His chase, whiff, strikeout and walk rates were all well below average. If a pitcher isn\u2019t striking batters out and not getting them to swing-and-miss consistently, his ceiling is low. There wasn\u2019t much to look forward to after Gil\u2019s outing, and that\u2019s been the case since the 2024 season.<\/p>\n
Gil was not in the rotation to begin the season, and if he can\u2019t rediscover that 2024 version of himself before Carlos Rod\u00f3n returns, he might be on the outside looking in again.<\/p>\n
With the depth of the rotation, it\u2019s hard to put Gil higher on this list. Help is on the way, and as long as the rotation stays healthy, the Yankees won\u2019t need Gil to start for them.<\/p>\n
2. Bottom third of the order![\"Ryan](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/GettyImages-2269147237-scaled.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\n Ryan McMahon is batting .114 \u2014 4-for-35 with four singles \u2014 to start the season. (Ezra Shaw \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n
It may be hard to believe with how much agita the Yankees\u2019 bottom third of the order caused fans last year, but they ended the 2025 season tied for the fifth-best production in baseball among those trios.<\/p>\n
This season, only the Chicago White Sox are getting less offense than the Yankees from their bottom of the order. It would be surprising if that remained the case for the entire season, but it\u2019s notable and it\u2019s part of why the offense on the whole has been down to start.<\/p>\n
In Sunday\u2019s series finale, the Yankees started 7-8-9 hitters\u00a0with .000, .097 and .156 batting averages. Those three spots in the order finished 5-for-36 in this series and are now a combined 21-for-156 (.135) to begin the year.<\/p>\n
The biggest issue is third baseman Ryan McMahon and his lack of productivity. This season, McMahon has four hits, all of them singles. He\u2019s looked overmatched.<\/p>\n
In the ninth inning Sunday, the Rays intentionally walked Austin Wells, who would have been the go-ahead run, so they could pitch to McMahon. On the first pitch of his at-bat, McMahon hit a weak grounder to end the game.<\/p>\n
Boone feels McMahon is getting unnecessary flak. The manager pointed out that he hit a 106.7 mph lineout and got a single on Sunday.<\/p>\n
\u201cPersonally, I don\u2019t care,\u201d McMahon said when asked if he had confidence with his at-bats Sunday. \u201cGive me something that helps the team. I don\u2019t care how it looks.\u201d<\/p>\n
More is expected out of the seventh-highest-paid player on the team, and he\u2019s been a disappointment.<\/p>\n
1. Why is this lineup so passive?<\/p>\n
The Yankees entered Sunday with the lowest swing percentage by any team since the 2012 Minnesota Twins, who were 30 games under .500 that season. The Yankees, almost certainly, won\u2019t be that dreadful, but the lack of swinging is an early concern through 15 games.<\/p>\n
Part of that is their identity. The Yankees have seen the most pitches in baseball in back-to-back seasons, and they were tied for the MLB lead in pitches per plate appearance last season. To begin this season, the Yankees, to a fault, are being too passive.<\/p>\n
They entered Sunday with the 10th-most pitches seen in the strike zone, and yet they ranked third-to-last in swinging at said pitches. For an offense built around hitting strikes hard, they\u2019re not doing that enough.<\/p>\n
Getting walks and not chasing pitches out of the strike zone continue to be strengths for the Yankees, but those skills won\u2019t be maximized if the players are watching hittable strikes go into the catcher\u2019s glove.<\/p>\n
\u201cI haven\u2019t sensed that yet,\u201d Boone said about the passivity of his offense. \u201cWe just haven\u2019t hit the way we\u2019re capable of as a group yet.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. \u2014 This was a series for those who yearn for 1960s baseball. The Tampa Bay…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":604526,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,591,2704,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-604525","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-mlb","11":"tag-new-york-yankees","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604525","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=604525"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604525\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/604526"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=604525"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=604525"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=604525"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}