Early Returns From The New York Yankees And New York Mets Bring Mediocrity

The first impression of the Yankees based solely on the opening month is not great. Whether it is the injuries, the starting pitching in games when Gerrit Cole and Nestor Cortes are not on the mound, there’s a certain mediocre quality to the Yankees, a kind of blah or meh.

At least that’s how you could describe the first month of the season which saw the Yankees win 15 out 29 games. It is a record that does not often bury teams and plenty of times the Yankees have recovered from such records such as 2009 when the turned from a 13-15 team into a 103-win juggernaut and eventual World Series champion.

The first month featured too little offense, especially of late with 10 instances out of the past 13 games where the Yankees were held to two runs or fewer. And now they are facing their first run of the inevitable adversity that can inflict a team, which is something that was highlighted by manager Aaron Boone after the worst of their recent games, a 15-2 thrashing by the Texas Rangers, who suddenly know how to pitch after struggling on the mound in recent years.

“Adversity is coming for us,” Boone said. “We know it and we will get through it. The league waits for no one, and no one is going to feel sorry for us for what we’re going through. Even though we are beat up a little bit, we’re still capable of going out there and winning ballgames. That’s what we’ve got to find a way to do right now.”

It is a similar statement Boone made during the sluggish dog days of August except there was not a pounding on the podium for emphasis like on Aug. 19 when a lackluster 4-0 loss to the Toronto Blue Jays elicited the emotional reaction.

There is little the Yankees can do until they are healthy. They are missing the projected designated hitter in Giancarlo Stanton, their projected center fielder Harrison Bader, their projected third baseman (for now) Josh Donaldson, along with two starting pitchers in $162 million man Carlos Rodon and Luis Severino.

And compounding matters is the depth behind those injured pieces is not offering promising results except for occasional glimpses such as Domingo German’s 11 strikeouts sandwiched around three checks for sticky substances (link) or Clarke Schmidt’s scoreless outing until giving up consecutive homers to Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Daulton Varsho after an error by Anthony Volpe.

Two years ago, the Yankees were 12-14 through the first month of a tedious season but were only 4 1/2 games out of first place. This year, they are eight back of Tampa Bay, which the Yankees face seven times in the next two weeks. This deficit is the largest by the Yankees through April since 1984 when they were 8-13 and 10 1/2 back of the Detroit Tigers, who raced out to 35 wins in 40 games.

As for what is next is hoping there is not more injury adversity with Aaron Judge’s hip that kept him out for the past three games. The determination about an injured list stint is likely coming Monday in the hours before the Devils and Rangers play Game 7 of their first-round series in Newark.

The Yankees are not alone in the realm of New York baseball as getting off to a mediocre start. The Mets with their record payroll are off to a 15-12 start but because the Braves are “only” 18-9, their deficit is three games in the NL East.

Their problems are compounded by who is missing from the mound as Max Scherzer, Justin Verlander, Carlos Carrasco, Jose Quintana and Kodai Senga have combined for 59 of the 233 innings so far. The difference is Scherzer and Verlander are returning in the really near future with Scherzer back from MLB’s third 10-game suspension for sticky substances and Verlander likely coming back later this week from his teres major injury after feeling good in a rehab start.

Still, there are questions about the Mets, who are 41-33 since Aug. 19 when they dropped three of four against Atlanta. The Mets have only seen Atlanta once this season and that for an 83-minute five-inning game through the rain but the Braves looked better in that small sample size with their decisive fifth-inning coming in the form of two-well placed hits, a single by Ronald Acuna Jr, a homer by Matt Olson that was so long the distance was revised by 28 feet to 461 after the game.

The expanded playoffs offer teams less reasons to fret about losing a division title and in the first year of that format all three first-place teams in the NL were bounced in the wild-card round or the division series. Of course the Mets know all too well about the potential pitfalls of being in the wild-card round when they lost to the Padres, who certainly enjoyed the celebration.

The early returns indicate there may not much celebrations for the New York teams but there is still a long to go and depending on how the Knicks and Rangers fare throughout the rest of their postseason runs, the city might not notice the average quality of both teams so far.