The New York Yankees recorded their second consecutive victory on Wednesday evening against the Tampa Bay Rays, who currently sit in first place in the AL East. Thanks to stellar relief pitching, the Yankees just barely manage to squeeze out a victory with four runs on the board. However, one of the biggest negative takeaways from the victory was their poor baserunning.
Both Gio Urshela and Gleyber Torres were found caught in the middle of the base paths in the same inning. The offense remains a major liability for a team that has heavily relied on it in the past.
Good news and bad news for the Yankees:
Manager Aaron Boone spoke out on their poor decision-making on the bases, and despite working tirelessly during spring training to improve that function, the team has simply forgotten their fundamentals.
“Obviously in spring training, we do a lot of baserunning where you practice those reactions,†manager Aaron Boone said after Wednesday night’s victory over Tampa. “It is a little tougher during the season, but the baserunning has been enough of an issue for us that there’s certain things that we feel like we need to address and at least get them out there a little bit to just talk through some scenarios.â€
“I am confident that we will get better at this. This has been a team over the last few years with a lot of the same actors that have run the bases really well. Despite not being a fast or base-stealing kind of team, we’ve been a pretty good baserunning team and we need to get back to that.â€