The Yankees had one of the best trade deadlines in the league last week. General manager Brian Cashman upgraded their reeling bullpen with splashy additions, including top closer David Bednar, to give them a positive outlook for the pennant race.
How did they respond? All four trade-deadline acquisitions began their careers in pinstripes by imploding.
Jake Bird allowed four Earned Runs in the Yankees’ 13-12 loss to the Marlins on Friday. (Photo by Lucas Casel/MLB Photos via Getty Images)
Then, rather than brushing off Friday’s brutal 13-12 loss to the Marlins, the Yankees recorded just three runs over their next 18 innings of play. Across a stretch of 20 batters on Sunday, the Bronx Bombers produced just one hit. And so the Marlins, for the first time in their franchise’s history, swept the Yankees. New York (60-52) tumbled to third place in the AL East.
“It’s getting to be real gut-check time,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone told reporters in Miami on Sunday. “It’s getting late. It’s certainly not too late for us. I am confident that we’re going to get it together, but that’s all it is right now. It’s empty until we start doing it.”
It was a miserable weekend in Miami. There’s nothing the Yankees clubhouse wants more than to forget it. But it wasn’t only one bad series. It hasn’t been just one week of poor play. The Yankees have struggled for months — more than a quarter of their season.
Since June 13, the Yankees are 18-27. In the American League, only the Twins have been worse in that span. Throughout the year, the Yankees have had nobody to blame but themselves. It’s as if nothing has changed since Game 5 of last year’s World Series, when the club’s poor fundamentals cost them a critical win on the national stage against the Los Angeles Dodgers.
This year, their self-sabotage has persisted. As a team, the Yankees have committed the eighth-most errors (61) in the major leagues and their -8 Outs Above Average are ranked 21st in MLB. Their Baserunning Runs Above Average, a metric that includes stolen bases and caught stealing, is -3.3, good for 18th in baseball. All of this comes after Cashman publicly said improving the Yankees’ defense, fundamentals and baserunning would be a priority this season.
Asked designated hitter Giancarlo Stanton why the Yankees haven’t taken a step forward defensively, he simply repeated, “We’re working on it.” And yet, we see unacceptable gaffes from the Bronx Bombers on a nightly basis. Not even the newest additions to the team are immune to it.
We’ve seen long stretches of ups and downs for these Yankees, where they win a few games, but then they fall into six-game losing streaks where they look lifeless on the field. It’s fair to question whether this version of the team has what it takes to turn it around. At what point can we say this is just who the Yankees are this year?
Since June 13, the Yankees are 18-27. In the American League, only the Twins have been worse in that span. (Photo by Rich Storry/Getty Images)
“I wouldn’t say there’s concern, but I would say, I think a little sense of urgency would be good for us going forward,” Yankees catcher/first baseman Ben Rice said. “Just to continue to do what we can to win ballgames. That’s going to be doing the little things. Hopefully we sync up pitching and hitting, and that’s it.”
In addition to the on-field blunders, the Yankees are teaching a masterclass on how to disconnect with their fanbase.
Outside of Yankees catcher Austin Wells, who recently called himself an “idiot” after forgetting how many outs there were in the inning, which is the type of accountability that New Yorkers can appreciate, most other players have failed to read the room by giving insufficient answers for their mediocre results.
Take, for example, Jazz Chisholm’s response to his mistake on the basepaths after the Yankees’ Saturday night loss to the Marlins. Chisholm, who was on first base with one out, got caught sleeping when Paul Goldschmidt hit a routine pop-up to second baseman Xavier Edwards. Chisholm was a few feet off first base when the catch was made, and by the time he hustled back to the bag, he was doubled up. Chisholm said after the game that he was expecting Edwards to purposely drop the pop-up, in which case, he would have beaten the throw to second base.
Asked after the game if he would change anything, Chisholm said no.
(Photo by Rich Storry/Getty Images)
More humiliation came after Chisholm’s response, when two of the most iconic Yankees players, Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez, ripped the current clubhouse for sidestepping accountability and “making way too many mistakes.” That had to be hard to say for Jeter, the Hall of Famer and five-time world champion, who often goes out of his way to praise his old team. Boone’s Yankees aren’t just being criticized by the media and their fan base, but franchise favorites are joining in the bad press, too. So how did Boone respond to the newest source of criticism? By pushing back in a wishy-washy way.
“I would disagree a little bit with the accountability factor,” Boone said on Sunday morning before the Yankees’ latest loss. “But the reality is we’re focused every day on being the best we can be. That’s how we have to do it. But I understand when it doesn’t happen or we don’t have the record I think we should have, or certainly people think we should have, that comes with the territory. It’s on us to change that thought.”
JETER, A-ROD BREAK DOWN YANKEES’ RECENT STRUGGLES: ‘WAY TOO MANY MISTAKES’
Boone added that the perception that the Yankees lack accountability makes him angry sometimes. The Yankees manager is fixated on changing that perception by winning games. It’s true, winning changes everything. If the Yankees go on a 10-game winning streak and retake possession of first place, nobody will be nitpicking the players’ postgame comments. But, in order for the Yankees to go on that winning streak, they would have to start playing clean baseball. Accountability matters most when teams are losing more than they’re winning.
After the Yankees fell to the Marlins on Saturday, they were looking up at their rival Red Sox, who took over second place. It got worse on Sunday, when right-hander Luis Gil coughed up five earned runs across 3.1 innings in his 2025 season debut. The Yankees began their road trip by getting swept in Miami. And it doesn’t get easier. New York flew to Arlington, Texas on Sunday night for a tough matchup against the Rangers. Texas is just one game back of an AL wild-card spot behind the Seattle Mariners, and the 2023 world champions should be feeling good about their chances of winning the series at home against the Yanks.
Part of the reason why fans are so baffled by these recent results is, well, the 26-man roster is stacked. On paper, the Yankees are built to beat anyone. Aaron Judge leads an offense that’s ranked the best in baseball (with a 116 wRC+), and he’s expected to continue that effort when he returns from the injured list during their Texas series. They have a top ten starting pitching staff in the major leagues, and they just upgraded their bullpen in a significant way at the trade deadline. It’s true that, rather than being galvanized by the new talent, those very same additions all suffered missteps in their first game in pinstripes on Friday, which will go down as the worst loss of the Yankees season.
But that was supposed to be just one game. Just one bad loss. Despite the ugly performances of the last several weeks, the Yankees are still set up to have a strong stretch run. The question is whether they can stop the bleeding long enough to be viable for it.
It starts by cleaning up their act.
Deesha Thosar covers Major League Baseball as a reporter and columnist for FOX Sports. She previously covered the Mets as a beat reporter for the New York Daily News. The daughter of Indian immigrants, Deesha grew up on Long Island and now lives in Queens. Follow her on Twitter at @DeeshaThosar.
really helpful
Get more from the Major League Baseball Follow your favorites to get information about games, news and more
