Aroldis Chapman just had to get a portrait of his sister tattooed on his left leg in the middle of the season. For whatever reason, it couldn’t wait until the winter. This isn’t the first time Chapman decided to get a tattoo during the season — which doesn’t make his rationale any better — but it’s the first time one of his numerous tattoos got infected.
So with Chapman on the injured list, the Yankees bullpen found itself so depleted that in Sunday’s 4-1 loss to the A’s, Anthony Banda went straight from the scrap heap to the pitcher’s mound. The lefty pitched shortly after he signed a free agent deal, joining recent Triple A call-up Greg Weissert and Luke Bard to make an appearance in the series finale. The trio combined for 3 2/3 shutout innings. But in a four-game set against one of baseball’s worst teams, the Yankees managed only a split, thanks in part to an offense that took the weekend off.
The most absurd development might have been what transpired with Chapman, who addressed an IL stint that came about only because he put himself in an unnecessary situation. As a result, the Yankees don’t have their second-highest paid pitcher available to help. Speaking publicly for the first time since landing on the IL on Saturday, Chapman said he doesn’t expect his infected tattoo to sideline him for longer than the allotted 15 days.
“We have a really good bullpen and I’m a part of that bullpen,” Chapman said when asked if he feels like he let the team down. “Of course you’re going to feel bad not being there for them, so yeah.”
For the Yankees, the embarrassments weren’t confined to Chapman’s decision-making.
The A’s are built to lose, though the Yankees offense made it hard to tell. They mustered only three runs on five hits in their last two games, a span of 20 innings. Those indignities came against starting pitchers who dragged ERAs higher than six to the mound. Nevertheless, the Yankees somehow made Adam Oller and Adrián Martínez look like Pedro Martínez and Greg Maddux.
“Even though we only scored the three runs, I thought we hit the ball really well,” manager Aaron Boone said. “But the last 22-plus hours have not been very good for us offensively.
Even that assessment seemed charitable.
Of the top 12 hardest hit balls on Sunday, the Yankees had just three: two from Andrew Benintendi and one from Kyle Higashioka. It wasn’t much better the day before, when six out of the top 12 hardest hit balls came from Yankees, though per Statcast only three of those ranked in the top 12 of highest expected batting averages. So, no, the Yankees didn’t hit the ball “really well” in the past 22 hours.
Even with the return of Giancarlo Stanton, production has remained a challenge with two of the lineup’s best hitters still struggling. In his last 10 games since being sidelined with toe inflammation, DJ LeMahieu is just 8-for-38 with no extra-base hits. On Sunday, he killed a rally by bouncing into a double play. Anthony Rizzo is 12-for-60 in his 16 games since missing time with a back injury,
“Just the other night, we had 20 hits so I don’t think we’re too far off,” Aaron Judge said. “This is the time of the year where it’s kind of a grind. This team knows that we got our butt kicked and now we got to step up and respond.”
Yankees endure embarrassing weekend against…
The Yankees’ production over the season indicates they are capable of responding. But their struggles also show they’re just as capable of disappearing as they did over the weekend. The Yankees have seven games this season with two or fewer hits, the most in baseball.
“We should be able to put together more offense and we have to,” Boone said. “The team we expect to be, we got to do a better job … We got a big series starting where we have to get after it and start really getting some guys rolling.”
The team won’t be judged for two end-of-August games against Oakland. Still, a team with title aspirations needed to muster more energy than it did over the weekend.
New York (78-50) looked sluggish against an A’s team that is 33 games under .500 and whose highest-paid player, Chad Pinder, is making $2.7 million. Clarke Schmidt, who got knocked around for four runs on eight hits while taking Nestor Cortes’ place in the rotation, said it best:
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“We’re the New York Yankees,” Schmidt said.”We kind of expect to go out there and perform every night.”
Boone was asked if he felt like the Yankees might have overlooked the A’s. The manager dismissed the thought.
“This time of year, we’re trying to win a division and we’re getting down to stretch time now so we better not,” Boone said. “We better make sure we bring it every single day and I don’t think that was the issue.”
The Yankees would be best served to start bringing it. On Monday, the 10-game road trip moves to Anaheim for the start of a three-game set against the Angels. Though they’re coming off a three-game sweep of the Blue Jays, the Angels are another struggling team that is playing out the string. In that way, they aren’t much different from the A’s. But the Yankees know they need a much different outcome — despite a lineup coming off a weekend hiatus and bullpen that is further depleted because Chapman got an ill-timed tattoo.
“We got a division to try to win,” Boone said, “and we need to put our best foot forward.”