New York Yankees Editorial: Will The Yankees Offensive Struggles Continue?

If you look at the 2015 season as a whole, the New York Yankees offense has been very successful.  Following Wednesday’s 6-2 loss to the Houston Astros, the team has scored 589 runs, more than anyone in baseball outside of the Toronto Blue Jays.  If you instead choose to look at August, the offense has been what many predicted coming into the season, scoring just 91 runs, a spot that has them ranked 25th in baseball.

Many say that hitting in baseball is contagious, and currently, the inability to hit has spread through the Yankees roster like a virus, save for Carlos Beltran, who has had a great month of August, putting up a slash of .329/.410/.643, while hitting five home runs and driving in 14 runs.

Even with Beltran’s great month, the Yankees as a team have put up a slash-line of .218/.289/.357.  The .218 batting average is the worst in baseball.  The .646 OPS?  That places the Yankees 29th out of 30 teams.  The Yankees are lucky to only be 1.5 games out in the division, and to own a four-game lead for the first Wild Card spot.  Unfortunately, this isn’t an organization playing for a shot at a one-game playoff, rather it is one playing for a shot at World Series title number 28.

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The Yankees were only able to score four runs in three games against the Astros, a series which could have easily saw them swept, if not for Monday night’s great pitching performance by Nathan Eovaldi.  For a team that relied so heavily on scoring runs with a rotation that, for most of the season, many viewed as liable to fall apart any minute, the rotation has kept the team in the race through August.

Yankees manager Joe Girardi stated that the offensive struggles are causing the problems due to everyone slumping at once:

"It [the offensive downturn] is the root of our problems.  We have a lot of people scuffling at one time and it is hard to score like that."

After 16 games in 16 days, the Yankees are hoping Thursday’s off-day followed by six-games against the Atlanta Braves and Boston Red Sox, both who have struggling rotations, can revive their bats.  Brett Gardner added something that could be viewed as worrisome:

"The last couple of days, I didn’t think [the energy] was real good."

For most teams, this wouldn’t be viewed as worrisome, but instead a lack of focus.  For an offense consisting of mostly aging players, a lack of energy could be a sign that the team is running out of gas as the finish line nears.

While the team was able to rely on their bats early in the season, that has not been the case in August.  With September nearing, and in the midst of a tight playoff race, the Yankees must hope that their bats will awaken sooner than later.  If not, they could be on the outside looking in when October arrives.

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