Coming out of a brutal homestand that included a four-game sweep at the hands of their biggest threat to missing the playoffs in the Blue Jays, the Yankees needed a strong start to their weekend series against the Mets to turn the tide.
They got the opposite, committing two errors in addition to a mental gaffe at home plate by Gary Sanchez, in a 10-3 loss to drop their seventh in a row and 11th of their last 13 games, the first time they have done so since the stretch run of the 2000 season.
“Its’ just a poor performance, period,” Aaron Boone said. “We get off to a decent start tonight, get a little bit of a lead, but didn’t play well enough to keep it going. Just a frustrating, awful start to the series.”
Even the always-optimistic Boone struggled to find the positives in Friday’s loss, where the Yankees seemed to range from overwhelmed to disinterested at times, only maintaining a loose hold of the final playoff spot because the Blue Jays finally lost for the first time in a week.
“We gotta play better,” Boone said. “When it’s not going well, we need to continue to grind away when it’s difficult. We need to be better at that.”
Still, Boone emphatically believes that his group is focused on turning things around, even if it looked like focus wasn’t at the forefront when Gary Sanchez allowed Jonathan Villar to slide under a tag on a throw that beat him by 20 feet, or in the Mets’ five-run third inning.
“I think these guys are desperately trying to turn this thing around,” Boone said. “I think they are committed to their process, to what they’re doing. We’re not getting results right now, and we’re all pissed off about that. But as far as the intent and these guys’ focus, it’s there.”
The Yankees are in their worst stretch of the season after a 13-game winning streak, and are quickly losing their grip on a postseason spot. The Yanks hardly looked like a team bound for October on Friday night, but Boone hasn’t budged in his faith that the team will turn things around, even if Friday’s loss made it seem like the Bombers are even further from a turnaround than they were during their brutal homestand.
“We’ve had an awful week…two months rolling into that, we’re doing things a lot better,” Boone said. “I don’t think anything’s changed from there other than that we haven’t been playing our best and had a bad week…it’s a bit of a broken record. We gotta keep grinding at it and we gotta keep working at it, and we will, and we trust that it will turn.”
Follow Ryan Chichester on Twitter: @ryanchichester1
Follow WFAN on Social Media
Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | YouTube | Twitch
