Small Sampling Of Wins Provide Yankees And Mets With Hope That The Worst Is Over

New York Yankees’ Cody Bellinger (35) and Aaron Judge celebrate a victory over the St. Louis Cardinals following a baseball game Sunday, Aug. 17, 2025, in St. Louis. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)

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From May 30 through Aug. 5, the Yankees played 58 games and produced only 25 wins, often losing in massively frustrating fashion as evidenced by six losses in seven games at Toronto, a walk off loss to the Marlins where each player acquired at the July 31 trade deadline contributed to their downfall.

From June 13 through Aug. 15, the Mets played 53 games and only won 19 times. Two wins were against the Yankees on July 4-5 and seven more were obtained July 20-27 right before a trade deadline that saw the Mets seemingly secure a lockdown bullpen by adding Tyler Rogers and Ryan Helsley in trades from the Cardinals and Giants.

This weekend, both teams experienced better results, putting the question into the minds of all those involved about whether the worst is over and can both teams finish on hot streaks after taking similar paths to nearly identical records.

The Yankees are perhaps providing a few more clues about a possible turnaround with a 10-game sample size. Starting with David Bednar’s 42-pitch save where he was able to convince manager Aaron Boone to let him finish a 3-2 win at Texas, the Yankees are 7-3 and throwing out the two losses in three games to the Astros, they are 5-1 in their past six.

While it may be the product of a soft spot in the schedule, it is better than the alternative which saw the Yankees precede these 10 games by following up a five-game winning streak with 13 losses in 20 games, including five by at least four runs.

This 10-game span has seen the Yankees pitch to a 3.56 ERA. In the previous 10-game span, the Yankees had a 4.65 ERA and in their first 10 games coming out of the All-Star break it was 5.69.

Offensively, in the past 10 games the Yankees are producing 52 runs and a .761 OPS to go along with 14 homers, 28 extra-base hits and 55 walks. In the preceding 10 games, they batted .215, scored 45 runs, had 26 extra-base hits and walked 31 times.

The Yankees best 10-game span was a 9-1 mark from May 18-28 which was part of the 16 wins in 20 games that lifted them to a 35-20 record and a seven-game lead atop the AL East. During their best 10-game stretch, the Yankees scored 47 runs, produced 33 extra-base hits, walked 41 times and had a .744 OPS.

In their best 10-game span, the Yankees pitched to a 1.82 ERA and notched 111 strikeouts in 89 innings, two fewer innings than this 10-game stretch.

All throughout their two months of struggles, the Yankees have expressed the belief they were better and five wins over the Twins and Cardinals showed it.

They outscored the Twins 15-3 before running into the unfortunate circumstances of a long rain delay and Joe Ryan dominating them on Wednesday, the same night the Mets blew a six-run lead and wound up with an 11-6 loss to the Braves, a night after celebrating Pete Alonso breaking Daryl Strawberry’s team record for home runs.

Then the Yankees won three slogs in humid weather over the Cardinals, holding on for a 4-3 victory Friday, winning a 12-8 slugfest Saturday and scoring four times in the ninth for an 8-4 victory Sunday when they scored their most runs this season without hitting a homer.

I thought the at-bats were, again, really good today,” manager Aaron Boone told reporters after watching his team against the Cardinals for nine hours, 39 minutes. “Just the value of putting the ball in play there at the end, taking advantage of the mistake. Good way to finish up into an off-day.”

The Yankees will get a better gauge of what these 10 games might be when they return home for a four-game series with the Boston Red Sox to continue the race of which wild-card team gets home field advantage.

After playing seven games against the Washington Nationals and Chicago White Sox, the Yankees will run into their biggest test with nine straight games against Astros, Blue Jays and Tigers.

“This is a good week for us to win five out of six games, but there’s a lot of tough, tough opponents coming up,” Goldschmidt told reporters. “We try to play well and keep going, and we definitely have a chance.”

While the Yankees were completing their first sweep in over a month, the Mets played two relatively neat games against the Mariners. They gave up 16 hits, including nine doubles in an unsightly 11-9 loss Friday night, resulting in all sorts of Beatles’ puns since it was the 60th anniversary of the famous concert at Shea Stadium.

By late Friday night the pressure was on prospect Nolan McLean to deliver something respectable on the mound from a starting pitcher. McLean not only did that, he pitched 5 1/3 innings, allowing the Mets to set up their bullpen decently and get a six-out save from Edwin Diaz.

McLean’s outing was sorely needed that manager Carlos Mendoza admitted he would been in the crowd booing when the pitching change was made. It was so needed that every time McLean was shown on the massive center field scoreboard, he drew loud ovations from a sellout crowd who was glad to see him and not Frankie Montas start the game.

A night later, the Mets headed to Williamsport for the Little League Classic and played another mostly clean game by jumping out to a six-run lead and getting a 7-3 win that featuring a home run from Mark Vientos, whose follow up to last season’s breakout has not matched, resulting in diminished playing time.

It also featured Clay Holmes allowing one run in five innings and a rebound outing from Helsley.

“It feels good,” Mendoza told reporters. “We need to start winning series. It’s been rough (and) tough for all of us.”

The Mets will find out if the worst is over when they precede a three-game series at home against the Phillies with six games in Washington and Atlanta. Turnarounds sometimes require small steps and indications of progress, which is what they hope they achieved the past two games.