The Atlanta Braves continued their dominant run against New York teams Wednesday night, defeating the Yankees 2-0 to complete a three-game sweep at home. In back-to-back series against the Mets and Yankees, Atlanta outscored both teams 58-13 across seven games.
As the Braves chase another 100-win season with the NL East division firmly in hand, the Yankees’ most recent string of losses sends them below .500 for the first time this season. With a 60-61 record, the Bombers are now closer to their crosstown rivals, a Mets team that gave up at the trade deadline, than to a playoff spot.
In all three games, the Braves punished Yankees starting pitchers, with Clarke Schmidt and Luis Severino delivering especially poor performances before making early exits. The pair allowed 13 runs combined across 6.1 innings of play. Meanwhile, New York’s offense was rendered completely impotent and never managed to score more than three runs in any game.
Yankees manager Aaron Boone said after the series that he had not yet given up hope, even after his team did little of note at the trade deadline and has lost six of its last seven games.
“The game is still littered with examples of teams going on unlikely runs,” Boone said. “I get it looks bleak, and I don’t want to even suggest that we’re in a position to even talk about a streak like that. We’ve got to fix our own house and get going. But there’s a lot of season left too, and we’ve got to look at it that way.”
With 41 games remaining in the season, the Yankees are currently 14 games back and dead last in the AL East, a prohibitively tough division this year. Their only hope at a postseason berth now is through the Wild Card. New York is 6.5 games back in those standings and must pass the Red Sox, Mariners and Blue Jays to secure the final spot.
Between injuries and personal setbacks in the starting rotation, Aaron Judge’s absence earlier this season and lingering injury issues, and a general lack of offensive firepower, the Yankees have already proven themselves to be a step below their supposed contenders. In the Mets’ four-game series against Atlanta, they managed to save some face with a chaotic 7-6 win in the final game on Aug. 13. The Yankees took no such opportunity, going quietly in three straight to a team many once considered their contemporary and potential World Series opponent.
