TORONTO — Because the Yankees packed their bags within the cramped visiting clubhouse at Rogers Centre on Thursday night, on the heels of a brutal four-game sweep by the Blue Jays, Aaron Boone stopped in briefly to talk to his team.
The Yankees have lost 14 of their last 20 games and are tied with the Rays for second place within the division, but Boone’s message was one projecting confidence amid choppy waters.
“That we’re the very best team within the league,” Jazz Chisholm Jr. said. “We knew we were going to hit a speed bump. But just block out the noise and go on the market once we get back home in Latest York and do what we do. This happened here, but we’re going to go away this here.”
The Yankees arrived north of the border having won three of their last 4 games, hoping they were starting to snap out of their June swoon, then got hit with 4 straight losses because the Blue Jays leapt them within the standings.
George Springer delivered the knockout punch in Thursday’s finale along with his second two-homer game of the series while the Yankees went 2-for-14 with runners in scoring position, making it 9-for-50 across the 4 games.
Add in news of a high-grade oblique strain to Fernando Cruz and Clarke Schmidt headed for an MRI tube Friday due to forearm tightness, and the four-game set was something of a test to find out where all-time low actually is.
“It sucks whenever you get your ass kicked in a division-rival series, on the road,” Boone said. “But we’re ready-made for this and we’ll get through this. We obviously know we want to play higher. We want to do higher. … We’ll stick together through this and embrace the adversity of it. It will make us stronger as we navigate through the season. I do know no one likes hearing that. But that’s what that is.”
Asked why this group is made to cope with the adversity, Boone cited the leaders within the clubhouse, similar to Aaron Judge, who will make sure that the Yankees stick together.
“There’s been years where we haven’t been equipped to undergo this,” Boone said. “That group is, and we’ll.
“I do know this group. I do know the trust they’ve in each other. I imagine in our process. We even just talked about it in there. It’s all a part of it. Bring it on. You bought to embrace the difficult times of it, especially playing in Latest York. That’s coming for you. But we lean into that every one the time. I do know these guys are prepared for it. I do know these guys will handle it.”
Boone said he was in search of his players to be “unfazed” by the difficult stretch and never flinch.
“You may’t panic,” Judge said. “That’s not going to assist the situation. We got work to do. It’s a baseball season. … We got to deal with a giant series coming up against the Mets. That’s all we will do is keep specializing in the current and the sport we got in front of us.”
