The capricious nature of baseball could not be personified any better than the trajectory of the Yankees’ nosedive in the last month.
A team that sustained the best record in MLB for the first 2 ¹/₂ months of play has dropped 16 of its last 21 before Wednesday’s games — much of this a direct result of pitching rotation frustrations.
New York’s starting pitching, which led baseball with a 2.77 ERA through June 14, has plunged to a league-worst 7.04 through the following 21-game window, according to FanGraphs.
Nestor Cortes remains night-and-day at home versus on the road; he is allowing 3.82 more earned runs anywhere that is not Yankee Stadium.
His two meetings against the Rays this year were a testament to that: Cortes tallied nine strikeouts in seven innings and gave up zero earned runs in The Bronx; he then surrendered five earned runs for a 7-2 loss at Tropicana Field in 5 ¹/₃ innings — two of the hits he allowed were homers.
What’s more concerning is how the consistency of the Yankees’ signature power-hitting potential has gone awry.
Leading up to June 15, New York was a top-two ranked club in home runs and weighted runs created plus (wRC+); they sit at 17th and 21st in the days since then, respectively.
The Rays’ forlorn rotation found encouragement with the arrival of Shane Baz, who threw 92 pitches in his 2024 debut despite coming off Tommy John surgery.
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The Rays’ No. 5 prospect racked up six strikeouts and showcased a fastball averaging over 96 mph despite recording a loss.
With a Tampa Bay offense that’s been trending upward over the last month (No. 10 overall in wRC+), I’m backing a galvanized Baz to validate his spot in the rotation amidst the Yankees’ turmoil.
The play: Rays (FanDuel, +112)