Yankees' Paul Goldschmidt rips himself as worrisome slump continues

Slugger Paul Goldschmidt is one of several players who have too often failed to produce for the New York Yankees lineup amid the team's struggles that began around the middle of June. 

Specifically, Goldschmidt went 0-for-4 with four strikeouts in Tuesday's 6-4 loss at the Tampa Bay Rays to become just the eighth Yankee since 1970 to endure an 0-for-30 in-season slump. While speaking with reporters after the defeat, Goldschmidt didn't dance around his at-the-plate issues. 

Paul Goldschmidt owns his "terrible" outing vs. the Rays

"Obviously, the performance [Tuesday], especially, was terrible," Goldschmidt admitted, per Gary Phillips of the New York Daily News. "I try to be more positive than that, but you strike out four times, and there’s guys on base, just a really a bad performance. And [Monday] night, it was the same. So just haven’t played well this last week-plus."

Of course, Goldschmidt was just one person responsible for the fact that the Yankees struck out 17 times as a team and 12 times through five innings on Tuesday night. Since June 25, the Yankees have gone 2-10 to fall to 50-41 on the season. According to StatMuse, they slashed .164/.220/.295 with a .515 team OPS over those 12 contests. 

"There’s no excuses," Goldschmidt continued. "I have not played well. I wish I had an answer. When you strike out every time in a game, you don’t really have exactly one thing [that’s off]. It was a combination of things." 

Paul Goldschmidt offers advice to self, teammates amid woes

The Yankees need Goldschmidt and others to pick things up sooner rather than later, as captain Aaron Judge will seemingly remain out of action until at least the middle of August due to a stress fracture of the first rib on his right side. Judge hasn't played since May 31, and his teammates could use the All-Star break to arrive sooner than this coming Sunday. 

"You gotta keep pushing and just be ready to go," Goldschmidt added during his comments, per Adam Zagoria of NJ Advance Media. "Can’t carry over any bad things for me individually to the next day. I don’t feel like I’ve done that, but obviously, the performance hasn’t gotten better. As a team, same way. We haven’t carried it over, but we also haven’t played our best..."

The Yankees will once again play at the 53-36 Rays on Wednesday night.