How can Yankees snap out of slump? Four things New York needs to avoid historic collapse

With a month to go in the regular season, the New York Yankees are trying to avoid making history while Aaron Judge looks to make history. Judge has 53 home runs on the season, 17 more than any other player, and he is only eight home runs away from Roger Maris’ American League single-season record of 61 homers set in 1961. Judge has a real shot to break the record.

The Yankees, meanwhile, are trying to avoid blowing the largest division lead in baseball history. The “record” is a 13-game blown lead by the 1951 Los Angeles Dodgers. The Yankees led the AL East by 15 1/2 games on July 8. After dropping two of three to the Tampa Bay Rays this past weekend, New York’s division lead has been whittled down to only five games.

“If we don’t dig ourselves out, you’ll have a great story to write,” manager Aaron Boone told reporters, including MLB.com, over the weekend. Boone is certainly right about that. Here are the AL East standings since New York’s division lead peaked on July 8:

Incredibly, the Yankees are crashing while Judge is in the middle of what is at worst an MVP-caliber season, and at best a historic season that could see him rewrite the league’s home run record book. If the Yankees are collectively playing this poorly while Judge plays this well, can you imagine where they’d be without him? Oy vey.

Here are four things that must happen for the Yankees to snap out of their prolonged slump, win the AL East, and possibly even go on a deep postseason run.

1. Get healthy

The Yankees are not special. Every contender has injuries and, frankly, with their resources, the Yankees should be better able to overcome injuries than just about any other team. And they have overcome their injuries. Despite their recent efforts, they remain in first place in the AL East and have postseason odds at or near 100 percent per FanGraphs and SportsLine.

That all said, every team is…