It sounded like 2020 because of the Yankee offense.
Which was especially offensive by 2021—although the first weekend of the season could certainly not be accused of being offensive.
There were 10,066 attendees in Easter Sun at the Stadium — a full house with rules of 20% capacity — and it would be easy to have thought that you would have played another game like 2020 without any fans if you closed your eyes. This was the Yankee lineup’s weak effort. That was one fruitless struggle after another’s silencing effect.
“We didn’t muster a lot,” Aaron Boone said.
N the Yankees lost the 3-1 rubber play to the Blue Jays. A tale of two insufficiencies was offered by them. They only hit once at the first six innings, but they went with 1:10 men at the base and hitlessly in five rounds with scored runners. Then the yanks got up nine, nine down in the last three inputs with five whiffs.
Though the Yankees held the Toronto line-up of only three runs in each game, their expected ferocious lineage in April fell on two of three to open in 2021, as they were more like lions than lambs. Two out of three was lost to a Toronto team without their key off-season acquisition, George Springer. And, while Toronto used substitute starters Saturday (Ross Stripling) and Sunday (T.J. Zeucht) to wound Robbie Ray and Nate Pearson, they lost two out of three with little offense.
“We had a cold weekend a bit,” said Boone.
No Yankee fan would want a deep freeze if this was a “little bit” of the cold weekend. The Yanks didn’t strike the ball particularly well, even when they won five races on the Saturday.
This provided three more proof that the Yanks won’t have difficulty generating runs when they don’t get the balloon through a fence. Two homers were hit by Gary Sanchez to produce three runs. The Yanks had five other races on the weekend with DJ LeMahieu and Aaron Hicks on RBI infield single, a two-run bloop single from Jay Bruce and a Gardner groundout fromBrett.
A few quick hits and the Yanks might have swept this series. In fact. In the three games with scoring positions runners and 10-for-47 (0.213), they were 4-for-24 (.167) without extra-base hits in the base.
Many were the culprits. One of those, Giancarlo Stanton, was sent off Sunday because he didn’t want the frequently injured DH to be in the early season five straight days. The Aarons – Judge and Hicks – at Nos. 2 and 3 were the biggest problem of all. The series included 0-for-8 on Sunday and 4-for-26. Judge played another dual game with scored runners. However, at second baseman Marcus Semien he also snuffed a 114.6 mph liner at his first combat.
One flaccident at-bat after the other was a weekend for Hicks. He got one hit in 12 bats and that’s a bottom of a Semien diving glove.
Because of its on-basis skills and the rare, left-wing diversity of the lineup Boon likes Hicks in the three hole. However, while walks are valuable, Hicks’ batting average has also gone back from .266 to .2248 to .235 to .225 over the last four years. This season, he’s 1-for-12.
When asked whether he was going to move Hicks out of the three hole, Boone said, “I’m always willing to mix things up.” But he added, “Over the long haul, Aaron Hicks is going to be all right.”
In this sense, Boone felt the whole line-up, citing the “good records” and refusing to overreact to one series. “it is just a matter of time with the lineup we have. … It’s going to click. No need to hit the panic button.”
Yeah, it was just one series – the first time that fans were welcomed after a pandemic. With one still fight after the other, the Yanks drank the enthusiasm for the return. The silence at the Stadium was a loud sign of a weekend lost.
