SI:AM | The Yankees Are MLB’s Worst Team Right Now

Their offense is sputtering without Aaron Judge, and they’re falling farther and farther out of first place.

The Yankees’ lineup has been the worst in the majors over the past three weeks. | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

Good morning, I’m Dan Gartland. I was really hoping LeBron James would pick his new team on the World Cup off day, but I guess he isn’t thinking of all the poor sportswriters who need to produce a daily newsletter. 

In today’s SI:AM: 
🎾 Wimbledon Cinderella story
⚾ Final MLB mock draft
🏈 Rams could flirt with perfection

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They can’t buy a run

The Bronx Bombers have been defused. 

The Yankees’ 3–0 loss to the Rays last night in Tampa Bay was the latest in a series of dismal offensive showings as New York continues to slip farther and farther out of first place. 

The Yankees are now 50–42 on the season, five games behind the first-place Rays after holding a three-game lead in the division as recently as June 24. But they’ve lost 11 of their last 13 games and 14 of their last 19. 

The problem isn’t hard to diagnose. Aaron Judge has been sidelined since May 31 with a fractured rib. Without him, the offense has been completely inert. Judge’s teammates actually did a good job keeping the offense afloat when he first went down, but they’ve gone cold of late. 

In the first 13 games that Judge missed (from June 1 to June 17), the Yankees scored 75 runs, or 5.77 per game. That’s fourth best in the majors on a per-game basis over that span. But in the 20 games since then, they’ve been terrible. The Yankees have only scored 56 runs since June 18 (2.80 per game), the fewest in the majors. They’ve also posted the worst record (5–15) in the majors over that span. It’s their worst 20-game offensive stretch since 2016. 

On the bright side, the last time the Yankees failed to win more than five games in a 20-game period was 2024, when they won the American League pennant. But they’ll need their MVP back soon if they want a repeat of that turnaround. 

Another tennis Cinderella story brewing

Arthur Fery is in the midst of a stunning Wimbledon run. | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

It’s been just a few weeks since Maja Chwalińska shocked the world by becoming the second qualifier in the Open Era to reach a Grand Slam final, and something similar is happening again. 

Arthur Fery, a 23-year-old who grew up in the shadow of the All England Club, has come out of nowhere to advance to the semifinals at Wimbledon. Fery is just the second wild-card entry in Wimbledon history to advance at least this far. (The other is Goran Ivanisevic, who won the tournament in 2001 as a wild card.)

Fery defeated 2026 French Open finalist Flavio Cobolli (the No. 10 player in the world) in straight sets in the quarterfinals yesterday to set up a semifinal showdown with world No. 3 Alexander Zverev tomorrow at 8:30 a.m. ET. 

Fery was born in France but raised in the Wimbledon neighborhood of London. He attended Stanford, where he was the No. 1 men’s singles player in the NCAA. His father, Loïc Fery, is a hedge fund manager who owned the French soccer club FC Lorient for 14 years until he sold it in January to Vegas Golden Knights owner Bill Foley. His mother, Olivia Fery, is a former professional tennis player. 

Chwalińska and Fery’s runs are similarly improbable. For the uninitiated, a wild card isn’t the same as a qualifier, but both are a way for players whose world ranking is too low for automatic inclusion in the bracket to receive a spot in the field. Chwalińska was ranked 116th in the world before the French Open, and Fery was 114th before Wimbledon. Chwalińska had to win a series of pre-tournament qualifying matches to earn a spot in the main draw at Roland-Garros, while Fery was given a spot in the main draw by a Wimbledon committee. 

The All England Club says that wild cards “are usually offered on the basis of past performance at Wimbledon or to increase British interest.” It’s hard to imagine how British interest could be any higher now that an underdog who grew up in the neighborhood is two wins away from lifting the trophy. 

The best of Sports Illustrated

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• Matt Verderame: Ranking the NFL’s Five Best Guard Duos for 2026
• Ryan Phillips: 2026 MLB Mock Draft 3.0: Final Projected Picks Before Draft Day
• Karl Rasmussen: MLB’s 10 Most Pleasant Surprises From the First Half

The top five…

… things I saw last night:
5. Dansby Swanson’s diving grab on a liner up the middle.
4. Mike Trout’s 438-foot home run in his first game back from the injured list. (It also happened to be the 15th anniversary of Trout’s MLB debut.)
3. The packed “tarps off” section of Rangers fans who went crazy after Kyle Higashioka’s homer cut Texas’s deficit to 10 runs. 
2. Royals right fielder Tyler Tolbert’s tough leaping catch at the wall. 
1. Coby Mayo’s home run into the second deck in Baltimore. According to MLB, it’s just the eighth time a homer has landed in the upper deck in left field at Camden Yards, although Statcast measured it at a relatively modest 420 feet.