Yankees Give Colorado a Post All-Star Break Present

 The New York Yankees gift wrapped their game this afternoon and the first series post All-Star Break to the worst team in the National League.

Even with another Cy Young performance from Gerrit Cole—it just didn’t matter. In a time in their schedule and with every game important in a playoff race; the Yankees clearly didn’t know that the All-Star break ended.

The Bronx Bombers left 11 runners in scoring position and in 13 chances to drive those runners in, they were successful just three times. Two through four in the order (Stanton, Rizzo [then Oswald Peraza], and DJ LeMahieu) were just two for 13 with Stanton walking twice and one lone RBI. The Yankees had nine hits in 11 innings against a starter for Colorado, Chase Anderson, who had an ERA north of 18 in his last four starts. In true 2023 Yankee fashion, Anderson held the Bombers off the scoreboard only allowing three hits and walking two in five innings.

As Yankee Ace, Gerrit Cole, put it “[we’re asking ourselves] what can we have done better; we have been asking ourselves that question a lot lately.” When a team keeps asking that question—that is the mark of an inconsistent team. That is a tendency of a team that won’t make the playoffs. Right now, following this series loss, the Bombers own a share of last place in the AL East and are a game and a half out of the last Wild Card spot. Yankee first baseman Anthony Rizzo discussed the spot that his ballclub is in “we’re not far off from the Wild Card and we’re far off from really being in second place in the division, but then again we’re not far off from being in last place and out of it.” If the season ended today, even six games above .500, the Yankees would miss the playoffs for the first time in seven years. The more you watch this team that is the way the season is trending.

One bright spot in this horrendous loss was Oswald Peraza. In his first game recalled from the minors—Peraza impacted the game immediately. Pinch running for Anthony Rizzo in the top of the 9th, he proceeded to steal second base. Almost as quickly as he stole second base, Peraza was thrown out trying to take third on a Harrison Bader Sacrifice Fly to end the Yankees threat in the 9th.

In his only at-bat of the game in the top of the 11th, the 23-year-old infielder would single and produce an insurance run (at the time) to give the Yankees a 7-5 lead.

For most of the game the offense let the ace of the staff down. When it mattered most, the best bullpen in baseball let the offense down. In the 9th and in the 11th when given a lead, the Bombers bullpen couldn’t hold it.

The Yankee Manager, Aaron Boone, has been preaching recently about having “the canvas right in front of [the Yankees] to write [their] own script.” In to use that pen you need to win games. You need to win games against bad teams. For the most part in 2023 the Yankees haven’t been able to capitalize on the bad teams enough.

Gerrit Cole said of the series against Colorado and of the AL East “this is a tough league and a tough division.”

To be a championship team at the end of the year you need to be able to get through the grittiness of the daily grind. So far over the past five months of baseball for the New York Yankees they have been swallowed up by the expectations of a championship pursuit and the daily grind that comes under the microscope of New York.

“We have two and a half months to prove we’re a championship team” said the Yankee Skipper postgame. Well, to Aaron Boone and to the rest of the Yankee organization—the clock is ticking… fast!