Yankees lineup cries for help: Where are you, Aaron Judge? | Klapisch
· Yahoo Sports
NEW YORK — Among baseball’s oldest axioms is the one that says no team is as bad as it looks during a slump. In other words, the Yankees would like you to stop freaking out.
That’s a tall order, considering they’re in the teeth of a monstrous losing streak – six straight, every setback gloomier than the one before – with unsettling news on every front.
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The legacy ace (Gerrit Cole) is struggling in post-Tommy John recovery. The breakout ace (Cam Schlittler) was just destroyed by the Tigers in a 9-3 loss on Tuesday. And the lineup’s most indispensable hitter (Aaron Judge) is in no man’s land waiting for his fractured rib to heal.
It’s not fair to blame one or even three Yankees for this downturn. Everyone’s played a role in erasing the franchise’s momentum. The Bombers were 18 games over .500 on June 17, sitting atop the East with a 3.5-game lead over the second-place Rays.
Today? The Yankees are 2.5 games behind Tampa Bay with a tell-all series looming next week at Tropicana Field. That six-game swing is significant. It’s possible Cole and Schlittler will both bounce back in time for the Rays series – but this much is certain.
Judge isn’t close to being ready.
Manager Aaron Boone said Judge, who’s been out since June 4, “(is) still not able to do much. ... he’s certainly not able to do any baseball activities yet.”
The captain is limited to lower-body exercises in the weight room. It’ll be another 1-2 weeks before the rib is re-imaged. Only then will the Yankees have an idea when Judge can return. It’s unlikely that’ll happen before mid-to-late August.
Boone continues to insist, “the people we got are very capable” but it’s clear the Yankees have no workaround for Judge’s long-term absence. According to statistician Katie Sharp, the Bombers are the only team since 1898 to have a five-game span with zero wins, 45-plus strikeouts and 16 or fewer hits.
Paul Goldschmidt is 0-for-16 in the past five games. Cody Bellinger, who was out of the lineup on Tuesday, is 2-for-27 (.074). Jose Caballero is 1-for-17 (.059).
Ben Rice’s assessment was as piercing as it was accurate.
“Right now it’s kind of like the whole team is going through something all at once,” he said.
“Everyone is pissed,” Anthony Volpe added.
Not even Schlittler, who was leading the American League with a 1.62 ERA before throwing his first pitch, was able to come to the rescue. The Yankees needed a tour de force performance to counter Tigers’ ace Tarik Skubal. But the much-anticipated pitching duel was more of a letdown than a showdown.
Schlittler surrendered three home runs in the first inning – an ambush so shocking the Stadium crowd was too numb to react. There was an uncomfortable murmuring from the stands that captured the mood of the last week.
No one can quite believe the Yankees could be this awful for this long. To his credit, Schlittler accepted responsibility for the six runs, including a fourth HR, he allowed in four innings.
“It’s my job to come in here and try to stop that bleeding,” Schlittler said. “And I couldn’t get that done.”
“I think really it comes down to two-strike execution, and that’s not something I did well today. They got the better of me.”
Both he and Boone attributed the failure to poor pitch location and an over-reliance on the fastball. But that’s been Schlittler’s calling card in 2026. Velocity is his best friend.
Even Skubal, speaking to Newsday on Monday, conceded the 25-year-old Yankees right-hander, “(is) the best pitcher in the American League right now.”
But that didn’t stop the Tigers from exploiting a decrease in Schlittler’s fastball velocity - his fastball averaged 97.2 mph, down from his season average of 97.8 mph. Tellingly, Schlittler didn’t register a single swing and miss in a 36-pitch first inning.
He allowed back-to-back, two-out solo home runs to Kerry Carpenter and Riley Greene, and a two-run homer to Spencer Torkelson.
That’s all the breathing room Skubal needed. He allowed just one hit through six innings, and retired 13 Yankees in a row after Rice’s home run in the first inning. The Tigers’ lefty fanned nine of 11 batters during that stretch.
The fans eventually started booing the Yankees. Many of them packed up and went home by the seventh inning. The response on social media was just as unforgiving.
There was hostility towards Boone and GM Brian Cashman, as expected. But there’s also an undercurrent of doubt about what lies ahead in October.
The Yankees were supposed to take advantage of the American League’s weak field. But that assumption seems shakier now than a month ago.
There are at least three National League teams – the Dodgers, Braves and Brewers – that are more dangerous than Boone’s crew. Who knows if the Yankees are even a match for the Rays, who’ve won 7-of-10, are in first place and surging just in time for next week’s series?
Boone loathes such big-picture assessments, especially from outsiders. He keeps stressing the importance of small, in-game victories. Win at-bats, win innings, and good things will happen, he says.
But even those micro-battles will be a struggle without an answer to the largest question of all: can Judge return in time to save the Yankees?
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