As Yankees stumble, Aaron Judge says a hot streak is coming: 'When it does, watch out'
Published in Baseball
Minutes after the Yankees lost an ugly contest to the Blue Jays on Wednesday night, Aaron Judge said that he still believes he’s on a great team.
Never mind that the Bombers made four errors in the 8-4 defeat. Or that they totaled seven in the series. Or that the loss put them four games back of Toronto in the American League East and made them 11-18 against division rivals this season. Or that the Yankees, annually plagued by summer swoons, are 18-23 since June 6.
“That doesn’t change,” Judge said of his conviction in the club.
The Yankees, having already been swept over four games in Toronto earlier this month, knew that their return to Canada needed to go better. Judge even said Sunday, with the Yankees fresh off a series win in Atlanta, “It’s a good time to start getting hot.”
But the Yankees went on to lose 2 of 3 against the first-place Jays while demonstrating the same sloppiness that doomed them at the Rogers Centre the last time they visited.
Asked Wednesday if it was frustrating that the Yankees have not been able to get hot, as he had hoped coming into the series, Judge replied, “Oh, it’s coming. We haven’t hit our hot streak yet, but we’re going to. And when it does, watch out.”
Perhaps Judge is proven right, as the Yankees typically improve down the stretch. But it was a bold declaration given the current state of the team, one that matched the even-keel messaging that has become a staple of Aaron Boone’s managerial tenure.
That messaging has become tone deaf in the ears of Yankees fans, but it is not in the team’s nature to smash the panic button in a public setting. Judge did say, “We got a lot of things we gotta clean up,” particularly the defense, and that the team needs to collectively “step up,” but his comment about an impending hot streak stood out most.
Boone, meanwhile, insisted that the Yankees “have a very good defensive club,” and he painted a picture of their fielding failures mostly being limited to the confines of Rogers Centre.
“I think it’s here and it’s in this building we haven’t played well,” Boone said. “I don’t know if it’s just coming to the turf. That’s not really an excuse. It’s the same game, but obviously, I think in these two series, we’ve given them too many outs, and it’s cost us.”
The truth is fundamentals have been a problem for the Yankees for years, and it’s one that will need to be fixed if this team is to do anything special. Judge still believes in the Yankees’ potential, but that’s not going to be realized if, as he said, a lot of things aren’t cleaned up, starting with the defense.
“We’ve got to, obviously, tighten it up,” Boone said. “I’m confident we will. We continue to work at it. We have good defenders here, but tonight was obviously a rough night for us.”
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