Yankees Searching for Superstitious Solutions Amid Skid

Changing cleats? Check. Burning sage? Check. Nothing has worked yet for New York as it tries to escape a frustrating slump, but not for a lack of trying.

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NEW YORK — Over the worst six weeks of baseball the franchise has seen in 27 years, the Yankees have tried everything they could think of between the lines. They have tried hitting better. They have tried pitching better. They have tried fielding better. Nothing has worked. They are 14–25 since July 8, and their lead in the American League East has shrunk from 15.5 to 8.5 games. 

So they have moved outside the lines—in some cases, well outside them. Ace Gerrit Cole experimented with his outfits: undershirt, no undershirt. (Loss, loss.) Catcher Kyle Higashioka rotated through all three pairs of his spikes. (Loss, loss, loss.) Third baseman Josh Donaldson burned a bundle of sage in the clubhouse. (Loss.)

“We've got a good thing with rain delays,” says reliever Lucas Luetge. “We circle up and play video games together, and we won both times.” Players expressed delight when they learned there was bad weather in the forecast for Monday’s first game of the Subway Series, but the clouds cleared in time for them to win anyway, 4–2.

One day they greeted each other with hugs, and they won that night, but then they did it again and they lost. They have attempted various tactics throughout the game, “to no avail,” says Cole: “Standing in different spots; gum, no gum; [equipment manager Rob Cucuzza’s] office, this office, that office.” And? Cole sighs. “We’ve had intermittent success with positions in the dugout and collective buy-in to chewing gum or something like that,” he says. “But I would say that, no, there's not been one thing that's really worked.”

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If there had, they would surely have kept doing it. Anything to break out of a sudden, baffling team-wide slump, especially among the hitters. The pitchers have underperformed slightly, with a 4.17 ERA over the 39-game stretch, but the real culprit has been the offense. Over the last two weeks, the Yankees have an OPS+ of 64, meaning they have been collectively just a bit worse at the plate than pitcher Ty Blach was for the Giants in 2017.

“It feels a little bit like the dog at the racetrack,” says Cole. “He never gets the bunny.”

Yankees ace Gerrit Cole :: Tom Horak/USA TODAY Sports

Even normally even-keeled manager Aaron Boone was reduced to banging his fist on the table at his press conference after Saturday’s loss, the sixth in seven games. And that performance actually qualified as an improvement: After being shut out three times in six games, New York managed to score two runs.

Boone says he tries to stay away from superstition, if only because if some minor change seems to have an effect he will have to incorporate it for the rest of his life. (So perhaps he does not in fact stay away from superstition.) Still, Donaldson brought the sage into his office. The team won the next day, Boone points out, on a walk-off grand slam by Donaldson himself. “It’s slow-moving,” he says.

Very slow. The Yankees have gone 2–4 since that game. Only catcher José Trevino seems unruffled by the daily thrashings. “I wouldn't say it's frustrating,” he says. “I think we’re just learning our team.” And what are they learning? “That we're tough,” he says. “We're super tough and every single time, everybody's gonna give us their best shot. Every single time, doesn't matter who they are, they’re gonna come in and everybody wants to beat the Yankees.”

For the most part, of late, they have been. New York has not won a series in nearly a month, since it feasted on the fourth-place Royals. As fans boo Boone and general manager Brian Cashman, the players search for answers in the cage. But failing to find any there, they search elsewhere, too.

The relievers regularly rearrange their chairs in the bullpen, certain they have found the right configuration, only to watch a hitter strike out in a key moment. But Higashioka points out that all this work now—undershirts and spikes and sage and gum and chairs—will surely pay off as the calendar turns to October and the players identify the key combination. “That’s gonna matter, down the line,” he says.

They are kidding, of course. “We try to keep everything as light as possible,” says reliever Ron Marinaccio. “We all know that none of that stuff really matters. It’s just trying to keep a positive mindset.” He adds, “We feel like we're pretty close to getting back on track. … As much as it’s stunk for these past couple of weeks now, if we rattle off two good weeks now and then we can find ourselves 13 games up in the division again, then this bad couple of weeks doesn’t really matter anymore.”

But if he doesn’t see some changes soon, Luetge has a plan: Forget sage. He’s going to get his hands on some holy water. 

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