The Yankees scored six runs Friday night and have an MLB-high 494 runs on the season.
Still, when Luis Severino said — albeit jokingly — that the Yankees offense was Aaron Judge, Juan Soto and not much else, it would be hard to argue given how they’ve played lately.
Even in Friday’s 6-1 win over Tampa Bay, when Anthony Volpe delivered the biggest hit of the game, a three-run double in the third, the majority of the offense still came from Soto and Judge.
As Severino said in Miami, where the Mets opened the second half Friday, he told some of his former Yankee teammates that they “only have two good hitters.”
Severino laughed as he said it, but he had a point — even if manager Aaron Boone disagreed.
“We’ll see where the dust settles when we’re all said and done,’’ Boone said. “Add it all up, and we’ve taken our lumps at times, but I think we’re at the top of the league — probably — in runs scored. I saw the way [Severino] said it. … Hopefully, we can answer him.”
Severino isn’t scheduled to pitch against his former team in next week’s Subway Series — which is how the topic of the Yankees’ lineup came up — but the Yankees are looking for more consistency throughout the batting order.
Boone didn’t make any lineup changes following the All-Star break, with Ben Rice still leading off, hitting in front of Soto and Judge, and with the slumping Alex Verdugo remaining in the cleanup spot.
“Somebody’s got to grab that,” Boone said before the game of why Verdugo continued hitting fourth despite a lack of results since early May. “With Giancarlo [Stanton] down [with a strained hamstring], we’ve been a little thin, so we’re banking on [Verdugo]. I think he’s gong to hit like Alex Verdugo moving forward.”
Verdugo went hitless again Friday and Boone made no guarantees that he would stay there.
“If somebody [else] grabs that spot, so be it,’’ Boone said.
Given the state of the lineup, there aren’t many other options — especially against right-handers.
Rice is at the top, with Verdugo fourth and Austin Wells — like Rice and Verdugo, a lefty-swinger — was at No. 6.
A key part of why the Yankees lost 18 of their last 26 games heading into the break was the fact so much of the lineup wasn’t hitting.
General manager Brian Cashman and the front office can address some holes before the July 30 trade deadline, but the Yankees also will need more from players that will still be counted on down the stretch, whether it’s Verdugo or infielders DJ LeMahieu or Gleyber Torres.
LeMahieu was back in the lineup at third base again Friday.
He went into the break on a 10 at-bat hitless streak following a 5-for-11 stretch that briefly provided hope that he was breaking out of his long funk.
On Friday, he went 0-for-4 and heard some boos — not surprising, considering he entered Friday with a slugging percentage of .214, the worst of any player with at least 130 plate appearances this season.
His .562 OPS versus right-handers is bad — and worse than Oswaldo Cabrera’s .662 — but LeMahieu has been unplayable against lefties, with a .343 OPS.
And the corner infield situation isn’t getting any better, with Anthony Rizzo still recovering from a fractured arm and J.D. Davis, just back from a stomach flu, having shown nothing since arriving from Oakland.
Jon Berti, who the Yankees had hoped would at least be another option, suffered a setback in his comeback from a strained calf.