13-14? 13-14 on the month of June? How did the New York Yankees suddenly collapse to a point where they are winning less than half the games in the month?
Well, as we have seen in my first article. most of the batters (with the exception of Jazz Chisholm and Cody bellinger) are no longer hitting. And whilst the starting rotation (injuries aside) is holding up, the bullpen is falling apart…
Continue readingI 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
Continue readingThe New York Yankees led (in every sense) by their captain, Aaron Judge were quick off the mark in 2025. By the end of March, they were 3-0 and a game in front of the rest of their division. By the end of April, they were 18-13 and had increased their lead to one-and-a-half games.
Obviously, there had been many changes since their disappointing perfomance in the 2024 World Series.
Some of these had been by choice – some because they had been outbid on free agents they would have liked to re-sign.
Continue readingEach season, we award to players’ rankings according to outstanding performances during the season. Using this system, here’s how the Batters and Pitchers of the New York Yankees placed:
Continue readingSo, the Yankees in October were a mixed bunch. Sure, they made it to the World Series, but many of the players they needed to “turn up” in the vital games went AWOL.
Crucially, these included Aaron Judge, Jazz Chisholm Jr., and once more, both catchers. That combination was never going to end happily.
Continue readingBy the beginning of September, the New York Yankees were well on their way to the post-regular season playoffs. They were 79 wins, 57 losses with 26 games to play. The main question seemed to be surrounding the issue of whether they would win the divison or go through by wildcard qualification.
Amongst the regular players, Gleyber Torres was leading the way, by the end of the month, but their were real issues about how much he could be a team player as well as a strong individual performer. Trent Grisham was much improved in the little time he was given at the plate, and of course, Aaron Judge and Juan Soto continued to be masterful.
Continue readingSo, game 162.
And this would prove to be my last game of the season. The news agency had offered me a contract for the post-season, but the need to move house and start a new position in England, was going to mean that there was no way of taking that up.
As in 2023, the last days of the season were visited by blanket rain, which meant delays and just getting generally soaked to the skin. First pitch didn’t come around until 4:36 by my watch.
On the mound? Clarke Schmidt for the New York Yankees who entered the game with a 2.55 ERA and a 5-5 win – loss record which partially concealed that he hadn’t achieved a win since May 16 and had missed a considerable portion of the season through injury. For the Pittsburgh Pirates, it was Bailey Falter who had an 8-9 record. This was his rookie season and other than not playing in the majors for most of July, he had produced a reasonable season pitching to a 4.17 ERA.
Continue readingSo, game 161 and as so often happens at this stage of the season, the team who has least to achieve takes their foot off the accelerator and begins to lose.
Going into this game the Yankees had lost three of four, this afternoon to add to their stresses, the Pittsburgh Pirates had elected that potential National League rookie of the year, Paul Skenes should be on the mound. To this point in the season, Skenes is 3 wins – 1 loss with an earned run average of just under two, and September was his best month of the season so far.
The Yankees’ starter is no slouch either as they went with another potential rookie of the year – American League candidate Luis Gil. Gil is 15-6 with an ERA of 3.27.
With the season coming to an end, and little to play for, the main question is how long the Pirates would allow Skenes to remain in the game – how deep in the innings count, they would allow him to go.
My prediction, before the game, if I am honest, would have been that the Yankees would take this one, clinch top seed and Skenes would go five innings and no more. How wrong can you be!
Continue readingSo, 4 games to go and 4 games in front. And to be frank things were not going well for the Yankees as the Orioles were two up in the series already.
Now this evening game had a very tough pitching matchup with Gerrit Cole leading off the pitching for the New York team and Orioles’ ace Corbin Burnes the other guy on the mound. This one was wide open and could have gone either way.
Gunnar Henderson hit a fly out to Aaron Judge in centerfield which was followed by two gentle ground outs – Jordan Westburg out 6-3 and then Anthony Santander hitting directly to Antony Rizzo to finish out the Baltimore time at bat.
Burnes suggested he might have the edge tonight. In 9 pitches, he got the first three Yankees’ batters to strike out swinging (Gleyber Torres, Juan Soto and
Aaron Judge).
The Yankees went in to the game with their lead cut to five games and playing the team who were five games behind them- the Baltimore Orioles
Baltimore were coming off a convincing win. They had Zach Eflin starting. Prior to this game he was 9 wins, 7 losses with a 3.53 ERA. The Yankees had Marcus Stroman on the mound. He went into the game with a 10-8 record and a 4.04 ERA. Recently, Stroman had been dropped from the Yankees starting rotation and made his last appearance on the 17th as a closer against Seattle in Seattle. He was indeed on long rest.
Orioles went into this one clear favourites.
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twilightdawning 