Schadenfreude 344 (A Continuing Series)

Matt Ehalt, Post, August 16:

Pedro Martinez Mocks Yankees With Sad — And Fitting — 'Chihuahua' Comparison

Famous rival Pedro Martinez said the 2023 Yankees have gone from top dog to a bunch of yappers.

"It's unbelievable. It's hard to watch the Yankees go that way," Martinez said on TBS after the Yankees' 5-0 loss to [Atlanta]. "I remember watching the Yankees early in the season and when they were going well, they looked so confident. It was like watching a bulldog beat up on a chihuahua when they were playing those teams. Now, they look like the chihuahuas to any other team, especially a good team like  [Atlanta]. It looks like no match."

While it may be insulting for chihuahuas to be compared to this lifeless Yankees team, Martinez certainly has a point.

The Yankees are now a .500 team (60-60) with a three percent chance of making the playoffs, according to Fangraphs. The same playoffs that 40 percent of each league makes each season.

They are just 24-35 since reaching their season-high mark of 11 games above .500 on June 4 . . . [T]he Yankees are now 1-9-3 in series dating back to the start of July. The lone series win coming against a Royals team is a 39-82 rebuilding disaster. . . .

These last two nights have shown just how far the Yankees have fallen behind baseball's elite class. . . . The Yankees actually mustered more errors (two) than hits (one) in Tuesday's loss.

The lineup packs all the bite of a toothless canine, and the rotation is essentially a one-man show in Gerrit Cole. Tuesday's starter, Luis Severino, is now 2-8 with a 7.98 ERA after suffering the loss. . . .

Add in sloppy play in the field, especially on the bases, and it's not hard to see why these Yankees will be spending their offseason in the dog pound.

Talkin' Yanks

Sunday, August 13, 2023

Yankees - 011 221 000 - 7  6  1
Marlins - 001 001 015 - 8 11  0

Bottom of the 9th. Marlins Batting, Behind 3-7. Clay Holmes facing 7-8-9.

Yuli Gurriel (fbcf) doubled to deep right-center.
Jon Berti (cc) struck out swinging.
Nick Fortes (b) singled to shortstop.
Jazz Chisholm Jr. (bbcsbf) walked, Gurriel to third, Fortes to second.
Josh Bell (bb) reached first on pitcher's throwing error, Gurriel scored (4-7), Fortes scored (5-7), Chisholm to third.
Luis Arraez (cf) tripled to right, Chisholm scored (6-7), Bell scored (7-7).
Tommy Kahnle replaced Clay Holmes pitching; Oswaldo Cabrera replaced Billy McKinney in left.
Bryan De La Cruz (bbsb) walked.
Jake Burger (b - De La Cruz to second, defensive indifference - fb) singled to deep left, Arraez scored (8-7).

Greg Joyce, Post, August 13:

Mathematically, the Yankees only dropped one game in the playoff race Sunday with 44 games to go.

In every other way possible, it felt like a much more damaging blow to the gut — and possibly their season.

Desperate for any kind of momentum to make a run with less than two months left in the season, the Yankees were three outs away from gaining some, only to throw it all away in an epic collapse.

In a season that has been too crowded with brutal losses, Clay Holmes and the Yankees blew a four-run lead in the ninth inning as they lost to the Marlins in stunning fashion, 8-7 . . .

One inning away from claiming their first series over a team with a winning record since late June, the Yankees (60-58) fell flat on their faces. They dropped to 1-8-3 over their last 12 series . . .

In a game they once led 7-1, the Yankees entered the bottom of the ninth leading 7-3. . . .

Yuli Gurriel led off the bottom of the ninth with a double on a 1-2 pitch but Holmes struck out the next batter. Nick Fortes then hit an infield single up the middle before Holmes walked Jazz Chisholm on a full count to load the bases.

Josh Bell came up next and hit a comebacker to the mound that Holmes tried to make a play on but fumbled. Having lost a chance at a potential game-ending double play, Holmes collected the ball and made things worse by rushing a wild throw to first, allowing a second run to score on the play. . . .

Luis Arraez followed with a triple down the first-base line that rolled all the way to the right-field corner to tie the game at seven. Kahnle then entered and walked a batter before Burger lined a single to left, over a five-man infield, to end it.

Greg Joyce, Post, August 14:

The Yankees arrived at the third and final leg of their road trip Monday hoping to bounce back . . . But beyond their own self-inflicted issues, it proved difficult for the Yankees to find much bounce when they ran into the brick wall that was [Atlanta's] lineup. 

Clarke Schmidt had his worst start in three months, getting shelled by a relentless offensive attack as the Yankees lost their third straight game, 11-3 . . .

Schmidt was clobbered on Monday for eight runs on nine hits in just 2¹/₃ innings. . . .

The Yankees had early opportunities to cash in . . . but settled for taking a pair of slim leads at 1-0 and 2-1 before it all fell apart for Schmidt. . . . [T]he Yankees also hurt themselves, highlighted by Harrison Bader getting picked off first base with two outs in the sixth inning of an 8-2 game. 

In the process, the Yankees lost for the 10th time in their last 15 games as their runway to finally go on the hot streak they have been talking about gets smaller and smaller. . . .

[T]he Yankees didn't give Schmidt much time to rest between innings . . . [seeing] just nine pitches in the top of the third . . . [Atlanta] wore down Schmidt in the bottom of the third, at one point recording four straight hits — despite the Yankees right-hander having count leverage in all four at-bats — to extend their lead to 8-2.

Greg Joyce, Post, August 15:

A team that has played mediocre baseball for most of the season finally has the record to match it after a fourth straight loss sank the Yankees to 60-60 on the year.

On another night when Luis Severino put the Yankees in an early hole . . . their offense hardly showed up in a one-hit effort while falling to [Atlanta], 5-0, on Tuesday . . .

The Yankees are now back at .500 for the first time since May 1, when they were 15-15, and fell to 6½ games behind the Blue Jays for the final AL wild-card spot.

It marks the first time the Yankees have been .500 this late in a season since 1995. . . . They have not dipped under .500 all season, but will try to avoid that and a sweep in the series finale  . . . on Wednesday night. . . .

The Yankees had a miserable night all-around, recording more errors (two) than they had hits (one). . . . 

[Atlanta's] right-hander Bryce Elder . . . turned in seven dominant innings in which he allowed only four base runners (three on walks), three of which were erased by double plays. . . . [T]he Yankees grounded into four double plays in total. . . .

"It sucks. We're just simply not playing well enough," Boone said. . . . "That's a broken record, right?"

Greg Joyce, Post, August 15:

The Yankees' baserunning has cost them on a number of occasions lately, with Harrison Bader being the latest offender on Monday night. 

In a game the Yankees trailed by six runs, Bader singled with two outs in the sixth inning against [Atlanta] left-hander Max Fried.

But Bader then took the bat out of DJ LeMahieu's hands by getting picked off at first by Fried, who is known for having one of the better pickoff moves in the game. 

"That can't happen there," manager Aaron Boone said . . . Asked if he thought Fried balked since he called it a "balk move," Bader said he didn't know.  . . .

The Yankees have now been picked off 12 times this season, which is the fifth-most in the majors. 

Greg Joyce, Post, August 16:

Gleyber Torres . . . has now hit into six double plays over his last six games — the most by a Yankee in any six-game span in franchise history, according to Stathead . . .

Through his first 113 games this season, Torres grounded into 11 double plays. But his six in his past six games suddenly have him tied for the fourth-most double plays in the majors with 17 this season.

Both of Torres' twin killings on Tuesday came after Aaron Judge led off an inning with a walk.