The Yankees in the month of June have run 11-12. During that time, they have four new faces added to the injured list.

Crucially, Aaron Judge went in that direction. When he made an amazing fielding play whilst crashing into the wall in front of the bullpen, it seemed both amazing and humorous. Now, it doesn’t seem so funny anymore. Judge is injured, with no timetable for his return. And the form of others has nose-dived as the team in general seem to feeling his absence psychologically.

Also newly injured and unavailable are Nestor Cortes, Greg Allen and Willie Calhoun.

Returning? Ian Hamilton, Harrison Bader, Giancarlo Stanton, Tommy Kahnle, and Josh Donaldson.

Ryan Weber went from the 15 day injured list to the 60 day list.

On balance, if it wasn’t for the Judge injury, you’d think that the Yankees’ roster had gained in June, but if you consider that some of the returnees are notorious under-performers in recent times, then it doesn’t look quite that good.

So, let’s see, amongst all the batting weaknesses, who rose above the crowd:

Name/Pos	G	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB	K	SB	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS
Billy McKinney of	18	58	7	16	3	1	4	7	2	11	0	.276	.300	.569	.869
Isiah Kiner-Falefa of/if	20	51	9	14	1	0	2	8	3	12	3	.275	.309	.412	.721
Harrison Bader cf	9	33	5	9	4	0	0	3	1	3	1	.273	.294	.394	.688
Anthony Volpe ss	23	68	7	18	5	0	2	4	8	21	3	.265	.342	.426	.768
Jake Bauers of/1b	21	64	9	15	7	0	3	9	6	16	1	.234	.300	.484	.784
Jose Trevino c	14	38	2	8	1	0	0	2	0	5	0	.211	.231	.237	.468
Willie Calhoun dh/of	11	29	4	6	1	0	2	4	3	6	0	.207	.281	.448	.729
Gleyber Torres 2b/ss	23	81	7	16	3	0	3	7	8	15	1	.198	.270	.346	.616
Kyle Higashioka c	16	36	4	7	2	0	0	5	1	7	0	.194	.211	.250	.461
Oswaldo Cabrera of/if	17	17	4	3	0	0	1	3	0	5	0	.176	.222	.353	.575
Anthony Rizzo 1b	22	75	9	13	4	0	0	5	10	17	0	.173	.311	.227	.538
DJ LeMahieu if	16	58	4	10	3	1	1	5	4	15	0	.172	.226	.310	.536
Josh Donaldson 3b/dh	19	61	9	9	1	0	7	12	5	20	0	.148	.206	.508	.714
Giancarlo Stanton of/dh	20	69	7	10	2	0	3	8	6	24	0	.145	.234	.304	.538
Aaron Judge of	2	7	1	1	0	0	1	1	1	3	0	.143	.250	.571	.821
Greg Allen of	1	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	1	0	.000	.500	.000	.500
Name/Pos	G	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB	K	SB	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS

Catchers

With Ben Rortvedt back in the minors and with little sign of him returning, the month was divided between the established faces of Jose Trevino and Kyle Highashioka, but with Trevino’s failure to return to 2022 form, the split of time was almost 50/50. Trevino played in less games, but had marginally more plate appearances.

Trevino batted .211 with a double. Higashioka swung only to a .194 pace, but produced 2 doubles.

Defensively, all is well. Offensively, things are very poor indeed. Higashioka, again, only produced five singles, and there were no homers this time to make it seem better.

Infielders

One of the most surprising, even shocking, developments in the Yankees’ performances was the slump which affected Anthony Rizzo. Rizzo, who featured in more games than anyone except Gleyber Torres, hit only .173 with 4 doubles and no home runs. During March, April and May, Rizzo had been a towering strength. Now, with little back up at the first base position, he was not given space to turn it around.

Gleyber Torres at 2nd, did little better. He hit with more power than Rizzo, producing doubles and triples, but like most of the offensive lineup, he struggled majorly in June.

Fortunately, there were some brightness. One such was that Anthony Volpe seems to finally growing into a major league role. In June, he hit .265 with 7 extra base hits and a team lead tying 3 stolen bases.

At third base, things were even worse. Before Josh Donaldson returned from the injured list, DJ LeMahieu was most used in the position. During the season, Isiah Kiner-Falefa and Oswaldo Cabrera have been used there a little too. This month, LeMahieu, who acquired the nickname “The Machine” for the frequency of his hits in his early days in New York, seems to have become a “brokedown engine” in the words of the old folk song. He hit only .172 with five extra base hits. His OPS was worse than any of the regular players except Kyle Higashioka and Jose Trevino.

Donaldson added a little power to the team, but his .148 average in June highlights his problems, and the difficulty he brings to the team. He, like Aaron Hicks not too long ago, is simply using up a roster position. He has talked recently of perhaps retiring at the end of the season. He should do the Yankees a favour, and retire immediately.

Outfielders

With Aaron Judge and Greg Allen going down at the earliest part of the month, and Willie Calhoun joining them on the injured list towards the end of June, the Yankees had no right to have as good a month as they did from the outfield positions. The saga of Aaron Judge’s toe will no doubt run and run, but this shouldn’t stop us admiring the contribution of those who stepped into the gap.

Billy McKinney was the pick of the bunch in this his second period as a New York Yankee. He hit .276 to lead the team, and was also ahead in OPS on .869. He brought some power, contributing 8 extra base hits. This made him second in extra base hits behind Jake Bauers, another fill-in guy that we were going to mention next. He didn’t display the same kind of authority in getting on base, with a lack of singles, but was better in the field than the Yankees had any right to hope he would be.

Also upping his contribution was Isiah Kiner-Falefa who was just one point behind McKinney in the batting average column. Obviously, he doesn’t have much power and his defensive game is still a work in progress, but again he is doing well.

To round out the picture, the Yankees got their second best outfielder back on the field, as the month was coming to its conclusion. Harrison Bader appeared in 9 games, batting .273 with 4 doubles. The hope is that in his enthusiasm to chase down everything, he will not injure himself again but only time will tell.

Oswaldo Cabrera has struggled and spent some time in the minors with Scranton. For better or worse, Giancarlo Stanton has been give some days in the outfield which heightens the possibility of more injuries in his future considerably.

Designated Hitters

Stanton has had a very quiet bat since his return from injury. This is a repeating pattern, and the Yankees don’t see the sense in minimising the possibility of injury by not using him in a fielding role. However, .145 with 5 extra base hits is too lightweight a bat for every day as the designated hitter. Like with Donaldson, the Yankees have a considerable quandary.

The injury to Willie Calhoun, who was at least hitting over .200 in June maximises this problem.

And the Yankees don’t seem to have any solutions. The offense even seems to have convinced itself that it is a one man team, relying on the pitching to keep them in games.