The Yankees still have the best record in baseball, but in the span of five days, they have been handed three COVID IL entries, two Tommy John surgeries, a feud with the White So that resulted in a suspension, and now three straight losses.
After surging to a historic start to the season, the Bombers are facing their first bit of adversity in the grinding 162-game season.
“Little bit of adversity, for sure,” Gerrit Cole said after allowing five runs over eight innings in a 6-4 loss to the Orioles on Monday. “I don’t know if we’re road blocked, but definitely have some adversity we’re dealing with.
“Obviously a tough stretch right now with the amount of games, the amount of doubleheaders we’ve played, the injuries that have crept up on his. But nobody is gonna feel sorry for us.”
Aaron Boone isn’t putting much stock into the Yankees’ first three-game losing streak of the season, though playing without three starters in Josh Donaldson (on the COVID IL and suspended one game for his remarks to Tim Anderson), Joey Gallo, and Kyle Higashioka (both on the COVID IL) with tougher teams like the Rays and Angels coming up on the schedule means the Yanks will continued to be tested.
“A doubleheader in the middle of the grind where we got held down offensively, and a weird night tonight where Gerrit was for the most part dominant,” Boone said. “Just a little bit of a weird one.”
A three-game losing streak is bound to happen in a long and grueling season, but feels particularly uncharacteristic for the 2022 Yankees given how they’ve performed over the first six weeks of the season. Now, with three quarters of the season still to go, they are dealing with their first piece of what every other team in the league has, or eventually will, deal with during a baseball season.
“Everybody goes through patches like this,” Cole said. “It can get turned around tomorrow, get turned around next week. As players, you just stay in the middle…and try to improve from it any way you can.”
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