Paxton stumbles again in loss to Rockies

NEW YORK — For all the talk of an imminent turnaround, James Paxton has not been much of an improvement over Sonny Gray for the New York Yankees.

Paxton allowed a leadoff home run for the second straight outing when Charlie Blackmon shook out of a slump with the first of his four hits, starting the Colorado Rockies to an 84 win on Sunday that halted a sixgame skid and New York’s fivegame winning streak.

Blackmon had been 1 for 9 with four strikeouts in the first two games of the series before hitting the third leadoff homer against Paxton this season, after Baltimore’s Jonathan Villar on April 4 and Tampa Bay’s Travis d’Arnaud last Monday. Paxton (55) has a 10.06 ERA in the first inning, allowing eight home runs, and has given up runs in the opening inning in seven of his last nine starts. His ERA after the first is 2.75.

“I can’t be going out there and giving up runs every first inning,” he said. “I’m continuing to play with things and try to figure things out so that I don’t have that keep happening.”

Gray was 77 with a 5.34 ERA at this point last season, was dropped from the rotation in early August and traded to Cincinnati in January after the Yankees determined he didn’t have the makeup to pitch in New York.

Acquired from Seattle last November after going 2311 over his previous two seasons, Paxton has failed to finish five innings seven times in 17 starts and has a 4.20 ERA overall, which might lead the Yankees to seek more starting pitching ahead of the July 31 trade deadline.

Manager Aaron Boone attributed Paxton’s difficulty against the Rockies to falling behind batters, poor defense, heat on the second straight 94degree day at Yankee Stadium and softly hit balls dropping in for hits.

Paxton gave up seven runs — four earned — five hits and three walks in 31⁄3 innings, and is winless in five starts since June 21.

“It does seem like it takes a little bit to get his stuff really, really popping,” Boone said. “I think overall he’s been good for us. … I view him as a guy that we’re going to lean on heavily down the stretch and hopefully in October.”

DJ LaMahieu homered on the first pitch from German Marquez (95) in the bottom of the first, Mike Tauchman went deep in the fifth and Aaron Hicks hit a tworun drive in the eighth off Scott Oberg. The Yankees had not allowed and then hit a leadoff homer in the same game since Aug. 17, 2006, when Baltimore’s Brian Roberts started against Jaret Wright, and Johnny Damon connected off Rodrigo Lopez.

New York (6434) headed on a trip to AL Central leader Minnesota and Boston with a ninegame AL East lead after a 73 homestand.

Blackmon went 4 for 5, Nolan Arenado hit a tiebreaking, tworun double and David Dahl added a tworun single in the third, when three runs were unearned because first baseman Luke Voit allowed Tony Wolters’ sacrifice bunt to bounce off his glove for an error. After Blackmon’s single chased Paxton in the fourth, Trevor Story greeted Chad Green with a tworun double for a 71 lead.

“I think it was just a little bit of fatigue, just wasn’t seeing the ball good for a little while,” Blackmon said. “We needed that. We needed to put a couple of runs early.”