Add The New York Post on Google There are statistics, both basic and advanced, that demonstrate and contextualize the Yankees’ struggles through this plummet. From first-inning ERA to collective OPS to unearned run total to runs per game, they paint a picture that helps explain how the very best team in the American League through June 19, a date on which Aaron Boone’s club was 46-28, has been the very worst, at 3-12, since.
More illustrative than any number, though, may be this: On Sunday they dropped a series to the Twins. It was as if the Yankees unleashed on their perpetual punching bag, and the bag ricocheted back and whacked them in the face.
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With another demoralizing, bad-in-every-facet, 6-1 smacking in front of 39,155 unhappy fans in The Bronx, the Yankees lost for just a second time in their past 14 completed series against the Twins. Joe Ryan became the first Minnesota pitcher to throw seven shutout innings in the new Yankee Stadium and the first to do so at a Yankee Stadium since Johan Santana on July 27, 2005.
The Yankees (49-40) have lost nine of 10 and now visit the division leaders in Tampa, where they were embarrassed back in April.
It is possible they will play without not just Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton but Jazz Chisholm Jr., who was pulled before the start of the sixth inning with a big toe injury for which he will be reexamined Monday.
Traditionally over the past few years, the Yankees’ offense has collapsed without Judge — and that has remained true this year, having scored 47 runs in their past 17 games (2.76 per).
On Sunday, they totaled three hits in seven innings against Ryan and managed two more against the Twins bullpen.
But every other area of the game has caved in, too, such as their:
— Defense, which let up two more unearned runs to make it 29 in 15 games. There were obvious misplays, like Anthony Volpe’s failure to handle a chopper off the bat of Ryan Kreidler in the sixth inning, which was a catalyst in a two-run Twins frame, and subtler mistakes.
With runners on first and second with no outs in the fifth, Trent Grisham took a poor route to a fly ball, was backpedaling when he caught it and did not rush a throw into the infield, ensuring both runners were able to tag up.
— Starting pitching, with Ryan Weathers unable to apply gauze to a unit that remains bleeding. The lefty turned in a second straight dud, unable to record an out in the fifth inning and charged with four runs on six hits and two walks. A group that is missing Max Fried and Carlos Rodón cannot afford for Weathers to tire.
— Base-running, Chisholm the face of yet another mental error even in a game in which he logged five innings. In the bottom of the second, Chisholm won a nine-pitch battle with Ryan and roped a long single into the right field corner. On the next pitch, he appeared to be fiddling with his sliding mitt during a steal attempt, stopped running and was picked off by Minnesota catcher Victor Caratini.
— Bullpen, with the day’s offenders being surprising (Paul Blackburn) and less so (Camilo Doval).
Blackburn entered a two-on jam in the fifth and could not escape, letting up a two-run single to Royce Lewis that handed the Twins a 4-0 lead and invited some of the loudest boos of the matinee.
Blackburn, though, has been generally solid, unlike Doval. Pitching for a second straight day, the sometimes-electric, often-wild righty allowed two runs — unearned because of Volpe’s error — on two hits and a bases-loaded walk.
In his past three games, Doval has surrendered 10 runs (just two earned), unable to navigate out of jams created by himself and his teammates.
