According to plan.

Perhaps what was most pathetic about yesterday’s loss to the Nationals—and by the way, what’s with “the Nationals”? Who names a team after an adjective?—is that it all went according to plan: Brian Cashman’s plan, that is.

Aaron Judge homered and walked, and had an assist and a nice catch in right field.

Gleyber Torres homered, had two other hits, and played a nifty second base.

Giancarlo Stanton homered, doubled, and had four hits in all.

The team had 11 hits, and scored 5 runs.

So what went wrong?

Well, fundamentals, first of all, as BTR-Triple 9 and Joe FOB pointed out—the part of the game so scornfully dismissed by analytics junkies.

The Yankees made three critical errors in the field (one of which was generously ruled a hit), and two mental mistakes on the bases, in the same inning.

The running errors came in the second, when Higgy, after a one-out double, was thrown out trying to go to third on a groundball to the shortstop. Mere seconds later, Oswald Peraza was picked off first. 

The fielding errors, two of them by Volpe and one by Hands-of-Clay Holmes, led directly to 4 of the 6 Washington runs. 

What’s more, as Joe FOB broke down, this team barely seems to be paying attention. As if Peraza hadn’t done enough on the day, he bizarrely decided to steal third in the ninth—while pinchrunner Cabrera stood stock still on first. 

Guys, is this a double steal or not? Who was supposed to go and who was not? And will we ever find out from the Kremlin-on-the-Hudson braintrust? Of course not.

But even before this, in the top of the ninth, Holmes had managed to load the bases with two outs. Aaron "Stretching Cat" Boone had trotted out to the mound to have a conference with his entire infield. No doubt reminding them how many were out, saying something about which base to go to, who does what.

All the assembled Yankees nodded grimly and trotted back to their positions. Then, Dominic Smith hit a weak topper toward third and Peraza froze in place, while Holmes rushed over to grab the ball—and fumbled it away. What proved to be the winning run trotted in from third. 

Beyond all these inexcusable mental flubs, the afternoon once again exposed just how bad the Yanks’ overall approach to the game is. 

This team takes a phenomenal number of called strikes. We were up too high to see just how tight the ump was calling things, but there were no protests from Yankees batters. They went away like mild little lambs. 

Twelve strikeouts in all for our boys—5 of them looking, and in some key moments. Perreira—in his first major-league game ever—struck out 3 times; less excusably, Harrison Bader struck out 4 times.  The team as a whole was the usual 1-for-10 with runners in scoring position. 

Throw in the baserunning mistakes and a double-play, and they handed the Nats a whole inning worth of extra outs. They allowed Patrick Corbin—a pitcher whose arm has been dead since the 2019 World Series—to compile a “quality start,” 3 earned runs in 6 innings.

Our own pitching was worse than it looked—but worst of all, we saw again that, somehow, the New York Yankees are out of starting pitchers in August. How is that possible?

Washington is not a good team—they’re also in last place—and they’re not even all that young. But they played young and athletic, at least compared to your New York Yankees, bunting and making alert, surehanded plays in the field. 

When Harrison Bader at last shook off his golden sombrero and hit a long drive to center with two out in the 9^th, Nats centerfielder Alec Call ran it down without too much trouble (Call, a .202 hitter, also had a booming home run off Kahnle.) C.J. Abrams, their terrific young shortstop, had two hits, including a line drive home run, and looked good in the field. I’d say he’s ahead of our own young shortstop now, and probably will be miles ahead in the years to come.

These are the Yankees made in Brian Cashman’s image, placid, slow and stupid, and even when it all goes according to plan, it's not good enough.