In a scenario reflecting the current state of the New York Yankees, an incident occurred that went almost unnoticed by the 41,401 fans present at Citi Field. This episode occurred during the team’s second streak of six consecutive losses in three weeks. The incident occurred as the Yankees were leaving the field after securing the third out of the fourth inning in their 12-6 loss to the Mets. Shortstop Anthony Volpe, following the usual practice at the end of each inning, threw the ball to right fielder Aaron Judge, who was approaching from the outfield. Unfortunately, Judge wasn’t looking and the ball hit him in the head, causing him to lose his sunglasses and giving him a small cut near his right eye. Although the wound required a bandage to stop the bleeding, Judge remained in the game.
Avoiding an injury to their star player was one of the few positives for the Yankees in another lackluster and exhausting loss against their city rivals. With this loss, the Yankees, who led the American League East Division at the beginning of June, are tied with the Tampa Bay Rays for second place, three games behind the Toronto Blue Jays, heading into the end of Sunday’s Subway Series. This freefall has been driven by a disorganized defense and a decimated pitching staff that has encountered an obstacle.Confusion. I didn’t know what happened at first. I just felt that something had happened. Of course, I was a little worried.
Aaron Boone, Yankees manager
For the second day in a row, the Mets took advantage of errors and hit timely home runs. After hitting three home runs in the first game of the series on Friday, the Mets added three more on Saturday: a grand slam in the first inning by Brandon Nimmo to take a 4-0 lead and two home runs by Pete Alonso to extend the lead. Nimmo’s home run, his second grand slam in four days, came after Yankees left fielder Jasson Domínguez misplayed a ball hit by the Mets’ first batter in the first inning. On Friday, he misread Nimmo’s line drive and watched it sail over his head for a double. On Saturday, he reacted slowly to Starling Marte’s fly ball and braked without catching or stopping it, allowing Marte to advance to second base with a double. Yankees opener Carlos Rodón then issued two walks to load the bases for Nimmo, who sent a slider over the wall.It’s been a terrible week.
Aaron Boone
That slider probably needs to be down. Many failures today and they were punished.
Carlos Rodón
Jazz Chisholm Jr.’s throwing issues at third base, a position the Yankees asked him to play to accommodate DJ LeMahieu at second base, continued in the second inning when he fielded a ground ball from Tyrone Taylor and threw the ball over the head of first baseman Cody Bellinger. Taylor received second base and scored moments later on Marte’s RBI single.
The Yankees committed their second error in the Mets’ four-run seventh inning when center fielder Trent Grisham ran in on Francisco Lindor’s single and the ball bounced off the heel of his glove. The error allowed a run to score from second base without a pitch, extending the Mets’ lead to three runs after the Yankees had cut their deficit, and allowed Lindor to advance to second base. Lindor later scored on Alonso’s second home run, a three-run shot off of left-hander Jayvien Dandridge in the pitcher’s major league debut.This six-game losing streak has been very different from the Yankees’ first one. That difficult period, which consisted of losses to the Boston Red Sox and Los Angeles Angels, was driven by offensive problems. The Yankees scored six runs in the six games and only allowed 16. This time, run prevention is the problem; the Yankees have scored 34 runs and conceded 54 in four games against the Blue Jays in Toronto and two in Queens.We just have to play better. That’s what it’s about. It’s the fundamentals. Making a routine play, routine. It’s the little things. That’s what it’s about. But all good teams go through some bumps in the road.
Aaron Judge
So, look, when you live it and you’re going through it, it sucks, it hurts. But you have to be able to handle it. You have to be able to deal with it. You have to be able to weather the storm and get out of this and grow.The offense is starting to hit, to put some runs on the scoreboard. The pitching, which has sustained us a lot this season, has really struggled this week. We haven’t caught the ball as well as I think we should.
Aaron Boone
