If someone told you in July that the Yankees would drop five straight series in August you would have called them crazy. Yet here we are, and man does it feel great. As a Red Sox fan, I am ecstatic. As a Yankee hater, I’m Euphoric. As a human being, I am free.
New York’s 3-1 final against Tampa solidifies their fifth straight series loss, an abysmal 2-11 over their last thirteen. The chatter of the 2022 Yankees breaking the Mariner’s single-season win record has now turned into a quiet conversation about making winning the AL east.
The dog days of August have gotten the best of New York, but the summer heat isn’t all to blame. You see, the Yankees cursed themselves when they traded away Joey Gallo. Gallo, who was acquired at last year’s trade deadline from Texas, never lived up to expectations in New York. He slightly underperformed last year but was flat-out terrible with the Yankees this year batting .160 with 15 home runs.
Yankees fans, being the villains they are, let him hear it at every single game. In a Q&A session with Randy Miller, Gallo said “I don’t know how they (Yankee fans) usually are, but I don’t know how much tougher they can get. Pretty much every team we play, players from that team reached out to me to say, ‘Hey, bro, keep your head up. Don’t listen to them.'” The interview also made it seem like players from his own team weren’t being very supportive. I never cared about Gallo, but I did feel for him.
The universe has a funny way of working sometimes. On August 2nd, the Yankees moved Gallo to the Dodgers for a bucket of Double Bubble. Since that trade, Gallo has been (relatively) great, going 5-19 with 2 home runs. The Yankees have been suffering during the same stretch, illustrated here by Anthony Rizzo:
Not to be dramatic, but if the Yankees let this skid take over the rest of the year it will be the funniest thing to happen in sports since Tommy Pham slapped Joc Pederson over a fantasy football league. The one year since 2009 the Yankees are in the driver seat for the American League and they let it slip out from under their fingers? Oh baby sign me the hell up.
For all you Yankee fans that are gonna get hurt by this, chill the hell out. You’re still up nine games, it just happens to be in the greatest division of baseball in the last decade. It would be a shame if your biggest rival took it over…
