The New York Yankees just got run out of Fenway Park. Four games. Four losses. The final one stung the worst on Sunday, a 5-4 walk-off in extra innings that capped a miserable road trip and dropped the team a game behind the Tampa Bay Rays in the AL East.
Fernando Cruz served up a bases-loaded single to Jarren Duran in the 10th, the ball finding grass in center field while the entire Red Sox dugout emptied onto the field. It was the kind of loss that makes you check the calendar to see how many games are left. But that number is still 79, and the Yankees are still 48-35. It’s not a crisis. It feels like one.
Boone is defiant, which is his whole deal
Aaron Boone stood in the visitors’ clubhouse after the game and did what he always does. He talked. He shrugged off the noise. He told reporters, via Talkin’ Yanks on X, exactly what you’d expect: “That’s what we do, baby. You gotta love this stuff. You got to eat this stuff up, it’s a sickness. That’s what the grind is. We got a really good frickin’ team. We played crappy on this trip kinda. Feels bad, kinda pissed off, right. But that’s what we do. It’s what you sign up for. We’ll dig ourselves out of it and get it going here in short order.”
Classic Boone. He’s not wrong about the resilience part. The Yankees have dealt with injuries to Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton, and their offense has looked lost at times. They’ve lost seven of their last 10. The fans are restless, and the Red Sox are suddenly breathing down their necks. But Boone keeps pointing to one thing: the team is still good. The numbers back him up.
They aren’t playing good baseball right now. That’s not a hot take. It’s a fact. But three weeks from now, with Judge back and Stanton healthy, we might be talking about a different team entirely.
The homestand comes at the right time
The Yankees head back to the Bronx for a six-game homestand starting Monday against the Detroit Tigers. It’s a chance to reset, to breathe, to stop sleeping in a hotel. The schedule is soft enough that a sweep of the Tigers would flip the entire narrative. Lose two of three and you’re looking at real questions.
Boone said it himself: the team played crappy. He used that word. That’s as blunt as he gets. The question now is whether the bounce back is real or just talk. They’re a game out of first place. They’re over .500 by 13 games. They have the talent. But talent doesn’t mean much when you’re 12 innings into a game at Fenway and watching your bullpen blow another one.
The Yankees have time. They don’t have forever.
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