The Yankees May Have Snapped Out of It

Did taking 2 out of 3 from the Red Sox at Fenway snap the Yankees out of their Summertime funk? It's beginning to look like it.

The Philadelphia Phillies have looked like the best team in baseball, and the Yankees had to go face them. Fortunately, it is Citizens Bank Park, not Yankee Stadium II, that is the current major league ballpark where it is easiest to hit home runs.

Luis Gil pitched okay as the Yankees' starter on Monday night. Former Met Zack Wheeler did not pitch okay as the Phillies' starter. Aaron Judge and the newly-acquired Jazz Chisholm Jr. each hit 2 home runs. Ben Rice and Anthony Volpe also homered, and the Yankees won, 14-4.

The Tuesday night game wasn't so simple. Aaron Boone scratched Gerrit Cole from his scheduled start, due to general fatigue, and sent Will Warren out to make his major league debut. A 25-year-old righthander from Mississippi, he was shaky, allowing 4 runs before being taken out in the 6th inning. Fortunately, the Yankees wore Aaron Nola out, and he didn't pitch into the 7th, either.

Chisholm again hit 2 home runs, and the Yankee Fans who made the trip down the New Jersey Turnpike went wild -- even if they couldn't "take over the ballpark," as they sometimes do in Baltimore. The Yankees led, 6-5 in the bottom of the 9th, but 2 singles and a wild pitch by Clay Holmes sent the game to extra innings.

Mark Leiter Jr., son of a former Phillies, and the nephew of a former Yankee and Met (the family is from the Shore, and they're Met fans), kept the Phils from scoring in the 10th. Each team scored one run in the 11th. Chisholm led off the top of the 12th with a single, moving "ghost runner" Austin Wells to 3rd base. Gleyber Torres grounded into a double play, but it got Wells home. Michael Tonkin got the Phils out 1-2-3, and the Yankees had won, 7-6.

The Phillies don't play many day games at home, just Sundays, and the occasional Wednesday or Thursday end-of-series "getaway day." They call it a "Businessperson's Special," and the players wear blue caps and all-white uniforms, as opposed to their usual red caps and white jerseys with red pinstripes.

Nestor Cortés started against Cristopher Sánchez, and neither pitched well. DJ LeMahieu, badly in need of a good day, hit a grand slam in the 2nd inning. The Phillies closed to within 4-3 after 5 innings, by LeMahieu doubled home 2 runs in the 6th. He had 13 RBIs entering the game, and added 6. The Phillies got a run off Leiter in the 8th, and their fans really woke up, but Holmes shut the door in the 9th, and the Yankees completed the sweep.

One reason that this was a day game is that the adjoining Lincoln Financial Field, home of the NFL's Eagles, was hosting a pair English soccer teams on their Summer tours of America, two of the most popular teams in the world due to their success, teams whose fans travel well, and the City of Philadelphia wanted to avoid a traffic nightmare.

A crowd of 44,543 saw the Yankees beat the Phillies, 6-5. A crowd of 69,879 saw Liverpool beat Arsenal, 2-1. And there was a good 4 hours between the former's final out and the latter's opening whistle, so there were no traffic issues other than those that would normally occur at a Phillies game and at an Eagles game.

*

The Yankees came home to face the Toronto Blue Jays, whose injuries have left them buried in last place in the American League Eastern Division. But they tagged former Blue Jay Marcus Stroman 3 runs in the 1st inning and 4 in the 3rd. Despite 2 runs of their own in the 1st, on Judge's 40th home run of the season, the Yankees couldn't come back. Volpe also homered, but the Jays won, 8-5.

Carlos Rodón started on Tuesday night, and pitched well aside from a 1st inning home run by Vladimir Guerrero Jr. Judge and Volpe homered again. So did Trent Grisham, which was not expected, given his .188 batting average. The Yankees won, 8-3.

Cole started Sunday's game, and the rest seemed to have done him some good, as he got into the 6th inning, allowing 2 runs. Juan Soto hit a home run in the 7th to make it 3-2 Yankees, but the Jays tied it in the 8th. Then came a rain delay of nearly 2 hours. Then came a resumption of play. Then came extra innings. In the bottom of the 10th, Grisham bunted Volpe over to 3rd. There was 1 out, and LeMahieu was up.

Yogi Berra once said that one of the great things about baseball was that "You can't make up no trick plays." Well, Jays manager John Schneider tried a trick play, bringing one of his outfielders in as a 5th infielder, to try to stop a ground ball and keep Volpe from scoring from 3rd. It didn't matter: LeMahieu hit the ball up the middle, and nobody got to it, and Volpe scored. Yankees 4, Blue Jays 3. So it was 2 out of 3, and 7 of the team's last 8.

*

We are now 70 percent of the way through the regular season. The Yankees are tied with the Baltimore Orioles for 1st place in the American League Eastern Division. The Boston Red Sox are 6 back, the Tampa Bay Rays 9, and the Blue Jays 15 1/2.

That long slump looked really bad, but the Orioles couldn't take advantage of it. And now that the Yankees seem to be getting healthy, plus Volpe and Verdugo snapping out of their slumps, plus Wells starting to hit, plus the addition of Chisholm, means that hope is returning.

There are still worrying points. Torres is still batting only .235, and his lack of his hustle actually got him benched by Boone for a game in the Toronto series. Giancarlo Stanton is only hitting .241, still strikes out way too much, and, between that and his time on the Injured List, hasn't had an RBI, let alone a home run, since June 19. None of the starting pitchers, not even Cole (his ERA is 5.09), fills fans with confidence. And as for the bullpen, Holmes is not a reliable closer, and neither is anyone else. Maybe Leiter can be?

As for the "getting healthy" part, Anthony Rizzo and Clarke Schmidt might be a week away from returning. Jasson Domínguez is playing at Class AAA Scranton, but isn't hitting well. Most likely, he'll stay there until rosters expand on September 1. Although it would feel good to see him back in Pinstripes, there's no need to rush him back. He's still only 21 years old: If he doesn't make a major league impact this season, that's okay. If the Yankees fail again, it won't be because "The Martian" was unavailable.

But is the hitting or the pitching the bigger problem? You tell me. When the Yankees score at least 5 runs, they're 51-8; when they don't, they're 16-38. When they allow 4 or fewer runs, they're 55-15; when they allow 5 or more, they're 12-31.

At any rate, tonight, the Yankees begin a home series with the Los Angeles Angels. No Shohei Ohtani: He signed with the Los Angeles Dodgers. No Mike Trout: He's out of the season with an injury. (Another reason why it was stupid to compare him with Mickey Mantle: None of Mantle's many injuries kept him out for the rest of the season.) The Angels are badly struggling, and the Yankees may be able to continue their rebound against them.