The New York Yankees can feel a once memorable season start to slip away. Yankees manager Aaron Boone wants them to focus on the now and ignore the chatter coming from outside the clubhouse. Boone is stressing to his team that they have to play much better than they have been in the last several weeks.
“We’ve got to play better than that,” Boone said after another crushing loss to the Boston Red Sox Friday, per the New York Post. “We’ve got to play clean baseball.”
The Yankees bowed to the Red Sox 5-3 in a 10-inning game. New York has now lost 14 of their last 18 games, including four in a row.
What is going on with the Yankees?
New York has seemed frazzled since early June. One of the problems has been injuries. Anthony Rizzo is out, and Juan Soto has been in and out of the lineup with problems.
Soto has cooled off after a strong first two months of the season, and that's slowed down the offense. The injuries also caused quite a few lineup changes for New York, and the club seems to have struggled with adjusting to that.
That struggle was exemplified on Friday as the Yankees made a few errors that cost the team at important moments. Then, in one mind-boggling play, Anthony Volpe seemed to slow down while trying to score a run for New York during a double play. Volpe slowed down before reaching home, denying the Yankees a run before the third out was called to end the inning.
After the game, the young shortstop seemed somber while speaking to reporters about what happened. He was even asked if he knew the rule that he could have scored before the second runner was tagged.
“I just got to hustle all the way through there. The play was in front of me, and I just got to be better,” Volpe said, per YES Network. Volpe said he thought the ball was foul and that was why he slowed down.
One thing that is foul right now is the Yankees' play. The team stormed out of the gate and seemed like the most complete team in baseball with stellar pitching and powerful hitting from Soto and Aaron Judge. The Yankees are now second in the American League East, with a 54-36 record, following this skid. The team has lost eight of their last 10 games.
“It’s a difficult time, and we’ve got to dig down … and find out what we’re made of,” Boone added. “We’ve got to turn the page quick.”
New York is pushing to get back to the American League playoffs after a disappointing 2023 season. New York finished 82-80 last year and missed the postseason.
There's definitely pressure on Boone to fix that this year. The Yankees are used to competing for World Series championships, and consecutive seasons out of the playoffs would be unacceptable to many fans. New York hasn't won the World Series since 2009, and fans are desperate for success.
The Yankees and Red Sox meet again Saturday at 1:05 Eastern with the Bronx Bombers trying to snap that four-game losing streak.
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