Yankees drop series to Red Sox with 10-inning loss as bats fail
One week removed from their first game without Aaron Judge, the Yankees lineup was still moving in slow motion.
On Sunday, their inability to muster much offense and a key miscue in the field wasted another strong start from Clarke Schmidt, resulting in a 3-2, 10-inning loss to the Red Sox at Yankee Stadium.
The Yankees (38-29) recorded only three hits off Red Sox right-hander Brayan Bello and none off their bullpen, with Boston (33-33) taking the rubber game in the teams’ first series of the season.
Since Judge last played a game and sprained his toe while slamming into the wall at Dodger Stadium — the reigning AL MVP still does not have a timeline for a return, with plenty of swelling remaining in his toe — the Yankees have scored just 21 runs in seven games, going 3-4 in that stretch.
The Yankees received three quality outings from their starting pitchers in the series — with Gerrit Cole, Domingo German and Schmidt combining for 17 ¹/₃ innings and giving up just four runs — and yet came away with just one win.
“It’s obviously frustrating — you don’t want to drop a series, especially at home, and obviously to these guys,” Schmidt said. “It’s definitely frustrating, but we pick our feet up and continue to move on and get ready for another big series coming up with the Mets.
Billy McKinney hits what was ruled a ground-rule double in the second inning. JASON SZENES FOR THE NEW YORK POST
“Obviously it’s a tough pill to swallow, but we got [the Red Sox] again in five days so we’ll be ready to go.”
The Red Sox took the lead in the top of the 10th inning off Ron Marinaccio when Kiké Hernandez shot a single through the left side to score Adam Duvall from third with one out.
The Yankees had the same scenario in the bottom of the 10th, but Chris Martin struck out Jose Trevino and Anthony Volpe to end it.
The game went to extra innings because of a sloppy eighth inning, into which the Yankees carried a 2-1 lead. Hernandez led off with a single to left field that Billy McKinney fielded cleanly, but his one-hop throw to second base bounced past Gleyber Torres, who did not make much of an effort to knock it down, allowing Hernandez to easily move up to second.
Clarke Schmidt pitched well for the Yankees on Sunday. JASON SZENES FOR THE NEW YORK POST
“The throw was perfect, I just tried to catch it really fast and maybe throw to first base,” Torres said. “It feels bad, because if I don’t make that error, [Hernandez is] on first and after that, maybe a double play.”
Instead, Michael King walked Reese McGuire and a sacrifice bunt later, the Red Sox had runners on second and third with one out. The Yankees played the middle of their infield back, allowing Jarren Duran to trade a groundout to second base for the tying run.
The Yankees also had a baserunning miscue from Anthony Rizzo, who was caught leading too far off of second base and made the final out of the sixth inning with DJ LeMahieu at the plate. Rizzo had walked, but otherwise went 0-for-3 and is now 0-for-22 over his last six games.
“Those are little mistakes, when we are playing low-scoring, tight games where those are separators sometimes,” manager Aaron Boone said. “A couple things today we didn’t do great.”
Gleyber Torres reacts after he strikes out swinging in the third inning. JASON SZENES FOR THE NEW YORK POST
Schmidt turned in a fifth straight solid start, giving up just one run (a solo home run to Justin Turner) across 5 ¹/₃ innings in which he struck out four and walked none. After working through some struggles early in the season, Schmidt now has a 2.33 ERA over his last five starts, keyed by his improved strike throwing and better controlling left-handed hitters.
The Yankees had given him a 2-1 lead with two outs in the second inning on a lucky bounce, as Jose Trevino’s ground ball up the middle hit off second base and ricocheted into the outfield to score a pair. But the offense otherwise went down quietly once again.
“Overall I thought we had some decent at-bats, but not enough to really ding [Bello],” Boone said. “He was kind of in control of the game and we just weren’t able to add on there.”
Source: New York Post
