Yankees bats must wake up, end 20-inning scoreless skid: ‘A little bit of everything'

New York Times

6 hours ago

NEW YORK — They had seen enough. Scores of New York Yankees fans left their seats, filed up the steps in their sections and exited Yankee Stadium. It was only the top of the 11th inning. The Los Angeles Angels were winning by just one run, Yankees star Aaron Judge was slated for an at-bat in the frame's bottom half, and if the fans stayed, there would have been a chance they all could have bragged the next morning about seeing a walk-off in person.
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But they figured beating the traffic would be a better bet.
Hard to blame them. They were right.
The Yankees' brutal offensive malaise stretched past a point anybody could have foreseen with a 1-0, 11-inning loss Monday night.
They haven't scored in 20 innings, or since the ninth inning of Saturday's loss. It's the first time the Yankees have been shut out twice in a row since Aug. 15-16, 2023. They also lost to the Boston Red Sox 2-0 on Sunday.
Why the nosedive?
'A little bit of everything,' manager Aaron Boone said.
The Yankees have lost a season-high four straight games, which included a three-game sweep at the hands of Boston at Fenway Park over the weekend.
They have hit just .170 (28-for-164) over their last five games, stretching back to a 1-0 road win over the Kansas City Royals on Thursday.
The Yankees still lead the American League in runs scored with 370.
'Unlikely is a good word for it,' starting pitcher Clarke Schmidt said of the skid.
Schmidt did his job, turning in one of his best career starts. He threw 7 2/3 scoreless innings, the second-longest start of his career. He struck out just three, but he also gave up only four hits and didn't surrender a walk for the first time this season.
Schmidt is 3-3 in 11 starts, and his ERA fell to 3.16 from 3.60.
'(That) may be as good as he's been,' Boone said. 'That's saying something because he's had a lot of really good outings.'
The Angels went ahead in the 11th inning when Nolan Schanuel doubled to left with one out off Jonathan Loásigia, scoring automatic runner Christian Moore.
The Yankees' offense also wasted a big comeback from Giancarlo Stanton, who had missed the entire season with tennis elbows. Stanton, who started at designated hitter and batted fifth, looked like himself, going 2-for-4 and roping a double to left field in the ninth inning that the Yankees couldn't capitalize on.
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The ninth inning was perhaps the biggest disappointment of the night for the Yankees, who had plenty of them, especially going 1-for-18 with runners in scoring position and failing twice in extra innings to score the automatic runner.
After Stanton's double, Jasson Domínguez pinch ran for him. Jazz Chisholm Jr. struck out, and then Anthony Volpe laced a grounder to third base that Luis Rengifo nabbed and used to tag Domínguez, who was stealing and happened to be just in the right spot at the wrong time. After Volpe reached via a fielder's choice, he stole second base on the slow-moving closer Kenley Jansen, but Austin Wells struck out swinging to end the threat.
It was bad other times, too. With the bases loaded and two outs in the 11th, Volpe rolled over a first-pitch slider from new reliever Hunter Strickland for the unassisted out at third base to end the game.
Was Volpe wrong to be swinging at the first pitch in that spot?
'Not necessarily,' Boone said. 'First pitch is the best one to hit sometimes. … We've got to be ready to go there.'
It came after the Angels intentionally walked Judge to start the inning, and Cody Bellinger nearly walked it off with a long fly that fell just before the right-field wall, though automatic runner Paul Goldschmidt was able to move to third base. Immediately after, Angels second baseman Moore collected Domínguez's grounder and threw out Goldschmidt at home. The bases were loaded when Chisholm hit a grounder up the middle and shortstop Zach Neto bobbled it and threw it away.
In the 10th inning, Goldschmidt nearly ended it, too, with a two-out fly to deep left-center. But it was snared at the warning track.
'Right now, when you're not scoring runs, they're keeping us in the ballpark,' Boone said. 'Tonight was a little bit of both where I thought we hit a number of balls on the screws.'
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It also didn't help that DJ LeMahieu couldn't execute a bunt to move the automatic runner to third base to start the 10th. He fouled off his first and only try, and when Angels first baseman Schanuel started playing halfway down the line, LeMahieu abandoned the try and eventually struck out.
And it extended the Yankees' brutal offense in extra innings this season. The team is hitting .077 (2-for-26) with eight strikeouts and no extra-base hits in extra innings, according to researcher Katie Sharp. New York is also 1-5 in extra innings.
'We were barreling some balls up, but that said, we're not punching any across, we're not hitting the home run,' Boone said. 'And we had a couple of situations where we could have produced a run there late and didn't take advantage of.'
That can't continue to happen for the Yankees. Their American League East lead has dropped from seven games on May 28 to 2 1/2 games. The second-place Tampa Bay Rays — winners of four straight — continue to surge.
It's only mid-June. The Yankees' offense has been the best in the AL, and it finally got back Stanton, whose power remains awesome. He produced exit velocities over 100 mph on all three balls he put in play Monday.
'It's great to be back,' he said. 'Obviously, we want to win.'
The first step? Scoring a run.
(Top photo of Giancarlo Stanton: Brad Penner / Imagn Images)