The murmurs transitioned to grumbles before blooming into a blend that sounded part exasperation, part boos.
The fan frustration showering the Yankees was far louder than their bats.
The Yankees lineup has gone AWOL, an out-of-nowhere stretch of silence in three consecutive shutouts.
The team-wide funk deepened Tuesday, when they pushed their scoreless streak to 29 consecutive innings during a 4-0 loss to the Angels in front of 35,278, who tried their best to voice their displeasure over the blaring speakers in The Bronx.
A team that had scored the most runs in the American League (370) after Saturday’s defeat in Boston has not added to that total since.
The Yankees (42-30) have lost a season-high five straight games because a group that has more effective hitters than lineup spots has simultaneously gone frigid.
“We are one of the best offenses in the league,” manager Aaron Boone said after the club was held scoreless in three straight games for the first time since September 2016. “We’ve had a tough few days. Today I thought maybe we were pressing a little bit.”
Aaron Judge has found his first slump of the season, 3-for-24 with 15 strikeouts in his past seven games after another hitless, three-K performance Tuesday.
Boos were heard after his strikeout to end the eighth, though those boos had begun to pop up after every failed frame.
The bats around him have followed their leader.
The Yankees finished with four hits and crucially zero that amounted to anything: After a night they left six more on base, the Yankees have gone 1-for-26 with runners in scoring position over the three shutouts.
“It’s going to happen,” said Will Warren, who showed off his best stuff of the season in defeat. “But like we said, it’s one of the best offenses in the league.”
Slumps happen, but no Yankees team ever has not scored a run in four straight games.
The Yankees talked to one another in the clubhouse after what may have been a rock bottom in a season that barely even saw a dip before last week.
The message that resonated: Do not abandon the habits that made their bats the AL’s best before this nosedive.
“Just remembering who we are and continuing to stick with our approach,” said Cody Bellinger, 2-for-20 during the five-game skid.
“I don’t think there’s any reason to change up what we were doing before,” said Austin Wells, 1-for-his-past-14. “I think it’s just part of the season.
“Mentally you try not to panic when you go three games without scoring. But it’s 162 games.”
They had a chance in the first inning, when Bellinger reached second base on a hustle double.
That chance was wasted when Giancarlo Stanton grounded out.
They had a chance in the third, when new-look leadoff hitter Jasson Domínguez looped a single into center and stole second.
But with two outs, Bellinger flied out, and the groans from the crowd intensified.
The Yankees only reached second base again with two outs in the ninth inning, when Paul Goldschmidt struck out and the loudest boos were heard.
“It’s always shocking to see our group not score runs, right, especially a few days in a row,” Boone said, and the degree of shock is raised because of the competition.
This time it was 35-year-old Kyle Hendricks who shut down the Yankees over six innings in which he struck out nine — his most since all the way back on Sept. 18, 2020.
The righty entered play with a 5.20 ERA in his first 13 starts in which he punched out just 5.58 per nine innings.
It is not as if the Yankees have run into a buzzsaw of Cy Young Award winners during this stretch, held down in order by: Brayan Bello, Brennan Bernardino, Garrett Whitlock, José Soriano, Reid Detmers, Kenley Jansen, Ryan Zeferjahn, Brock Burke, Hunter Strickland, Hendricks, Zeferjahn, Detmers and Strickland.
“It’s been a fight,” Bellinger said. “Obviously we’re not getting the job done with runners in scoring position. We’re not getting a lot of base runners. We’re not causing traffic.
“We got to keep going and wake up tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow” kept popping up for a team that wanted to forget about today and two yesterdays.
“We’ll come in with the right process and just really focus on grinding out quality at-bats,” Boone said, “and when we start to stack those, we’ll take off.”