Over the last five games, the Yankees simply haven’t lived up to their Bronx Bombers nickname.
Dating back to Tuesday’s loss to the Toronto Blue Jays, the Yankees have averaged just two runs a game, dropping four of their last five contests.
And as the Yankees get set to finish up their series with the Tigers Sunday before a crucial seven-game stretch against the Tampa Bay Rays and Boston Red Sox (the two teams ahead of them in the AL East standings), the message from Aaron Boone is simple.
“Bottom line is we’ve gotta be better. We’ve got to get better if we’re going to be the team we expect to be,” Boone said after the 6-1 loss to Detroit on Saturday. “A lot of that is built around what we expect to be offensively, and there’s no question that that has to improve. I believe it will improve, but we’ve got to continue to work and make sure we’re making the necessary adjustments every day to get to that point.
“But if we’re going to be the club we expect to be, we’ve got to improve.”
The Yankees have been dealing with a recent string of injuries, with Aaron Hicks now done for the year and with Luke Voit also on the 10-day IL. Meanwhile, Giancarlo Stanton made his return to the lineup on Friday after missing 13 games, but he didn’t look like himself, going 0-for-5 with four strikeouts.
Boone knows the whole lineup needs to hit better, but he’s also putting pressure on the Yankees’ key hitters to step up their games and lead the team.
“The roster we’re at right now, I think we do change up quite a bit, we do have different sort of lineups every day, but if we’re gonna be the club we expect to be, we need to get the guys that we expect to carry a lot of the load offensively to really get going,” Boone said.
Some of the Yankees’ individual numbers this year aren’t pretty. DJ LeMahieu, who’s hit .323 as a Yankee, is hitting .263. Gary Sanchez is once again struggling, hitting .190. Clint Frazier is hitting .172.
The Yankees need more from their big hitters right now, but Gleyber Torres isn’t ready to call this recent cold stretch a trend just yet.
“I don’t know. We try to be (consistent) … We always try to attack, but I feel like we attack bad pitches and we miss too many good pitches and opportunities,” Torres said. “It’s just two games. Tomorrow is another day, and we’ll try to win.”