This team is doomed. The New York Yankees are now sub .500 for the first time this late into a season since 1995 after getting destroyed by the Braves, and it really looks like New York is going to miss the playoffs.
If the Yankees miss the playoffs, you can be damn well sure there’s going to be nuclear changes to the organization.
The New York Yankees have been an utter disaster this entire season that was put on full display in their 3-game sweep defeat at the hands of World Series contenders the Atlanta Braves, yet what makes the Yankees disastrous showing against the Braves even worse is they’re now sub .500 in August for the first time in 28 years. And, not to sound like the world’s worst seance here, but I’m betting the Yankees record-breaking woes are going to keep happening the rest of this season.
Now, for all the wonderful people not Yankees fans (such as myself), watching the Yankees utterly implode this season has been a delight as New York has truly been one of the worst teams to watch in the American League.
Sure, you can always torture yourself to death with bad American League baseball by watching the Oakland Athletics, the Chicago White Sox, and the Kansas City Royals, all of whom are significantly worse than the Yankees, but that’s not fun to enjoy.
What is fun is seeing all the thousands of Yankees fans in Yankee Stadium or travelling with their team to the 29 other ballparks have such high expectations for the likes of Giancarlo Stanton, Harrison Bader, Gleyber Torres, DJ LeMahieu, Gerrit Cole, and Aaron Judge to pull out a heroic winning streak to get the Yankees back in Wild Card contention…only to see these same fans rage, boo, and sometimes cry when New York eventually gets battered and their superstars shrink back into their New York subways holes from whence they came.
Is it obvious that I’m a Red Sox fan yet?
Being serious, the Yankees aren’t TERRIBLE terrible as they’re 60-61 and 6.5 behind the Toronto Blue Jays for the third and final Wild Card spot (which is a good position for most MLB teams), but they most certainly are NOT a contending team as New York must always be. If you don’t believe me, just watch their series against the Braves.
The Atlanta Braves, who are currently leading all of baseball with a record of 78-42, sit 1st place in the NL East, have a .650 winning percentage, and are the odds-on favorites for the World Series, were the ultimate test for the Yankees to prove their mettle against and see where they landed…which may have been the worst possible thing for New York fans right now.
The Braves not only swept the series EASILY with a combined winning margin of 18-3, but they also SHUTOUT the Yankees in the final two games of the series and allowed just five hits! Remember, we’re talking about the NEW YORK YANKEES here!
But, to be honest, that really shouldn’t’ be a surprise New York couldn’t hit the ball as they are currently 29th in hits (913), 30th in doubles (154), tied-21st in triples (13), tied-21st in RBIs (494), 20th in strikeouts (1,007), 20th in stolen bases (76), tied-6th in getting caught stealing bases (25), 23rd in runs (514), and 29th in batting average (.231).
If the Yankees weren’t so good at hitting home runs (8th-159), this team would literally be as bad as the Athletics, White Sox, and the Royals. That’s how AWFUL the Yankees are at hitting the ball, and how one dimensional they are.
And, to be honest, the only people to blame for this unfortunate stat is manager Aaron Boone, GM Brian Cashman, and owner Harold Steinbrenner as Boone hasn’t been able to get a tune out of this team since being hired as manager in 2018 (yes, he has a few 100+ win seasons and ALCS appearances, but this is the Yankees. World Series wins is the bar!), Brian Cashman (who’s most at fault) has constructed this crapshoot team, and Harold Steinbrenner for keeping Boone and Cashman in positions of power and spending $279M on this roster.
Since Steinbrenner can’t get fired, he’s almost certainly going to get rid of either Boone or Cashman once this season is over as the Yankees have just been plain awful. And even more so if the Yankees actually end up having a LOSING SEASON.
As I mentioned in the intro, New York is sub .500 (60-61) in August for the first time since their 1995 season when they went actually managed to turn their season around and go 79-65, yet this roster has none of the ’95 roster’s tenacity, fight, spirt, or talent.
This team looks as though they know they’re going to miss the playoffs and their late season attempts of squeezing into the final Wild Card spot are doomed…which would be another bad record breaker as the Yankees haven’t missed the playoffs since 2016 and haven’t had a losing record since 1992 (76-85).
In fact, the Yankees have only had 21 losing seasons in their 100-year history!
We’ll have to wait and see if the Yankees manage to break their 31-year record of winning seasons this year, but even if they don’t, we can all be happy with the fact that they’re not going to make the playoffs.
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