The adversities become even greater for the New York Yankees in the “Subway Series”

Aaron Boone didn’t slam his hand on the desk in the visitors’ clubhouse at Citi Field quite as hard as he did on August 20, 2022, when he slammed his hand on the podium in the interview room at Yankee Stadium.

Instead, he fell back and calmly quoted some of his frequent quips, talking about the adversity every team experiences. And that’s exactly what the Yankees have been for the past two weeks: a team well above .500 and now facing sustained adversity for the first time.

And afterward, Aaron Judge spoke in a calm tone, just as you would expect, in a similar manner to how Derek Jeter spoke in the midst of difficult times during his playing career.

The adversity was compounded by two ugly games in Boston and an even more horrific performance in the Subway Series against the New York Mets. However, attention has waned somewhat with the NBA Draft and last night’s surprise trade of Mikal Bridges between the Nets and Knicks.

Even though the NBA is shifting its focus away from the regional sports scene, the struggles are palpable based on some of the final results. There was a 9-3 loss in Boston, then a 17-5 loss to the Baltimore Orioles on Thursday afternoon and an 8-1 loss to Atlanta the next night that took place behind a paywall for television viewers.

That loss was followed by a routine win for the Yankees, aside from Giancarlo Stanton’s hamstring strain that sidelined him for at least a month and may make the Yankees even more dependent on Aaron Judge and Juan Soto than ever before.

The reliance on the dynamic duo was evident in the two losses against the Mets. Judge and Soto combined to hit 5 of 10, with Judge getting four of those hits, while the rest of the Yankees combined to hit 4 of 50.

That’s what happens when virtually everyone stumbles at the same time. For more than two months, Alex Verdugo has been a smart backup and will likely continue to be, but in Yankee land, you’re only as good as you were last night, and he’s 3-for-26 hits in his last seven games.

Then there’s the case of Gleyber Torres, whose confusing season took a new turn when he had a hitless night and didn’t throw a ground ball, which everyone involved said was due to a groin injury. Still, it’s part of a season in which Torres will become a free agent, and it’s a player who once hit 38 home runs in 2019, including several against the Orioles, and who was about as steady and durable as a player in last season’s 82-win disaster.

These are some of the problems that are compounded as pitching faces its first major hurdle, producing the third-worst ERA (5.08) in baseball this month, ahead of only the Colorado Rockies and Arizona Diamondbacks. During that span, the Yankees have allowed 31 home runs and the second-most runs with 127.

That month began with an eight-game winning streak, and then Juan Soto’s forearm inflammation flared up, causing him to miss a thrilling series against the Dodgers. The Yankees seemingly rebounded from the series against the Dodgers by winning four of five games, culminating in Verdugo’s big return to Boston on June 14, but then two significant losses followed.

After tying the Orioles, the Yankees allowed 17 on Thursday afternoon, and concerns arose about rookie Luis Gil’s innings, which continued as he struggled in a 12-2 loss to the Mets that ranks among the worst of their 63 regular-season losses to their cross-town rivals.

Also thrown into the pitching mix are two starts from Gerrit Cole, who is theoretically still in spring training mode after missing two months due to inflammation of his right elbow that occurred in the middle of spring training.

The recent difficulties make the Yankees look similar to what they did in 2022, when they were essentially a .500 team by the All-Star break after winning 64 of their first 92 games, and now it will be interesting to see how they get through this first significant dry spell.

On the other hand, the Yankees are going through their worst stretch amid a remarkable turnaround by the Mets, who seemed to be at their end after falling 11 games under .500 following the win against the Dodgers and the various events that unfolded there.

Since then, they have an impressive 17-6 record. Despite having more talent than a group with a record well under .500, it didn’t look like an exciting streak was in the offing, and the hysteria over the presence of a fast-food chain mascot underscores that. It’s just as exciting as some of the games the Yankees won before they hit their first losing streak.

The Yankees are now a first-place team because they have figured out that the best time to slump is when the closest team has lost five games in a row. That’s exactly what happened to the Orioles after their 17-run victory before beating Cleveland.

It’s hard to say when hardship ends and prosperity begins, but the saga of the Yankees’ 1962 one-game season tells the two-week story of a struggling team that drives some of its fans crazy and frustrates itself with a series of unfortunate events.