3 Things We Learned From Yankees-Orioles Series

After finishing the month of April strong, the New York Yankees stumbled out the gate in May. They suffered a series loss in Baltimore where they have dropped three out of four against the Orioles.

New York is now 5-5 in its last 10 games. There have been many reasons to be concerned about this team, and those are the same reasons why they have dropped out of first place.

However, it doesn't get easier than this because the next couple of games are against solid teams such as the Detroit Tigers and Houston Astros. Detroit is 7-3 in their last 10 games, while Houston is slowly crawling its way back into the standings.

Here's what we learned from the Yankees' latest series against the O's.

1. Hitting Issues Need To Be Figured Out

Indeed, the hitting was the primary issue that cost the Yankees the series. They were held to just six runs for the entire series against Baltimore, which is a major concern for the team moving forward.

They were able to explode for 30 runs in the previous series against Milwaukee, but this offense remains incredibly inconsistent. At the moment, the player causing the most concern is Aaron Judge.

Judge has been struggling mightily since April. In 33 games this season, he has hit six homers and recorded 18 RBIs, but his strikeouts have been on the rise again, leading to a decline in his batting average. It's a matter of when Judge starts to heat up. The Yankees can't afford to let these struggles continue as the season progresses. Perhaps it's time to consider dropping him down in the batting order and have Juan Soto bat second.

Yankees manager Aaron Boone was asked today if he would consider moving Judge down the order and said "We'll see".

2. Pitching Continues To Look Decent Early On

It's fair to say that the pitching has been a bright spot, except for Wednesday afternoon's performance. Pitchers like Clarke Schmidt, Nestor Cortes, and Luis Gil have played a significant role in keeping the past three games close and winnable.

They have shown some heart in a tough series. Though Carlos Rodon has stepped up for the team recently, he just didn't have his best stuff this afternoon, resulting in the series loss.

More than holding their own while Gerrit Cole misses time due to injury, if the Yankees pitchers can keep up their impressive start, then this team could be going places.

3. Juan Soto's Hot Hitting Continues

It surely feels like we may see Juan Soto continue to bat above .300 for the rest of the season. His patience and discipline have been paying off, that's for sure.

Soto is riding a 10-game hitting streak, and nobody else in the lineup is playing on his level. He currently leads the team in every offensive category including batting average, home runs, RBIs, on-base percentage, and hits.

In this series against Baltimore, Soto did some serious damage against a pitching staff that is expected to be good for years to come. On Tuesday, despite the loss, he went deep against Dean Kremer, who got an unexpected stare-down.

Later in the postgame, Soto was asked about the staredown and said, "It's part of the game. We were going back and forth."

When you're on the roll Soto is on, you can get away with those kinds of things.

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