Yankees inexcusably lose first series of the season to the Orioles

The Yankees opened the season on Thursday with a feel-good win but after a day off Friday, they inexcusably lost the last two games of the weekend to the Orioles. The offense went cold and the bullpen struggled and even though we’re just three games into the season it’s hard not to be a little concerned about what we’ve seen from the Yanks so far.

What a brutal way to open up the season for the Yankees. The losses on Saturday and Sunday sure looked eerily similar to some of the ones we saw last season to the O’s when the Yanks finished12-7 against them. 12-7 against most teams in the division isn’t bad but against a historically bad O’s team that only won 47 games, it was unacceptable.

Over the past two days, the Yankees have really played a sloppy brand of baseball on both sides of the ball. The defense hasn’t been great as they’ve made four errors combined in the two losses. The offense has been terrible, specifically with runners in scoring position. Yankee hitters have left 25 men on base in the losses and have struck out 23 times.

The O’s pitching staff actually featured some quality relievers over the weekend with plus stuff but that’s not an excuse for the Yankee offense to come up empty as often as they did in big spots. One of the worries coming into the season was all the strikeouts, especially with runners on base and unfortunately, that issue has carried over into 2019 so far.

I know it’s just three games but as Aaron Judge said after Saturday’s loss this team needs to come to the field every day to play as if their backs are against the wall. They’ve done just the opposite, coming out flat and falling behind early having to play catch up for most of the game.

Against a team like the Orioles that’s expected to have another 100 loss season, you need to pounce on them early and step on their necks. They’re a young team with nothing to lose so if you let them get a lead or keep the game close and let them believe that the game is within reach for them to win they become more dangerous.

Last season against last-place teams we saw the Yanks play down to their competition far too often and that ended up costing them big time in the standings.

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The Yankees are going to make the playoffs again this season, but if they want to win the division and avoid the dreaded wild-card game, 23-14 isn’t going to cut it. 12-7 against the Orioles isn’t going to cut it. I know it’s the first week of the season and at the end of the season, this weekend’s series might mean nothing but this team needs to have a bigger sense of urgency.

That means the coaching staff and Aaron Boone too. Once again on Sunday, we saw him go to one of his lower tier relievers (this time Stephen Tarpley) in a close game when the Yanks were losing instead of Zack Britton and the Orioles lead ended up increasing by another two runs. The Yankee offense in both losses rallied in the ninth to bring the winning runs to the plate but came up short with strikeouts to end each game.

In no way am I going to blame the last two losses on Boone. The offense can take the brunt of it. However, it seems like he has a habit for managing games with the Yanks down a run or two as if they’re down four or five and it needs to stop.

There’s obviously an eternity of time for the Yanks to turn things around and rewrite the script against last-place teams but it needs to start tomorrow when they host the Tigers. They’re a team that lost 98 games in 2018 and aren’t expected to be much better this season so the Yanks better take care of business and at the very least win the series.