It can always get worse.
One strike away from securing a much-needed victory, the Yankees instead fell further into a crushing losing streak.
After Clay Holmes blew a two-run lead with two outs in the top of the ninth inning, Tommy Kahnle gave up a two-run homer in the top of the 10th inning, handing the Yankees their fourth straight loss, 5-3 to the Red Sox on Friday night in the Bronx.
On a muggy night at the Stadium, interrupted by rain, the Yankees (54-36) were on the verge of an ugly victory.
They had committed two errors in the field, a costly blunder on the basepaths and had managed only five hits, all singles, before the ninth inning.
And that was almost enough before the Red Sox (48-39) came alive late in the game to send the Yankees to a 14th loss in their last 18 games.
“We’ve got to play better than that, for sure,” manager Aaron Boone said. “We understand that and we’re investing a lot in that. We’ve got to play clean baseball, especially when it’s tough and things are hard to come by. We’ve got to be better, period.”
Holmes got two outs in the ninth before former Mets player Dominic Smith extended the game with a pinch-hitter single.
That brought out Masataka Yoshida, who battled through an eight-pitch at-bat that ended with a game-tying, two-run home run to right field that silenced the sellout crowd of 47,158.
Ceddanne Rafaela then crushed a two-run home run off Kahnle to open the top of the 10th inning.
The Yankees saw the heart of their order prevail in the bottom of the 10th inning against Kenley Jansen.
Juan Soto led off with a single to put runners on the corners before Jansen got Aaron Judge and Alex Verdugo out on two pitches and Oswaldo Cabrera grounded out to end the game.
“Brutal,” Anthony Volpe, who assisted on the third-inning baserunner blunder, said of the past three weeks. “We play to win and we expect to win. No matter when we’re on a winning streak or when it’s like that, I think we have a really good clubhouse (that) stays balanced, is there every day. We trust each other, we trust each other and we know we have it all in front of us.”
“That said, we play to win. We expect to win, we’re the Yankees. But nobody gets discouraged.”
Just three weeks ago, the Yankees played the Red Sox in Boston and won the series opener to extend their record to 50-22, the best in MLB.
Since then, they have faded into a 4-14 stretch, their play generating more and more concerns by the day.
On Friday, that included an error on the base paths by Volpe and DJ LeMahieu in the third inning.
With runners on the corners and one out, Ben Rice hit a hard ground ball to first base, with Romy Gonzalez picking it up, stepping on first base and throwing it to second base for the double play.
But LeMahieu failed to get a run between first and second base, and Volpe wasn’t running home with much urgency – he thought the ball was foul, he said – allowing Rafaela to tag LeMahieu just before Volpe hit home to end the inning.
Still, the Yankees managed to take a 3-0 lead against Tanner Houck in the fourth inning.
The Red Sox right-hander lost control after a 38-minute rain delay in the middle of the third inning, allowing the Yankees to load the bases and score on an error, a walk and a groundout.
It looked like that might be enough to get by as Nestor Cortes went strong for six innings with one run remaining and Luke Weaver followed with two scoreless innings, including breaking out of a jam caused by two errors in the eighth.
And then, with two outs and two strikes in the ninth, three tough weeks became even more miserable, setting the stage for a devastating loss.
“There’s no denying it, it’s not like people don’t know,” Holmes said. “You know where we’re at. I think people feel it and you want to be the guy that helps the team win that night. It’s just about refocusing, knowing where we’re at and making sure we do our job.”
News Source : nypost.com
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