After a dreary April, the Yankees started May in the same Albert Pujols Jersey fashion. An 8-7 lo s to the Red Sox at Fenway park Sunday completed a three-game weekend sweep and dropped New York to 8-15, last in the American League East and six games behind front-running Boston.

For everyone who has been waiting since 1992 for a losing Yankees team, this appears to be the chance. The question is how a team that made the playoffs last year, and returned almost entirely the same roster, could be this bad.

MORE:

The numbers for April spoke for themselves. The Yankees scored the fewest runs in the major leagues, had the fewest doubles and posted the fourth-lowest team OPS better than Custom Jersey only the Braves, Angels and Phillies.

A team that socked 212 home runs a year ago hit 22 in 22 April games, a decrease of 0.3 homers per game. Its not just about colder weather the Yankees hit 29 home runs in 22 April games last year, when they got off to a 13-9 start.

Power, though, is a red herring. If you want to know the reason for the Yankees offensive struggles, you only need to look at the top of the order, where Jacoby Ellsbury has gotten off to a miserable start to the third season of his seven-year, $153 million contract.

Last year, Ellsbury was so bad down the stretch, hitting .202/.254/.246 in the final month, that he was held out of the starting lineup for the wild card game. Even more glaringly, in the two-week stretch in early August when the Yankees went from six games up in the American League East to a half-game behind the Blue Jays, Ellsbury went 4-for-38 with three walks, 14 strikeouts and no stolen Don Sutton Jersey bases.

The Yankees have played nine games this year in which Ellsbury has gone without a hit, including one game in which he pinch-ran and did not get a plate appearance. In those nine games, New York has scored a total of 14 runs and gone 0-9.

When Ellsbury is hitting, the obvious benefit is that he is on base and able to score runs. What follows is that pitchers have to be more careful working to Brett Gardner, Maury Wills Jersey Carlos Beltran, Mark Teixeira and Alex Rodriguez. Those four have to own their April struggles, of course, but everything is better for the Yankees when Ellsbury is setting the tone at the top of the order and creating havoc.

MORE:

Also not excused is the Yankees starting rotation, which outside of Masahiro Tanaka has been dreadful, with the lowest ERA belonging to CC Sabathia at 5.06. The Yankees knew coming into the season that their starters were not reliable to go deep into games, but being unreliable, full stop, is another story.

At least with the rotationthere is reason to believe better times are ahead. The FIP numbers for Nathan Eovaldi and Luis Severino inspire some confidence, as does Michael Pinedas strikeout rate. Likewise, it would be a shock if Dellin Betances has another stretch as bad as the one hes currently in, having allowed home runs in each of his past three appearances, including tiebreaking blasts in the past two.

It was the combination of Eovaldi giving up six runs and Betances surrendering a moonshot to Christian Vazquez that doomed the Yankees on Sunday to their 15th Dylan Floro Jersey lo s in 23 games. What was more important to their hopes of turning this season around was that they scored seven runs (six against David Price, whos having his own struggles, but still is David Price), with Ellsbury smacking two doubles. Ellsburys second game with multiple extra-base hits this year, following an 8-5 win over Houston on April 7, matched his total of such performances from 2015.

The Yankees get Aroldis Chapman back from suspension in another week, and putting him at the back end of the bullpen with Betances and Andrew Miller makes the starters inability to go deep into games le s of an i sue. The challenge for New York will be to provide their Big Three with leads to protect. That job starts, Curtis Granderson Jersey as the Yankees lineup does, with Ellsbury.