Pinstripe Alley Podcast Ep. 166: Finding Ways to Lose

The Yankees have lost seven of their last eight games, including a sweep by the Cardinals over the past weekend. They are 7-13 in the second half, have dropped 18 of their last 28 games, and are 20-23 since the start of that fateful series against the Astros in late June. The optimist might say that this is a lot of arbitrary endpoints, but also, I don’t think anyone would deny that they’ve looked miserable in the past week and mediocre for nearly two months. Egad.

Staff writer and frequent Twitter Space guest Peter Brody joined Andrew on the podcast to talk about all these frustrations, and boy have there been a lot this past week. There was the bafflingly terrible baserunning, particularly in the extra-innings 1-0 loss to Seattle. There was the lineup, rotation, and bullpen playing Hot Potato with the question of “Who’s going to embarrass themselves today?” There was the gut-punch, long-term loss of Matt Carpenter to a broken foot on a fluky injury. There was the decision to roster Albert Abreu over Ron Marinaccio. There was was Gleyber Torres’ lost approach at the plate. And of course, there’s nearly everything Isiah Kiner-Falefa, who clearly has some serious friends in high places within the Yankees’ organization.

The bright side is that the Yankees’ first-half lead has afforded them the luxury of maintaining a 10-game lead. FanGraphs has them at 94.7-percent likely to hold it and win the AL East. They should win the division. But are they set for October? We can only hope that the team gets its crap together and regains at least a consistent string of quality play soon.

You can listen to the show on the web player below, here, or on any of your preferred podcast apps — to name a few, we’re on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, PlayerFM, and iHeartRadio.