The Yankees submitted a questionable lineup card on Tuesday against the Mets and it came back to bite them.
Bench players Jahmai Jones and J.D. Davis were tasked with protecting Juan Soto and Aaron Judge as the leadoff and cleanup hitters in the Bombers’ 3-2 loss to the Mets. The pair came up in key spots early in the game and didn’t deliver.
Jones — the lead-off man — stepped up with runners on first and second with the Yankees leading 1-0 in the bottom of the third and struck out on four pitches. The very next inning, Davis rolled into an inning-ending 4-6-3 double play after Judge — predictably, considering the lack of protection — walked for a second time.
The Yankees captain saw two total strikes in three at-bats as he was blatantly pitched around with Davis behind him, registering three walks — and four total on the night as he was 0-for-1. The decision to put Davis behind the All-Star effectively took the bat out of his hands for nearly the entire game.
“Of course [I fear teams will continue to pitch around Judge],” Aaron Boone said after the game. “We’ve seen some teams take that approach. But we’ll get that middle of order more settled here hopefully in the coming days too so that changes the equation a bit. But, yeah, there’s going to be times where teams take that approach sometimes…
“So we just got to get the middle of our order a little more settled and hopefully that forces teams to go after Aaron.”
While Judge didn’t see a single pitch to hit until the ninth inning, the superstar remained unbothered saying it’s just part of the game.
“It’s not really too frustrating,” said Judge. “I wouldn’t mind that day when it comes with a win. So, it’s part of it. It’s a team game, even if I went 4-for-4 today we still might not win. It’s just about if I get a pitch to hit, I got to do some damage on it.”
Jones and Davis were a combined 0-for-6 on the night with four strikeouts, leaving five runners on base as they were both replaced in the bottom of the seventh by Trent Grisham and Ben Rice.
It was curious decision-making tasking two players — having very few at-bats — with arguably the most important spots in an offense that was called out by former teammate Luis Severino for having “two good hitters.”
Jones entered the night having 44 plate appearances and 0 career starts above the No. 5 spot in the order while Davis had just one at-bat since July 4. Boone attempted to shuffle the deck against southpaw Jose Quintana as his offense ranked 19th across baseball in OPS against left-handed pitching (.697) entering the night.
“Just trying to space out the lineup as best I could. [Jones has] done a good job,” said Boone before Tuesday’s game. “Obviously, [he] hasn’t had a lot of playing time, but the times we’ve put him in there he’s given us a lot of good at-bats.”
Boone was also not concerned with the lack of plate appearances from Davis.
“You’re able to replicate [at-bats] so much better now with just the things available to us,” said the skipper. “He went on the IL with the illness, so not much you can do there. He started to feel better at the back end right around the All-Star break physically. Then the last few days he was able to get some work and get some real looks in the cages and things like that.”
The 31-year-old is 1-for-16 (.062) with eight strikeouts in six games for the Yanks this season.
With the Bombers struggling since the All-Star break, Boone has often shuffled the lineup to try and find a spark. Left-handed hitting neophyte Rice has been the regular leading off the Yankees’ lineup in recent days, however, he found himself on the bench in favor of Davis.
Hot-hitting Austin Wells — .855 OPS since June 1 — was bumped into the cleanup spot for the first time on Saturday but was not in the lineup due to workload management. He later entered as a pinch-hitter and flew out to right.
The Mets will send out yet another southpaw on Wednesday night in veteran Sean Manaea, which leaves open the possibility of a similar lineup construction for the final game of this two-game set.
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