The Yankees Can't Hit Again

TORONTO — The Dead Bats Society had no problem dancing across the Canadian border and into the Rogers Centre on Monday evening.

Now the question facing the Yankees is this: How long does the DBS hang around?

Coming off a victory when they got one hit Sunday, the Yankees continued to struggle at the plate against Blue Jays right-hander Marco Estrada, who hung a 4-2 defeat on them in front of 32,921.

It was the second time inside a week Estrada beat the Yankees, and this time they threw hosannas his way.

“Everything was on the corners. If he missed, he missed off the plate. That is the mark of a good pitcher,’’ Mark Teixeira said of the 32-year-old Estrada (3-2), who threw eight scoreless innings in which he allowed three hits. “Give him credit, he took care of us tonight.’’

Until the eighth inning, Estrada faced just one Yankees batter — Brett Gardner — with a runner in scoring position. The Yankees got runners on second and third via a walk to Starlin Castro and Aaron Hicks’ two-out double in the eighth, but Estrada popped up Jacoby Ellsbury to bury the scoring threat.

The 24-26 Yankees’ fourth loss in six games dropped them 6 ½ lengths back of the AL East-leading Red Sox.

It’s the same old story again for the Yankees. This is a 5 run a game lineup but lately they’re playing like a 5 hit a game lineup, if they can even get that many. After a few weeks of real offensive output, this team has looked lost the last 2 games and are lucky to have gotten a win on Sunday with just one hit.

I’ve said all season that things would eventually balance out and that these guys would start to hit like the back of their baseball cards. Now as we turn the calendar to June, I’m starting to think that for some of these guys, that’s not going to happen. A “slow start” or “cold stretch” is long gone because today we have 7 guys that get regular playing time in this lineup batting .250 or under. That doesn’t include Dustin Ackley who was seeing a good amount of starts at first, and kicking in a whopping .148 average.

Now don’t get me wrong, the Yankees are still very much in this. With 4 months to go, they are still within reach of a playoff spot, but we need to be shown some signs of life from this lineup. At the beginning of the year the fear was that our pitching couldn’t compete. Our rotation was going to be injured and our bullpen would be a non-factor but May has proven that to be wrong. In the month of May the Yankees pitching ranked 1st in WHIP, 2nd in opponent avg, and 3rd in strikeouts, era and hits allowed in the AL rankings.  Right now, the hope that our pitching will keep us in this while the lineup figures out what the hell they’re doing is all we have.

There is already an Eovaldi to the Cubs rumor starting up so if we can’t get above .500 and show that we’ll stay there over the next 3 weeks, look for more rumors to heat up. We’re in danger of being sellers at the deadline for the first time in a long time but without some big improvements it could be the right move.

PS: In the event you don’t check the site on weekends, I’ve been doing a web series reviewing all the newest and best foods at Yankees Stadium. Check it out below.