Jake Bauers is a really nice story for the Yankees. Perhaps he is going to be this year’s version of Matt Carpenter.
But are the Yankees really going to survive weeks without Aaron Judge if Jake Bauers is producing their best at-bats?
Bauers near single-handedly kept Justin Verlander from lasting more than six innings Wednesday night in the Subway Series finale at Citi Field. Verlander needed 52 pitches to complete three shutout innings and Bauer accounted for 19 of them in his opening two at-bats.
With Jose Trevino on third and one out and the Mets leading 1-0 in the sixth, Verlander seemed to be working around Bauer to — wait for it — pitch to Giancarlo Stanton and Josh Donaldson, who to that point were 0-for-4 combined with three strikeouts. The current version of the Yankees actually allows Bauers to swing 3-0. He fouled it off. On the next pitch he lashed an RBI single.
But here is the thing — the Yankees had 15 at-bats with runners in scoring position. That was the lone hit they generated. Their other two runs came in the seventh inning via defensive buffoonery from the Mets.
They ultimately lost 4-3 in 10 innings. They are 4-5 in the nine games since Aaron Judge damaged his right big toe. All five losses have been by one run — you know, one big hit away from winning. In four of those losses, they have managed two runs three times and three runs once.
“Another really competitive game, and that’s where we’ve kind of found ourselves here in the last week, 10 days,” Aaron Boone said.
Where they have found themselves is essentially crying out for their remaining veteran, high-paid players to carry them. To deliver big hits in Judge’s absence.
Instead, Donaldson, Stanton, DJ LeMahieu and Anthony Rizzo started Wednesday and went 1-for-15. The tote board since Judge went out screams money for nothing. Rizzo is 1-for-29 in the nine games. Donaldson 2-for-22. Stanton 3-for-26. LeMahieu 5-for-27. And Gleyber Torres, who did not start Wednesday, is 5-for-29.
“Judge is our guy,” Rizzo said. “He’s our leader. He is a good friend. So you always want him in the lineup. But if you try to get two hits in one at-bat, I haven’t seen it yet. You have to stay the course in this game and keep weathering the storm.”
Even with Judge, it was not like the Yankees had some substantial margin of error. The team often felt like Judge, Gerrit Cole and a strong bullpen. If there was a malfunction in any of that, the Yankees’ chances of winning plummeted. It only has worsened in Judge’s absence — as occurred Wednesday with the pen not performing well.
On Wednesday, Cole was excellent. He threw a first-pitch four-seam fastball to each of the Mets’ first 12 hitters and retired them all. Francisco Lindor led off the fifth with a double and scored on a two-out double by Tommy Pham. That was the lone run Cole yielded in six innings.
The Yankees scored two runs in the seventh without the benefit of a hit; most notably when Isiah Kiner-Falefa delivered the Yankees’ first steal of home since Didi Gregorius on Aug. 27, 2016. It gave the Yankees a 3-1 lead and led to the clumsy Mets being booed off the field.
But the Yankees pen has been overtaxed and the combination of Jimmy Cordero and Ron Marinaccio allowed the Mets to tie the score in the bottom of the inning. And Nick Ramirez, the 13th pitcher on a 13-pitcher staff, gave up Brandon Nimmo’s winning hit in the 10th.
The Yankees had the go-ahead run in scoring position in the eighth, ninth and 10th and could not drive it home. The Yankees managed just six hits in all and are batting .196 in the nine games missed by Judge.
There is no crying in this game as is well documented. The Mets are missing their main power source, Pete Alonso. Among others, the Yankees’ modern nemesis, the Astros, are going to play without their best hitter, Yordan Alvarez, for weeks.
Others have to step up to the challenge. In theory, Donaldson, LeMahieu, Rizzo, Stanton and Torres have the pedigree to do so. But that theory is taking way more of a beating than anything that quintet is unleashing on pitchers.
