Nothing looked different from a typical game day in the Yankees clubhouse before they made it five losses in five games on this nightmare South Florida-to-North Texas road trip.
The night after their second brutal late collapse in four days, a ninth-inning lead turning into a 10-inning loss on Monday night, everyone looked pretty upbeat Tuesday afternoon, even though the Yankees have been playing a lot of bad baseball in all facets for almost two months.
With country music blaring, first baseman Paul Goldschmidt hung out at his locker with his wide-eyed grade-school son, who was dressed like a Yankee from head to toe with his baseball glove in hand.
Tim Hill walked over to Yerry De Los Santos’ locker to welcome back a fellow reliever who was just recalled from Triple A.
Second baseman Jazz Chisholm looked like Forest Gump toying with new reserve infielder/outfielder Jose Caballero at the ping-pong table.
This even-keeled demeanor is what manager Aaron Boone and team captain Aaron Judge preach, regardless of whether they’re a hot first-place team or where they are now — fighting to save their season.
A few hours later, after a 0-0 game through 7 ½ innings turned into a 2-0 Rangers win at Globe Life Field, the Yankees treated this 29th loss in their last 47 games like any other.
Ten minutes after Trent Grisham struck out to end the game, the Yankees’ clubhouse stereo was off and none of the few players around said anything.
With everyone respecting the outcome, the only sounds heard were the squeaks of players’ shower sandals hitting the clubhouse rug during their walks to and from the showers.
Later, three Yankees players quietly answered a few questions for beat writers with a YES camera in their face.
Starting pitcher Will Warren talked after working five scoreless innings, Judge talked after an 0-for-3, two-strikeout showing in his first game off the IL and slumping reliever Devin Williams talked after he blew the game working the eighth, one night after he served up a game-tying, ninth-inning homer to a hitter batting .126.
Most everyone hurried to catch a team bus back to the hotel to get some sleep before a quick turnaround on Wednesday, a getaway-day matinee that will send them back to New York with a little momentum or even more miserable.
This was not a good night for a team meeting because there were no Yankees errors and no glaring baserunning mistakes. And while they were shut out on two hits, you can’t get on the hitters for managing one in eight innings facing Rangers starter Nathan Eovaldi, who is 10-3 with a 1.38 ERA for the season and 6-0 with two earned runs allowed over 38 2/3 innings in his last six starts.
Boone’s post-game comments were similar to what he’s been saying a lot lately when he was asked about the standings. The Yankees are 60-54, third in the AL East and 6 ½ games behind the first-place Blue Jays and third in the AL wild-card standings, a half-game up on the Rangers for the final playoff spot.
“Not good,” Boone said with some agitation in his voice. “Put it on record: If we don’t win, it doesn’t matter. Half game back, half game up … if we play like this and aren’t stringing wins together, it’s not going to matter.
“I remain confident in this group. We continue to say that, but we’ve got to start making it happen.”
Boone has been delivering that same message to his players a lot, usually during frequent one-on-one chats and at least once in a meeting in Toronto after the Yankees were swept four games by the Blue Jays. That night, Boone let everyone know how badly they’d been playing while telling them they were the best team in the league.
A month later, the Yankees are in far worse shape, and all this losing is wearing on everyone, Boone admits.
Regardless, Boone isn’t planning on doing something out of character to try and get his ballclub back to winning consistently like it did through early June when the Yankees were atop the AL East with a 6 1/2-game lead.
No, Boone will not pull a Billy Martin and flip out on his players with a lot of cussing.
We all know Boone has a temper because he can chew out umpires with the best of managers, but that’s not how he treats his players when he’s down on them.
But for better or worse, any manager doing that nowadays is a very rare occurrence, and it’s not something Boone wants to resort to even in desperate times like these.
“I haven’t done a lot of screaming at the team as a group or yelling or raising my voice,” Boone said. “There have been a couple times over the years. Everyone’s a little bit different. Some guys are more like that. It probably happens a little more than you think.
“I think the important thing is authenticity from this position, and I try to bring that every day.”
His methods have led to public criticism. He’s unpopular with a lot of Yankees fans, and just last weekend, franchise greats Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez criticized him on FOX Sports. Both thought Boone should have benched Chisholm last Saturday after he was doubled off first base on an infield popup while wrongly thinking the Marlins’ second baseman would drop the ball on purpose.
Jeter predicted the Yankees wouldn’t make it back to the World Series for the second year in a row because “they make way too many mistakes.”
Added Rodriguez, “I see mistake after mistake and there’s no consequences. If any one of us made a mistake, we would be sitting our butt right on the bench.”
Boone also opted against benching Austin Wells when he cost the Yankees an out in a recent game by forgetting the outs. He didn’t bench rookie Jorbit Vivas for not sliding into third base when he was out tagging up from second on a long flyball in Atlanta right after the All-Star break.
In his eight seasons, Boone benched Gleyber Torres for not hustling, and that might be it.
But handling players without trying to scare them straight is the norm everywhere nowadays. There is no Martin, Larry Bowa, Dallas Green or Lou Piniella managing because it’s pretty much taboo to discipline players the way they were in past generations.
As for Boone, he’ll keep doing what he’s been doing. He’ll make sure everyone is getting their work in, which he says is the norm. And when someone messes up by doing something that he says “can’t happen,” Boone will approach the culprit and let them know it better not happen again.
Boone still has an important ally in his corner in policing the clubhouse in good times and bad.
Echoing Boone, Judge said, “We’ve got some work to do. We’ve got a lot of things to clean up, but the boys in here are fired up to change all that and get things right because we’ve got a great ballclub in here.
Judge and Boone believe that, as do many other Yankees.
“It’s a lot of mistakes all around, some mental mistakes, some physical mistakes,” Judge said. “We’ve got to fix them and we’ve got to fix them now.”
Or else what?
Or else the Yankees probably miss the playoffs for the second time in three seasons, and angry fans will be doing the screaming … for a new manager.
“You never want the skids to be longer than a week or two,” Judge said. “You’re going to go through some tough things like that. Every team does, but it’s about us in this room. We’ve got to take care of this. We’ve got to look ourselves in the mirror.
“It starts with each individual on their own to say, ‘Hey, I’ve got to step up. I’ve got to be better.’ Enough’s enough!”
Boone agrees, but he’s not going to call a meeting and scream that message. He’ll do it in his one-on-one talks on the field or in the clubhouse and also through his coaches, team leaders and the media.
“It’s too long with that up and down consistency,” Boone said. “We understand we’ve got about 50 games left give or take and we understand we need to play good baseball over that stretch and maintain that.
“I think we’re very capable of that and it’s certainly not too late, but we need to play well.”
