357 - The Yankees Keep Repeating The Same Midseason Implosion

Here we are again.  It's June, and the Yanks are swooning.  While not a surprise to me, apparently it is for Cashman and Boone somehow.

4 straight games with only three hits should not be possible for the New York Yankees, yet here we are, staring at another brutal June swoon and asking the same questions we ask every year. We’re watching a team that looked strong early flip into something familiar, and we’re done pretending it’s just “baseball ups and downs.” I walk through the sharp change in results from the pre-June record to a losing month, and why that kind of swing is a warning sign about a roster’s true ceiling.

From there, I dig into the root causes: injuries that expose a thin lineup, a contagious stretch of slumps, and an offense that can’t buy a hit with runners in scoring position. I also talk about the ugly details that make this skid feel even worse, including defensive mistakes, unearned runs, and nights where fundamentals simply vanish. Then I go straight at the decisions that keep coming back around: the familiar public messaging, the slow willingness to adjust, and why the Boone and Cashman era continues to spark anger among fans who expect championships, not excuses. 

I close by looking ahead to the MLB trade deadline and the bigger timeline that matters most. Aaron Judge is not getting younger, Gerrit Cole is trying to find himself after Tommy John, and the window for this core does not stay open forever. If you’ve been feeling that mix of frustration and dread, you’ll hear it reflected here, along with what we think has to change to put the Yankees on a real path back to a World Series. Subscribe, share this with a friend, and leave a review with the one move you want to see next.

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Transcript

Welcome And June Swoon Setup

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Welcome to Jersey guys for your sports talk home for the Yanks, Giants, Knicks, Rangers, and the Rucker Scarlet Knights. And I'm your host, Don. Thank you for listening. Today I'm going to be discussing the lifeless New York Yankees imploding in what is a very familiar June swoon. Let's go ahead and get started. Yankees, Yankees, Yankees. And fans, stop me if you've heard this before. The Yankees look great out of the gate. Have a really good April. Have a really good May. And then June arrives and the wheels start to come off. The Yankees implode, and it's back to questioning how this team is constructed. Sound familiar? Well, Groundhog's Day it is. And here we are. We are nearing the very end of June. I'm recording this on the 30th of June. And the Yankees are doing what they seem to always do with this manager and with this GM. And that is get so far in the season. Everyone keeps talking it up like history never happened. And then reality sets in and people start to play to the back of their baseball card. And, you know, as it happened this year, and the Yankees were doing well in April and in May, and then they had some injuries, and then they were winning through some injuries. Even so, the, you know, famous pundits and the announcers and the writers talking about, you know, how what are you talking about, June swoon, as they won a couple games in the beginning of June? You know, but it's fake. You know, this isn't gonna happen. It doesn't happen, see. Well, here we go, right? The Yankees

How Bad The Slide Looks

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were 36 and 20 as they entered June, right? So the games they played in March, all of April, all of May, the Yankees were 36 and 20. In June, the Yankees are now 12 and 16. Four games under 500. 16 games over 500 before June. Four games under 500 in June. A 20 game over under swing. So what does that tell you? It tells you that, again, there is a June swoon that's about to end here now. And the Yanks have playing been playing absolutely dreadful, awful baseball over the last two weeks or so, or longer. The Yankees, again, got only three measly hits last night against the Tigers. This was the fourth game in a row that the Yanks could only manage three hits. And apparently, that is a feat that has never happened in the history of Yankees baseball. And you know the long, rich history of the New York Yankees. Never, once in all their years. Through all the good teams, through all the bad teams, the Yankees never only got three hits, four games in a row. Well, you can put that one in a record book because they've done it now. And it's something that, while familiar, is annoying as heck. And it's something that Yankee Brass will write off as, you know, the ups and downs of the team, you know, and and you hear all the familiar things starting to come out that always come out every year, you know. I mean, any day now you're going to hear Boon, oh, it's all right in front of us, you know, everything's right there, a lot of baseball left. It's all right in front of us. Same happy horseshit we've heard year after year after year for Boon. And I know, you know, when I do this podcast, you know, some of the feedback I get on the Yankees is, you know, overly, you know, negative at times. And certainly I think I am. But again, I'm a spoiled Yankee fan, and I expect greatness from this team, and I am not getting greatness. And I have not gotten greatness for a long time from this team. Even the year they reached the World Series, there was not greatness in that team. And it's been a quite a long time.

Management And Accountability Problems

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And part of the problem, a big part of it, is the management of the Yankees. And that again, every year I start out, you know, the season by saying with Brian Cashman as the GM and with Aaron Boone as the manager, this team is not going to win a World Series. And I've said that each of the last five years on this podcast, and I said it again at the beginning of this year. And again, you know, it's hard to not think that that's true here because, again, what happens is a misestimation of talent, a misassessment of talent. And also, critically, as the season goes on, the inability of management to not make changes and realize what's happening, to look yourself in the mirror as a team from a management standpoint and say, you know what, this is not working. We have to make change. And not stand up in front of the microphone and say, yeah, well, you know, we don't got it going now, but you know, we feel like, you know, all Wellsy there is really, you know, connecting and getting really much, you know, a lot closer. And by the way, they they had tweaked Wells' swing to let him uppercut more. So yeah, that that's gonna that's gonna work out well, I'm I'm sure. It is a very tough pill to swallow, and it is a very tough watch now. If you're a Yankee fan and you turn on the game now and you're watching them over the last week or two, you're thinking, what am I watching? Now, certainly

Injuries And Offense Falling Apart

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the Yanks have been besieged, besieged by injuries. But that's the case for most teams. You look around the league and there's a lot. Now, admittedly, the Yanks have been hit pretty hard in the last month, harder than most teams. And you think about Aaron Judge and, of course, Stan still on the IL, and you take one of your best pitchers and freed on the IL. And even Trent Grisham, who you know is not my favorite, but compared to how they're playing now, you know, was hitting really well on a hot streak when he got hurt and he's out. And you look at how the team is hitting in particular at this moment, and you're thinking, geez Louise, man, probably any one of these guys back and hitting okay would you know start to improve this team. I will say Judge was not having a good season before he got hurt, right? He was only batting 250, and no matter when the injury was, right from the beginning of the season on, he was not really hitting well. Even though he was getting his homers, he was you know 50 points below his you know career batting average. He really was not, you know, doing what he normally does during the regular season. So even that, having him back, would have greatly boosted the lineup, even at a diminished capacity. Stanton at any capacity puts fear in the other lineup, even if he's on a one of his bad swoons. You know, and Grisham, who I'm not the biggest favorite of, gets clutch hits, and he has the last year and a half, you know, no matter what his batting average is. So he also lengthens the lineup. I was in favor of seeing these rookies so far. All the rookies, along with everyone else, have been underperforming the last couple weeks, and it's been tough to watch out there. And what a what a tough watch the Yankees are. I don't think that the Yankees will change their management up. It's possible if the Yankees have a terrible finish this year in some way, that Boone will go. I don't know when Brian Cashman will ever get fired. I think that's eventually what's needed for the Yankees to win a World Series. We need some new thinking in here. He's one of these grandfathered in, you know, people in the Yankee organization, like Volpe, like Wells, it seems, that are just there. They're not helping the team in any way. The GM, you know, the shortstop, the catcher. They're just there. And no matter what comes, hell or high water, hurricane, Armageddon, doesn't matter. We're sticking with them, right? And it's that kind of thinking, and it's a lot of positions it extends to, that will once again doom this 2026 Yankees. And I'm not talking about this short-term, miserable baseball that we're facing, because they will snap out of it, you know, and they will go on a five-game winning streak at some point, and then people won't talk about this part of the season again. But in the long run, from the 10,000-foot view, the Yankees being capable of playing like this inherently means they're not going to win a championship. Yes, every team's have their up and down. Every team has stretches where they play poorly, sometimes for even extended stretches. But the consistent year over year over year periods of play where the Yankees don't just have dips, but look like they don't belong on a baseball field, right? There's there's playing not to the best of your ability, which every teams do and go through bad spots, and then there's playing like the Yanks have been playing. And let me tell you, playing like they're playing means last night I talked about the Yanks only got three measly hits for the fourth game in a row. What a disaster Monday night. In addition to all that, Jason Domiguez kind of ran into the wall and hurt his stomach, but he's okay, we think. Bellinger dropped the fly ball, and he never ever dropped. This is how bad the Yan's are playing. Bellinger, maybe the best defensive outfielder, one of the best ones in the league, actually dropped the fly ball. It wasn't the easiest chance, but he should have had it. It was right near the wall. He was running pretty fast. Still, he catches everything. Everything within his orbit, Bellinger catches. But no, he dropped the fly ball yesterday. Dominguez crashed into Jazz catching a ball, knock Chism out of the game. Weathers, our starting pitcher of the day yesterday, couldn't last even until the end of the second inning. The Yanks gave up five more unearned runs, making 14 unearned runs they've given up in the last five games. 14 unearned runs. This is how bad the Yanks have been playing in the field, right? Offensively, how bad has it been offensively since June 19th? The Yanks have hit 175 and scored a grand total of 26 runs. That's in 11 days. They've averaged 2.6 runs in the last 10 games. And in that time frame, let's see. Where do I have it written down here? Rice is 4 for 40 with 1 riby. Bellinger, 5 for 34, no ribies. The Yanks in general, 6 for 65 with runners in scoring position during that time. And by the way, out of that, Rosario has been getting some hits. So Rosario is three for five, and the rest of the team is three for fifty-nine with runners in scoring position in the last ten games. Three for fifty-nine? You talk about the opposite of clutch, right? So Rice is O for his last 18. Bellinger, as I mentioned, is two for his last 27. Goldschmidt is O for his last 12. Why does everyone have to tank at the same time, right? This is another trait of this Yankee team. When one person goes on a you know offensive rut, it seems like it's contagious. It's like, you know, they have malaria or something, and then the rest of the team also has to be terrible. So if Bellinger goes into a rut, why does Goldsman have to stop pinning? Why is Rice sort of the bottom is falling out? By the way, he was well over 300 and Rice is down to 260 now. So he is tanking. His star, as it were, where is definitely falling as the season goes on. He is, you know, either pitchers have him figured out or, you know, he isn't quite as good as everybody was making him out to be. Boy, he hits the ball hard, but he's making a lot of outs and looking worse and worse at the plate. Of course, the normal things are always happening too.

Wells Volpe And Stubborn Lineups

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In addition to some of our better players all slumping at the same time, Austin Wells continues to be the offensive disaster and defensive disaster that he continues to be, even though he gets praised for his defense. He's a terrible defender. He had another pass ball yesterday, by the way, in the first inning. He continue Wells continues to not do anything resembling hitting Volpe, you know, our anointed godsend at shortstop, you know, is hitting 077 over his last five games. He's won for his last 13. But nobody mentions that. When when people are mentioning the swoon the Yanks are in, they'll talk about other players, but no one, including any of the Yankee management, will talk about Volpe starting to not hit because we don't say that, right? We only say when Volpey's hitting well and how we knew he'd be great, you know. But then over the next month or so, when Volpe goes three for 52, you know, you won't hear a peep out of the Yanks about needing to fix him, needing to change him, taking him out of the lineup. They'll just continue doing what they're doing, right? The season started out with, oh, we're not messing around this year. We're more serious, right? We're going to, and you saw them promote people quickly, demote a few people. They didn't call Volpe up right away when he got healthy. Now they're back to the same old Yankees, sticking with what does not work, continuing, continuing to have Austin Wells in this lineup. Why is Austin Wells playing the game of baseball for the New York Yankees? If the Yankees are serious about winning, why is Austin Wells still on this team? Sanchez was actually hitting, right? I mean, if you if you watched him hit, you know, the last couple times he got a chance to play, he actually hit pretty damn well, you know, the Sanchez kid. I don't know why he's not getting more run. He's the only one of the three catchers that actually is doing anything offensively. Why not? Let's see him. It's not like Wells gives us anything except for the fake, oh, he's a great framer. He doesn't throw anyone out, he doesn't block any balls, he doesn't do anything, you know, but you know, one of these anointed people. We are not serious anymore this year about making quick changes and doing what is necessary to actually, you know, solidify, change up this lineup. We will see what you know Cashman does because I feel like he is also not going to be serious enough. You know, he will make minor tweaks at the deadline, he'll get a bullpen piece or two. Maybe he'll pick up a catcher, some of the rumors are. We're gonna see. I don't know. God forbid, you know, we displace Wells. You know, then then, of course, when that happens, Wells will still be on the team and probably hit every other day or something. That'll just be, you know, slightly less play of Wells. What we need is Wells not on this team. And what we need is Volpe not on this team. What we need is quicker action by management, less excuses by boon, and more addressing concerns that are so blatant it's ridiculous. Now,

Pitching And Defense Add To Mess

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the pitching is not much better. Starting pitching on this team started out this season tremendously, tremendously. Completely to carry the team for many, many, many, many games. But it might not be quite as good as advertised, and maybe they're starting to feel the stress now because you know the Yanks' offense is not scoring. But, you know, as far as your expectations of these pitchers, think about how they were when the season started versus how they are right now. Garrett Cole, right, on the injured list, came back from Tommy John. Great, it's gonna be great, awesome, great pitcher. It's not a it's not an easy thing coming back from Tommy John. People assume you're just gonna come back the same or better. It's not a guarantee, and it's not always quick. And what we're seeing with Cole now is not good stuff, right? He is absolutely not the ace, 100%. There are games he's had since he's come back where he's pitched well, but there is not a single game he's pitched since he's come back where he's looked like the old Garrett Cole, who was a dominating, dominating top five starting pitcher in baseball, right, for many years. He has not looked close to that in any of his starts. Again, he's had better starts and lesser starts, too often lesser starts recently. So, you know, in the beginning of the year, again, think about what your thoughts and what the what the statements were about to starting pitching versus what reality is right now. Weathers, we just saw, right? Again, he doesn't look anything like what they were talking about at the beginning. Oh, we have Cole, we have this, we have that, we have Weathers. Well, Cole not looking great so far. He'll turn it around, we all hope. Weathers not looking great. He got shelled again yesterday, could not even get out of the second inning. Wern looked pretty good beginning of the season, looked very sharp, had this stat where he had the most called straight threes, you know, in baseball over a certain amount of time. Wern, though, has not pitched well of late. Rodon, who I've never been a big fan of, you know, continues to look like an overpaid $20-something million dollar a year pitcher at this point. Again, on his good days, he looks pretty good. And on his bad days, he looks bad. I mean, I don't know if we're paying $20 something million dollars a year for someone to look pretty good on their best days. We don't get any dominant starts out of Rodon. It would be nice to actually get that, but we haven't. Freed has his good to great days when he's healthy, but he has not been healthy for a month and a half now. Only Cam Schlitter, right, has actually been a dominant starter for us, a great starting pitcher. So this starting staff that everyone was raving about and talking about how wonderful and how deep who actually consistently now looks good? Schlitter, right? Does Freed? No, he's not even here to tell you anything. Does Rodon? No. Is Warren consistently look good? No. Weathers? Definitely not. Cole? No. So this great starting staff is showing some cracks. And so you cannot blame anything on the Yankees demise here, June swoon, on the starting pitching alone, and maybe not at all, because the other areas are all so much worse. But I just want to let it be known that there are issues with the starting pitching, which are completely getting covered up by the much worse play in all the other areas of the game. Defense, for example. We're supposed to have this improved defense. Not really. I mean, they kind of look lost in the field again. They're overthrowing bases, they're missing cutoff men. There's errors, galore, mental mistakes. Boy, oh boy. It was a sloppy, ugly game again Monday night. They continue to have all these errors. I mentioned them having 14 unearned runs that they've given up in the last five games. Not great stuff. Not great stuff, you know. And you have to hope that at some point, you know, there will be some trigger and turn this season around. But again, with the management in place that seems like they're there forever, it's hard not to be gloomy as far as an outlook. And I know this is sort of the low point of the season for the Yanks, so it's kind of easy to do a podcast where you talk about the things the Yankees are lacking in. But, you know, if you listen to this podcast, you know that I've been talking about these things even when they were playing well. And

Deadline Outlook And Aging Core

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this is what happens when you don't address things from a point of power. You know, you can make changes, you can make trades, you can do things much more easily when your team is playing well. Once you're playing terribly and everything is exposed, it's much harder to make good trades and to make good moves. And, you know, we're gonna have to see what the Yankees do at this point because again, they continue to lack the ability to properly assess talent. And that will always, always, always catch up to you in this game and in every sport. And, you know, with with Cashman and with the Yankees organization, we continue to lack the ability to properly assess talent. And here we are. Here we are. You got McMahon and Wells and Volpe as your 7-8-9 hitters on a team that you think is gonna win you know the World Series. Good luck with that, guys. Good good luck with that. Anyway, well, I mean, something to look forward to, right? All we have to face tonight, Tuesday night, is uh Tarek Scuble. And we're gonna we're gonna bat against him tonight in Detroit. So I'm sure we'll definitely do very well with that, uh, with our wonderful offense. I know. Too much sarcasm here, guys. I'm sorry. I'm just it it's just it's hard to watch, it's brutal. There's no other sports on that, right? Everything's finished, the NBA is done, right? You know, there's no college football, there's no college basketball. If you're a World Cup fan, obviously that's exciting, so that's going on. But outside of soccer, right, it's just baseball. That's it. There's nothing else to focus on. And if the only thing you can focus on is an unmitigated disaster every night, you know, and Met fans, I'm feeling for you because I'm sure you you have it worse. But, you know, it's tough. It's tough. And so, you know, we're gonna have to see what changes between now and you know, maybe the trade deadline in August. And we'll see if the Yankees can look themselves in the mirror. We'll see if they can properly assess talent. We'll see if they have the guts and the balls to actually make changes that need to be made to put this team on a path to success. Judge is not getting any younger, right? He's 34. How many good years does he have left? And we're sort of wasting his prime years. Cole is much I don't know how many good years Cole has left, right? He's 36, right? And how many years after Tommy John surgery is he gonna have? You know, obviously Stanton continues to get older and older and play less and less every single year. So, you know, these stars that we have ridden are getting older, and the rest of the team really needs a replenishment to get this team over the hump. And we'll see if there's any chance of that happening. As of now, not the brightest today, guys. Sorry about that. That's gonna do it for today's

Closing And Subscribe

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podcast. Thank you for listening to Jersey Guys Sports. Please subscribe, tell your friends about it, and we'll be back soon with some more sports talk. Thanks and have a good day.