Hey! How’s your hump day going so far? Good? That’s good! But that ends after this sentence, buckle up. The Yankees are eight games below .500 before Cinco de Mayo for the first time since 1984, and are in the middle of a six game losing streak. To say it has been ugly is an understatement. So what exactly is happening to the team formerly known as the Bronx Bombers? It’s all in the numbers.
For starters, hitting with RISP. If you can’t hit with RISP you just aren’t going to win, that’s the most obvious sentence ever. The team is collectively hitting .201 with runners on the bags, second to last in the Majors.
Batting Average with RISP:
Jacoby Ellsbury .200
Brett Gardner .200
Alex Rodriguez .200
Mark Teixeira .313
Carlos Beltran .050 (AL worst)
Brian McCann .188
Starlin Castro .273
Didi Gregorius .231
Chase Headley .095
When only two or three bats are producing runs, you have a problem. And what happens when the inevitable comes and Tex winds up on the DL? The team average is .223 when trailing, which is 22nd in the league. Their 82 runs scored is tied with the 11-14 Rays for fewest in the league.
And it’s not just hitting with RISP the Yanks are struggling with, it’s hitting period. They have the third highest contact rate, but also have the third highest soft contact rate. If you’re asking, “what is soft contact rate?” Read up on it here. Alex Rodriguez leads the team with a 22% hard hit rate, but has nothing to show for it hitting .194 with a possible DL stint looming. When the player getting the best contact on the team is your 40 year old DH, you have a problem.
One player getting a lot of flack from the fans and beyond, Chase Headley, is hitting .129 against fastballs. That’s the worst average among qualified hitters, and he’s the only everyday player in the LEAGUE to not record an extra base hit. But he’s not the lone source of the Yankees’ woes. In the seventh inning or later, Didi Gregorius and Alex Rodriguez have the fourth and fifth lowest average in the league with .115 and .118 respectively. I thought firing Kevin Long was going to fix all of our hitting problems?
It’s not all on the offense though. The starting rotation is shouldering half the blame. The team has led past the sixth inning in just nine games, the fewest in the league yet again. Their combined 5.13 ERA is the worst in the American League, and their .282 batting average against is 14th in the Majors.
Opponents are batting .455 against Michael Pineda’s fastball. After the first time through the order, opponents are hitting .368 against Luis Severino and .356 against Nathan Eovaldi. Guess what? That is also the worst in the league. CC Sabathia doesn’t fair any better. His .381 average against his off-speed pitches is the second highest in the league among pitchers with at least four starts.
The bullpen is the only bright spot in this whole thing. They have a combined 1.35 ERA and a league leading 15.3 strikeouts per nine innings when pitching with a lead after the sixth. But there’s the rub, we learned two paragraphs above that the Yanks have only led past the sixth a league worst nine games. What good is having such a stellar pen when you never give them a lead to work with?
If you’ve made it this far into the article without putting your fist through your computer screen or your phone through a wall, good for you. The stats above aren’t just ugly, they are frustrating beyond belief. We as Yankee fans know nothing but winning, we’re spoiled. If you’ve come this far expecting a solution from me, I’m sorry. It seems like there are other worldly forces at work against the Yanks here. I don’t know how you fix such historically bad numbers, at least with this roster.
Sorry for ruining your day.
