But rest of Yankees offense goes quiet in loss to Rays
Rays bullpen held the Yankees to one run on five hits. The Bombers worked one walk and struck out 14 times. Brett Gardner’s second-inning home run, his third in as many games, was the Yankees only run.
Gardner is in a good place. He has hit 15 homers in 84 games this season, three more than he had 140 games last season. He is six dingers shy of the career-best 21 homers he hit in 2017.
“After winning the first two, it’s tough to go home with a split, but I think the first half, overall, has gone pretty well,” Gardner said. “We’ve played some good baseball, we’ve obviously dealt with some adversity. In the standings, we’re obviously in a pretty good spot.”
Despite being without Giancarlo Stanton, Miguel Andujar and Judge for significant parts of the season, the offense has been productive and prolific through 88 games, belting 149 home runs and homering in 36 of their last 37 games and 76 of the 88 so far this year.
The Yankees, however, couldn’t generate any other offense Sunday.
They were 0-for-4 with runners in scoring position and stranded five runners.
The Bombers had runners on the corners with no outs in the third, but despite having the top of the order up, could not push them over. Aaron Hicks and Aaron Judge both struck out, with Judge unhappy with a low strike call that got him out.
“Had a good opportunity in the one inning. I really thought Judgey worked a walk there, which is a big play in that game, obviously, and he gets rung up and we’re not able to score” Boone said. “We weren’t able to mount much the rest of the way. That’s gonna happen sometimes against these guys, so frustrating, but also it’s a part of it.”
The lack of offense spoiled one of James Paxton’s best starts since he missed 23 games on injured list after a knee injury. Paxton allowed two runs on seven hits over seven innings. He struck out 11, one shy of his season high.
He was burned by a big hit and a defensive mistake in the first inning. Travis d’Arnaud, the former Met who hit the walkoff homer for the Rays Saturday night, doubled to lead off and then scored on Tommy Pham’s double. Pham’s hard-hit ground ball got through the gap at second when Bryevic Valera, called up Sunday so the Yankees could rest DJ LeMahieu and Gleyber Torres, went to cover first base. That set Pham up to score the winning run on Avisail Garcia’s ground out.
And yet, despite two straight losses, Judge, who went 0-for-4 with three strikeouts Sunday, is confident the Yankees are headed in the right direction.
“We’re still missing an NL MVP (Stanton). We’re still without one of the best relievers in the game (Dellin Betances) and our ace, too, with Luis Severino. We’re only going to be adding more pieces as guys get healthy and once the trade deadline comes around, so we can only improve from here,” Judge said. “But we’ve got to stay focused and continue to play our game and we’ll be where we want to be at the end of the year.”