34 Seconds

BY KEVIN KERNAN

Siri, how long did it take Jose Siri to round the bases Sunday after his seventh-inning two-run home run off Yankees reliever Jake Cousins in the Rays 6-4 win over the Yankees at Yankee Stadium?

“34 seconds.’’

The “look at me, look at us” parade around the bases says an awful lot about where the Yankees are mentally.

In the YES booth, Paul O’Neill was fuming and called Siri’s trot and antics “ridiculous.’’

But O’Neill comes from a different era of Yankee Baseball.

The fact that this happened at Yankee Stadium made it even more frustrating for O’Neill and Yankee fans. The Rays hit four home runs Sunday and basically parked at third base each time to celebrate, a standard for a Randy Arozarena home run celebration. Arozarena did his home run thing in the fourth inning after his blast against Marcus Stroman. Arozarena has 15 homers on the season, five against the Yankees.

Richie Palacios led off the game against Stroman with a home run.

The Rays hit four home runs on Saturday against the Yankees in their 9-1 pounding of the Bronx Bombers. Other than Aaron Judge and Juan Soto, the Yankees are not hitting.

That’s only part of the problem. Here at BallNine we dig deeper.

The biggest problem for the Yankees is that other teams are walking all over them, even mocking them in their home ballpark, the third rendition of the House That Ruth Built and the Yankees just sit there and take it.

The Yankees’ fire doesn’t burn deep enough on this team and if that doesn’t change, nothing will change.

Could you imagine the 1998-99-2000 Yankees allowing the Rays, of all teams, to mock them in their own ballpark, embarrassing them with cheap celebrations while hitting eight home runs over a two-game span?

I couldn’t.

I am now going to give you the four worst words in modern baseball.

“The Game has changed.’’

No, it hasn’t. The players have changed.

They have gotten much too tolerant of their opponents. The Let Them Have Fun generation does not protect its own turf anymore.

The Yankees allowed Jose Siri, a .205 No. 8 hitter to mock them at Yankee Stadium.

The Game has changed.

No, the players have allowed the game to change. The players have changed.

These Yankees, who got off to such a hot start, are allowing the Rays to embarrass them in the Bronx. I’m not talking about the score; I’m talking about how the Rays are rubbing it in the Yankees faces.

Good for the Rays, they are playing with much more energy than the Yankees. They are playing like they have something to prove. They are saying, “We don’t care if you are the Yankees and this is the Bronx, we are going to do our thing.’’

Taylor Walls hit a two-out double in the fifth, when he landed at second base, he turned to the Rays dugout and clearly gave the “Fight! Fight!’’ celebration, pumping his right fist in the process.

Now where have we seen that before recently?

I thought it was ironic that while Walls was celebrating, Gleyber Torres had a Gleyber World moment and lost the handle on the relay throw, kicking the ball to centerfield. You could see shortstop Anthony Volpe immediately turn to Walls to see if Walls had raced to third, he would have gotten there easily, but Walls took his eyes off the in-play baseball and was busy hooting it up with the dugout while the ball was sitting on the outfield grass.

Just another example of “The Game has changed.’’

No, the players have changed. They are into touchdown celebrations even if they don’t score a touchdown and the ball is still in play. Walls should have been on third. Baseball men who saw this immediately gave it a thumbs down.

Walls did not score and was left on second. But the Rays had enough runs to beat the Yankees, 6-4 because of Siri’s home run and a ninth-inning solo blast by Jose Caballero.

The Yankees don’t score enough runs. They had four hitters in the lineup batting .229 or lower. Trent Grisham is at .180. They have a lack of talent issue and must make some trades at the deadline, probably a deal with the Rays for third baseman Isaac Paredes and bullpen help too. Closer Pete Fairbanks is getting up there in age, there is such a thing as Rays Years, so he could fit, too.

The Yankees only got back into the game because of Aaron Judge’s 35th home run in the seventh, a three-run shot, and as Judge rounded second base he gave a glare to centerfield and Siri and also a glare to left for Arozarena. Judge has the incredible talent and the fight. He was irritated by Siri’s home run trot in the top of the seventh and took his time going around the bases, 31 seconds for Judge, pausing before he stepped on the plate. I also found it interesting that in the dugout after the celebration of the home run that had the Yankees close the gap to 5-3, Judge offered words of encouragement to Oswaldo Cabrera who started the three-run inning with a bunt single.

Judge then put his hand over his mouth so the TV camera or Jomboy could not catch what he was saying to Cabrera. I can only imagine it was something along the lines of we can’t let them celebrate in our house like that. But it wasn’t said as nicely as I put it.

Too many Yankees are playing in their own world and that is a problem. They are getting a Barry Bonds like season from Judge with Juan Soto being his wingman and are not taking advantage.

That tells me they are a soft team. And the numbers bear it out. Since June 13th the Yankees are 10-21. The only team worse than the Yankees are the White Sox, who simply do not know how to play baseball, over that span the White Sox are 10-22 and if you want to watch a team with no fight, with no protection of their home turf, watch the White Sox.

That softness was on display in the bottom of the ninth, too when Yankees catcher Austin Wells was called out on strikes on a 3-2 breaking ball – basically right where you want to hit a breaking ball – floating in the top of the zone in the middle but Wells couldn’t pull the trigger. Soto had doubled home a run to make it 6-4 so Wells was representing the tying run. The Rays earlier dodged a bullet when Judge flied to center, but he can’t get a hit every time.

The strikeout looking has become a thing in this era of “The Game has changed.’’

No, the players have changed.

It is amazing the amount of called strike threes there are now in big situations simply because the hitter is looking for something else and refuses to swing. There is no battle in that approach. It has almost become too scientific, and this is throughout baseball: paralysis by analysis.

Way back when, my high school baseball coach Nelson Gibble, and no I did not make that name up, had a saying. Mr. Gibble was the head football coach at David Brearley High School and also the baseball coach. He was a math teacher.

His advice to his hitters in 1971 was simple: “If you think, you stink.’’

Where is the fight? Where is the battle? More importantly, where is the “fight back”?

You can’t over-think it. O’Neill said much the same thing on Sunday talking about the Yankees hitting woes and saying that hitting a baseball is “reactionary.’’

Now, you can have a plan, that’s fine, but when it comes to money time you have to clear your head and be a hitter and react to the pitch. Keep it simple.

In this – The Game has changed era, that reaction too often is leaving the bat on your shoulder and tipping your cap and walking away after the strikeout.

Where is the fight?

Where is the battle?

More importantly where is the “fight back’’?

When Jose Siri takes 34 seconds to round the bases and mocks the home team where is the fight back? And, just to be clear, I am not talking about hitting the next batter in the ribs with a pitch, although that is exactly what Bob Gibson and his era of pitchers would have done. There are plenty of ways of getting back at that player, at that team, and most of those ways include playing hard-nosed baseball and being a bit creative like Cabrera was with his bunt, setting the stage for a three-run home run by Judge.

The only other Yankees to have 35 home runs in the first 101 games are Babe Ruth, Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris, Lou Gehrig, Alex Rodriguez and the forever underrated Tino Martinez. Judge now has hit 292 home runs in 934 games, the most home runs through a player’s first 934 games in MLB history.

Alex Verdugo is in a terrible funk, which doesn’t surprise Alex Cora. Since June 15 Verdugo has the lowest average and OPS in baseball. Verdugo was hitting the ball the other way earlier in the year but has become incredibly pull happy. Gleyber Torres has some strange at-bats. The Yankees need to make a trade for at least one hitter.

Even when the Yankees were trying to get back in this game and needed baserunners to get Soto and Judge to the plate, too many light hitters were wailing away when they were ahead in the count. Know the situation. Baseball is a situational game.

That part of the game is yet another victim of analytics. There is no situational hitting, it’s all the same. Take your “A’’ swing. To the Nerds, every situation is the same, there is no such thing as RBI guys, they just happen to hit with a man on base. Try telling that to Judge.

The Game has changed.

No, the players have changed.

I’m not here to pick on Aaron Boone, but he was ejected once again for arguing balls and strikes when Verdugo was called out on a pitch over the plate that was a bit low in the sixth inning. It happens, deal with it.

By the way, the Yankees had bases loaded in the first two innings and got nothing out of it. Verdugo hit a ball hard but right at the first baseman, it happens. Deal with it.

Soto swung at a 3-0 pitch, he has earned that right, and hit into a double play. It happens. That’s baseball. Things don’t always go as planned. It’s not a computer work up as much as the Nerds want it to be a game they can predict.

Yes, Jose Siri was ridiculously slow going around the bases; the next step for clock crazed Chancellor Manfred is to introduce a “Trot Clock.’’

Manfred does not see what is right in front of him and neither do the Nerds. Manfred okayed the All-Star uniforms that were a disaster, but now wants to have a conversation about players wearing their team uni at All-Star Games. Follow the money.

Baseball is about situational hitting, and then when you have a situation where a slider dominant pitcher like Jake Cousins can’t get a slider over the plate and throws a stinker that Jose Siri is looking to crush for a home run, that’s what you do. Even .205 hitters.

But you should never dance on the grave of your opponent. Never.

Unless they let you. Unless they don’t fight back and that is where the Yankees are today. This is a weird wrap-around series, another mistake by baseball, so the Yankees have another shot at the Rays Monday at Yankee Stadium. This game will tell you all you need to know about the Yankees. This is a fight back game. This is a game where Jose Siri should be shown you don’t mock the home team in Yankee Stadium.

This is a game where Aaron Boone needs to fire his frustrations at his own team instead of always being an umpire critic. I have a theory on that too. Boone is so frustrated by what he is seeing from his “boys’’ and his ridiculous comments like: “We had some really good at-bats’’ on a day the Yankees were 2-for-10 with runners in scoring position, coming off Saturday’s game when they were 0-for-7 with RISP, that he was transferring his anger to home plate umpire Edwin Jimenez.

By the way, Jimenez mocked Boone by letting Boone rant and rave and not saying a word to him as if to say, none of what you say matters.

Boone needs to get off the umpires and demand more from his team, more concentration, more fight.

This something coaches can’t do; this is something the manager has to do. That is why you are called a manager.

The Game has changed.

No, the players have changed.