Yankees' Current Skid Reminiscent of Past Seasons' Struggles

The New York Yankees are desperately looking for motivation.

After a humiliating 3-0 defeat at home to the rival Boston Red Sox on Sunday night - on national television, no less - the Bronx Bombers have extended a seven-series stretch without winning one, going 0-6-1. What was once a World Series favorite is now looking like a fringe Wild Card team.

Unfortunately, these brutal slumps have become an alarming trend ever since Aaron Boone was hired as the Yankees' manager in 2018. Even worse was the use of a familiar phrase during his postgame press conference.

“It feels terrible,” Boone said after the team's latest loss. “You gotta be a little sick to be in this game, though, and you gotta be able to weather it. You’d like your stretch to where it’s a bump in the road to not be this kind of stretch. You’d like to weather it a little bit better, which we need to do, obviously. But it's all right there in front of us."

“It’s all right there in front of us.” -Aaron Boone, 2024 pic.twitter.com/Tvpvw8KLOc
— Talkin' Yanks (@TalkinYanks) July 8, 2024

That last statement has been used by Boone in each of the last two seasons; he angrily stated it while pounding a table in August 2022, and used it again in July 2023. Every time the Yankee skipper has said "it's right in front of us", it's come during a demoralizing skid that has become a staple of every season under his watch.

Back in 2022, the Bronx Bombers were drawing comparisons to their fabled 1998 squad by starting the season 61-23. But an atrocious 10-18 mark in August prevented the team from even reaching the 100-win mark (finishing 99-63), and the year ended with an all-too-familiar ALCS loss to the Houston Astros, this time in a convincing four-game sweep.

Last season, New York was as much as 11 games over .500, with a respectable 36-25 start. But Boone's infamous quote came during a stretch of nine losses in 11 games, and the season only got worse from there; they finished 82-80, out of the playoffs and barely keeping their 31-year streak of winning records alive.

Similar to 2022, the Yankees looked like a juggernaut to begin the year, with a 49-21 record. In their last 22 games, they're 6-16 and three games behind the Baltimore Orioles in the AL East, with the Red Sox hot on their tail.

Yankees - last 3 seasons
Started Finished
2022 61-23 38-40 (Swept in ALCS)
2023 36-25 46-55 (Missed playoffs)
2024 49-21 ??? (6-16 in last 22 w/70 games remaining)
— Seth Rothman (@SethDRothman) July 8, 2024

These mid-season collapses, along with Boone's patented quote, has made Yankee fans feel like they're Bill Murray in the classic movie Groundhog Day. It's been a perpetual exercise of failure.

There's still time for the Bronx Bombers to turn the season around, especially with Aaron Judge and Juan Soto in the lineup. But Boone's message has completely lost its luster, and the team is no longer responding to it; instances of lackadaisical play and poor fundamentals during this skid have further solidified the message's ineffectiveness.

Every team goes through adversity during a season, but the Yankees need to make some serious changes to how they handle it; whatever they're doing right now isn't working.