The New York Yankees have been one of the worst teams in baseball since the All-Star break, with avoidable errors haunting them time and time again. As a result, the men in pinstripes have not only fallen out of the top spot in the AL East, but they have dropped below their hated rival the Boston Red Sox and into third place.
A multitude of errors, both mental mistakes and actual scored errors in the field have hurt the Yankees during their recent slide. Before the final game of their series against the Marlins in Miami on Sunday, manager Aaron Boone pointed the thumb at himself and took the blame for some of those mistakes, via Greg Joyce of the New York Post.
“The reality is, I think we should be better than what our record is and that starts with me,” Boone said, per Joyce. “We got to own that.”
The errors have never been more prevalent than they have been during the last week. During Wednesday night's win over the Tampa Bay Rays, the game went into extra innings after Austin Wells was doubled up on the bases because he forgot how many outs there were in the inning. While the Yankees survived that blunder, the baseball gods have not been quite as kind to them in Miami.
New York blew a massive lead in the first game against the Marlins on Friday in part thanks to a pair of fielding errors, including a disastrous mistake by right fielder Jose Caballero. Despite holding an early 6-0 lead and 9-4 lead in the seventh inning, the Marlins came back to win 13-12.
On Saturday night, the Yankees recorded just two hits and blew up on the bases the few times that they did have runners threatening. In the second inning, Paul Goldschmidt popped out to second base with Jazz Chisholm Jr. on first, and the second baseman inexplicably didn't get back to first base before being doubled off.
Boone did not bench Chisholm despite the mistake, and Derek Jeter laid into the Yankees as a whole for their recent struggles after the game. Boone clearly knows that it's something that needs to get turned around, and that starts with avoiding a sweep in Miami on Sunday afternoon.
