At the All-Star break last season, the Yankees were on a potentially historic pace, a dozen games up in the AL East and drawing comparisons to the 1998 team that won 114 regular-season games en route a World Series title. Aaron Judge already had Roger Maris’ American League home run record in his sights.
Then they opened the second half with a makeup doubleheader in Houston and got swept by the Astros.
Afterward, Aaron Boone was asked about his team’s inability to figure out the Astros, and the manager pointed out the Yankees’ struggles against their rivals wouldn’t matter if they beat them in October.
“Ultimately, we may have to slay the dragon, right?” Boone said in Houston that day. “If it comes to it in October, the proof will be in the pudding. Do we get it done?”
They didn’t.
In fact, the twinbill sweep in Houston touched off a rough second half in which the Yankees played just .500 baseball (35-35), eked past the Guardians in the ALDS and then got swept again by the Astros, this time in the ALCS.
After signing Judge to a nine-year, $360 million contract and adding Carlos Rodon in the offseason, the Yankees have underwhelmed, losing two of three over the weekend in Colorado to a bad Rockies team before blowing a lead to Shohei Ohtani and the Angels in a 4-3 extra-inning loss on Monday night.
Now, having opened the season with a 42.7 percent chance to win the division and an 81.2 percent chance of reaching the postseason again — according to Fangraphs projections — the last-place Yankees (50-45) currently have just a 2.1 percent chance of finishing atop the AL East and a 35.8 percent chance of reaching the postseason.
Those odds could change significantly depending on what the Yankees do before the Aug. 1 trade deadline as they look to add pitching and perhaps an everyday player to their struggling lineup.
But as last season’s deadline made clear, even seemingly positive roster moves don’t always pan out, with Frankie Montas a colossal disappointment and Andrew Benintendi and Scott Effross also being lost to injury.
So what’s gone wrong this season?
Reasons No. 1 through 99: Judge and his sprained big right toe.
Last year’s MVP has been nearly as productive as he was last season — when he’s been able to be on the field. His OPS is 1.078, just off the 1.111 OPS he put up last year, but Judge had 34 homers at this point in 2022.
Due primarily to the toe injury, Judge has been limited to just 49 games. And because he’s almost certain to be impacted by the toe injury even when he does return, it’s difficult to see him putting up his typical all-world numbers down the stretch.
Rodon came to the Yankees with lofty expectations, but has so far resembled Montas more than another ace alongside Gerrit Cole, due to a forearm strain and back injury that sidelined from spring training until early July.
But Rodon, who has a 5.23 ERA through two starts, is just part of what’s been a disappointing rotation behind Cole.
While Cole has a WAR of 4.0, according to Baseball Reference, compared to 2.5 last year, nearly every other member of the rotation has worse numbers than in 2022.
The biggest dropoff, other than Rodon, comes from Nestor Cortes, who put up a 4.3 bWAR last year and is at just 0.1 so far in 2023 as he has been hampered by a rotator cuff injury.
And a bounceback season for Luis Severino hasn’t materialized. After putting up just a 1.6 bWAR last year, he was at -1.1 going into Monday’s bounce-back six-inning, one-run outing, making him worse than a replacement-level starter you might find in Triple-A.
The lineup has plenty of culprits, too, while ranking 22nd in the majors with a .708 team OPS. Gleyber Torres had dropped from 4.1 bWAR to 1.6, Anthony Rizzo from 2.3 to 1.0 and DJ LeMahieu from 3.7 to a lowly 0.1.
The unexpected offense they got from catcher Jose Trevino has dried up, with his bWAR dropping from 2.3 to 0.5, and Giancarlo Stanton, an All-Star last season, followed up a rough second half of 2022 with a poor first half of 2023, though he’s started to bust out with four homers in his past six games.
Still, all is not lost for the Yankees, who are just 2.5 games back — while also needing to leapfrog the Red Sox — of the final AL wild card spot.
General manager Brian Cashman has acted boldly at previous trade deadlines, and there’s little reason to think he won’t do so again.
The issue, though, is the Yankees don’t have the prospect depth they’ve had in recent years after surrendering assets in previous trades.
But perhaps the addition of someone such as the Cubs’ Cody Bellinger would provide enough of a boost if the Yankees also can get Judge back on the field and keep Stanton productive and healthy the rest of the way.
Rodon, perhaps having shaken off some more rust after his lengthy absence, could be the top-of-the-rotation starter they paid for, and perhaps another starter or key reliever would get the Yankees firing.
Until then, they still haven’t slayed the dragon.
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Barkley’s Big Blue breakdown
Saquon Barkley is the sixth-leading rusher in Giants history with 4,249 yards in the regular season.
But if history is any guide, it’s no surprise why the team balked at inking the 26-year-old to a costly contract extension before Monday’s deadline, meaning Barkley will be forced to play the 2023 season on the franchise tag — whenever he signs it, that is.
Of the top five on the franchise’s rushing list, only all-time leading rusher Tiki Barber proved to be productive much after turning 26.
Barber was solid through his final season in the NFL, when he was 31 and rushed for 1,662 yards, the second-highest of his career. Barber’s career high of 1,860 yards came when he was 30.
But what follows is a reminder of how quickly running backs tend to age.
There’s Rodney Hampton, No. 2 on the Giants’ all-time list, who had his best seasons in his first three years in the league. He never averaged more than 4.0 yards per carry after that third season.
Joe Morris, third on the list, peaked in 1986 at age 26 and never reached the 4.0 yards per carry threshold again.
Morris is followed by Brandon Jacobs, who averaged 5.6 yards per carry in 2010, when he was 28, but didn’t have the same workload as Barkley.
Fifth on the list is Alex Webster, who retired in 1964.
Barkley had a terrific 2022 season, and was instrumental in the team returning to the playoffs.
But after Monday’s no-deal verdict, the running back’s future with the Giants is murky.
The Sultans of Swat
Back in 2016, when Ohtani was a two-way star in Japan whose name was barely on the radar of the average North American baseball fan, he already was being compared to Babe Ruth.
As one AL scouting director told The Post’s Joel Sherman, “I hate to use the name Babe Ruth, but who was the last player we thought might be able to be both your ace and your cleanup hitter?”
Turns out, those lofty comparisons were merited.
Ohtani played the 674th game of his career on Monday, and his bat-flipping, game-tying blast in the seventh inning gave him 162 career homers. Ruth had 159 homers through his first 674 games, according to Elias Sports Bureau.
Their production on the mound is strikingly similar, as well.
Ohtani has a career 35-19 record, and has thrown 455 innings as a major leaguer.
Ruth went 36-18 in his first 462 innings (thanks to Elias again).
But Ruth won that 36th game with a complete-game, 13-inning shutout on Aug. 15, 1916, in just his third year in the majors with the Red Sox.
The Yankees, who made a strong push for Ohtani when he left Japan for MLB prior to the 2018 season, are in Anaheim this week with Ohtani’s future again in question.
He’ll be a free agent at the end of this season, and the reeling Angels, falling out of the playoff picture, must decide whether to trade the star by Aug. 1.