Yankees can't climb out of first-inning hole, drop series finale 6-4 to Red Sox

Will Warren allowed five straight hits to begin the game in a six-run first inning, putting the Yankees in a hole they couldn’t climb out of in a 6-4 loss to the Boston Red Sox on Sunday night at Fenway Park.

New York smacked three home runs and had a chance with the tying run at the plate with nobody out in the eighth, but couldn't complete the three-game sweep. The Yanks leave Beantown with an 83-66 record. Boston improved to 82-68, to move to 1.5 games behind for the top AL Wild Card spot. With Toronto completing a three-game sweep of Baltimore on Sunday, the Yankees are now 4.0 games behind the Jays for first in the AL East.

Here are the takeaways…

– Giancarlo Stanton made his second start of the series in left field and made a hash of things immediately, overrunning a flyball as it fell short of the Green Monster, resulting in a leadoff triple for Jarren Duran in the home half of the first. 

Boston made Warren pay for Stanton’s blunder: Alex Bregman took a fastball on the inside corner up the middle for an RBI single, Trevor Story sharply slapped single through the right side of the infield, Nathaniel Lowe got jammed but muscled a soft liner through the right side to plate another run, and Romy Gonzalez drove an RBI double to right to put two in scoring position and pitching coach Matt Blake was out for a visit after five straight hits on the first 14 pitches of the night.  

Masataka Yoshida notched a sacrifice fly to center (one pitch after the Yanks failed to come up with a pop fly in foul territory down the right field line) and a Rob Refsnyder grounder to second, trading two more runs for the first two outs. But Warren fell behind 2-1 to Carlos Narvaez, who demolished a high, 95 mph fastball to centerfield for a 403-foot home run to round out the six-run first.

The Yankee righty settled in the second before a swinging bunt and walk put two on with two outs. It took Austin Slater making a diving catch after a long run on a ball to shallow right to keep Boston off the board in the second. He got six of the next seven Sox batters, allowing only a leadoff single in the third.

Warren was in a spot of bother with one out in the fifth after back-to-back singles, but he froze Refsnyder with a sweeper and got Narvaez to ground out to short. After the first, Warren stranded five runners and held Boston to 0-for-3 with RISP. His final line: 5.0 innings, six runs on 10 hits and a walk with two strikeouts on 89 pitches (59 strikes).

– Aaron Judge swung through a pair of fastballs before chasing a breaking pitch low and away to go down swinging in his first at-bat against Boston ace Garrett Crochet. Judge swung through a two fastball his second time up to again fall behind 1-2 with two outs and a runner on second base in the third, this time he worked the count full, but again went down swinging on a breaking pitch in the dirt. 

With two outs in the fifth, the reigning AL MVP won the third matchup, smacking a first-pitch fastball up and away 400 feet into Boston’s bullpen in right for a solo home run. It was Judge’s 48th long ball of the year (112.7 mph off the bat) for his 102nd RBI to cut the deficit to three runs.

He rocketed a single in the eighth (113.5 mph) to finish the day 2-for-4. 

– The Yanks first got to Crochet in the fourth as Stanton smashed a 110.9 mph single with one out and Amed Rosario got a sweeper down and clocked it just over the Monster for a two-run shot. Paul Goldschmidt, who walked his first time up, singled, but the three straight hits were all the Bombers could muster. Goldschmidt finished the day 1-for-3 with a walk. 

– The Yanks were glad to see Crochet exit in the sixth and Jose Caballero, who struck out twice off the starter, got a 1-0 sinker right over the plate from reliver Steven Matz and hit it out of the stadium over the Monster in left, 423 feet (108.1 mph). The one-out homer made it four unanswered for the visitors after they fell behind by a half dozen in the first.

– Out of the bullpen, Camilo Doval picked up two strikeouts in a clean sixth, Mark Leiter Jr. worked around a one-out single with a double play in a scoreless seventh, and Paul Blackburn got around a one-out single in eighth, thanks to a really fine play by Caballero up the middle for the final out.

– After Judge’s leadoff single in the eighth off reliever Garrett Whitlock, the Yanks had the tying run at the plate, but Cody Bellinger went down looking, Stanton looking, and pinch-hitter Trent Grisham swinging.

Bellinger finished hitless in four at-bats with two strikeouts. Stanton finished the day 1-for-4 with three strikeouts.

Arroldis Chapman made no mistakes in the ninth, throwing 10 strikes on 11 pitches with a couple of groundouts and a strikeout swinging on a 101.5 mph fastball past Caballero to end it.

Game MVP: Garrett Crochet

Crochet, who is tough against everybody, was tough on the Yanks. Aside from the two dingers, the left-hander racked up 12 strikeouts, getting Slater three times, Judge, Stanton, and Caballero twice each, as well as Rosario, Bellinger, and Jazz Chisholm Jr.

The Sox southpaw got 23 whiffs on 52 swings (44 percent) and another 14 called strikes, en route to needing 99 pitches to get 18 outs.

Highlights

What's next

The Yankees head to Minnesota for a three-game series against the Twins, starting on Monday night with a 7:40 p.m. first pitch as MLB celebrates Roberto Clemente Day. 

The pitching matchups for the series: Carlos Rodon vs. Simeon Woods Richardson, Cam Schlittler vs. Zebby Matthews, and Luis Gil vs. Taj Bradley.

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