Aaron Boone Actually Chose To Credit The Yankees' Non-Strikeout At Bats Last Night In Their 9-3 Loss To The O's - The Yankees Struck Out 18 Times

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The Yankees entered Sunday night with an opportunity to win an important series in Baltimore, and begin what they hope to be a two month surge of good baseball that gets them into the postseason. They took the wind out of those sails immediately when they decided to rest Aaron Judge and DJ LeMahieu. You are an unserious ball club not going into that rubber match without two of your best hitters by choice. On top of all that Luis Severino continued to be the worst starting pitcher in baseball and surrendered 7 runs in the first. The game was over in the blink of an eye and sadness quickly returned. 

Severino never gave them a chance and he's the only person we should be talking about on Monday, if not for Boone's pathetic attempt to spin the offensive effort. The Yankees struck out 18 times last night. The Orioles actually set a record with that number. The Yankees skipper thought it was best to share with the media that the at-bats outside of the EIGHTEEN strikeouts built off of Saturday night's effort. It's the kind of quote that makes you stop in your tracks and question everything. 

If you don't believe he said, and I don't blame you for that, he mentions it at 1:12 in the video below. 

There are only 27 outs in the game. You struck out 66% of the possible outs and we're choosing to credit the other at bats in a 9-3 loss. I mean what the fuck are we doing here? Kremer, Baumann, Fujiami, Coulombe, and Cano destroyed your offense and you're choosing to acknowledge the non-strikeout at bats as progress. Just pissing on my head and telling me it's not raining. 

It's like when Ted tells his boss he fucked his girlfriend with a parsnip and then sold that parsnip to a family with four small children. Ted's boss then compliments and promotes him.

I know it's Boone's hellbent mission to spin zone everything into sunshine and rainbows, but give me a break here dude. And people will respond with, "well what do you want him to say?" My response to that would be ANYTHING EXCEPT THAT! Aaron Boone is far from the Yankees' biggest problem (that's Brian Cashman and Michael Fishman) but when he says stuff like this it pours gasoline on the fire. 

Another thing that doesn't help? Starting Luis Severino. That has to end. In the month of July alone he had three starts with 7 or more earned runs allowed. I'd much rather see Jhony Brito or Randy Vasquez make a spot start in his next turn in the rotation before handing it over to Nestor Cortes who is one more rehab outing away from returning. Or they could just keep pitching this dude who is surely full of confidence. 

Another that doesn't help? This organization's lack of urgency from top to bottom. Sitting Aaron Judge last night was moronic, especially considering they said he was very much available to pinch hit if the moment came. Just DH him then. Sure he can't play all of these games immediately off the IL, but a rubber match in Baltimore fresh off an encouraging effort on Saturday? The same with DJ, one of the team's few hitters who lately looks like he knows what he's doing. Nope, no need for either of them. Cool. 

Here's one more example of their lack of urgency: Cody Bellinger. The Yankees have needed a competent left handed hitting left fielder for three years. Gallo and Benintendi came and went. They desperately needed one entering 2023. They inexplicably chose to let it ride with Aaron Hicks and Oswaldo Cabrera. Cody Bellinger was sitting there waiting to get traded, but Cashman chose to wait it out until the last moment's of the deadline. Now the Cubs are red hot and most likely aren't selling. He'll have to settle for someone like Dylan Carlson, if anything, and that's because he had no sense of what this team needed when they needed it. 

They just don't care enough to make impactful moves when necessary and that's why they've fallen so squarely behind the eight ball. Now they're 3 games back in the loss column of the wild card with a week's worth of games against the Rays and Astros coming up. This is their season. Can't wait for Judge to sit multiple times this week.