Some of Sal's Takes On the Mets Series

By Sal Maiorana

June 27, 2024

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Sal Maiorana, a friend of the site, shares some of his thoughts on the Yankees.

For Sal's complete analysis on the New York Yankees, you can subscribe to Sal Maiorana's free Pinstripe People Newsletter at https://salmaiorana.beehiiv.com/subscribe.

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June 25: Mets 9, Yankees 7

Bottom line is this: Forget the score. The Yankees were horrible in this game in every way.

Folks, this team is in a world of trouble right now. Ignore the record, ignore the fact that Baltimore has shockingly lost five in a row and can’t leapfrog the sagging the Yankees who are so ripe to be overtaken. As we reach the exact midway point of the season, game No. 81, the Yankees are a sinking ship which is what happens when you can’t pitch, you can’t hit, and you can’t field.

All three of those things were a problem Tuesday and all I can say is welcome back to 2023. Carlos Mendoza, who was Aaron Boone’s bench coach until he took the Mets managerial job this year, had to be sitting in his dugout thinking to himself, “Yeah, I’ve seen this before.”

Gerrit Cole endured one of his worst games as a Yankee as the Mets pounded him for four home runs.

Here are my observations:

➤ Gerrit Cole’s second start of the season was, in a word, horrible. Wow, that was stunning to watch him pitch as terribly as he did in this game. Four innings, six runs allowed thanks to four home runs with four walks and no strikeouts. This was just the second time Cole has allowed at least four homers; he gave up five on June 9, 2022 at Minnesota. And it was also just the second time in his career he did not record a strikeout. “Disappointing,” said Cole, who threw 72 pitches, many of them with decreased velocity which certainly raised concerns about the health of his arm. “I didn’t really give us a good chance to win tonight. Didn’t execute enough good pitches as a whole.”

➤ This was the first time a Yankee pitcher allowed four walks and four homers in the same game since Roger Clemens in 2003 on a night when his mother threw out the first pitch at Yankee Stadium. After that game Clemens told reporters, “They should have let her stay on the mound. It’s a bad night when your mother has better stuff than you. She’ll let me know about it, too.” Clemens’ stuff couldn’t have been any worse than Cole’s.

➤ You knew in the first inning that disaster was looming. Francisco Lindor ripped Cole’s third pitch for a double and he walked Brandon Nimmo. When JD Martinez grounded into a double play it looked like Cole would escape, but then he just lost it. He walked Pete Alonso and Francisco Alvarez and gave up an RBI single to Tyrone Taylor. He was lucky it wasn’t a two-run knock because Verdugo threw out Alonso at the plate. Then in the second, Cole gave up homers to Mark Vientos and ex-Yankee Harrison Bader, and in the fourth he got tagged for a solo homer by Vientos and a two-run shot by Brandon Nimmo that made it 6-0.

➤ All of that came after a top of the first for the Yankees that defied description. Anthony Volpe singled and Juan Soto and Aaron Judge walked against lefty David Peterson, giving the Yankees a great chance to jump on top. And then in succession, Gleyber Torres, Verdugo and newly-signed JD Davis struck out and the Yankees got nothing. Simply incredible, especially against Peterson who made his season debut on May 29 and had struck out only 12 men in his first 22 innings this season.

➤ Davis fit right in as he had a miserable Yankee debut. He struck out looking in his first two at bats and grounded into a double play in his third before being pinch hit for in the eighth inning.

➤ The lineup that Boone used for this game was laughable. Torres batted cleanup with the slumping Verdugo moving down to No. 5. Then it was Davis at first base, the utterly useless DJ LeMahieu playing third and batting seventh, Jahmai Jones as the DH (truly unbelievable that this guy is in the majors let alone on the Yankees and starting), and Jose Trevino was ninth. That group of six players went 0-for-20 with nine strikeouts.

➤ How did the Yankees score five runs in the eighth with those bums? Easy, Boone used pinch hitters, the guys who should have been playing in the first place. Ben Rice started it with a single batting for Davis against righty Adam Ottavino. After LeMahieu made his latest out, Trent Grisham pinch hit for Jones and walked (this is how bad the lineup is right now when Grisham is a better hitting option than the stiff he’s replacing). Then Austin Wells pinch hit for Trevino and hit an RBI single off Danny Young. Volpe whiffed but Soto walked so Reid Garrett relieved and Judge tagged him for the grand slam.

➤ Torres is already mentally packing his bags, knowing there’s no way he’s going to be a Yankee in 2025. The Yankees ought to finish the packing and send him on his way today. He was so awful in this game that short of cutting him, Boone should bench him for a week. After his first-inning strikeout, struck out in the third, walked in the fifth (yay), made an egregious error in the sixth that allowed a run to score, flied out with a man on second base in the seventh, and then didn’t run out a grounder right after Judge’s grand slam to end the eighth. Seriously, all that happened. Couldn’t hit, couldn’t field, couldn’t run.

June 26: Mets 12, Yankees 2

The Yankees went over to Queens these last two nights and embarrassed themselves with two performances that were utterly disgraceful in every way, continuing a pattern that has existed for nearly the past two weeks.

And while we all knew there was no way they could possibly keep winning games at the rate they were, how did they sink so quickly to this level of incompetence?

Well, I’ll give you three reasons: They can’t hit, they can’t pitch, and they can’t field. Does that cover it? Since they beat Boston on June 14, the Yankees have been outscored 88-41 while losing four consecutive series and eight of 10 games, and in doing so, have looked exactly like the second half 2022 Yankees, and the most of the season 2023 Yankees. And as you’ll recall, that’s not a good place to be.

In their last 10 games they have batted .206 as a team which is second-to-last among the 30 MLB teams; they have hit just 11 homers (five by Aaron Judge) which ties them with the mighty A’s and Tigers for 19th-most in that time span; and they have grounded into an MLB-high 14 double plays which gives them 80 for the season, 12 of those with the bases loaded which, as you might imagine, also leads MLB.

On the pitching side over those 10 games, the team ERA is 7.24, worst in MLB, and the staff is averaging 4.14 walks per nine innings which ranks 29th. In terms of batting average on balls in play - meaning you take out home runs and strikeouts - the pitchers are getting pounded for a .343 average, third-worst in MLB. The first time the Yankees allowed nine runs or more came on June 8 when they lost 11-3 to the Dodgers. Since then, it has happened five times, and it’s not just the leaky bullpen; now the starters stink, too.

And in the field in the last 10 games they’ve made 13 errors with Gleyber Torres - benched on Wednesday by Aaron Boone after his otherworldly bad game on Tuesday - raising his total to 12 for the year which leads all second baseman this season.

All of their problems came bursting to light against the Mets at Citi Field.

Here are my observations:

➤ The excitement about Luis Gil and the incredible start that he had this season is gone. Again, you knew this was coming. MLB’s pitcher of the month in May has been shelled in his last two outings by the Orioles and Mets. Wednesday, he gave up five runs on four hits and four walks, plus made an error on a pickoff.

➤ In his first 14 starts his ERA was 2.03, but two starts later it’s 3.15. Gil’s durability coming off Tommy John surgery was always the concern. From 2021-23 he threw a combined 140 or so innings in the majors and minors; now he’s already at 85.2 innings this year so you have to wonder how much he has left. “Of course, that’s the question,” Boone said. “We’ll see. He seems to be in a really good physical place.”

➤ Gil survived the first inning when he loaded the bases, then had an easy second, but in the third the Mets jumped him for three runs. Francisco Lindor doubled, Brandon Nimmo walked and JD Martinez singled to make it 1-0. After Pete Alonso grounded into a DP, you’re thinking OK, limit the damage. Instead, Francisco Alvarez hit a two-run homer. After an easy fourth, everything exploded in the fifth inning, including the skies.

➤ Before and after that incredible storm delayed the game for 87 minutes, the Yankees fell apart. Gil walked and was replaced by Caleb Ferguson who faced one batter before the rain, Alvarez, who doubled home a run. After the lake that formed in left field was drained away and play re-started, Yoendrys Gomez - who pitched so well last Friday against Atlanta to get the bullpen reset - got lit up as the Mets scored three more runs to make it 7-0. In the sixth, with Gomez still out there trying to preserve the bullpen, he served up a three-run to Tyrone Taylor to make it 10-2.

➤ Judge provided the only offense with a two-run homer in the top of the sixth, his 30th of the year. The Yankees finished the night with six hits, two of those by Alex Verdugo who came out of a 2-for-33 slump. Well, I’m not sure he’s out of it because the hits came long after the issue had been decided and the Mets were using mop up guys. In his first two at bats, Verdugo grounded into soul-crushing double plays. Jose Trevino also had one of those, and DJ LeMahieu should have had one but Mets third baseman Mark Vientos butchered his easy grounder. The Yankees also went 0-for-7 with runners in scoring position.