New York Yankees desperate for a spark on offense

What was shaping up to be a good week for the New York Yankees took a sour turn as their bats suddenly went missing.

It felt pretty good to be a New York Yankees fan on the afternoon of July 31. The team was in first place in the American League East (albeit by half a game) and had finally completed a trade for Oakland A’s ace Sonny Gray before the deadline. The day’s success was capped off by a 7-3 victory over the Detroit Tigers, the Yanks’ seventh win in their last eight contests.

With struggling starters Anibal Sanchez and Jordan Zimmermann – both sporting ERAs over 5.00 – up next in the series, surely the good times would continue to roll for the Yankees? Not so fast. Sanchez held the Yanks to just two runs in Tuesday’s matchup, while Zimmermann and the Tigers bullpen combined to shut them out in the following day’s rain-delayed affair. A very winnable three-game set against Detroit had suddenly turned into a series loss.

The frustrations have continued into this weekend’s four-game series with the Cleveland Indians. Once again, the Yankees’ slumbering bats have been the main culprit for the team’s slide. Corey Kluber twirled a gem on Thursday, allowing only one run on three hits with 11 strikeouts in a complete game victory. You can understand a poor performance against a pitcher of Kluber’s caliber. But last night Trevor Bauer (another starter with an ERA over 5.00) also made easy work of the Yanks, surrendering one run over seven frames in a 7-2 win.

After seeming to right the ship following their mid-June to mid-July swoon, the Yankees are now mired in a four-game losing streak. It’s come at an inopportune time as well. As the Yanks battle the AL Central-leading Tribe, the rival Red Sox are enjoying a four-game set with the lowly White Sox. Winners of their own last four, Boston has surged back to a three-game edge over New York in the AL East.

For the Yankees, the root problem is no secret: They simply haven’t been the Bronx Bombers lately. After averaging 5.75 runs per game during the eight-game stretch from July 23-31, the Yanks have managed a grand total of six runs in the last four.

There is plenty of blame to go around,  but the most noticeable element in the overall lineup slump is Aaron Judge‘s power outage. Since the All-Star break, the rookie phenom is slashing just .174/.333/.348 while adding a modest four home runs to his AL-leading total. If the Yankees will take heart in anything during Judge’s struggles, it’s that he’s continuing to draw walks, posting a 19.5 percent rate since the beginning of the second half.

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Gary Sanchez has also scuffled since the break, batting .243/.284/.500 over that span. He’s actually been picking up some steam during the Yanks’ four-game slide, going 4-for-14 (.286) with two doubles and a homer, but not enough to lift the club to victory.

With the exception of a huge, game-tying home run in the ninth inning of the Yankees’ 16-inning win over the Red Sox on July 15, Matt Holliday has essentially been a face on a milk carton since he came off the DL. The veteran is hitting a truly pitiful .136/.165/.198 in the second half, and questions are growing louder concerning whether the team can afford to keep penciling him into the lineup every day.

The Yanks’ most consistently productive bats at the moment belong to Chase Headley and Didi Gregorius, who are slashing .351/.400/.500 and .333/.349/.617 since the All-Star break, respectively. In fact, the often-maligned Headley has quietly hit over .295 in each month aside from an ugly May (.165).

The frustrating thing is that the Yankees’ pitching staff has for the most part been holding up its end of the bargain. Before yesterday’s loss, Yankees hurlers owned a 2.94 ERA in the second half, tops in Major League Baseball. You can win a lot of games with that, but with the way the Bronx bats have cooled in recent days, they’re basically asking their pitchers to throw a shutout every time.

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Things will probably turn around before long, as the season is full of ebbs and flows. The returns of Aaron Hicks and Starlin Castro should also help. But there’s no denying this offensive ineptitude is coming at a particularly bad moment. At a time when the Yankees were hoping to flex their muscles, they’re instead making it easy for Boston to rebuild its division lead.