MIAMI — The Yankees arrived here Thursday night having won four of their past five games and with some extra juice from a strong trade deadline.
By the end of the weekend, though, they had essentially tripped and spilled the juice all over themselves.
A miserable series came to a fitting end Sunday when Luis Gil sputtered in his season debut, putting the Yankees in a hole they could not climb out of in a 7-3 loss as the Marlins swept them out of loanDepot Park.
The damaging weekend — the first time in franchise history the Yankees were swept by the Marlins — began with a brutal 13-12 loss Friday night, when their trade deadline reinforcements failed them.
Jazz Chisholm Jr.’s baserunning blunder loomed over Saturday’s 2-0 loss.
And then the offense was quiet again Sunday as the excitement over Gil’s return quickly fizzled.
The end result was the Yankees (60-52) falling further into third place in the AL East, 1 ¹/₂ games behind the Red Sox and 4 ¹/₂ behind the Blue Jays.
“It’s getting to be real gut check time,” manager Aaron Boone said. “It’s getting late. It’s certainly not too late for us. I am confident that we’re going to get it together, but that’s all it is right now. It’s empty until we start doing it.”
The Yankees on Sunday night flew to Texas, where they hope to get Aaron Judge back from the injured list Tuesday.
But they will need more than the likely AL MVP alone to right the ship, as their struggles have lasted nearly two months, long before Judge got hurt.
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Since holding a season-high seven-game lead atop the AL East on May 28, the Yankees have gone 25-32, a stretch that accounts for over a third of their season.
They were still a season-high 17 games above .500 on June 12 before going 18-27 through Sunday.
There have been a few times along the way it seemed like they were about to break out of their malaise, only to drop right back into it and kill any progress they had made.
“I think everyone in this room, we have really high expectations and we’re not meeting them right now,” Cody Bellinger said. “It’s frustrating. We had a great last series at home and come in here, Miami just swept us. Got to look ourselves in the mirror, go to Texas and play baseball the way I know we can.”
Before and after Sunday’s game, Boone made multiple references to it starting with him, needing to get the best out of his players.
But that has not happened nearly consistently enough.
“I wouldn’t say there’s concern, but I think a little sense of urgency would be good for us going forward, just to continue to do what we can to win ballgames,” said Ben Rice, who clarified that the club did not lack urgency. “That’s going to be doing the little things, that’s going to be hopefully we sync up pitching and hitting.”
For the second straight day, the Yankees were shut down by a Marlins starter, this time Edward Cabrera, who allowed just two hits and one walk over six innings of one-run ball — the only damage being Trent Grisham’s leadoff home run.
Meanwhile, Gil failed to make it out of the fourth inning as he walked four and gave up five runs in 3 ¹/₃ innings.
The 2024 AL Rookie of the Year struggled with his command, falling behind often and driving up his pitch count to 77 before he was pulled.
The Yankees got a two-run homer from Chisholm that pulled them within 6-3 in the seventh inning, but it only delayed the inevitable.
“Since I’ve been here, I feel like we have a chance to be as good as any team as we’ve had,” Boone said. “I really feel like that. That starts with me in helping them get it out. But we got to do it. I am very confident that we will, but it has been a long enough stretch of ups and downs, lose a few, win a few. We got to do better than that.”