The Yankees have just one extra-base hit over the last three games, that being Brett Gardner’s three-run home run in the middle of Thursday’s loss to the Blue Jays.
That’s been a big catalyst for this stretch that has seen the Yankees go 2-9 since winning 13 in a row, but the roller-coaster nature of the offense – especially the fact that a lot of players seem to either heat up or cool down at the same time – is something manager Aaron Boone doted on during his weekly appearance with Carton & Roberts on Thursday.
“It’s been certainly something that’s puzzled is and kept us diving in, because we feel like we do have a group that for the most part, for the last few years, has been at the top of the league in runs scored, and this year this hasn’t been the case,” Boone said. “And this year, we’ve put the ball on the ground a little too much, and some of our best hit balls have gone to the biggest parts of the park. The balls changed a little bit and that’s cut into some fly balls, so there’s a lot of things.”
That said, every team in baseball is dealing with the external factors, so the Yankees firmly believe they should be better.
“It’s the same playing field for everyone. We have guys who are highly capable and feel we should have an offense at the top of the league,” Boone said. “That’s what we’re working toward, and hope we can get it to click.”
One other issue the Yankees have had in the last 11: the bullpen, which has been taxed heavily and just lost its most consistent pitcher in Jonathan Loaisiga to a shoulder injury.
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Specifically, Evan, who had just grilled Mets manager Luis Rojas about some of his decisions this week not an hour earlier, grilled Boone about using Andrew Heaney in the seventh inning of Sunday’s loss to Baltimore, where he allowed four runs in just one-third of an inning.
“We didn’t have much left in the bullpen. We knew we had (Chad) Green for one-plus and possibly two, but if we got into extra innings we were up against it, so we knew we had to get at least an inning out of Heaney,” Boone said. “The bottom line is we’ve used our relievers at a really high clip and played a lot of close games, so we’ve used our high-leverage guys a lot and have had to get meaningful outs from everybody.”
When Evan pressed and said why not go to Green in the seventh to get what you could and then maybe go to Heaney or Wandy Peralta, who replaced the lefty one out into the inning, Boone fired back.
“We’re at a point in the game where both guys had to pitch, and if he’s closing the game in the ninth, I’ve guaranteed myself using Green now for two innings, and he’s down a couple days,” Boone said. “It’s a high-leverage situation regardless. It was a decent spot for Heaney – I understand how you feel, but he’s been a pretty good big-league pitcher in his career, so if he gets it rolling and has a clean inning, we’re in business.”
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Boone also admitted that even though he had been ejected, he was able to have a little bit of input into that move with bench coach Carlos Mendoza, and doesn’t feel as strongly about Heaney’s underperformance as an indicator of talent as fans may.
“He’s been considerably less bad than the results, and he was very unlucky that day,” Boone said. “I won’t sit here and say he has pitched overwhelmingly well, but he’s been unlucky. But we needed an inning or two out of him, and not getting it really put us up against it.”
Up against it describes the Yankees bullpen entering Thursday’s series finale, as Boone noted multiple guys may be down or limited…so despite struggling and eventually being removed from Wednesday’s ninth inning, Aroldis Chapman is still the closer.
“There will be days it’s situational, but he’s still the closer,” Boone said. “We’re gonna be thin in the bullpen tonight and have to be creative with how we piece it together, but hopefully we’ll see Chappy closing it out.”
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