The Yankees had a chance to steal one, save face, and go into the off day with something.
Look…
That game was sitting right there.
The Yankees were dead for eight innings. Completely dead. No energy. No real offense. No pressure. Troy Melton basically walked into Yankee Stadium in 95-degree heat and treated this lineup like a side quest, holding them to 2 hits over 6.1 innings while striking out 7.
And yes, after the game, Aaron Boone was asked about not using Paul Goldschmidt there. Boone said Goldie was fine, but because the Yankees were short-handed and didn’t have enough positional flexibility, he was not going to put Goldschmidt at third or second.
Fine.
But here is the fan question, and it is the obvious one: with the winning run on third, why are we talking about defense for an inning that may never happen?
That is what fans are talking about.
You had a chance to win the game. You had a veteran bat sitting there. You had a team desperate for one run. Instead, the Yankees played it like they had a five-game winning streak and a full bench.
They do not.
They have a seven-game losing streak.
Common sense.
Camilo Doval Lost It, And The Yankees Got Cooked
The 11th inning was ugly.
Camilo Doval got two outs. Runner on third. He had Hao-Yu Lee down 0-2. Boone said Lee put together a tough at-bat and spoiled a good slider.
Okay.
But after that, Doval could not find the zone.
Lee walked. Spencer Torkelson walked. Run scores. Then Zach McKinstry, hitting under .200, singles to shallow right and clears the bases because the Yankees added more mess on top with a throwing error by Sánchez.
That was the Yankees’ 17th error in 12 games.
17!
How are we supposed to keep acting like this is normal?
The defense is trash. The bats are dead. The energy looks weird. They are not just losing games. They are helping the other team beat them.
That is the problem.
Boone Finally Said It Was An Awful Week
Boone did not really sugarcoat it after the game.
He said it has been “a terrible week” offensively and that there is “no way of sugar coating it.”
Good.
Because nobody wants rainbow clouds right now.
The Yankees have lost 7 straight, their longest skid since 2023. They have lost 11 of 14. Since Aaron Judge fractured his rib, they are 12-15. They were swept by Detroit for the first time since 2008.
Read that again.
Detroit had not swept the Yankees in a series since 2008.
But hey, at least everybody can tell us to relax.
This is what fans are seeing. The offense disappears for full games. The defense is horrible. The bullpen cracks. Boone talks about confidence in the group, and yes, he has to say that. He cannot walk into the room and throw chairs.
He was not perfect, but he gave the Yankees a chance. Warren went 5.1 innings, allowed 2 runs, struck out 7, and did not walk anybody.
Boone said Warren’s secondary stuff was good, especially the changeup against Detroit’s left-heavy lineup. That part showed.
He gave up the solo homer to Kevin McGonigle in the third and the sacrifice fly in the sixth, but this loss is not on Warren.
When your lineup scores 2 runs in 11 innings and waits until the ninth to wake up, the starter is not the headline problem.
The bats are.
The Food Poisoning Thing Was Real, But The Baseball Still Stunk
Boone said around seven or eight guys were dealing with food poisoning, including some injured list guys. Spencer Jones was apparently pretty bad early, then told Boone around the sixth or seventh he could be available.
That matters as context.
But it cannot become the entire excuse.
Because this was not one weird food poisoning game. This has been going on. The Yankees totaled just 23 hits over their last 6 games. Austin Wells is still hitting .153. Jasson Domínguez went 0-for-4 and left 4 runners on base. Cody Bellinger went 0-for-5 with 2 strikeouts.
You cannot keep selling fans this like it is one bad afternoon.
It is not a mystery.
Now They Get An Off Day, But Nobody Wants More Talk
Boone said the off day is a chance to refresh the body and mind.
Cool.
Refresh. Reset. Drink water. Burn the room service menu. Do whatever has to be done.
But when they come back Friday against Minnesota, nobody wants speeches. Nobody wants “we believe in the group” every night while the same nonsense keeps showing up.
Play cleaner baseball.
Hit with runners on third.
Stop kicking the ball around.
Stop turning winnable games into disasters.
The Yankees were handed a chance to make this ugly week feel a little less disgusting.
Instead, they got embarrassed again.
Everybody seems to know what is wrong except the people who keep asking fans to pretend it is all normal.
Born in Manhattan, New York, Felix Pantaleon is a Dominican-American digital content creator and the founder of NYYNEWS, one of the first and longest-running independent New York Yankees content creator platforms, active since 2005.
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