Cody Bellinger isn’t pretending the slump feels any better than it looks.
After New York manager Aaron Boone gave him a day off Tuesday in hopes of snapping him out of it, Bellinger came back Wednesday and went 0-for-5 with two strikeouts in the Yankees’ 6-2, 11-inning loss to the Detroit Tigers. The rough night fit the larger picture around a team that has been searching for answers while Aaron Judge remains out.
Bellinger spoke bluntly about where things stand.
"It f------ sucks," Bellinger admitted about his performances. "It’s a sh----- feeling. You want to contribute, and when you’re not succeeding, it’s very frustrating."
The Yankees had hoped Bellinger could help absorb some of the blow after Judge started missing games on June 1 because of a stress fracture of the first rib on his right side. Instead, the club has kept sliding. New York entered Friday with a seven-game losing streak, and the numbers around the skid have been ugly: 23 unearned runs allowed over the last 12 games, plus just 23 hits in the last six contests.
Bellinger, though, said he isn’t trying to force anything or change the way he goes about his work.
"Baseball is hard enough, and then when you try to probably do more, it makes it even harder," Bellinger added during his comments. "I wake up to perform every day. No matter the lineup, I feel like I want to put my best foot forward."
The production line still shows some solid overall numbers. Bellinger began Friday hitting .254 with a .785 OPS, 11 home runs and 49 RBI on the season.
Judge’s absence keeps hanging over everything, and the outlook doesn’t sound especially close to changing. Before Wednesday’s game, Judge called out his teammates for "a little lack of focus." Then, per Ben Stinar of Heavy, ESPN’s Buster Olney said this week that "Judge is not close to getting back" and may not return to the big-league lineup until the "middle of August or the beginning of September" at the earliest.
With help unlikely to arrive before the All-Star break, the Yankees need someone to steady the ship now. That task falls in part to Bellinger and the rest of the lineup as New York opens a three-game home series against the Minnesota Twins (42-46) on Friday night.
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