New York Yankees Recap: No Chance Offense

Coming into tonight’s game the main stories I wanted to focus on was the Yankees complete lack of offense–clutch or otherwise–and whether or not Nathan Eovaldi could avoid the pitfalls of the “big inning.” Sadly, both of these story lines played into this game.

First, let’s talk about the offense. Over the previous seven games, the Yankees had scored just 16 runs, for an average of just 2.3 runs per game. Try as they might (even if some of these guys don’t look like they are) the team just can’t seem to get big hits when they need them, or even when stakes aren’t high. Plain and simple, everyone’s slumping, and it’s not a good look. Would the team finally turn it around?

No, they would not. The Yankees did manage to load the bases in the bottom of the first on a double by Jacoby Ellsbury and walks to Starlin Castro and Brian McCann, but once again lacked the big hit, as Alex Rodriguez struck out looking to end it. Didi Gregorius hit a solo homer to right in the second to give the team their only lead of the game at 1-0, but that was short lived, as we’ll find out in a bit. Otherwise, the Yankees offense made Kendall Graveman, a 25-year old with barely 130 big league innings under his belt, look like Cy Young. Their only other hit off the kid was a leadoff single by A-Rod in the bottom of the fourth, but Chase Headley immediately erased it with a double play grounder. Their only other run scored on a solo homer by Carlos Beltran in the eighth, but things were already out of hand by then. Terrible.

They had a real peach of a rally killer in the bottom of the seventh too. After a bad luck line out by A-Rod, Headley walked and moved to third on a double by Gregorius. The Yankees were set up for a nice late-inning comeback, but blew it in spectacular fashion. Aaron Hicks, the guy who was hired to hit lefties but is hitless against lefties so far this season, hit a soft grounder to third. Instead of stopping to force the fielder to tag him or just take the easy out at first, Didi ran as fast as he could toward third base. A’s third baseman Chris Coghlan applied the tag to Didi and threw to first for the inning-ending double play. The play was reviewed, and I’m pretty sure Didi never got tagged, but the replays were not definitive, and the once promising rally was now a garbage fire. If basic base-running is becoming a problem, this team is in serious trouble.

Eovaldi, meanwhile, had made two starts prior to tonight. In the first one, he gave up five runs in five innings and lost. He didn’t have one bad inning, he had two of them. Next time out against the Jays, Eovaldi cruised through the first four innings, before giving up three in the fifth and one in the fourth. He took another loss. Would he turn things around and avoid that one inning slip up?

No, he would not. In fact, this game went almost exactly like his game against the Jays. Eovaldi looked practically un-hittable through the first three innings. Unfortunately, the fourth inning was almost unwatchable. Billy Burns opened with a double for the A’s, and Coghlan followed with another to tie the game at one. Josh Reddick then singled Coghlan in to give the A’s a 2-1 lead, although any kind of good throw from Hicks in left would have gotten Coghlan by a mile. However, Hicks made a low, skipping throw that McCann couldn’t handle.

Danny Valencia then singled Reddick to third with no out. Steven Vogt finally got an out, but his sac fly gave the A’s a 3-1 lead. The next batter, Jed Lowrie, hit what should have been a double play grounder to short. Headley, who was playing closer to second base because of an infield shift, booted the soft grounder, but picked it up in time to flip to Gregorius for the force. Unfortunately, Didi dropped it and everyone was safe. Khris Davis was next, and he hit one off of Headley for an infield single to load the bases with one out. The next batter, Yonder Alonso, hit a fly ball to left that looked like would score another run, but Hicks made up for his previous bad throw by gunning the tagging Valencia out at the plate to end the inning, and keep from becoming a total disaster. By the way, that throw by Hicks, which was registered at 105.5 mph was the fastest ever recorded in the Statcast era. Wowsers.

In an interesting development, Valencia hurt his hamstring on the play and, because the A’s didn’t have another infielder on the bench for some reason, they had to move Lowrie off of the DH position and make starting pitcher Graveman hit cleanup the rest of the night. I feel like that could have been planned better by manager Bob Melvin. Once the A’s got their three runs though, Melvin might as well have replaced all of his hitters with pitchers though, because they didn’t need to score any more.

Eovaldi settled back down after the rough fourth, pitching scoreless innings in the fifth and sixth, but when you’re backed up by an offense as putrid as the Yankees’ attack has been, one bad inning will do you in every time. This one was long over even before Branden Pinder let it get away in the eighth. Despite deserving better, Eovaldi fell to 0-3 on the young season.

As for the Yankees, they’re getting pretty brutal to watch. Something’s got to give, and the offense needs to improve. They’ll try not to get swept on Thursday night, as Luis Severino takes on Rich Hill at 7:05 pm.