Yanks Drop Finale vs. Twins, Face Showdown With Rays

Ordinarily, the Yankees dropping the last game of a series after winning the 1st 3 wouldn't be a big deal. Especially against the Minnesota Twins, not a Division rival, or one for the top Playoff spot in the American League. But, at this point, they need all the wins they can get. And last night's game was lost in a way we have seen all too often these last 13 years of failure.

Nestor Cortes made his return from the Injured List. The organization didn't want to overdo it with him, so they only let him go into the 5th inning, throwing 58 pitches, although 41 of them were for strikes. He allowed 2 runs on 2 hits, and no walks.

But it does seem to be a frequent occurrence that former Yankees come back to play well against them. Last night, it was Sonny Gray's turn. Gray did not do well with the Yankees, but allowed just 2 runs in 6 innings, the runs coming on a home run by Miguel Andújar.

Clarke Schmidt finished the 5th inning, and kept it 2-2 through the 6th and the 7th. Aaron Boone sent Wandy Peralta to pitch the 8th, and hurt himself by making an error. Boone panicked, and took Peralta out after the minimum 3 batters. He brought in Greg Weissert, who may be the poster child for fans who say that, for a pitcher, wins and losses are a meaningless stat. The 1st batter he faced was former Houston Astro cheater Carlos Correa, who hit a home run off him to make it 4-2 Minnesota. Although Weissert now has a 1.174 WHIP to go with his 3-0 record, he also has an 8.22 ERA.

Aaron Judge led off the bottom of the 8th with a double. Gleyber Torres drew a walk. The Yankees were in business. Isiah Kiner-Falefa grounded into a forceout: He was safe at 1st, Torres was out at 2nd, and Judge was safe at 3rd. IKF stole 2nd. But Marwin González struck out. Andújar drew a walk, and ball 4 was a wild pitch, scoring Judge. But Giancarlo Stanton, clearly not ready to come back from injury, struck out.

Since the 2009 World Series win, there have been so many Yankee games lost due to managers Boone and Joe Girardi messing up the bullpen, or to key players being injured, or to key players coming back from injury too soon, or (as with last night) to some combination thereof.

Ryan Weber got into a little trouble in the top of the 9th, but worked out of it. In the bottom of the 9th, Jose Trevino grounded to 3rd. Oswald Peraza singled to left. Aaron Hicks doubled to right, but Peraza had to hold at 3rd: Had he tried to score the winning run, he would have been out at the plate. With 1st base open, Judge was intentionally walked. Torres struck out, and IKF grounded to 2nd.

Twins 4, Yankees 3. WP: Griffin Jax (6-3). SV: Michael Fulmer (3). LP: Peralta (2-4: He put the 3rd run on base, although it was Weissert who allowed him to score).

This loss drops the Yankees to 4 1/2 games ahead of the Tamp Bay Rays in the American League East, but only 3 in the loss column. And 5 1/2 behind the Astros, 6 in the loss column, for best record in the AL.

Tonight, the Rays come into Yankee Stadium for a huge series. Here's the projected pitching matchups:

* Tonight, 7:05, on Amazon Prime Video: Frankie Montas vs. Drew Rasmussen.

* Tomorrow, 1:05, on YES: Jameson Taillon vs. Corey Kluber.

* Sunday, 1:35, on YES: Neither team has yet announced a starter.

Yanks Take Extra-Inning Opener with Twins

Last night's rainout at Yankee Stadium forced a day-night doubleheader with the Minnesota Twins for today. Here's the details on the opener:

Domingo Germán started for the Yankees, and pitched decently, going 6 innings, allowing 3 runs on 7 hits and 1 walk, striking out 6. Wandy Peralta pitched a perfect 7th. Jonathan Loáisiga pitched a scoreless 8th. And Clay Holmes pitched a scoreless 9th.

But the Twins took a 2-0 lead in the top of the 1st, and increased it to 3-0 in the 4th. Time for "Here come da Judge." Aaron Judge hit his 55th home run of the season. That's 1 more than Mickey Mantle ever hit in a season, 1 more than Alex Rodriguez hit in his best season as a Yankee, 8 more than Lou Gehrig's peak, and 9 above Joe DiMaggio's. The only Yankees with more home runs in a season are Roger Maris with 61 in 1961, and Babe Ruth with 60 in 1927 and 59 in 1921.

Gleyber Torres tied the game with a home run in the 6th. And 3-3 it stayed, forcing extra innings. Holmes stranded the ghost runner in the top of the 10th. In the bottom of the 10th, 2 rookies from Venezuela named Oswald had their chance: Shortstop Oswald Peraza, age 22, reached on an error; but Oswaldo Cabrera, 23, grounded into a double play.

Incidentally, Peraza was born on June 15, 2000. This makes him the 1st Yankee born in a year starting with a 2 -- and, unless you're one of these fools who says that it began on January 1, 2001, the 1st Yankee born in the 21st Century. As if I didn't feel old enough already.

And this game may have given me a gray hair or two. Ron Marinaccio pitched a 1-2-3 11th. Judge led off the bottom of the 11th. Since 1st base was open, and his run meant nothing, and Twins manager Rocco Baldelli is not a masochist, he had Judge intentionally walked. Then Torres was unintentionally walked, to load the bases with nobody out. The Yankees were in business.

But Ronald Guzmán, another newcomer (but not a rookie: The 27-year-old Dominican debuted in 2018 with the Texas Rangers), grounded into a 1st-to-home-to-1st double play. And Marwin González grounded out.

Bases loaded, nobody out, and we got nothing -- yet.

Cliché Alert: Walks can kill you, especially the leadoff variety. Marinaccio walked the leadoff batter in the top of the 12th, and allowed a go-ahead single. Greg Weissert came in to put out the fire, but it was 4-3 Minnesota.

González was the ghost runner for the bottom of the 12th. Isiah Kiner-Falefa singled him home to tie it. Estevan Florial struck out. He's now 1-for-20 at the major league level this season. But Jose Trevino singled, loading the bases with 1 out. Peraza flew out, not deep enough to score IKF. But Cabrera looped a hit to short left-center, and IKF scored the winning run.

Yankees 5, Twins 4. WP: Weissert (3-0, which is deceiving, given that his ERA is 7.36). No save. LP: Trevor Megill (3-3).

Game 2 follows.

Winning Is Welcome

It's too soon to say that the Yankees have snapped out of their 2-month funk. It is right on time, however, to say that these last 2 wins have been welcome.

Jameson Taillon started, and went 5 innings, and for the 1st 4 innings, he was fine, pitching shutout ball, allowing 2 hits and a walk, and there was also an error. He had a 2-0 lead, because Aaron Judge doubled in the 1st inning, and was singled home by Josh Donaldson (but he was out trying to stretch it to a double, which could have come back to haunt us); and Marwin González, uncharacteristically, hit a home run in the 3rd.

But Taillon began the top of the 5th by giving up a walk and a home run -- to former Yankee Gary Sánchez. (It's not always the ex-Yankees who do it to us, but it happens a lot.) He got into more trouble, but Aaron Boone trusted him to get out of it, and he did. Maybe there's a lesson there.

In the 6th, Judge hit a home run, his 54th of the season. He's now on a pace for 65. In the 7th, Isiah Kiner-Falefa hit a home run, his 2nd of the season. He's now on a pace for 3.

Greg Weissert pitched a scoreless 6th. He and Wandy Peralta pitched a scoreless 7th. Peralta pitched a scoreless 8th. Clay Holmes pitched a 1-2-3 9th.

Yankees 5, Twins 2. WP: Weissert (2-0). SV: Holmes (19). LP: Trevor Megill (3-2).

The series continues, but not tonight: The nasty weather from earlier has already postponed today's game, setting up a doubleheader for tomorrow. The Yankees have Domingo Germán going in the opener, and Gerrit Cole in the nightcap. As of this writing, the Twins haven't announced their starting pitcher for either game.

Yanks' Best Pitcher In Horrible Loss to Rays Is Marwin González

The Yankees began September the way they played most of July and pretty much all of August: Making complete fools of themselves.

It didn't start out that way: Domingo Germán started the opener of this more-important-than-it-should-have-been series away to the Tampa Bay Rays, and allowed 1 unearned run on 5 hits and 1 walk over the 1st 6 1/3rd innings.

Unfortunately, the Yankees didn't hit, again: They wasted men on 1st & 2nd in the 1st inning, went down 1-2-3 in the 2nd, wasted men on 1st & 2nd with 1 out in the 3rd, wasted a man on 1st in the 4th, wasted 1 leadoff double and a 1-out walk in the 5th, wasted 1st & 2nd in the 6th, and went down 1-2-3 in the top of the 7th. It was 1-0 Rays at the stretch.

Germán got the 1st out in the bottom of the 7th, then he walked a batter. You know the Cliché about what walks can do: The next batter hit a home run. It was 3-0 Rays, and, while Germán still hadn't pitched badly, it felt like game over.

And it was. The Yankees went down 1-2-3 in the 8th. And then Greg Weissert fell apart in the bottom of the 8th, allowing 2 runs. Aaron Boone brought Anthony Banda in, and he imploded, allowing walk, bases-loading single, bases-loaded walk, bases-loaded walk, 2-run single, and finally he hit a batter. Boone actually sent a position player in to pitch at this point: Marwin González, who finally got the 3rd out.

Aaron Hicks hit a single with 1 out in the top of the 9th, but it wasn't followed up. Rays 9, Yankees 0. WP: Jeffrey Springs (7-4). No save. LP: Germán (2-3).

Here are the career earned run averages of the pitchers the Yankees used last night: Germán, 4.36; Weissert, 10.13; Banda, 5.64; Marwin González, 0.00. He had previously pitched a full scoreless inning for the Boston Red Sox in 2021.

Aside from Germán, there is no reason for any of those men to ever pitch for the Yankees again.

The Yankees, once in 1st place in the American League Eastern Division by 15 1/2 games, are now just 5 games ahead of the Rays, 4 in the all-important loss column. And they are 6 games behind the Houston Astros for home-field advantage in the Playoffs. There are 30 games to go.

After the game, Boone said, "It's just embarrassing when you get beat like that and you're going through the struggles you are. I'm in charge of this team, what we're going through right now, I know better than anyone, there's going to be hard moments and hard times. I do think the effort is there, I think the care is there. But, we've set a much better standard in that room that we've got to start living up to it."

No shit, Sherlock.

The series continues tonight. Clarke Schmidt, who shouldn't be starting for the Yankees, does, against Corey Kluber, who should be starting for the Yankees, except Brian Cashman let him go. And you know what happens when Cashman lets a pitcher go, most notoriously with Nathan Eovaldi. I can feel another unacceptable loss coming on.

Yankees Win, But Sustain Another Injury

At the rate the Yankees are going, they're going to go into the Playoffs with no starting pitchers at all.

Jameson Taillon started last night's game against the Los Angeles Angels in Anaheim, and he only pitched 2 innings, allowing 2 runs, before he had to leave the game due to an injury. So, who's left to start? Gerrit Cole and a cast of thousands?

So how many Yankee pitchers did it take to finish off the win? 7. The last of them was Wandy Peralta. And he didn't blow it.

At any rate, those 7 pitchers got the run support they needed. Andrew Benintendi hit a home run in the 1st inning, Anthony Rizzo hit one in the 2nd, and Aaron Judge hit one in the 5th, his 51st of the season. He's on a pace for 63.

Yankees 7, Angels 4. WP: Greg Weissert, who pitched the 3rd and 4th innings, both of them perfect, and was credited as the winning pitcher, his 1st major league win (so, 1-0). No save. LP: Mike Mayers (1-1).

The series continues tonight. The aforementioned Gerrit Cole starts against Patrick Sandoval. If we're lucky, he'll leave the game under his own power.

 

Yankees Start Roadtrip Right With Blowout of Oakland

At first, it looked like the Yankees were not starting their long roadtrip off on the right foot, because Nestor Cortes was placed on the 15-Day Injured List. So, 3 turns in the rotation in which "Nasty Nestor," our best starting pitcher over the 1st half of the season, won't be starting.

The more cynical among us suggested that Yankee management was simply lying, saying that Cortes isn't actually hurt, and this is a method of what the NBA calls "load management," to limit his innings pitched.

Nestor Cortes is a man. He is not a child. Limiting his innings is not protecting his arm. It is preventing him from participating in the winning of baseball games, and forcing the Yankees to use a starting pitcher of lesser quality in those games.

But this may have been balanced out by the return from the Injured List, finally, of Giancarlo Stanton. He was out from July 24 to August 24, and his absence was a big reason why the Yankees went just 11-17 over that stretch.

Anyway... (And by the way: Notice that there is no S on the end. People saying, "Anyways" instead of "Anyway" is one of my pet peeves.)

Last night, the roadtrip began at the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum, or whatever they're currently calling Major League Baseball's least-maintained stadium. Jameson Taillon started, and he went 6 innings, allowing 1 run on 6 hits and 2 of my favorite words in the baseball lexicon: No walks. The only run he allowed was a solo home run in the 6th, by Shea Langeliers, which sounds like the name of the villain in a horror film in which the Yankees are targeted.

I guess I can now issue a Cliché Alert, given that I've now used this saying often enough: That kind of pitching deserves run support. In the top of the 2nd, the Yankees got 4 hits, including 2-run singles from both Stanton and Isiah Kiner-Falefa, and 2 walks, giving them a 4-0 lead.

In the 3rd, the Yankees got 3 hits, including an RBI double from Josh Donaldson, and 4 walks, including Stanton drawing one with the bases loaded. That made it 8-0. There were 2 more in the 4th, including an RBI double by Jose Trevino. 10-0. The homer made it 10-1, but in the 7th, the Yankees got singles from Anthony Rizzo and Gleyber Torres, and RBI doubles from Donaldson and Oswaldo Cabrera, and it was 13-1.

Greg Weissert made his major league debut in the bottom of the 7th. There's a reason this righthanded pitcher from Bay Shore, Long Island, New York didn't make it to the majors until he was 27 years old: He can't pitch. Here comes the Bride: The 1st batter he ever faced was Jonah Bride, and he hit Bride with a pitch. Next up was Skye Bolt, which sounds like a superhero name. I hope one of his powers is invulnerability, because Weissert hit him with a pitch, too. He got Nick Allen to fly out, but he walked Tony Kemp to load the bases, and walked Vimael Machine to force in a run.

Aaron Boone finally realized that letting Weissert on the mound was a big mistake. He brought in Lucas Luetge, and he wasn't much better. He got Sean Murphy to pop up, but hit Seth Brown with a pitch to force in another run, and gave up a single to Langeliers that let in another run, before getting David MacKinnon to ground out.

Luetge did pitch a 1-2-3 8th, and a scoreless 9th. Yankees 13, A's 4. WP: Taillon (12-4). No save. LP: James Kaprelian (3-8).

So, a good start to the roadtrip. The Tampa Bay Rays and the Toronto Blue Jays both won last night, so the Yankees' Magic Number is 31.

The series continues tonight. The alleged ace Gerrit Cole starts against JP Sears, whom the Yankees sent to Oakland in the Frankie Montas trade.