Yankees struggling rotation was main culprit during ugly rough patch

TORONTO — Give the Yankees this: as their hot start turned cold over the past two weeks, almost all of them have had a hand in it.Aside from Aaron Judge, the lineup has entered a collective slump, some worse than others.The bullpen has been in disarray.

A few key injuries have hurt both the lineup and pitching staff.But there might not be a more critical element of their skid than the rotation’s sudden spiral.The Yankees — who snapped their four-game skid with a 16-5 blowout win over the Blue Jays on Friday night — woke up on June 15 with the lowest starters’ ERA in the majors at 2.77 across 72 games, all of which they had done without Gerrit Cole.And the reigning AL Cy Young winner’s return was just days away, a scary thought for opponents as the rotation was primed to get even better.Instead, the following 11 games before Friday’s win were one big collective struggle, during which Yankees starters combined to post an 8.65 ERA — the highest in the majors during that stretch.

The Yankees were outscored 86-43 overall in those 11 games while going 2-9.Some of it could be chalked up to the ebb and flow of the season, but manager Aaron Boone admitted that was only part of it.“There’s also a few of us that have gotten popped in the mouth, too,” Boone said Friday at Rogers Centre.“You got to dig in and where there are little improvements and adjustments to be made, [make them].”Nestor Cortes and Marcus Stroman, who allowed three runs in 4 ¹/₃ innings in Friday’s win, have mostly been solid during this stretch.

But Carlos Rodon has turned in three straight clunkers, Luis Gil two and Gerrit Cole has had some bumps in two starts while still building his workload back up.“So these are all things that are fixable and in every case, capable of getting guys on track,” Boone said.“We just got to make those little subtle adjustments and then go out there and execute at a high level.

There’s no reason why we don’t flip that script right ...