The lights went dark and then began flashing, Clay Holmes jogging out to a delighted crowd that saw a fairly new closer entrance designed to fire up the Stadium.
A few minutes later, those delighted fans booed a closer who was touched up for the first time this season.
Holmes allowed four runs in a nightmare ninth inning to blow an eventual 5-4, series-opening game to the Mariners on Monday in front of 37,590 stunned fans.
The Yankees’ win streak was snapped at seven due to a rally that never seemed to end and did not include much hard contact.
In the ninth, an infield single, walk and another infield single that included a throwing error on Gleyber Torres allowed one run to score.
Mitch Haniger’s RBI single narrowed the lead before Holmes walked Dylan Moore to load the bases.
Dominic Canzone lofted a sacrifice fly to right field to tie the game before Ty France poked a softly struck single into right field for the fourth run of the inning and fourth earned run of the year off the previously dominant Holmes.
The Yankees had one last chance, but Juan Soto’s ninth-inning single was wasted against Seattle’s Andres Munoz.
Looming large in the ninth were opportunities the Yankees did not cash in earlier: Giancarlo Stanton went 0-for-3 with runners in scoring position, including bases-loaded, inning-ending double plays in the seventh and in the fifth.
The Yankees (33-16) lost for just a second time in their past 10 games and wasted yet another masterful effort from their starter.
Marcus Stroman was brilliant over 7 ¹/₃ excellent innings in which he allowed one run on three hits and one walk.
Over their past eight games, Yankees starters have allowed five earned runs in 52 ¹/₃ innings for a barely comprehensible 0.85 ERA. Carlos Rodon’s six-inning, two-run effort Sunday was the worst the Yankees have seen for a week-plus.
Stroman got into trouble one time: In the second inning, he allowed a single to Luke Raley and walked Dylan Moore with one out.
And so Stroman only needed to escape one time: He used a first-pitch splitter to induce a ground-ball double play from Dominic Canzone, which would be the only pitch the Mariners saw with a runner in scoring position.
Beginning with Canzone in the second and ending with a two-out single from Raley in the seventh, Stroman retired 15 consecutive Seattle hitters by repeatedly pitching to weak contact.
He only struck out six but could not be squared up: Before the ninth inning, six of the seven hardest-struck balls of the night belonged to Yankees hitters.
The lone exception arrived on the 96th and final pitch Stroman delivered, which Canzone blasted over the center-field wall for the Mariners’ first run.
Stroman gave the ball to Boone and walked toward the dugout, heard the cheers from a standing ovation and raised his hands in the air and clapped back at the 37,590 on hand, whose decibel level rose in appreciation.
Those same fans were not clapping a few innings later.