The Yankees have lost three straight series and seven of their past nines games after they looked lifeless in Sunday's 7-1 finale against the Houston Astros, but manager Aaron Boone and his players maintain that a run is possible while New York clings to a postseason spot.
"Obviously, we're feeling it and we know we have to be better," Boone said after the Yankees (62-56) totaled three hits in the rubber match with Houston (66-52). "We know we have a much higher standard for ourselves and expectations. At the same time, we're in control of this.
"I wholeheartedly believe we are going to get rolling and turn this thing around. When it does, you start to really build that next layer of confidence where guys are kind of feeding off each other. It's all just talk right now, but that's how I feel about it. We've got to go do it."
The Yankees are 6.5 games behind the Toronto Blue Jays in the American League East Division. Even the second-place Boston Red Sox are 2.5 games ahead while New York holds a half-game lead over the Cleveland Guardians for the third wild card.
"The game is littered with dead and buried teams," Boone said. "We're in a playoff position right now, and we've been through a bad two months where we haven't performed at a level we need to. But look at last year, go back to the year before, year before. You can pick out a number of teams that are sitting in a worse position than we are right now that go on that run. We have the people to do that. No doubt in my mind. But just sitting here, it's talk right now and we haven't been good enough the last two months.
"But this is different than, say, even like '23 where I didn't think we were necessarily capable of that run that we needed to really get hot -- and we were out of position at that point. This is different. We're in a position right now where we're in control of things, we're in a playoff spot, technically, right now, and I believe we have the people to get it done. We've got to play consistent baseball, period."
Not helping the Yankees is the fact that left-hander Max Fried, New York's 2025 ace, has not won a start since July 29. Fried (12-4, 2.94 ERA) allowed four runs on eight hits in five innings of Sunday's 94-pitch, 64-strike start.
"That's just the way I've felt since I've come into the big leagues," Fried said of expecting to win. "I work hard and I only get to play once a week -- once every five, six games. So, when I take the ball, I want to go out there and I expect to win."
The Yankees are 1-4 in Fried's past four starts.
"Obviously, we're aware of it," Fried said. "We know that we're not performing to where we want to be or where we know that we can. We have a lot of really talented guys in here and we expect to win every day.
"So, when we come out and we lose, we're obviously frustrated and want to be able to be able to show that the talent and results can match up."
A quick turnaround follows New York's 1-2 weekend with the Minnesota Twins coming to town for a three-game series that completes a six-game homestand.
"We've got a great team in this room," said Yankees captain Aaron Judge, who was 0-for-3 with a walk in Sunday's loss to the Astros. "Got a lot of great players, guys that have had their backs up against the wall before and in tough situations. So, every year you play here, you're going to have your back up against the wall.
"So, guys have been there and done that and just got to step up and do it on the field. We can sit here and talk about it. You can ask me how everything's going. But it's about what we do on the field."
New York is 20-31 since starting 42-25 through June 12.
"Yeah, it's tough, but there's no excuses," said Judge, who is slashing .337/.446/.691 with 37 home runs and 86 RBI through 108 games. "We've got to go out there and perform at our best, go out there and win baseball games. Fans are still packing out and showing support for us, and we've got to show out for them and just go out there and do our job. That's what it comes down to. It's we're not doing our job. We're not doing the little things to put ourselves in a good position to go out there and win baseball games.
"So, it's going to take all of us. It's going to take everybody in this room -- every reliever, every infield-outfield guy. So, we've just go to step up. That's what it comes down to. I wouldn't say the confidence has really changed. We have a lot of confident guys in this room, and we've just got to focus on what we can control and go out there and do it."
