The Yankees have been a hot-and-cold team for most of the season, with a recent 13-game win streak catapulting them to within four games of the first place Tampa Bay Rays on August 27, the final day of that torrid streak.
But with Wednesday’s 6-3 loss to the Toronto Blue Jays, the Yankees now find themselves playing at the opposite end of that spectrum, going 2-9 in their last 11 games to fall 9.5 games back in the AL East and dropping them out of the first AL Wild Card spot, a position they’d maintained since Aug. 17.
Aside from a Brett Gardner three-run home run, the Yankees had another feeble night at the plate on Wednesday, with Gardner’s homer being the sole extra-base hit the team has mustered since Sunday’s loss to the Orioles.
Manager Aaron Boone said after the game that he believes in this team’s ability to turn things around, but he admitted there’s only so many times he can say that without the team getting results.
“We’re pouring into everything right now, whether it’s video, whether it’s pregame tweaks and things like that. We know we have the guys capable, but we’ve got to get it done,” Boone said. “A little bit of a broken record this week and I understand that. This is the group that we absolutely believe in and we gotta get this thing turned around and believe we will, but it’s certainly been a frustrating several days for us on the offensive side.
“As rough as this has been now for the last 11 games … it’s still in our hands. We have to be able to get past this and trust that what we’re capable of doing is next. I can sit here and talk about, but talk becomes cheap. We’ve got to go out and perform and we’re not doing it at a high enough level right now.”
Gardner’s three-run shot, which came off of Alek Manoah in the bottom of the fifth to tie the game at that point, looked like it could have been the shot in the arm the Yankees needed to get going, But the Jays scored the next three runs, and the Yankees were quiet for the rest of the evening.
“We just haven’t been playing good baseball and that’s obviously something that we’ve got to figure out here in relatively short order or our season will be over in short order,” Gardner said. “Hopefully we can turn the page. We showed what we’re capable of, we just haven’t been able to maintain that for an extended period of time.
“Yeah, it’s frustrating and disappointing, but you’ve only got two choices. You can show up tomorrow and get to work and fight through it or lay down and five up, and obviously we’re not going to do that. We’ve got a tough group, a resilient group, so hopefully in a month or so we’re looking back on these as just another obstacle, another thing to make us stronger to get to where we want to be at.”