Yanks drop opener to Mets: 'It's frustrating'

NEW YORK -- The foundering Yankees called a players-only meeting this week, with Aaron Judge among those who spoke most forcefully. The slugger said there were topics on his mind that could not wait to be addressed, expressing confidence that his words would spur the team to better play in this weekend’s Subway Series.

And yet, at the official halfway point of the season, manager Aaron Boone’s comment spoke loudest: “Talk is cheap.”

Judge broke up a no-hit bid and shutout with his team-leading 19th homer, but it was too little, too late. The Mets pulled away early and sent the Bombers to an 8-3 defeat on Saturday -- their sixth loss in seven games.

“We’ve got two really big games tomorrow, and we’ve got to get after it,” said first baseman Luke Voit. “We’re not playing good at all; we’re playing pretty bad right now, me included. We’ve got to figure out a way to scrape out two wins tomorrow, so it starts the first game.”

Capping a week in which managing general partner Hal Steinbrenner pointed a finger at his underperforming roster, saying that the players “need to fix this,” those answers seemed to be in short supply. Jordan Montgomery permitted three runs and six hits over 4 1/3 innings and Justin Wilson struggled mightily in a five-run sixth, unable to record an out.

“I don’t really know what else to do,” Montgomery said. “Honestly, at this point I think I’d rather just go out there and give up line drives. Maybe I’d have better luck if it was going right at somebody. … We hate losing, and we know what we’re capable of. We’ve got to play better.”

Dominic Smith drove in three runs, stroking a run-scoring single off Montgomery in the fifth and a two-run double that chased Wilson in the sixth. Kevin Pillar contributed a two-run single off Michael King in the sixth, runs charged to Wilson’s ledger. It was a rare outburst for the Mets, who came in having lost 11 of 17 while averaging 2.5 runs per game over that span.

“It’s frustrating,” Boone said. “We’re all pissed off about it, obviously. We’ve set a much higher bar in there and we haven’t, to this point, lived up to that. We’ve got to turn it around in a big time way.”

Speak up

Judge called the meeting before Tuesday’s game against the Angels, and the immediate returns were strong, as the team produced a season-high 11 runs. The Yanks knocked out Shohei Ohtani with a seven-run first inning the next night, but endured two rain delays and saw Aroldis Chapman surrender the first grand slam of his career in a deflating 11-8 loss.

• Judge calls emotional players-only meeting

“It was something that I think needed to be done,” Voit said. “We had a lot of guys speak up. I think some of the guys needed it; we needed some guys to get called out and to start playing up to their expectations. I know this game is tough, but everyone in that room has each other’s backs. We just need to go out and do our jobs.”

On Saturday, Gio Urshela connected for a two-out, two-run single in the sixth to chase Mets starter Taijuan Walker, who limited the Yanks to a pair of walks through the first five frames. A crowd of 40,047, the largest at Yankee Stadium since the 2019 postseason, seemed largely split -- and the Yankees' fans didn’t have much to cheer, their team held to three hits.

“We can talk about it until we’re blue in the face,” Boone said. “We’ve got to put together complete games, especially when we’re going up against good opponents.”

History lesson

With 41 victories in 81 games, the Yankees are on pace for an 82-win campaign. It is their slowest start since 2016, when they were a game below .500 at the halfway point of the season, prompting management to execute a partial rebuild by selling off Chapman, left-hander Andrew Miller and outfielder Carlos Beltran for prospects.

Steinbrenner said this week that he has not considered a repeat of that plan, and general manager Brian Cashman has said that he plans to be a buyer in advance of the July 30 Trade Deadline – even with the Yanks falling 10 games behind the division-leading Red Sox after Saturday’s loss.

Boone said on Saturday that “the history of this game is littered with teams overcoming larger obstacles,” and that’s technically true -- the ’07 Yankees, for example, started 40-41 before finishing with 94 wins and a Wild Card berth in Joe Torre’s final year at the helm.

To avoid the first dark October in Boone’s four seasons, the Yankees will need to beat the odds with a similar second-half surge.

“I don’t count this team out at all,” Voit said. “We’re just going to do everything we can to get into the playoffs.”