At 16-15, the New York Yankees entered play Wednesday in last place in the AL East. They are 3-7 in their last 10 games and have been held to three runs or fewer in 14 of their last 19 games. Runs have been hard to come by, partly because they've been hit hard by injuries and partly because their healthy players are underperforming.
"The worst thing that could happen is when you have a lot of stuff happening at the same time, which is going on with us right now," Yankees GM Brian Cashman said Wednesday (per MLB.com and the New York Daily News). "... Obviously, it's not the team that we put together. We've got a lot of injuries, so we had to turn our attention to some alternative choices. Obviously, we're not playing our best baseball with what we currently have."
Even after activating Harrison Bader on Tuesday, the Yankees currently have 12 players on the injured list, including Aaron Judge (hip), Giancarlo Stanton (hamstring), Josh Donaldson (hamstring), Carlos Rodón (forearm, back), Luis Severino (lat), and a small army of relievers. The players tasked with picking up the slack offensively have not done the job:
Unacceptable is a strong word, but that performance -- 308 plate appearances with a combined .221 on-base percentage and minus-1.6 WAR! -- is straight-up unacceptable from players who are in the lineup most days. Those players account for roughly five innings worth of at-bats each night. Hard to win when that much of the lineup is that unproduction.
Although the Yankees finished second in runs per game last season, it was a very uneven season. They were the best team in the sport in the first half, them played .500 ball the final three months of the year. Yankees not named Judge hit .232/.291/.360 in the second half. The offensive trouble has been brewing for a while, yet the Yankees chose not to add a bat in the offseason.
"Every move we make is intended to help us. For the successes, you don't focus on that. But the failures, that's my responsibility and take full accountability for those," Cashman said (video) when asked about acquiring players with injury concerns (like Rodón and Frankie Montas) who went on to get hurt. The GM added they're looking at the trade market, though things are quiet.
Judge is expected back early next week, but beyond him, the Yankees don't have much help coming. Rodón, Severino, and Stanton are weeks away, and the Yankees have already called up their best MLB-ready prospects (Oswald Peraza and Anthony Volpe, most notably). For better or worse, what you see is what you're going to get from the Yankees for the foreseeable future.
"Don't give up on us," Cashman said (video). "That's all I can tell you. Don't count us out."
