Yankees Injury Woes Finally Tank Offense As Scuffle Continues
Slowly but surely, though, the injuries continued to pile up, and key offensive contributors went to the shelf. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the New York Yankees have struggled in recent weeks as the offense has gone quiet
The New York Yankees are 2-8 in their last 10 games, and an abysmal offense is the most obvious culprit. Injuries have taken their toll. When Aaron Judge went down about a month ago, all seemed lost. But the Yankees’ offense improbably thrived without him and with other players getting hurt.
Slowly but surely, though, the injuries continued to pile up, and key offensive contributors went to the shelf. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the team has struggled in recent weeks as the offense has gone quiet without several big names and good bats. It came to a head in a blowout loss (the second in a row) to the Detroit Tigers.
Yankees offense goes quiet with key injuries
In the immediate aftermath of the Aaron Judge injury, the Yankees somehow actually maintained offensive production for over a week. In fact, the offense was scoring a hair bit more than it had been with Judge in the lineup, though that’s a classic case of a small sample size being misleading.
Withstanding the injury to Judge was one thing, although he wasn’t even the only big bat on the IL. Giancarlo Stanton has been out since the first few weeks of the season, so the two most prolific power hitters in New York’s lineup were out.
Eventually, others joined them. Jasson Dominguez missed time, though he’s back in the lineup now. Trent Grisham is poised to return this weekend, but he’s been out for several weeks. Ryan McMahon went down for a little while, and Austin Wells spent some time on the Injured List, too.
Even Jazz Chisholm Jr. missed Tuesday’s contest after colliding with Dominguez. And on the pitching side, the Yankees are still without Max Fried. They could field a portion of an All-Star team simply with who’s on the Injured List right now, so it’s no surprise that this offense has cooled off in such a way.
Ben Rice, others comment on struggles
Ben Rice has been healthy, but with more and more offensive pressure put on him (not to mention the focus of the opposing pitching staffs being to stop him at all costs now), he has struggled. He is 3/26 with one home run in the last week, and his batting average has sunk to .268.
“We know we have the talent,” Rice said after the 9-3 loss. “But it’s such a long season. A lot of times, individually, we go through ups and downs. Sometimes the downs last a little longer than we’d like. It just so happens that right now it’s kind of like the whole team is going through something at once.”
Anthony Volpe had seemed to finally figure it out and was hitting well for several weeks after returning from the minor leagues. He, too, has gone ice cold lately, and he believes the entire offense is “pressing” and trying to do too much with so many players out.
“It’s difficult, but all we can do is show up tomorrow and get to work,” Volpe said. “Everyone’s pissed, so just do what we gotta do, do our jobs to get a win and start from there.” While the Yankees didn’t expect to bash Tarik Skubal, they also didn’t expect to be down 4-0 immediately with Cam Schlittler on the mound. Alas, it was obviously too much to come back from.
Zachary Roberts has written in the sports industry for over four years. He's covered the Carolina Panthers, Charlotte Hornets, Seattle Seahawks, and wider coverage of the NFL, pro golf, NHL, MLB, and NBA. He has worked with ComicBook, Sportskeeda, The Sporting News, and the On SI Network. In his free time, Zachary loves playing video games, watching movies, or reading books.
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