For a third straight season, the Yankees have gone through a stretch in which they’ve lost 15 of 20 games.
This one — now a 6-17 slump after Tuesday night’s humdrum 5-3 loss to the Rays — has been especially ugly, featuring poor starting pitching, inconsistent work from the bullpen and an offense that looks lost outside of Saturday’s 14-run eruption against the Red Sox in The Bronx.
And they still have to finish out the first half before the All-Star break with the series at Tampa Bay and a visit to face the first-place Orioles at Camden Yards.
What makes this slump different is the timing, and perhaps that ends up serving the Yankees well, because they have three weeks from Tuesday to address the problem before the July 30 trade deadline.