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May 31, 2021

Schadenfreude 291: (A Continuing Series)

Yankees (29-21) at Tigers (19-31)

Friday, May 28:    Tigers 3, Yankees 2 (10)
Saturday, May 29:  Tigers 6, Yankees 1
Sunday, May 30:    Tigers 6, Yankees 2

The Yankees were swept in a three-game series by the Tigers in Detroit for the first time in more than two decades (May 12-14, 2000, the MFY's first games at Comerica). They struck out 36 times in the series. They have lost five of their last six games and have scored no more than two runs in each loss.

Dan Martin, Post:

The Motown Massacre.

The Yankees ended an embarrassing weekend in Detroit with an even more embarrassing loss on Sunday, as they were swept out of Comerica Park with a 6-2 loss to the Tigers.

It was their fifth loss in six games and featured a vast array of ugly performances.

And after getting overmatched by the Tigers — who entered the series in last place in the AL Central — the Yankees return to The Bronx to face the top two teams in the AL East — the Rays and Red Sox — this week.

If they play anything like they have the last three days, it will be a long week at Yankee Stadium.

On Sunday, they used a trio of pitchers, Michael King, Nestor Cortes Jr. and Nick Nelson, who hardly gave them a chance, and the players in the lineup went out and played like they were in a fog.

None of it was worse than the bottom of the third, when the Yankees committed three errors and the Tigers scored four runs on one hit.

Gleyber Torres made the two most glaring miscues, waving at a grounder to his right off the bat of Victor Reyes and then booting a routine ground ball by Jeimer Candelario.

Torres then did his best impression of Yankee fans who had the misfortune of tuning into the game, as he slammed his glove repeatedly in the dugout.

The Tigers blew the game open in that third inning thanks to a pair of walks and a tough error on Gio Urshela, who had a shard of a broken bat flying in his direction when he failed to handle an Eric Haase grounder.

One run scored on Torres' first miscue before Willi Castro's bases-loaded double to left drove in three runs.

It was a miserable afternoon from the start for the Yankees.

They threatened in the top of the first against left-hander Tarik Skubal, with a bloop single by DJ LeMahieu and a walk by Giancarlo Stantonto to start the game. But Aaron Judge hit a hard grounder to third that was turned into a double play. . . . Urshela lined out to short. 

Things got worse in the bottom of the inning.

King, in his first start of the season, was burned by the shift when Niko Goodrum hit a grounder to the left side of the infield . . . [With one out] King hit Miguel Cabrera with a pitch that appeared to barely graze the DH. . . . [With two outs] King allowed a double past third base. Clint Frazier played the carom off the wall in left and then airmailed a throw home. Cabrera ran through a stop sign and scored easily to make it 2-0. . . .

Torres got the Yankees' first hit with a runner in scoring position in the series with a garbage-time single in the eighth that snapped the team's 0-for-20 streak for the series.

That just led to more hijinks, as Sanchez followed with an infield single to short to knock in a run, but when the ball got away from Schoop at first, Sanchez inexplicably got caught between first and second and was thrown out to end the inning with the Yankees down by four runs.

In the ninth, the Yankees loaded the bases with two outs for Judge and Michael Fulmer got Judge looking to finish the game.

Steve Serby, Post:

Memo to Boone and Yankees:

Wake up for Rivalry Week or else.

Four games at the Stadium beginning on Memorial Day afternoon against the hated first-place Rays. Who beat the Yanks in the 2020 ALDS. Who are 6-3, and 3-0 this season at the Stadium against them. . . .

Then three games against the hated Red Sox for the first time this season.

It is not the moment of truth.

But it sure is A moment of truth. . . .

Things have unraveled so alarmingly that Boone had been asked whether his team can be good enough to turn it around. . . .

These third-place Yankees — closer to the fourth-place Blue Jays than the Rays — looked much more like the last-place 1966 Johnny Keane-Ralph Houk Yankees than the 1998 Yankees getting swept in Detroit by the Tigers while scoring five runs in the three games.

And bats out of hell are bad enough: but 0-20 with RISP until a Gleyber Torres RBI single to right in the eighth … inexcusable baserunning from Gary Sanchez getting caught between first and second to end the eighth … and three errors in the third inning, two by Torres, who pitched a fit in the dugout after the score ballooned to 6-0, when they looked more like the 1962 Casey Stengel Mets:

Top of ninth: bases loaded, two outs: Judge versus Michael Fulmer. And Judge looks at a pedestrian slider for strike three. . . .

Can't Anybody Here Play This Game? They return home playing like Stankees.

What was so troubling on this day was the absence of urgency in every phase of the game. . . .

First inning: runners on first and second, nobody out, Judge grounds sharply into a 5-4-3 double play. That made 51 this season for Yankees batters.

Third inning: Giancarlo Stanton waves at a pitch in the dirt. After striking out four times on Friday night in his return from the IL. Then he struck out again in the sixth inning.

They made southpaw Tarik Skubal (2-7) look like Mickey Lolich, for crying out loud. . . .

There are ebbs and flows to the MLB season. This is what you would call an ebb.

When the Rays beat the Indians on Sunday, it was their 15th win in 16 games. This is what you would call a flow.

"Just a tremendous mindset going right now," Rays manager Kevin Cash had said on Saturday. . . . "They are feeding all each other."

The Yankees? They are starving. At the worst possible time.

Jason Beck, mlb.com:

Two days after Casey Mize dueled Gerrit Cole, and a day after Spencer Turnbull retired 10 Yankees in a row, Tarik Skubal topped them both with six scoreless innings and eight strikeouts in Detroit's 6-2 win on Sunday. But the outing, and Skubal’s improvement the past few starts could best be summed up in one ruthlessly efficient inning.

Not only did Skubal retire the top of the Yankees' lineup in order on eight pitches, all strikes, in the top of the third, he made it look easy against a group of hitters that roughed him up for three homers in as many innings exactly one month ago in the Bronx.

Skubal’s 1-0 curveball induced DJ LeMahieu into a groundout to short . . .

Up came Giancarlo Stanton, who had hit Skubal's fastball for a 115.7 mph double off Yankee Stadium's right-field wall a month ago . . . Stanton swung and missed at a first-pitch changeup at the top of the zone, chased a high fastball for an 0-2 hole, then flailed at a curveball in the dirt for a filthy three-pitch strikeout. . . .

That brought up Aaron Judge . . . whose double-play grounder helped Skubal escape Sunday's first inning. This time, Skubal dropped a first-pitch curveball on the outside corner and a fastball over the plate, both for called strikes. Skubal finished him off with a slider at Judge's back foot as the All-Star slugger swung through it. . . .

The Tigers scored four runs in the bottom of the inning with help from Willi Castro's bases-clearing double and two Gleyber Torres errors. . . .

Skubal retired 13 of his final 15 batters, finishing with six scoreless innings on three hits with three walks and eight strikeouts. He became the first Tigers rookie in franchise history to strike out eight or more batters in three consecutive starts, according to Elias Sports Bureau . . . Only one of his strikeouts took more than four pitches, and just four batters went to three-ball counts.

Kristie Ackert, Daily News:

The frustration just spilled out. Gleyber Torres didn’t need anyone to speak to him. He knew he screwed up, twice. The shortstop's two errors in a three-error inning on Sunday was far from the biggest issue the Yankees had this weekend, but he seemed to be acting collectively for the Yankees and their fans when he went back to the dugout and dramatically pummeled his glove.

"This is just a bad ending to a terrible weekend," Yankees manager Aaron Boone said . . .

The Yankees (29-24) have lost five of their last six games and head home to face the AL East division-leading Rays (34-20), followed by the Red Sox (32-30), playing some of their worst baseball.

"What we've been putting out there right now is not our best and it's unacceptable," said Aaron Judge, who struck out with the bases loaded in the top of the ninth inning.

It was perhaps the perfect ending for the Yankees offense here over the last three games. They scored just five runs and went 2-for-25 with runners in scoring position. . . .

"[Y]ou just can't keep coming to the plate, trying to do the same thing, expecting different results," said Judge, who went 3-for-13 over the weekend. . . .

The Yankees streaky offense has struggled for the last 11 games, averaging less than three runs a game.  . . .

Torres' first error came as he tried to casually backhand Victor Reyes' ball, allowing one run to score. After a walk, a two-run double and a strikeout, Torres just bobbled Jeimer Candelario's ball right to short to keep the inning alive. . . .

"I make two mistakes, but I am really working hard . . .," Torres said. . . .

Running the bases has been a consistent problem for the Yankees, who lead the majors on outs on bases. In the eighth, with two outs, Gary Sanchez singled in a run on a ground ball to Tigers shortstop Zack Short, whose throw to first was wide. The lumbering catcher tried to make a wide turn at first and got caught running awkwardly between second and first when the ball ricocheted back to the first baseman. That was the Yankees' 26th out on the bases this season and it killed their eighth-inning rally. . . .

"It ended up being not a good decision," Sanchez said . . . "It's something that happens . . ."

After Saturday's Loss

Dan Martin, Post:

That winning streak that got the Yankees back in the conversation for first place in the AL East is now a distant memory.

Since . . . last Sunday, they've lost four of five to the Blue Jays and Tigers, with the latest defeat a sleepy 6-1 loss to Detroit, the last-place team in the AL Central, on Saturday at Comerica Park. . . .

The defeat Saturday featured a bit of everything: another no-show from the lineup and a start from rookie Deivi Garcia that proved he is a long way from fulfilling whatever potential the Yankees believe he has.

The offense produced just three hits and Garcia once again couldn't get out of the fifth inning. . . .

[Garcia] was without his good breaking pitches and has now underwhelmed in both major league starts this season, as well as two of his four outings at Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. . . .

Garcia was hurt by a throwing error from Rougned Odor that led to an unearned run in the second inning and by a pair of doubles in the fifth that ended his outing. . . .

What was unforeseen is the continued inability of the offense to produce runs — or even hits. . . .

[T]he bottom four in the order went a combined 0-for-11 with five strikeouts.

The Yankees also followed up Friday's 0-for-10 ledger with runners in scoring position by going 0-for-4. . . .

Boone said his team had "to have that urgency" to get out of its funk and the manager said he's seeing it — despite the results.

Ken Davidoff, Post:

We can debate Aaron Boone's bullpen maneuvers from Friday night. We can dissect rookie Deivi Garcia’s mound performance from Saturday.

We'd be missing the point. We'd be wasting our time. One indisputable reality dominates this Yankees season:

This Yankees offense is an absolute horror show. . . .

Aaron Boone's bunch hit another low point Saturday . . . ensuring a second straight series loss . . . With 3.83 runs per game, the Yankees, deploying essentially the same personnel that led the American League in runs scored in both 2019 and 2020, were tied with the Orioles for 12th in the AL . . . It's astonishing and, if you care about them, it's alarming. . . .

[T]he Yankees can't afford a second consecutive bad week, not with the Rays and Red Sox, both above them in the AL East, coming to The Bronx starting Monday. . . .

Garcia couldn't live up to the high standards established by his fellow starting pitchers and Rougned Odor contributed a damaging throwing error in the second inning. In all, it added up to one of the Yankees' worst games of the season. . . .

For now, though, this offense [has been] staler than the last two seasons of "The Office" (US version) . . .

[OMG, a culture reference that is only eight years old!]

Kristie Ackert, Daily News:

The Yankees managed just three hits in the 6-1 loss at Comerica Park. . . .

The Bombers averaged under three runs a game over the last 10. They struck out a dozen times Saturday and went 0-for-4 with runners in scoring position. Excellent pitching got them through the last few weeks, but with one injury the Yankees pitching depth started to show cracks. . . .

Deivi Garcia was the emergency spot starter Saturday. He lasted just 4.1 innings, allowing five runs, four earned, on five hits. . . . Sunday, the Yankees will push youngster Michael King into a spot start. . . .

"I feel like we have the right mindset," [DJ] LeMahieu said. . . . "Some guys are doing a really good job with runners in scoring position." . . .

The Yankees, who went 0-for-10 with runners in scoring position in Friday night's loss . . . went into Saturday's game 24th in the league in OPS with runners in scoring position and hitting .244, one point below the league average in those spots. . . .

Memorial Day weekend is traditionally a milestone mark for self-evaluation for teams in baseball. After Saturday, the Yankees found themselves in third place in the American League East, 3.5 games behind the Rays. . . .

LeMahieu feels they are in the right spot . . .

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