With the Yankees visiting Sahlen Field in Buffalo, New York, to kick off a three-game series against the Blue Jays on Tuesday in what could be a turning point in their season, manager Aaron Boone acknowledged that he is “very concerned.” by the place your team occupies in the leaderboard.
“When the offense is on, we get a lot of our confidence from there,” Boone said. “It is up to all of us to achieve that. I think we know that when you wear this uniform, you are expected to win. We need to get back on track in a big way ”.
The Yankees will start the series against Toronto with a 33-32 record in the AL East, their slowest start since 2016. But they are not even remotely the first Bombers club to face a difficult situation. Here are five editions in franchise history that ended up correcting course and making it to the postseason.
The 78 Yankees were 14 games behind the Red Sox as of July 19, going 48-42. The breaking point appeared to come two days earlier in a game that went to extra-inning against the Royals. Thurman Munson led off the 10th with a single and Reggie Jackson was ordered to touch the ball.
Manager Billy Martin changed his mind after a shipment and removed the sign to play. Jackson told third base coach Dick Howser that he was going to play anyway. He fouled for the second strike on another try and then, knocking again, he missed catcher Darrell Porter with a balloon. The Yankees lost the game and Martin, so upset that he threw a radio and a beer bottle against a clubhouse wall, suspended Jackson for five games.
Less than a week later, a laid-back Jackson returned from a California vacation and Martin had resigned as manager of the Yankees (after lashing out at Jackson and George M. Steinbrenner on a different issue). Under a calmer command from Bob Lemon, the Yankees closed the year by winning 47 of their last 67 games to tie the Red Sox in the top of the NL East, setting the table for the game’s famous home run playoff game. Bucky Dent at Fenway Park.
Buck Showalter’s team was still under .500 when September rolled around, going 57-59 when the Aug. 31 game ended. But that was the year the Wild Card job debuted, and so Don Mattingly enjoyed the only trip of his career to the postseason.
Jack McDowell, Andy Pettitte, David Cone, Scott Kamieniecki and John Wetteland threw marvelously that last month, while Bernie Williams, Wade Boggs, Randy Velarde, Mattingly and Paul O’Neill led the offense for the Yankees to achieve a record of 21-6 in September.
Thus they reached the Division Series, an epic battle in which they fell in five games against the Mariners, but which served to leave the ground ready for Joe Torre’s Yankees dynasty.
We all remember the 1998 Yankees as one of the great teams in history, with Torre leading a currency that won 114 games and swept the Padres in the World Series. But they were in trouble early on, losing four of their first five games and eventually needing a clubhouse meeting after the Angels, Athletics and Mariners outscored them with an aggregate score of 36 runs to 15.
With Steinbrenner on top of everything, Torre spoke out to his players in the away clubhouse before a game in Seattle. The Yankees responded by winning 14 of their next 15 games, including a 17-13 victory over the Athletics in the opening game at home that year. The Yankees seized the top on April 30 and did not release it again.
“Joe let us talk,” Puerto Rican Jorge Posada recalled in 2018. “He said, ‘Does anyone want to talk?’ So O’Neill spoke, Cone, most veterans spoke. We said a few things to each other, like pointing to each other… We remembered the kind of equipment we had. And that was it”.
It had been more than a decade since the Yankees had last been absent from the postseason, but as they struggled through what would be Torre’s last season as their manager, the streak seemed to be in check when they reached the Game break. All-Star record 43-43, 9.5 games behind the Red Sox in the AL East.
The second half of 2007 included the return of Roger Clemens, who came out of retirement to reinforce the rotation. It also marked the arrival of flamethrower Joba Chamberlain and a few kilometer homers from Alex Rodriguez, who became the youngest member of the 500 home run club.
The Bombers closed the season with a 94-68 record, before losing to the Indians in the Division Series.
The Yankees lost two of three games to the Marlins in Miami in a series in mid-June in which several of their starters appeared to be distracted after spending long nights in South Beach. General manager Brian Cashman flew to Atlanta to see the team at Turner Field, where the club was shut out by rookie Tommy Hanson to go 38-32.
Cashman gathered the hitters in the clubhouse before the next game and without raising his voice, made the situation clear: “You guys are better than this. Prove it ”. The Yankees proceeded to be silenced for five innings, which made Cashman think he might have wasted time.
Joe Girardo was ejected by umpire Bill Welke after Brett Gardner was caught on first base in the sixth inning, which was perhaps the spark they needed. Venezuelan Francisco Cervelli tied the game with a home run and the Yankees ended up winning 8-4, heading to a 65-27 mark the rest of the way. Girardi later acknowledged that he was trying to get him expelled.
“He let me protest for a long time,” Girardi recalled years later. “And I’m thinking, ‘Are you not going to expel me so I can leave?’ I finally told him, ‘I’m not leaving until you kick me out.’ And he expelled me. I just thought we needed something. (You had to) try something different ”.
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