Yankees: Marcus Thames to blame for NYY’s hitting woes?

Yankees hitting coach Marcus Thames has been serving in this role since 2018.

At this point, New York Yankees fans have to question anything and everything. The offense, regardless of the injuries affecting the lineup, has been an embarrassment, and Saturday night served as a tipping point when the Bombers scored just one run on six hits. They struck out eight times against Keegan Akin, who was making his fourth MLB appearance.

New York is batting .239 as a team (19th in MLB), owns just a .761 OPS (13th), and the team’s 176 RBI is quite frankly unacceptable (16th). This team cannot generate hits or get the job done with runners in scoring position. The absence of Aaron Judge, Giancarlo Stanton and Gleyber Torres should not result in this big of a slide.

These are still major league hitters. These aren’t replacement-level guys. All of them have filled in at some point over the last two years and are very familiar with facing MLB-caliber pitching. Scoring nine runs in thee game against the O’s, who pretty much sport both Triple-A pitching and hitting at the moment due to injuries as well, simply can’t be happening.

So is Marcus Thames to blame?

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While we could be quick to point the blame at the hitting coach — after all, we’ve seen unprecedented struggles from guys like Torres, Gary Sanchez and Aaron Hicks in 2020 — what Thames has been able to get out of this lineup the last two years with excessive injury issues has been exceptional. He’s proven himself.

You’re not hearing much about him because there’s probably no need to.

He’s helped make Gio Urshela into a star. Luke Voit has been an absolute monster. DJ LeMahieu, though he was already an established hitter with the Rockies, is worlds better with the Yanks. Clint Frazier has emerged as an offensive force.

At this point, it feels like the problem is coming directly from the clubhouse. Manager Aaron Boone doesn’t have strong enough postgame comments to hold his players accountable. There’s clearly no voice in the locker room making an attempt to turn this around. It’s obvious, based on how clueless the players appear in the batter’s box.

Every talk with the media after a crushing loss features a comment about “focusing on the positives.” But there were none. How about saying the players need to wake up and start playing baseball? Right now, it seems as simple as that.

This does not seem to be Thames’ fault. It’s all a problem from a mental/motivation standpoint. The start of the season was electrifying when Judge and Stanton immediately started tearing the cover off the ball, but the depth on this roster shouldn’t be taking this much of a step back with those guys out.

The lack of continuity in the lineup is certainly nothing to overlook. That will halt offensive production, but the Yankees should be used to that at this point. It’s been the story for the last three seasons. Six players who have appeared in 15 or more games are batting under .200. Mike Tauchman has four hits in his last 37 at-bats. Hicks has a .200 average.

At the end of the day, the hitting coach can only do so much. Thames has proven his ability to cultivate young and established hitters, and played an enormous a role in keeping the Yankees afloat during a record-setting season for injuries in 2019.

This one’s on the players. There’s no excuse for a slide like this. Somebody needs to wake up, because it’s not all about mechanics when you’re facing inferior talent or when you’re going up against a division rival and the stakes are high.

Yankees: Triple-A offense is a bigger issue than Gerrit Cole

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