The New York Yankees are not exactly shaking their reputation as a club with defensive issues.
New York fell further away from first place in the AL East on Wednesday with a mistake-filled 8-4 loss to the Toronto Blue Jays. The team finished with only one more hit (five) than errors (four).
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The Yankees entered the three-game series with a chance to tie Toronto atop the division with a sweep, much like the Blue Jays did toward the end of the first half, but instead lost the series while committing seven total errors. They now sit four games back from the Blue Jays with roughly a third of the season to go.
Some errors were worse than others, but looking at them all together paints a picture of a team leaving Toronto with numerous regrets.
That four-error total doesn’t even count a ball that right fielder Cody Bellinger lost in the night sky. Balls that fielders lose track of — due to the sun, lights or something else — are rarely recorded as errors. This play was scored as a triple for Blue Jays infielder Ernie Clement.
Even casual baseball fans are likely aware of the Yankees’ defensive woes at this point. Their infamous meltdown in Game 5 of last year’s World Series left a mark, and two brutal series against the Blue Jays in the past month have cemented that reputation for many, especially the club’s own fans.
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With four errors in that other series, the Yankees have now committed 11 in seven of their most important games of the season.
New York manager Aaron Boone defended his players after the game, conceding that mistakes were made but insisting the team is still strong defensively:
“Just not good enough. Look, I think we have a very good defensive club, but clearly in the seven games we’ve played here, not giving them extra outs whether it’s through error or not making a play that we need to make, that’s cost us in these two series up here where we were really hurt.
“We’ve got to obviously tighten it up. I’m confident we will. We’ll continue to work at it. We’ve got good defenders here, but tonight was obviously a rough night for us.”
The Yankees just played one of their ugliest defensive games of the season. (Dan Hamilton-Imagn Images)
(IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect / Reuters)
He also hinted that the artificial turf of the Blue Jay’s Rogers Centre might be partially to blame, while noting that the Blue Jays didn’t have similar problems:
“I think it’s just two bad series where we played here. I don’t know if it’s just coming to the turf — that’s not really an excuse, it’s the same game — but obviously I think in these series we’ve given them too many outs and it’s cost us.”
Boone does have a point, though. The Yankees’ errors have made headlines, but their defense comes out much better when viewed more broadly. With 52 errors on the season, they rank around the middle of the pack in MLB, and there are a lot of defensive stats where they actually come out quite well.
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They entered Wednesday ranked second in all of MLB in defensive efficiency, which is the rate at which a team turns balls in play into outs. They were ranked sixth in defensive runs saved and ninth in Statcast’s fielding run value. They’re not exactly a team of Gold Glovers, and more than a few Yankees fans will argue they’re seeing something worse, but the hard numbers say there are several teams who have done much worse for themselves on defense.
Of course, it’s still concerning that the mistakes came frequently when the Yankees were playing the closest thing to a playoff game this season, one year after bobbling away the World Series following a regular season where they also scored out fine on defense. That’s definitely an issue, and one that might go beyond what a few quick coaching sessions can fix.