Yankees’ Aaron Boone bemoans ’embarrassing’ loss vs. Rays as New York’s free fall continues

The New York Yankees’ second-half struggles continued on Friday night time as they misplaced a 9-0 boat race (field rating) to the Tampa Bay Rays. The defeat drops the Yankees to 15-25 because the All-Star Game, together with a 10-19 stretch because the begin of August. More importantly, New York’s lead over the Rays within the American League East is now simply 5 video games. The Yankees had been forward by 10 video games as just lately as mid-August, and at one level in July they led the division by greater than 15 video games. 

Predictably, Yankees supervisor Aaron Boone was none too joyful along with his workforce’s efficiency on Friday night time.

“It’s just embarrassing when you get beat like that and you’re going through the struggles you are,” Boone mentioned to reporters after the loss, per ESPN. “I’m in charge of this team. What we’re going through right now, I know better than anyone. There’s going to be hard moments and hard times. I do think the effort’s there. I think the care is there. But we’ve set a much better standard in that room that we’ve got to start living up to.”

New York’s lineup has been one of many main culprits for his or her current ineptitude. For perspective, think about that the Yankees’ lineup ranks third within the majors in wRC+, a catch-all metric hosted at FanGraphs that adjusts for ballpark and different variables. Yet they rank twenty third in that class because the starting of August. 

Here’s a have a look at how the Yankees’ most-used hitters have carried out since Aug. 1.

Put one other means, the Yankees have scored simply 101 runs (or 3.5 per) in that span, the fifth-fewest within the majors. Indeed, Friday marked the sixth time in 29 video games the Yankees have been shut out. During that stretch, they’ve additionally been held to 2 runs or fewer on seven different events. Combined, that accounts for 13 of their 29 contests. 

The Yankees have homered 28 instances as a workforce since Aug. 1. Aaron Judge, who’s making an attempt to interrupt Roger Maris’ franchise report, is liable for 9 of these.

Despite all of the above, and regardless of the struggles of their middle-infield choices, Boone and the Yankees don’t appear in a rush to introduce contemporary blood to the lineup. The Yankees promoted shortstop prospect Oswald Peraza to the majors on Thursday as a part of September’s roster enlargement to twenty-eight gamers, but he didn’t begin on Friday. Instead, Boone told reporters that “he’ll get some opportunities, but I don’t want to put any undue expectations on him.”

The Yankees will proceed their weekend sequence towards the Rays on Saturday. A loss would scale back their result in 4 video games with 29 remaining to play.