NEW YORK -- Jay Bruce had seen enough. Having made the New York Yankees' Opening Day roster, he couldn't stomach his poor start to the season.
The latest tweets from @Yankees. The latest tweets from @TalkinYanks.
So the three-time All-Star outfielder decided to retire at age 34 after Sunday's 4-2 loss to Tampa Bay. Capt printer driver for mac os.
'Just the consistent underperformance for me,' he said. 'Felt like I wasn't able to do it at a level that was acceptable for myself.'
Bruce informed Yankees manager Aaron Boone of his decision during a 20-minute meeting in the manager's office on Friday, then made a public announcement before Sunday's game.
Bruce went to spring training with the Yankees on a minor league contract and made the major league roster as a first baseman when Luke Voit suffered a torn meniscus in his left knee, earning a $1.35 million one-year deal.
He is hitting .118 with one homer and three RBIs in 39 plate appearances, and he remained active for Sunday's game. He started the first eight games at first base but just two of the next seven.
Bruce has a .244 average with 319 homers and 951 RBIs in 14 major league seasons with Cincinnati (2008-16), the New York Mets (2016-18), Cleveland (2017), Seattle (2019), Philadelphia (2019-20) and the Yankees.
'I was so lucky to have set a standard for myself throughout my career that was frankly very good most of the time,' he said. 'And I don't feel that I'm able to do that, and I think that was the determining factor and in the decision. And I feel good about that decision and I feel thankful honestly to myself that I could be honest enough with myself to understand that it's time for this chapter to close.'
Bruce said his best memory was his game-ending inning homer off Houston's Tim Byrdak in 2010 that clinched Cincinnati's first division title since 1995.
'The weirdest part about that is that I was 23 at the time and I thought stuff like that happened all the time,' he said. 'To know that the single moment that I'm going to remember most of my career was 10 or 11 years ago now is pretty crazy. And looking back, it makes me appreciate everything else more because so much has happened since then. I've been included and around a lot of different, incredible situations.
'I saw Ken Griffey's Jr.'s 600th home run, been part of multiple no-hitters, big games, with the Indians won 22 games in a row. I hit the walk-off double to win the 22nd game. I didn't reach the top of the hill. I didn't reach the pinnacle. I didn't win that World Series, but that's OK.'
Bruce spent 43 games with the Indians in 2017 after he was acquired from the Mets in a trade.
'He's a great kid,' said Cleveland manager Terry Francona. 'He's a fun kid to have around. We were only with him for a couple months, but that doesn't mean you don't become fond of somebody. He was a pleasure to be around.'
His retirement decision will cost him $1,219,355 in salary for the remainder of the season. Bruce talked proudly of signing the autograph wall in the Yankees clubhouse, a feature at new Yankee Stadium, which opened in 2009. Copier printer scanner for mac os.
'I chose the Yankees because it is the New York Yankees and because I believe that the guys in that room are as capable or more capable than anyone of winning a World Series,' he said. 'I appreciate the opportunity that the Yankees gave me to come in and prove that I'm healthy enough to play. And even more than that, the staff here, they were just incredible in helping me work every single day to essentially learn a new position.'
Bruce isn't sure what he will do next.
'My son starts kindergarten in August, so I will be shuttle service at the very least,' he said. 'As far as baseball goes, I love baseball. I love it. Anyone who knows me knows that I am such a big fan of baseball. I always have been. I go home at night and I watch baseball. And some people think that's crazy. Some people think it's awesome. Who knows?'
Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.
It was a disastrous weekend at Yankee Stadium for the men in pinstripes.
In a boo-filled 8-2 loss on Friday to the Tampa Bay Rays, fans littered the field with baseballs and other objects in the eighth inning, creating a short delay. On Saturday, the New York Yankees couldn't solve Tyler Glasnow, and the Rays won 6-3. On Sunday, the fans even jeered Gerrit Cole when he walked off the mound after giving up a go-ahead double in the seventh inning to a struggling Yoshi Tsutsugo; the Rays won 4-2, and the Yankees left the field to another chorus of boos, rather than 'New York, New York.'
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/59659077/usa_today_10781860.0.jpg "Yankees twitter wallpaper")
First, give credit to Tampa Bay. The Rays are now 5-1 against the Yankees in 2021, after going 8-2 against them last season, plus a victory in the American League Division Series. Including that series, the Rays have now won seven series in a row against the Yankees, going back to their final showdown of 2019.
The Yankees' current problems go beyond the Rays just having their number, however. The Yankees own the worst record in the American League at 5-10, which is the most games into a season they've had the league's worst record since starting 9-17 in 1991. While the general rule in baseball is not to overreact to the first few weeks of the season -- as a reminder, the last time the Yankees started 5-10 was in 1997, and they ended up finishing 96-66 and making the playoffs -- you can look for patterns. It has to be concerning that the Yankees have struggled in the rotation, on defense and at the plate.
• The rotation woes have been documented. The starters have a 4.74 ERA; take out Cole and it balloons to 6.39. Mind you, Cole has started four of the team's 15 games or 27%. The ratio will drop to about 20% by season's end, assuming he starts 33 of 162.
• The current up-the-middle alignment of catcher Gary Sanchez, middle infielders Gleyber Torres and Rougned Odor and center fielder Aaron Hicks does not feel like a championship-level defense. The Yankees can work around that a little bit when Kyle Higashioka catches and eventually when DJ LeMahieu goes back to second base after Luke Voit returns.
• The big surprise is an offense hitting just .210/.296/.346. It's the lowest batting average for the Yankees through 15 games since 1968 and the lowest OPS through 15 games since 1973. Power is supposed to be the team's strength, but their opponents have more home runs (21 to 16) and more doubles (22 to 19).
The slow start prompted an apparent dressing down from manager Aaron Boone following Friday's loss. Asked about it after the game, Boone said, 'That's for in there.'
But outfielder Clint Frazier said, 'He's so chill that when he does address us, everyone should listen.'
Frazier said they would come out ready on Saturday; instead, the Yankees have now run their losing streak to five in a row.
'I'm frustrated, personally frustrated,' said LeMahieu, the 2020 AL batting champ who is hitting .288 with one home run. 'No one's going to feel sorry for us. No one's going to throw softer or throw easier for us. We've got to find it within ourselves to continue to get better and play the way we're capable of.'
While LeMahieu concluded the team was 'tight and pressing,' Cole seemed to take things a little more in stride, saying, 'You play this game long enough, you're going to go through some crap. Gotta put your boots on and wade through the mud.'
Yankees
Indeed, the 1997 Yankees are case in point. After that 5-10 start, they won eight of their next 10 to climb back over .500 before the end of April. Going back to 1996, here are the five best records from teams that started 5-10 or worse, courtesy of ESPN Stats & Information:
2001 A's: 102-60 (started 4-11)
2002 Angels: 99-63 (started 5-10)
2000 Giants: 97-65 (started 4-11)
2018 A's: 97-65 (started 5-10)
1997 Yankees: 96-66 (started 5-10)
On the other hand .. a lot more bad teams start 5-10, as you would expect. I looked at all teams that started exactly 5-10 from 1996 through 2019, with 62 teams all told. Their final average record was 73-89. Besides the three such teams listed above, only four others would win 90 games: the 2013 Indians (92-70) and Rays (92-71), the 2011 Red Sox (90-72) and the 2009 Rockies (92-70).
This Yankees team reminds me a little bit of the 2019 Boston Red Sox. Coming off a World Series title, that Red Sox squad got off to a sluggish start, 5-10 through 15 games and 9-15 through 24. In a sense, Boston never recovered from the slow start, falling seven games out of first place at the end of April and never getting closer than three games out of first the rest of the way, before finishing 84-78.
The Yankees are tied with the Rangers for the lowest OPS in the majors at .642. I'm confident the Yankees will not be in that position at season's end. Giancarlo Stanton, Frazier, Torres and Hicks are all hitting under .200. Getting Voit, the 2020 major league home run lead back, will help.
Torres is the hard one to figure out, after he hit 38 home runs in 2019 at age 22 and looked like a future star. He actually has improved his chase rate in both 2020 (from 31.3% to 20.1%) and again in 2021 (to 13.9%), and usually, better plate discipline leads to better numbers; instead, he is sitting there with zero home runs and one RBI. Maybe a more aggressive approach -- he swung at the first pitch more often in 2019 -- works better for him.
Anyway, it's 15 games into a very long season. Yankees fans are calling for Boone to be fired. Columnists are joking that Jay Bruce shouldn't have retired because he might have hit cleanup this week if Boone looked to shake things up. Twitter is filled with comments like, 'The Yankees are 5-10, but they seem worse' and 'I've been waiting literally my entire life for one bad Yankees season.'
Put this in your back pocket: The last time the Yankees had a losing season was 1992.
Staten Island Yankees Twitter
(And in mentioning that, it's now a lock the Yankees win 12 of 14 and move into first place on May 4. Thank me later, Yankees fans.)