The Yankees come into Wednesday's home game against the Nationals on a nine-game losing streak. Another, more official way of saying that is that the once-mighty Yankees are presently mired in a nine-game losing streak. Whatever your preferred phrasing, it's the team's longest skid since 1982.
In related matters, the Yankees are presently 60-65, in last place in the American League East, a full 17 games behind the division-leading Orioles, saddled with a minus-28 run differential, and out of playoff position. They also sit 10 games out of the third and final wild-card spot in the AL and behind four teams in the queue. As such, SportsLine right now gives them less than 1% chance of making the postseason. Given the lofty payroll and chronically high expectations in the Bronx, the failures of 2023 have put the pressure on manager Aaron Boone and long-time general manager Brian Cashman. Speaking of Cashman, he was asked about the current Yankee state of affairs on Wednesday, and his words may be described as largely accurate. Via SNY, Cashman said:
"It's been a disaster, this season. It's definitely a shock. Certainly, I don't think anybody on our side of the fence, from our player group, from our coaches, our manager, or even outside the organization, would've predicted this."
While certain Yankee fans would probably dispute that they didn't see at least some of this coming, the "disaster" part is a fitting characterization. On one level, it's jarring that a team that won 99 games last season and prevailed in baseball's toughest division would backslide this far, this quickly. On other levels, though, the current Yankee straits have been cultivated across multiple years, as our own Mike Axisa recently examined.
Sure, there's still time to reverse course (Cashman himself noted the Yankees haven't been officially eliminated yet), but the reality is that this team hasn't won a game since Aug. 11 and has gone 12-27 since the Fourth of July. The long odds are noted above, and that translates to substantially higher odds that changes are made in the dugout and perhaps even the front office. Disaster indeed.
