Yanks’ bats ‘in a little rut,’ blanked in 3rd straight

NEW YORK — For nearly three months, the New York Yankees arguably had the best offense in the majors. The past three days have told a very different story.

The Yankees were shut out for the third consecutive game Tuesday, falling 4-0 to the Los Angeles Angels for their season-high fifth straight loss and extending their mind-boggling scoreless innings streak to 29 innings to light boos from the Yankee Stadium crowd. New York has not scored a run since the ninth inning against the Boston Red Sox on Saturday. The Yankees had been shut out only twice in their first 69 games of the season.

“It’s been a little struggle the last couple days, which, unfortunately, it’s going to happen,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “It’s just always shocking to see our group not score runs, right, especially a few days in a row now.”

It’s the seventh time the Yankees have been shut out in three straight games in franchise history, according to ESPN Research. The 29-inning scoreless skid is the franchise’s longest since going 33 innings without a run in September 2016. They’ve compiled 33 strikeouts and left 24 runners on base during the drought. Since last Thursday, they have scored five runs in six games.

“It’s always a certain point where it’s not necessarily going your way and you feel it,” Yankees outfielder Cody Bellinger said. “And you kind of feel this extra pressure to get the job done.”

On Tuesday, it was Kyle Hendricks‘ turn to hold the Yankees in check. The soft-throwing veteran right-hander, who entered Tuesday with the second-highest ERA in the majors among qualified starters, limited the Yankees to four hits with nine strikeouts to one walk over six innings. He produced 13 swing-and-misses with his 98 pitches. Not one reached 90 mph.

Boone said he noticed his players pressing as the zeroes continued mounting.

“You want to be the guy to get the hit, get it going,” Boone said. “But that’s where the patience comes in. You can’t obsess on the result. You can’t go up there [thinking], ‘I gotta get a hit. I gotta do this.’ It’s got to be, ‘I gotta take a tough at-bat.’ And when you’re doing that, that’s when the pitches in your zone show up and that’s when you take advantage. And this group will do that.”

Bellinger said players had conversations among themselves after the game in the clubhouse about the struggles. The message was simple: Remember who we are and stick to the approach.

“We had good talks,” Bellinger said. “I’ve been part of a bunch of teams. It’s a little rut we’re in and we got to get out of it. Good teams get out of it.”

The offensive outage coincides with Aaron Judge‘s worst stretch in an otherworldly season. The two-time American League MVP is 1-for-11 with six strikeouts and two intentional walks in the three shutout losses. Zoom out further, and Judge is 2-for-20 with 13 strikeouts and one home run over his past five games. His batting average has sunk from .394 to .372 during the stretch.

On Tuesday, he went 0-for-4 with three strikeouts. He struck out on three pitches against left-hander Reid Detmers to end the eighth inning in his final at-bat, prompting the home crowd to express its displeasure with light boos.

“It’s just the inevitable ebbs and flows of it,” Boone said of Judge’s recent slide. “Probably has left the zone a little more than he normally does. No one more capable of getting right back on track than him.”

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