A Frustrating August Gives Way To A Potentially Dangerous September For The New York Yankees

With 39 minutes remaining in the Eastern Time Zone for August, YES Network cameras provided a fitting picture inside the Yankee dugout on Wednesday.

First there was a replay of Isiah Kiner-Falefa misplaying a grounder by Mike Trout, which helped set up Shohei Ohtani’s three-run homer. Then the next shot was of manager Aaron Boone scratching his head while removing his hat, a sign of someone enduring a tough stretch, similar to how his predecessor Joe Girardi would clench his jaw in times of trouble.

Sixty one minutes after viewers saw Boone’s reaction the Yankees watched an opposing team shake hands for the 18th time in 28 games to cap an excruciating 89 hours, 7 minutes.

It was a stretch so bad the Yankees last endured a month like that in Sept. 1991 when they lost 19 of 28 games in the final weeks of Stump Merrill’s managerial tenure and the final weeks of Buck Showalter’s last coaching job before embarking on a successful 21-year managerial career that includes his pulsating first season with the Mets.

The month was one to forget for the Yankees, whose outcomes occasionally seemed so predictable analyst John Flaherty basically predicted Gleyber Torres would chase a pitch out of the strike zone and strikeout.

Now it’s natural to wonder if the Yankees will reverse what they did in 1978 by blowing a 15 1/2 game lead instead of rallying from 14-game deficit. A six-game lead with 31 games can easily be squandered, especially when the nearest pursuer the Tampa Bay Rays get six cracks at the Yankees by the time most of Week One in the NFL is over.

“Now we have to play better than we have It’s as simple as that,” Boone said to reporters in Anaheim. “We’ve got to start racking up some wins. Whether that the calendar has an eight or a nine or a 10 on it, we’ve got to get a little better.”

So as the Mets gear up for holding off the Braves following their pulsating series with the Dodgers that included a live appearance by Timmy Trumpet, the Yankees are trying to avoid turning their lead into a fate previously endured by teams such as the 1951 Dodgers, 1964 Phillies to name a few.

It seemed like the Yankees cured what ailed them on Aug. 21 when they beat Toronto, doing so a day after the emotional reactions of Boone and Cole. A day after Cole punched the dugout roof and Boone slammed the table in the interview room with his right hand, prompting all sorts of social media reaction such as twitter clips mixing in Frank Sinatra’s “New York, New York” with the hand slam heard around the world, the Yankees began a five-game winning streak.

Then it came to a crashing halt Saturday, losing in overtime (extra innings) on an error by DJ LeMahieu, who is dealing with a bad foot. A day later, the Yankees were held to one run in Oakland and Monday spoiled Aaron Judge’s 50th homer with another close loss.

Tuesday saw a brief return to normalcy with three homers, including Judge’s 51st homer. Then came the events of Wednesday, which created more doubt about the formerly apparent insurmountable lead.

The Yankees turned in a month where they batted .219 and scored 101 runs while hitting 50 homers. It was 22 points lower than Sept. 1991 when those Yankees scored 85 runs and hit 15 homers on the way to a 91-loss season.

The Yankees played most of August without Giancarlo Stanton, who batted .301 in May but is a .160 hitter (26 for 163) since then spanning 46 games. Stanton is hardly the one slumping, Torres is a .189 hitter since the All-Star break that makes you wonder if the Yankees will tender him a contract for 2023 if his regression continues.

Those are just a few reasons to go along with the Yankees annoying Luis Severino by putting him on the 60-day injured list despite the fact he has said a few times he is feeling good.

That was the move of a team who may have felt so confident their division title was secure enough they could shelve one of their best pitchers for a few months to limit his innings.

Instead, the team has reverted back to its tedious nature from last year’s 92-win slog that featured Brian Cashman declaring his team to be unwatchable when it was in fourth place on the final Monday of June and a team who only got into the wild-card game when Judge hit a game-ending single in a 1-0 game.

“We’re a little banged up within the lineup and obviously missing some key pieces that we need to get back,” Boone told reporters. “But that said, we have all the pieces right now to be able to go out and win baseball games, and that’s what we’ve got to take care of.”

Maybe they do have the pieces to back up Boone’s passionate optimism but the Yankees are entering a potentially precarious situation that could get worse. It potentially could put the talk of how it’s better to endure this slide in August and the talk of being in a good spot will go by the wayside like any comparisons to the 114-win 1998 team that now seems like ancient history even if it was only seven weeks ago.