NEW YORK — The next three games against the Twins are going to be pivotal games for the Yankees if they have a shot to make the postseason — even though the hold a 0.5 lead over the Guardians for the final AL wildcard spot. The Twins have been one of the more disappointing teams of the 2025 season and sold 1/3 of their 26-man roster at the trade deadline last month and sit 7 games under .500. Even when the Twins are at their best, they fold when they see the Yankees coming, going 0-6 against the Bombers in 2024.
The Yankees struggles keep reaching new lows, between late leads being blown, costly errors and bad managerial decisions as the Yankees continue to spiral out of control and potentially out of a postseason spot, but Aaron Boone continues to hold that the Yankees will turn this around.
“I wholeheartedly believe that we are going to get rolling and turn this thing around.” Boone said after the teams 7-1 loss to the Astros on Sunday. “When it does, then you start to really build that next layer of confidence.”
Aaron Boone has had this attitude about the summer slump since the middle of June. The Yankees have done nothing to turn their season around and it’s now becoming more of a mental issue than a physical issue. One of the things brought up on Saturday by Willie Randolph was that the Yankees and just being Yankee Stadium used to scare the opponent, and that is now gone. Teams are no longer scared of the Yankees because their team mentality changed from ‘let’s win today’ to ‘it’s right in front of us, we’ll get them tomorrow’ and they don’t.
Something needs to change inside the clubhouse with their mental attitude about winning and Aaron Judge might have opened up somewhat of a message that could unlock the Yankees mentally to more of a winning attitude on a daily basis and less of a there’s always tomorrow attitude.
“It’s tough, but there’s no excuses. We’re getting paid to go out there and perform at our best and go out there and win baseball games. The fans are still packing out, showing support for us and we gotta show up for them and just go out there and do our job. That’s what it comes down to. We’re not doing our job, we’re not doing the little things that put ourselves in a good position to go out there and win baseball games. So it’s gonna take all of us. It’s going to take everybody in this room, from every reliever to every infield and outfield guy. So we just gotta step up. That’s what it comes down to. I wouldn’t say the confidence has really changed. We have a lot of confident guys in this room. We need to focus on what we can control and go out there and do it.”
Judge is correct, the team is not doing their job. The Yankees don’t play with a sense of urgency at all. The game on Sunday, it looked like they sleep walked through the whole game on both sides of the ball. The good thing about this is the rest of the team sees the quote from their Captain, and hopefully this is the same message Judge gave to the team after the game to try and change something with the mindset of this team.
“So it’s gonna take all of us. It’s going to take everybody in this room, from every reliever to every infield and outfield guy. So we just gotta step up.” Judge added. “That’s what it comes down to. I wouldn’t say the confidence has really changed. We have a lot of confident guys in this room. We need to focus on what we can control and go out there and do it.”
Judge is in a 3-18 slump with no extra base hits since coming off the IL on Tuesday, but had much better swings late Saturday and in the game on Sunday and that is usually a sign a hot streak is coming — and when it does, Judge could carry the team down the stretch and cover up the dark spots for now. Even if Judge carries the team, that does not guarantee anything as the fundamental issues will always exist.
(Top Image Credit: MLB.Com)