its frustration any longer. There were 41,033 folks inside, and they were ... hot and bothered [and] ... they opted for alcohol-filled 16-ounce cups to keep from spontaneously combusting.
Anyway, the boos started in the seventh, when Greg Bird grounded out meekly to end the inning, the displeasure cascading out of the upper deck and the bleachers. ...
And by the time Austin Romine swung through strike three from a Tampa Bay lefty named Adam Kolarek ... well, they weren't simply going to slog quietly to their crowded subway cars or trudge silently off to the Deegan.
"THAT'S BRUTAL!" came one editorial parting shot.
"THAT'S @#$%&%!!" came a more colorful version.
Hey Bill Madden, perhaps you should have paid attention last year when Cashman fired THE guy responsible for getting the team to overperform, and then hire a bum, whose only skill is spewing motivational puke-y jargon that you would hear in business schools. Listen to me, there is still time, recommend Cashman to hire the current athletic director of Sacred Heart University. All you have to do is pay for a one-way Metro-North ticket.
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