Schadenfreude 305 (A Continuing Series)

NYM - 000 035 000 - 8 14  1
MFY - 000 003 000 - 3  3  1

The Yankees hit a total of three fair balls over the last three innings. Only one of them got beyond the infield.

Greg Joyce, Post:

After disaster struck for the Yankees in the ninth inning Wednesday night, they had two days to let the impact of that defeat marinate during a week that began with their manager saying the season was on the line.

Saturday, the Yankees' calamity was spread out over nine innings — and the damage was inflicted by their crosstown rivals as the Mets took a bag of salt and scattered it all over Yankees' open wounds.

Taijuan Walker no-hit the Yankees for 5¹/₃ innings and the Mets' bats singled them to death for an 8-3 win . . . at Yankee Stadium. . . .

[T]he Yankees (41-40) lost for the sixth time in seven games. Coming off back-to-back rainouts after Wednesday's devastating loss to the Angels, they didn't show much life Saturday and hit the halfway point of their season 10 games out of first place in the AL East. . . .

[Manager Aaron Boone:] "We're all pissed off about it." . . .

[Mets relievers] Jeurys Familia and Drew Smith retired their final 10 batters in order to end the game. . . .

"We hate losing," [MFY starter Jordan] Montgomery said. . . .

The Mets padded their lead in the sixth inning off former teammate Justin Wilson. Jeff McNeil, Jose Peraza and Nimmo each singled to load the bases before Lindor walked to force in a run. Smith then made it 6-0 with a two-run double, knocking Wilson out of the game. Michael King came on and got two outs before allowing a two-run single to Kevin Pillar that put the Mets up 8-0. . . .

[Luke Voit:] "We're not playing good . . . We're playing pretty bad . . . I'm playing awful."

Steve Serby, Post:

If Hal Steinbrenner was aggravated, frustrated and angry before the Mets reduced his Yankees to Subway Bums, imagine what he must be feeling today. . . .

Mets fans ended up with the last laugh, because everyone who hates the Yankees is laughing at them right now. . . .

The Bronx Is Burning.

The Mets . . . looked like a first-place team.

The 41-40 Yankees, 10 games behind the first-place Red Sox entering Saturday night, and with no relief in sight, looked like a fourth-place team. . . .

Cashman desperately needs to hit a home run before the trade deadline. . . . He took calculated risks on the injury-plagued Corey Kluber and Jameson Taillon, and Kluber's no-hitter is a distant memory now that he's on the injured list.

And who hijacked Gleyber Torres? Why isn't DJ LeMahieu The Machine? Frazier? Never mind. . . .

You better believe it's getting late early in and around The Bronx.

Since sweeping the White Sox in late May, the Yankees are 13-21. . . .

"This team is really good," Luke Voit said.

Don't tell us. Show us. . . .

After two successive rainouts, Boone should have prayed for rain. . . .

The Yankees are well aware that it is past time for every one of them to look in the mirror. They can't possibly like what they see if and when they do.

Andy Clayton, Daily News:

There were no fireworks at Yankee Stadium for the home team a day before the Fourth of July.

The Bombers didn't do much to entertain a crowd of more than 40,000 on another soggy day at the ballpark . . .

The Mets faithful sure had a good time, though. . . .

After the Mets nickle and dimed their way to three runs in the fifth, the boo birds in the Bronx came out in full force in the next frame when five straight batters reached base against ex-Met Justin Wilson. The big blow came off the bat of Dominic Smith. He doubled to left with the bases loaded to drive in two more and push the lead to 6-0.

The normally reserved Mets offense finished with 14 hits. The Mets (42-36) came into the game averaging just 3.6 runs per game.

Instead it was the sleepwalking Bombers (41-40) who looked completely lost at the plate . . .

Saturday's sluggish loss was the Yankees sixth in their last seven games. The Bombers — just days after owner Hal Steinbrenner called out the players to be better — are now just a game over .500 and buried deep in the AL East standings.

Kristie Ackert, Daily News:

Talk is cheap; the Yankees keep saying that. GM Brian Cashman called his team "unwatchable," and owner Hal Steinbrenner said "it's enough," and that the players need to start playing up to their potential. Aaron Judge called a players-only team meeting on Tuesday to again talk through the issues that have the Bombers free-falling this season.

And Saturday, the Yankees went out and proved all that talk was meaningless. . . .

The Yankees (41-40) have lost six of their last seven games, dating back to the sweep last weekend in Boston. It's the worst start for a Yankees team through 81 games since 2016, when they were 40-41 at the halfway mark. They did not recover that year and missed the playoffs . . .

After Saturday's loss, the Yankees were 10 games back in the division and 5.5 out of a wild card. They are always digging themselves out of a hole, it seems. . . .

[Luke Voit:] "This team is really good . . . everyone expected us to win a lot of games." . . .

The clock is already ticking down on the Bombers' season at this point. . . . A team built around a power offense, the Yankees went into Saturday's game having scored the second fewest runs in the American League, despite having hit the fourth most home runs. They are ninth in slugging and fourth in strikeouts.

The Yankees pitching carried them through what everyone thought was just a slow start . . . But now, they have hit tough times too. . . . The Yankees' starting staff has a 5.65 ERA since June 23.

Mike Lupica, Daily News: 

[Hal Steinbrenner] needs to wake up. He shouldn't have pointed a finger at his underachieving players this week. He should have put a charge into everybody, and that includes his general manager and manager, unless Hal thinks this team assembled itself and is managing itself.

Steinbrenner did meet with the media and try to say tough things about the Yankees. Not one of them resonated with his passionate fan base. . . . [T]he responsibility for the dreary product he is running out there so far . . . falls on the players . . .

If you play that out, there doesn't appear to be any accountability for putting the team together, and managing it. . . .

The Sox have won four World Series in this century with two team presidents, three different managers, three different general managers. Henry even fired Dave Dombrowski less than a year after the Red Sox had won the 2018 World Series. . . . [T]he Red Sox came into this weekend with more wins than any team in baseball, and may be in the process of going from last to first for the second time in a decade. . . .

Again and again, they are one 10-game winning streak away from changing the narrative this summer. But the notion from Steinbrenner that so much of what we are watching has to do with Corey Kluber and Luis Severino not being on the scene . .  sounds like a bad caller on the radio.

You listened to Steinbrenner . . . and wondered just what movie he is watching. . . . The team strikes out too much, hits into too many double plays, plays none of the situational baseball that Alex Cora's Red Sox have played this season, runs into too many outs, has no left-handed bat of consequence, and even has a power-throwing closer in Aroldis Chapman that one Yankee-fan friend of mine calls their Scott Norwood, because he . . . [gave] up season-ending home runs in back-to-back seasons. . . .

[Steinbrenner] talks about the way Aaron Boone has held the clubhouse together. Show me how that has translated into wins, or more efficient baseball. Against the Red Sox last weekend, the Yankees had a DH playing first, a second baseman who ought to be at first . . . a second baseman playing short, a third baseman in left, a right fielder in center, and left fielder in right. Who chose up those sides?

But Steinbrenner thinks tough talk means putting his players on notice.

Or what? . . .

Hal clearly wants everybody to get along. Good guy, totally. . . . But you wonder how many more World Series the Red Sox have to win before Steinbrenner the son wakes up, and finally shakes things up on 161st Street.

Joel Sherman, Post, July 1:

At some point, we are going to stop asking, "What would George do?" Right?

What he would do — in his heyday — was often impetuous, mean and stupid. You can conveniently forget that, when he was suspended in 1990, Steinbrenner was so despised by his fan base that the Yankee Stadium crowd greeted news of the ban with a standing ovation. . . .

If you believe George would scream or fire or harangue these Yankees into better play, you have watched one too many episodes of "Yankeeography." . . .

Hal took questions on a teleconference with reporters Thursday about his fourth-place underachievers and did not distinguish himself . . .

— He mentioned injuries as detracting from what the organization believed was a championship-caliber team . . . citing notably Corey Kluber and Luis Severino. . . . These were wild cards, not foundational pieces. Severino, in fact, was not supposed to be ready until now anyway, so this is like wondering why Santa Claus hasn't delivered more in August. . . .

— [H]e put the onus, especially for the sub-par hitting and atrocious baserunning, on the players. And on some level, major leaguers should not be this inattentive on the bases, for example. But putting all these players in one place at one time is not the responsibility of the players. That is Cashman and baseball operations. That is Boone not fighting hard enough against duplications plus lack of baseball IQ and athleticism. That is Hal blessing it all.

Hal insisted he still trusts the architects, instructors and players, so this is yet another doubling down on this philosophy and that the first half was not the real Yankees. . . . Good for him for patience and loyalty. But those should not cloud reality. . . .

The individual parts make sense, but does it make sense as a team to be so right-handed, so unathletic, so bulky and muscular as to make it more injury prone? . . .

Boone muses about returning to being a long lineup that makes every inning tough. But opposing scouts echo how easy it is to game-plan for the Yankees' lineup because of its lack of diversity. . . .

[W]as the pitching staff held together by a gooey strategy? Few have performed worse since the June 3 memo that promised greater enforcement of sticky substances than the Yankees. They had the majors' second-best ERA (3.16) prior to that and 25th best (5.26) since.

Dan Martin, Post, July 2:

The Yankees staggered into the Subway Series on Friday night coming off their worst loss of the season and a day after team owner Hal Steinbrenner called out the team for its season-long underperformance. . . .

[Steinbrenner] said he was "aggravated, frustrated, angry" about how the team had played over the first half of the season — and placed the blame squarely on the players . . .

[Aaron] Judge called a players-only meeting during the week. . . .

Judge declined to discuss the specifics of the meeting, but he noted the "quality of at-bats" was better in Wednesday's loss.

Kristie Ackert, Daily News, July 2:

With the season on the line, Aroldis Chapman's implosion early Thursday morning may have pushed the Yankees over it. The closer . . . has been horrendous over his last nine appearances.

And the Yankees who are . . . barely keeping their heads above water can't afford another meltdown. . . .

In his last nine appearances, Chapman has blown two saves and taken two losses, having allowed 11 earned runs in 5.2 innings. He's given up five home runs, including the first grand slam he's allowed in his career. He has struck out just six while walking eight. . . .

Chapman . . . said he is struggling with fastball command. That and the timing of his issues has raised eyebrows. Chapman's sharp and sudden decline coincided with MLB sending the message that they would crack down on the use of illegal sticky substances other than rosin. . . .

Bob Raissman, Daily News:

The Yankees may be, as Brian Cashman recently said, "unwatchable," but they're plenty watched.

Through the June 28th Bombers-Angels telecast, the Yankees Entertainment & Sports Network is averaging 290,000 total viewers per game, up 14% season-to-date from the 255,000 averaged in 2019 (MLB's last "normal" season). . . .

When it comes to YES' viewership numbers, don't discount anti-Yankee fans who love tuning into not only see the Bombers lose, but how they lose. Those who were up in the wee hours of Thursday morning were likely whooping it up after Aroldis Chapman gave up a game-tying, ninth inning grand slam off the bat of Jared Walsh. . . .

Nonetheless, no matter how it tweaks the brand of excellence, Cashman deserves credit for spreading reality rather than sugar. ["we suck right now"] . . . Wonder if YES suits, and the network's advertisers, appreciated the GM's candor, especially coming off a "season" where YES lost goo-gobs of money?

Joel Sherman, Post (Mid-Season Awards):

AL Anti-MVP: Gleyber Torres, Yankees

There are worse players in the AL, and there are even worse players on the Yankees. There is, however, no more disappointing player. As young stars carry teams elsewhere, Torres' bat has gone limp. He amazingly has been a better shortstop than hitter — and he is not much of a shortstop. He was central to the Yankees' offense being the most disappointing unit in the majors the first half, to the point at which we will give the top five exclusively to them.

2. Clint Frazier, Yankees.
3. Brett Gardner, Yankees.
4. Aaron Hicks, Yankees.
5. Luke Voit, Yankees. . . .

AL Manager of the Year: Alex Cora, Red Sox

Most managers are neutral, perhaps negatives. Few are big difference-makers. Cora is a big difference-maker. . . . [H]is Red Sox clubs play aggressively and confidently when he is in charge. . . .