So much for starting September on a high note.
The Yankees opened the final month of the regular season with an ugly, sloppy, unsightly loss to the Cardinals, 14-7, on Sunday in The Bronx.
Worse, they’ve lost four of five as they try to hang onto their lead over Baltimore in the AL East, as they dropped a second straight series to a National League team that’s no longer in playoff contention.
Sunday’s loss featured a bit of everything: Bad starting pitching by Nestor Cortes, a terrible showing from the bullpen and some shaky defense and baserunning.
And even with the Cardinals spending most of the afternoon making mistakes in the field, they still were able to put the Yankees away, as the Yankees gave up a season-high 21 hits.
After falling behind 7-2 in the top of the fifth, the Yankees came back to tie the game with three runs in the bottom of the fifth and two more in the sixth, but the effort was wasted thanks to a five-run inning in the top of the seventh by St. Louis, who knocked around Jake Cousins and Tommy Kahnle for five runs.
The big blow was a three-run double by Lars Nootbar off Kahnle.
The misery began with Cortes, who’d allowed just one run in 20 2/3 innings in his previous three starts, but was knocked around for five runs on nine hits in four innings Sunday.
He wasn’t helped by Juan Soto, who was thrown out trying to steal second in the first inning and then misplayed Brendan Donovan’s fly ball to deep right-center to open the second into a double.
Donovan scored on Jordan Walker’s single to right to give St. Louis a 1-0 lead.
After Cortes gave up three straight hits to start the second to put runners on first and second and no one out, Victor Scott attempted a sacrifice bunt, but Anthony Rizzo, in his first game since June 16, pounced on the ball and made a strong throw to third for the force.
Cortes then picked off Nootbar at second and kept it a one-run deficit.
Giancarlo Stanton’s 112-MPH rocket into the seats in left tied the game in the bottom of the inning and Walker’s second bad play in right led to a Jazz Chisholm Jr. ground rule double.
Chisholm scored from second when he took off to third with Nolan Arenado not near the base and then scored when Mikolas’ throw to third got away from Arenado to give the Yankees a 2-1.
But St. Louis went ahead again in the fourth.
As the skies opened briefly in the top of the inning, Cortes gave up a pair of singles, but whiffed the next two batters before Masyn Winn snuck a two-run double down the left field line.
Luken Baker followed with a two-run shot to left to make it 5-2.
Scott Effross, in his first appearance since 2022 Tommy John surgery, was awful in the fifth.
All four batters he faced hit balls clocked over 100 MPH, including Jordan Walker’s two-run homer.
The Yankees stormed back against right-hander Miles Mikolas in the bottom of the fifth.
Chisholm led off with a single and scored on Rizzo’s double down the left field line.
Anthony Volpe followed with a comebacker and Mikolas had Rizzo hung up between second and third, but inexplicably threw to first instead, where Goldschmidt dropped it for an error.
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With runners on the corners, Alex Verdugo had an RBI single and Gleyber Torres followed with a run-scoring hit to end Mikolas’ afternoon.
Facing lefty John King, Soto grounded into a double play.
After King fell behind Aaron Judge 2-0, the Cardinals walked him intentionally and Austin Wells grounded out.
The Yankees had runners on first and third when Riley O’Brien entered to face Volpe.
Volpe knocked in a run when Winn misplayed his one-hopper into a hit and Verdugo followed with a single that loaded the bases for Torres, who drilled a sacrifice fly to right-center that tied the game.
Soto then sent one to the fence in left, but Nootbar managed to make the catch.
The game fell apart for the Yankees in the seventh.