I can’t believe how well he’s playing… He is batting much better than I ever expected he could… He looks so much better on the mound than his stats suggested he would…

And obviously, something had to give. And in June didn’t it just. The all-powerful Yankees who were strolling to the post-season and would be winners of the American League East. just ground to a halt and their true colours were shown.

June 2025 was not a good month for the Yankees

Let’s look at the statistics and take a few minutes to take an overview of who performed well or badly (mostly badly)…

Name/Pos	G	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB	K	SB	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS
Jazz Chisholm Jr 2b/3b	24	88	15	28	5	0	7	19	9	25	4	.318	.378	,614	.992
Clay Bellinger of/dh	24	96	12	29	6	1	4	11	5	10	4	.302	.343	.510	.853
Jasson Dominguez of	22	68	9	19	3	0	0	3	6	21	5	.279	.333	.324	.657
DJ LeMahieu if	25	72	8	20	3	0	1	8	7	18	0	.278	.342	.361	.703
Aaron Judge of/dh	27	95	19	24	4	0	9	17	20	42	2	.253	.388	.579	.967
Giancarlo Stanton dh	11	37	1	9	1	0	0	3	5	13	0	.243	.333	.270	.603
Trent Grisham of	22	83	13	19	4	0	2	6	14	28	0	.229	.340	.349	.689
Austin Wells c	20	67	7	15	4	0	2	13	3	19	0	.224	.274	.373	.647
J.C. Escarra c/if	11	18	2	4	1	0	1	3	3	2	0	.222	.318	.444	.762
Anthony Volpe ss	27	88	8	18	4	1	3	11	10	25	2	.205	.290	.375	.665
Pablo Reyes 3b/of	3	5	1	1	0	0	0	1	0	1	0	.200	.200	.200	.400
Ben Rice 1b/dh/c	21	72	8	13	1	1	3	6	8	14	1	.181	.289	.347	.636
Oswald Peraza 3b	16	36	0	6	0	0	0	3	3	11	1	.162	.225	.162	.387
Paul Goldschmidt 1b/dh	24	84	11	12	2	0	2	4	9	22	1	.143	.226	.238	.464
Name/Pos	G	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB	K	SB	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS

At the end of May, the Yankees were 35-22 and 5.5 games ahead in the American League East (and even that lead had begun to fall a little). At the end of June, they are 48-36 and that lead is down to 1.5. Not surprisingly, this is because there were now very few players who were living up to their billing (never mind exceeding it as they had in April and most of May. Let’s begin by surveying the catchers:

Catchers

When your first choice and best performing catcher, hits only ,224 in a calendar month, you know you have got problems. Austin Wells is that leader and first choice. He managed six extra base hits (4 doubles, 2 home runs), but only 3 walks compared to 19 strikeouts. J.C. Escarra is still second choice catcher, but for how much longer? In his 11 appearances, he hit .222. He is much more patient at the plate than Wells and walked 3 times, compared to only 2 strikeouts. However, still, we have to say that if Escarra is the main second choice then Wells plays too large a percentage of the games and neither is batting well enough for that situation to continue.

Ben Rice is also available, but he is perhaps better suited to play first base particularly now that Giancarlo Stanton has returned to take the role of designated hitter.

Infielders

In June, Ben Rice batted .181 with only 5 extra base hits. This fading performance would be bad enough, but then we have to take into consideration the alarming decline in Paul Goldschmidt‘s outings. He hit .143 with 4 extra base hits, across 24 games and 84 at bats. Also only 4 RBIs. Oh dear.

The Yankees finally gave up on trying to make a third base man out of Jazz Chisholm Jr. This coincided with Chisholm being one of the few batters on the Yankees’ roster to take June by the scruff of its neck – hitting a June team-leading batting average of .318, alongside an equally impressive .614 slugging percentage. that was accomplished with 5 doubles and 7 home runs, bringing in another team leading stat in 19 RBIs. I don’t know what to say about Chisholm’s character though. Some call him charismatic. I’m just waiting for him to mature.

About the same time, DJ LeMahieu began to settle into a better rhythm – at least in terms of hitting for average. His power (such as it was) is gone and the Yankees need that second base slot for Chisholm. Add into the mix LeMahieu’s declining range in the field and you begin wonder what the Yankees will do with him. There is no longer a gap at DH. They don’t need him at second. There is no sign that the Yankees see him as a long-term solution at third. What is to become of him?

Anthony Volpe slumped to .205 on the month. The press are beating up on him, and the more they do that, the more fielding errors he makes.

The Yankees don’t really have a third baseman anymore – just players they don’t want there and a rotating set of bench players. And in many way this has been the case since Oswaldo Cabrera injured himself.

Oswald Peraza batted .162 in June. Pablo Reyes was batting a June .200 when he was designated for assignment. Jorbit Vivas was sent back to Scranton (Triple-A) on June 3rd and didn’t play in the majors at all this month. We have already mentioned the Jazz Chisholm / DJ LeMahieu situation. It is not a pretty picture and it is completely unclear where the next third baseman will come from.

And the fielding errors in the infield just keep on mounting.

Outfielders

At least the outfield situation is much better than that which we have been discussing in the infield.

The Yankees have 4 principal outfielders and they are all contributing, but there is a noticeable deterioration. Aaron Judge is still having an outstanding league leading season, but his batting average has nose-dived to .253. He still harvested 13 extra base hits during the period. 9 of those were home runs. Perhaps he is pressing a little too hard and it is noticeable that his batting stance and mechanics have changed.

Thankfully, Cody Bellinger has taken up some of the slack. He hit .302 with 11 extra base hits and it is truly good to be able to report something encouraging.

Trent Grisham continues to be strong defensively, but his batting average collapsed to .229 on the month. He needs to turn that around.

Jasson Dominguez has given us less power hitting to talk about recently – indeed no home runs in June at all. And he is striking out too much (21 in June)

Designated Hitter

And Stanton is back, as we have already noted, but he has begun slowly. No home runs in 37 at bats, and only 1 double. That means that Stanton has hit 8 singles and as we have noted in previous years, Stanton hitting singles is really no use at all. Maybe he will warm up soon.