The Yankees Blew Another Sweep

ANAHEIM, Calif. — When Gary Sanchez took a walk with one out in the eighth inning, he trotted to first base, where he joined on the basepaths Jacoby Ellsbury, who was stationed at second. They represented the tying and go-ahead runs with the cleanup and No. 5 hitters coming up.

In years past, this would have started stomachs churning in the opposing dugout. But on Sunday, Angels reliever J. C. Ramirez was not facing vintage sluggers named Rodriguez, Teixeira, Beltran or McCann.

He was facing Didi Gregorius and Starlin Castro.

So Ramirez took a deep breath, steadied himself and settled down. He struck out Gregorius and retired Castro on the most harmless of hits, a dribbler two feet in front of the plate that catcher Carlos Perez pounced on and threw to first.

That inning, like the rest of Sunday afternoon, was an opportunity lost for the Yankees, who squandered a chance to make up ground in the playoff race when they were defeated, 2-0, by the Los Angeles Angels.

Six times since the middle of June, The Yankees have had the chance to complete a sweep and lost. Earlier in the year when we would drop these games, it was just because the team wasn’t that good. We struggled to score runs because we had an older lineup that couldn’t deliver. Once we made the move to call up Sanchez, Austin and Judge, that excuse went out the window.

I don’t normally pile on Girardi because he has done a good amount with teams that have under performed over the last few years. There are times when his managerial decisions have cost us games, but there was always the excuse that he was resting a veteran. Whether or not this was a good excuse is up to everyone’s individual judgement, but yesterday’s lineup was a joke.

Didi and Starlin are going to be big pieces for this team moving forward, but not batting 4th and 5th. If we as fans are to believe that this team is going to compete for a playoff spot this year, Aaron Judge doesn’t get Sunday off. All three teams ahead of us in the East lost yesterday and with the chance to get within 5.5 games of the division and 3 of a Wild Card spot, we weren’t aggressive. Impact players like Austin and Judge shouldn’t be on the bench in games like this, no matter how many games they’ve started in a row. Judge may have started 7 games in a row but the team was off on Thursday and is off next Thursday. At 24 years old Judge should have been playing.

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I’m not calling for Girardi’s job, but decisions like this could force ownership to make a decision about who is making decisions.