Yankees self-destruct. It’s time to begin circling the wagons

The Yankees, for the second night in a row, received a quality start from their staff that needed only two innings from their bullpen. On Monday, only half the house burned, and they eked out a win. Last night, the whole house caught fire, dropping the team into second place.

The Yankees would be hard pressed to find a game during their month-long slump that was more depressing and disappointing than last night’s ninth inning 4-3 loss to the Chicago White Sox.

For the second night a row, the team received superb efforts from their starting pitching, only to see a lead almost evaporate on Monday when Jordan Montgomery went seven strong. And then last night, Luis Severino looked like the ace he is fast becoming, with seven strong and twelve strikeouts, only to see the White Sox put the finishing touches on the Yankees bullpen.

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Pick your scapegoat. They’re everywhere. Start with Joe Girardi if you want. With a clean inning coming up in the eighth, normally the Yankees mantra is Betances/Chapman and game over. Instead, Girardi elected to go with Domingo German who promptly walked the only two batters he faced.

Out he comes and in goes Tyler Clippard, who walked two more but did manage to retire the side, while somehow receiving credit for a hold. Dellin Betances (not Aroldis Chapman) is brought in to pitch the ninth with the Yankees still protecting a one-run lead. The rest, as they say, is history and the box score provides the bloody details.

More telling, however, was the noticeable strain on Girardi’s face and the way he looked down and away from the questioners during his post-game interview on YES. Give a look here.

And maybe for all of us, it’s getting harder and harder to find the silver lining in anything the Yankees are doing right now. Aaron Judge and Gary Sanchez both had two-out runs batted in and Severino pitched a gem. That’s it, save for seeing another fresh young face in the dugout in Tyler Wade.

Misery loves company

A week ago the Colorado Rockies were literally a mile high and flying on a wave of good fortune and good baseball. Now, they find themselves in the midst of a seven-game losing streak that’s dropped them 5.5 games behind the Dodgers with no end in sight on the horizon.

And if you listen to the talk around the team, it becomes eerily familiar with what we are hearing from Yankees players and fans of late. Here’s Rockies third baseman, Mark Reynolds, telling the Denver Post his thoughts last night:

"“It’s been a crazy seven days, it’s been rough. “It’s baseball, man. Sometimes you get the breaks and sometimes you don’t.“It seems like we were getting a bunch of breaks earlier, a couple weeks ago. But now everything seems to be going the other way. We need to have a game where we pitch good and hit good at the same time.”"

Ouch. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

Circle the wagons and dig in

There’s no magic formula that gets a team or a player out of a slump. And the answers to all of the Yankees problems at the moment still reside within the 25 men who will arrive at the ballpark at around 4:00 this afternoon to suit up and play another game tonight.

And there’ll be another makeshift lineup put out there by Joe Girardi while the Yankees, among other things, try to sort out what’s wrong medically with Matt Holliday, who has come down with an allergy no one can figure out.

But I always think back to what Met’s manager, Terry Collins, says about the numerous makeshift lineups he’s been forced to put on the field, and I’m only paraphrasing, “These guys are all major leaguers. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be here. And I expect them to go out there and play like major leaguers.”

Yankees patient approach will save the season in July, or sink it in June

If the Yankees can start winning again, we will see them transform into a super team over the next few weeks. They will prove themselves patient predators.

Same goes for Joe Girardi who needs to pick his head back up, stopping the woe is me attitude that annoyed me last night, and win the only game you can with what you have. And that’s the one being played tonight. The rest will take care of itself.