UH-O’S! YANKS IN FUNK
Bombers trail Sox by 3.5 after bad loss to Birds
BALTIMORE – The Yankees are playing down to their competition. The Red Sox aren’t. And if all these losses to the lowly Orioles end up costing New York the AL East division title, the team will only have itself to blame.
For the second straight day, the Bombers blew a two-run lead, played sloppy baseball and lost to an awful Baltimore club that is 40 games under .500 but 5-4 versus New York.
And with Boston winning its eighth straight on Tuesday, the Yankees are now 3.5 games behind their hated rivals in the division race.
“I wish we knew,” Aaron Judge said following his team’s 6-5 loss when asked why the O’s somehow have the Bombers’ number this year.
“If I knew, we’d be able to stop them.”
There’s plenty of blame to go around.
For starters, after sticking with CC Sabathia too long on Monday, Aaron Boone did the same with Masahiro Tanaka on Tuesday.
The result was the same: a gamechanging blast.
Tanaka, pitching for the first time in a month after being out due to injured hamstrings, wasn’t sharp during a 40pitch fourth inning in which he allowed two runs, bringing his pitch count to 74.
But after the Yankees took a 3-2 lead on Greg Bird’s clutch three-run homer, Boone wanted Tanaka, who was on a pitch count of 80, to get a couple more outs and save the bullpen a bit.
“Having a couple guys still down in the pen and knowing we had (Jonathan) Holder for (a) short (appearance), we just wanted him to clean up an inning if we could and then turn it over to the backend (of the bullpen),” Boone said. “We felt he could get a couple more outs.”
Manny Machado, who would look good in pinstripes, made Boone pay when he blasted Tanaka’s first pitch of the fifth 444 feet to tie the game at 3-3.
“I can’t do that,” said Tanaka, who has given up 17 homers and pitched to a 4.68 ERA. “I have no excuse for that.”
Machado, a potential trade target of several teams including the Bombers, wasn’t done either.
Two innings later, he took Chad Green deep to right for a two-run shot that once again tied the game at 5-5.
“With a hitter like that, you can’t miss in the zone,” Green said.
In the top of the ninth, Didi Gregorius tried to advance to second on a pitch in the dirt by Zach Britton, a heads-up attempt to get into scoring position, but was thrown out on a close play. It appeared Gregorius may have gotten his hand in before the tag, but the Yankees’ challenge failed.
Then, in the bottom half, Dellin Betances came in and hit No. 9 hitter Caleb Joseph after the previous pitch, which appeared to be strike three, was called a ball. The Orioles ultimately loaded the bases. And with two outs, Jonathan Schoop hit a sharp grounder that Greg Bird couldn’t handle at first, allowing Baltimore to walk off a winner. Bird was screened a bit by the runner at first and tried to put himself in the proper position, but the ball skipped over his glove. A tough play, but one he should probably have made anyway.
“It’s a play I want to make,” Bird said. “I just came up short. I didn’t get my glove there in time.”
In truth, Bird had given the Bombers a chance to win this one with his bat, collecting a career-high tying four RBI. And with the way he was struggling at the plate, his ability to turn on a 96-mph fastball from Andrew Cashner and blast it out of the ballpark was extremely encouraging.
Still, this was another bad night for the Yankees overall.
It’s tough to say about a team that is 59-31 and 34-16 versus .500-plus opponents.
But that’s how it is, with the Red Sox continuing to win and make every game that much more significant as both teams look to capture the AL East and avoid the do-or-die wild card game.
Despite how well they’ve played overall, the Yankees aren’t doing themselves any favors with performances like this, which may end up earning them a difficult matchup against James Paxton.
Even worse, Sonny Gray will have to try and play stopper on Wednesday.