SCRATCH & WHIFF
Britto starts for German, who comes in late, as Yanks fan 12 more times in ugly loss
The Yankees stumbled into Tuesday’s trade deadline day with a whimper, mixed with a dash of absurdity.
Hours after Domingo German was scratched from Monday’s start because of what manager Aaron Boone said was armpit discomfort, the right-hander suddenly appeared in the bullpen in the middle of the game and came on to pitch five scoreless innings.
The only problem for the Yankees was that Jhony Brito, who was called up from Triple-A to make a spot start in place of German, had already gotten shelled by the time German entered the game.
The Rays crushed four home runs in four innings off Brito while Tyler Glasnow cruised against the Yankees’ punchless offense, handing them a 5-1 loss in The Bronx.
According to Boone, German was cleared by team doctor Chris Ahmad in the five o’clock hour and then threw some warm-up pitches off a mound around 6:15 p.m., at which point German said he told the Yankees he could be available out of the bullpen. Boone said he did not consider starting German at that time because it was too close to the 7:08 p.m. first pitch.
The unusual development was fitting on a night when the Yankees (55-51) did little to convince the front office that it should buy ahead of Tuesday’s 6 p.m. trade deadline. Instead, the last-place team in the AL East could be at least in partial-sell mode, The Post’s Joel Sherman reported on Monday, indicating it would be open to discussing trades involving its pending free agents.
“I want to win,” Aaron Judge said after going 0-for-1 with three walks. “Whatever gets us closer to being a better team and winning, that’s why I’m here. That’s why everybody in this room is here, we want to win. I don’t know what’s going to happen; it’s out of our control.”
The Yankees, who remained 3 ½ games back of the final AL wild card while being leapfrogged by the Angels in the standings, mustered just three hits and failed to put up much of a fight. A night after striking out a season-high 18 times against the Orioles, Boone’s club piled up 12 punchouts against the Rays (65-44).
“It’s a broken record, we gotta be better,” Boone said. “It doesn’t get any easier. We’ve dug ourselves a hole and if we don’t play at a high level — we gotta get there and we’re working our asses off to do it. That’s all we can keep doing.”
Monday’s bizarre pitching situation began on Friday, when German first felt some armpit discomfort, he revealed Monday night. The righthander still threw a bullpen session on Saturday, but he began to feel it even more coming out of that and alerted the trainers on Sunday.
“It was kind of a combination of tightness and the lack of extension on the arm,” German said through an interpreter, noting he had not dealt with anything like it before.
That led to Brito being informed on Sunday night that he was needed in The Bronx.
When German arrived at the Stadium on Monday afternoon feeling a little better, he checked in with the trainers and was told he would not be starting and that he would be meeting with Ahmad later in the day. Boone had said before the game that the Yankees did not want to start German and risk having him exit early, especially a day after their bullpen had to cover 4 2/₃ innings on Sunday.
But once Ahmad ensured the Yankees that there were no structural issues with German’s armpit, the right-hander got himself ready to be available in relief.
The Rays, though, quickly pounced on Brito. Brandon Lowe hit a two-run homer in the top of the first inning, Wander Franco added a solo shot in the third and then Isaac Paredes and Josh Lowe went back-to-back in the fourth.
Glasnow, meanwhile, struck out eight across seven strong innings to keep the Yankees down.
“It’s on us,” Judge said. “It’s a game of adjustments and right now we’re just not making those crucial in-game adjustments that are going to help put us over the edge.”