Yankees Slouch Into Series with Red Sox

Dropping 2 out of 3, at home, to a team that began the season 3-23 is unacceptable. But that's what the Yankees did this week.

Both starting pitchers did their jobs last night. Nestor Cortes shook off a few subpar performances to go 7 innings, allowing 1 run on 4 hits and 1 walk. But, for the Cincinnati Reds, Luis Castillo also went 7 innings, and took a no-hitter into the 6th, finishing with 2 hits allowed.

Jonathan Loáisiga came off the Injured List, and Aaron Boone put him in for the top of the 8th inning. Unfortunately, he was betrayed by his defense, as a pair of misplays, both officially scored as hits rather than errors, led to 3 Cincinnati runs. He was bailed out in the bottom of the 8th, with a solo home run by Aaron Judge and a 2-run homer by Gleyber Torres. Then the Yanks loaded the bases, but couldn't get any more runs home.

Neither team scored in the 9th, and it was on to extra innings. Lucas Luetge had nothing, and allowed 3 RBI hits to make it 7-4 Reds. The Yankees began the bottom of the 10th with Giancarlo Stanton as the ghost runner, and Matt Carpenter hit a home run to close the gap to 7-6. But Torres popped up for the 1st out.

Joey Gallo drew a walk -- raising his on-base percentage to .290, although his 0-for-3 performance dropped his batting average to .164. Jose Trevino grounded into a force play for the 2nd out. Isiah Kiner-Falefa singled Trevino, the tying run, over to 2nd with the tying run. This make IKF, at 1st, the winning run. But DJ LeMahieu, the hero the previous night, had already ended the 7th and 8th innings, and now ended the 10th and the game by flying out to left.

Reds 7, Yankees 6. WP: Reiver Sanmartin (3-4). SV: Dauri Moreta (1). LP: Luetge (2-3).

Despite this poor performance, the Yankees remain in 1st place in the American League Eastern Division. They are 13 games ahead of the Tampa Bay Rays, 15 1/2 ahead of the Boston Red Sox and the Toronto Blue Jays, and 17 games ahead of the Baltimore Orioles, who have now won 10 in a row. The O's are 45-44, so the entire Division is over .500.

Now, the Red Sox come to town, in the last series before the All-Star Break, and the Yankees had better beat them. Here are the projected pitching matchups:

* Tonight, 7:05: Jordan Montgomery vs. former Yankee Nathan Eovaldi, whom general manager Brian Cashman let get away for nothing, as bad a non-transaction as any in Yankee history.

* Tomorrow, 7:15: Jameson Taillon vs. Nick Pivetta.

* Sunday, 1:35: Gerrit Cole vs. Chris Sale. This may prevent Cole from appearing in the All-Star Game, which is fine with me: The Yankees do not need to have their "ace" injured in an exhibition game.

If we take 2 out of 3 from The Scum, I'll stop caring that we dropped 2 out of 3 to Cincinnati.