About Last Night: Yankees Drop Series Final
- Ethan Semendinger
- 4 hours ago
- 4 min read
By: Ethan Semendinger
June 19th, 2026
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The Yankees offense did not come to play, and the White Sox took advantage of a major opportunity.
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Quick Stats -
Winning Pitcher: Sean Burke (4-4, 3.89 ERA)
Losing Pitcher: Fernando Cruz (4-2, 2.25 ERA)
Save: N/A
Home Runs (Chicago): Colson Montgomery (20), Andrew Benintendi (9)
Home Runs (New York): Ryan McMahon (8)
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Story Of The Game - Going into the game, the Yankees had been on a hot streak, winning 8 of their last 10 games against some frequent postseason foes in the Boston Red Sox, Cleveland Guardians, and Toronto Blue Jays. In a quote-unquote "normal" year, taking a series from all three in a row would be a promising sign. However, in the 2026 season it doesn't hold much weight.
The Boston Red Sox sit, as of writing this, with a 29-43 record (.403 WP%),
The Cleveland Guardians hold a 40-35 record (.533 WP%),
and the Toronto Blue Jays are at 37-38 (.493 WP%).
This leads us to an interesting, and potentially telling, statistic from this current season with the New York Yankees.
After the results of last nights game, the Yankees are now 9-11 (.450 WP%) against teams with a record over .500. Though the Yankees did improve that with two straight wins over the Chicago White Sox earlier this week- with both a 12-2 and 10-2 victory- the Yankees were fairing much worse with a 7-10 record (.412 WP%).
In comparison, a .412 winning percentage would place the Yankees as the 6th worst team in the MLB this season, ahead of the Tigers, Red Sox, Royals, Angels, and Rockies. In the AL, they'd be about 6 games out of the final wild card spot, behind the Rays, Guardians, Athletics, Twins, Rangers, Orioles, and Astros.
Baseball is a sport that can be broken down into groupings of threes.
3 strikes for a strikeout.
3 outs in an inning.
9 innings in a game.
162 games in a season, or three periods of 54 games.
Almost every team will win at least 54 games in a season. (If not, you end up on this list.)
Almost every team will lose at least 54 games in a season. (If not, you end up on this list.)
What matters is what you do with the 54 games in between.
Great teams need to beat up on bad teams to increase their record.
Great teams also need to beat up on good-to-great teams to do so as well.
The question is: "Are the Yankees a great team?"
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Thoughts From The Game -
The Good:
Ryan Weathers had a good comeback performance after a poor showing against the Blue Jays. Last night, he pitched 6.1 innings while allowing just 3 hits and 1 walk while surrendering just 1 run and collecting 8 strikeouts. He has been a solid buy-low candidate that has worked out well as a back-end rotation piece.
Ryan McMahon hit a home run. What's funny is that his averages (.211 AVG, .639 OPS) are not positive, and yet, when I sit down and watch the Yankees, he is often coming through with big hits.
Believe it or not, the only other really positive player yesterday was Anthony Volpe, who came in as a pinch-hitting replacement for Jazz Chisholm, and had both a double and a walk (though, he did get caught trying to steal second base).
The Bad:
The bullpen was not good. Fernando Cruz went just 0.2 innings, allowing a double that started the White Sox great 8th inning. He was replaced by Tim Hill, who hit back-to-back batters before getting a bases-loaded strikeout. He was pulled for Camilo Doval, who immediately gave up a grand slam to (former Yankee) Andrew Benintendi. Not a good day for the bullpen.
Three (well, four, but we'll get to the fourth in a second) Yankees batters went 0-for at the plate. Cody Bellinger went 0-4 with a strikeout, as did Jasson Dominguez with 2 strikeouts, while J.C. Escarra went 0-3.
The other batter? Jazz Chisholm Jr, who fouled a ball off the ground and then hit himself in a bad area (he was not wearing a cup) and had to be removed from the game. He was 0-1 at the time.
In Other News:
It's not baseball, but the World Cup is currently ongoing, and it has been incredibly exciting so far! Lionel Messi had a hat-trick in Argentina's first game (to tie the all-time World Cup goals record at 16). Team Japan battled for a tie against the Netherlands. Team USA won their first game handedly, and they play again this afternoon! Give it a watch ahead of the Yankees tonight! Let's go USA!
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Next Up - The Yankees will begin a 3-game weekend series at home against the Cincinatti Reds with a Friday night match-up. The Reds will be sending Rhett Lowder (3-3, 4.60 ERA) to the mound against the Yankees' Cam Schlittler (7-3, 1.82 ERA). The game will start at 7:05 PM and be broadcast locally on YES.
