Juan Soto and the Yankees aim for a better July, starting with the Reds series

The New York Yankees capped off a mixed June by surviving an injury scare for Juan Soto and avoiding another series loss.

After going 14-13 in June and losing sole possession of the AL East lead, the Yankees hope to bounce back in July by hosting the Cincinnati Reds on Tuesday night to open a three-game series.

After their 8-1 win at Boston on June 14, the Yankees were up 50-22 and 3 1/2 games in the division, but finished the month with 10 of 14 losses, including seven losses by three or more runs. That led to them losing four straight series before reaching a four-game tie with the host Toronto Blue Jays with an 8-1 win on Sunday.

Soto hit a .275 batting average in his third month as a Yankee and missed four games due to injury. He sat out a June 7-9 series with the Los Angeles Dodgers because of left forearm inflammation, missed Saturday’s 9-3 loss because of a right hand contusion and was not in the original lineup Sunday before declaring he was fit to play.

Soto singled in the first inning just before Aaron Judge hit his 31st home run, the most in a major league. Judge’s home run capped a month in which he batted .409 and scored 37 runs, raising his MLB high to 82.

“Especially considering the climate we’re in right now, it’s nothing like what we’ve experienced before,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said of Soto and Judge. “What he and Juan are doing as a tandem is hard to comprehend.”

The Reds head to New York with 10 losses in 15 games after Jonathan India and Stuart Fairchild had their only two hits in a 2-0 loss to the St. Louis Cardinals on Sunday. Before this stretch, the Reds had won 14 of 19 games from May 24 to June 14, but Sunday highlighted their inconsistency at the plate.

Cincinnati scored 20 runs on 29 hits in its two wins in the four-game series, but also conceded two blanks and had six hits in its two losses to the Cardinals.

India has been one of Cincinnati’s most consistent hitters of late, with a .489 batting average (22-for-45) during a 12-game hitting streak that included eight straight multi-hit games before Sunday.

“I’m looking at all areas of our game, as I do every day, to find ways to improve in every area,” Reds manager David Bell said. “I know we haven’t been able to score goals in two games this series, so we just need to figure out how to get better in those situations and that’s what we’re going to do.”

The Reds’ next attempt to improve at the plate will come against rookie Luis Gil (9-3, 3.15 ERA), who allowed 12 runs on 12 hits in 5 2/3 innings in the devastating losses to the Baltimore Orioles and New York Mets after winning his previous nine games.

Gil, facing the Reds for the first time in his career, will face Graham Ashcraft (4-4, 5.45), who returned to the rotation after being demoted to Triple-A Louisville.

Ashcraft struggled in his return in a 6-1 loss to the Pittsburgh Pirates on Wednesday, allowing six runs on nine hits in 5 1/3 innings.

Ashcraft’s only start against the Yankees on July 12, 2022 in New York ended in a no-decision. He allowed three runs on seven hits in five innings before the Reds scored four runs in the ninth inning to take a stunning 4-3 victory.

–Field level media