Yankees' Offense Must Overcome Their Hitting Woes

The Yankees currently have a winning record, but it’s in spite of their lineup.

The New York Yankees have just lost their first series of the season, dropping two of three at home to the Toronto Blue Jays.

However, the fact that it took this long for the Bronx Bombers to lose a series is legitimately impressive, especially since they’ve been dealing with a weakness throughout their 10-game home stand.

That weakness? The Bronx Bombers aren’t living up to that name. That is, the offense isn’t producing enough.

The Yankees, so far, have been able to win series through strong pitching, especially from Gerrit Cole and Nestor Cortes Jr., while the rotation and bullpen will only get stronger when Carlos Rodon, Luis Severino, Jonathan Loaisiga, Lou Trivino, and Tommy Kahnle are ready to play.

But while it’s just one series loss, the defeat to the Blue Jays magnified that the pitching can’t carry the club all the time.

Take the walk-off 3-2 win on Saturday, for example. Cole allowed no runs in 5.2 innings, but wound up with a no-decision because the lineup couldn’t hit Alek Manoah for seven innings, who is one of the best pitchers in the AL but was struggling greatly to start the year. The Yankees were able to pull out a win with late, timely hitting, but until the eighth and ninth innings, they were completely shut down.

Even more prevalent was the 5-1 loss in the rubber game on Sunday, which resulted in the team’s first series loss. Clarke Schmidt had one bad inning, but was pitching spectacularly before then while receiving no run support, which was evident when the team stranded DJ LeMahieu at second base with no outs in the fifth inning. It was Schmidt’s best start of the year, and all three runs were unearned (due to an error by Anthony Volpe), but if the Yankees could muster up some offense, perhaps Schmidt has less pressure on him and doesn’t make consecutive mistakes to Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Daulton Varsho. Ultimately, a home run by Anthony Rizzo, with the team down to their final out, was the only thing that prevented a shutout.

Blue Jays pitcher Kevin Gausman still deserves credit for a fantastic performance, hurling seven shutout innings with 11 strikeouts and allowing just three baserunners. But this game was a nadir for the Yankee lineup that was held to three runs or less in eight of the 10 games of their home stand.

There are several factors behind the struggling lineup. One of the biggest is injuries, especially after Giancarlo Stanton went down. Without Stanton, Josh Donaldson, and Harrison Bader in the lineup, the order has become very top-heavy, even with Donaldson’s struggles and Bader not being an established batting threat. Because of the injuries, the Yankees round out the lineup with inexperienced players (Oswaldo Cabrera, Oswald Peraza), streaky hitters (Franchy Cordero), or hitters who just aren’t very good (Jose Trevino, Kyle Higashioka, Isiah Kiner-Falefa, Willie Calhoun). Once pitchers get past the fifth spot in the order, they have comparatively easy outs to get.

Another factor to their struggles is that the hitters the team depends on are slumping. Gleyber Torres is currently the cleanup hitter after Stanton’s injury, but he has only six hits in his last 40 at-bats. While Volpe has a great knack for getting on base, the offense is having significant trouble driving him in when he wreaks havoc on the bases. Volpe is also only batting .188, although his good plate discipline (13 walks and a .317 on-base percentage) has ameliorated this to a degree.

Aaron Judge also had a terrible series against the Blue Jays, with only one hit in 12 at-bats. Judge, the Yankees’ best player, currently has 31 strikeouts, the most in the American League and the fourth-most in all of baseball. Although strikeouts aren’t necessarily a huge problem and Judge has cut down on the strikeouts over the past two seasons, the fact that he’s this high on that leaderboard indicates how much he’s struggling right now. It also indicates that he’s trying to do too much to compensate for the rest of the lineup’s problems.

Granted, the Yankees have still found ways to win games. They were the last team in the league to lose a series, and their record stands at 13-9, which is the same as the Blue Jays. But the schedule is going to ramp up in difficulty, with a three-game road set against the Twins (a good pitching team headlined by Joe Ryan) and a four-game road set against the Rangers (who have a potent lineup, solid pitching pieces, and the dominant Jacob deGrom).

After a three-game home series against the Guardians (another good pitching team headlined by Shane Bieber), the Yankees play the Tampa Bay Rays in seven of their next 10 games, followed by a four-game series on the road against the Blue Jays. Those are three huge series, and preparing to play the Rays is more important than ever, as they’ve been on a historic tear to start the season, both in the batter’s box and on the mound.

As a result, the Yankees need to figure out their offensive woes before the first Rays series. The problems have fortunately been identified during this home stand, in which the Yankees were still able to split five games a piece. Now, it’s up to the team to make efforts to fix them. Whether it’s mechanical adjustments for individual players, or changes in the lineup’s construction, something needs to be done.

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