One week removed from their first game without Aaron Judge, the Yankees’ lineup was still moving in slow motion.
On Sunday, their inability to muster much offense wasted another strong start from Clarke Schmidt and resulted in a 3-2, 10-inning loss to the Red Sox at Yankee Stadium.
The Yankees recorded only three hits off Red Sox right-hander Brayan Bello and none off their bullpen, with Boston taking the rubber game in the teams’ first series of the season.
Since Judge last played, the Yankees have scored just 21 runs in seven games, going 3-4 in that stretch.
Facing Ron Marinaccio in the top of the 10th, the Red Sox moved automatic runner Adam Duvall to third base on a groundout before Kiké Hernandez shot a single through the left side for the 3-2 lead.
Left fielder Billy McKinney made sure the Yankees’ deficit didn’t get any bigger, making a leaping grab at the wall on a fly ball from Pablo Reyes to end the inning.
DJ LeMahieu started the bottom of the 10th on second base and moved to third on McKinney’s leadoff fly out to right field. But Chris Martin came back to strike out Jose Trevino and Anthony Volpe to end it.
The Yankees had taken a 2-1 lead to the eighth inning, when a careless error by Gleyber Torres came back to hurt. Hernandez led off with a single against Michael King, past the dive of the third baseman LeMahieu, which McKinney handled in left field. But McKinney’s throw to second base bounced right past Torres, who did not come off the bag to try to catch it, allowing Hernandez to easily move up to second.
A walk and a sacrifice bunt later, the Red Sox had runners on second and third with one out. The Yankees played their infield back and the Red Sox took advantage, as Jarren Duran hit a ground ball to second and traded an out to drive in the tying run.
Schmidt turned in a fifth straight solid start, giving up just one run (a solo home run to Justin Turner) across 5 ¹/₃ innings in which he struck out four and walked none. After working through some struggles early in the season, Schmidt now has a 2.33 ERA over his last five starts.
Key to the turnaround has been Schmidt better handling left-handed hitters. Through his first nine starts, left-handed hitters were batting .369 off Schmidt with a 1.105 OPS. In five starts since, left-handed hitters were hitting just .205 against him.
Schmidt worked quickly early on and helped himself out by getting ahead often. The Red Sox were able to work three long at-bats against him — 10- and eight-pitch at-bats by Turner and an 11-pitch at-bat by Hernandez — accounting for 29 of his 82 pitches.
The eight-pitch at-bat by Turner in the second inning resulted in a solo homer for the 1-0 Red Sox lead. Yankee Stadium was the only park where it would have been a home run, just like Willie Calhoun’s go-ahead shot on Saturday night.
But the Yankees took the lead right back in the bottom of the inning against Bello, thanks to a fortunate bounce.
With runners on second and third, following a Josh Donaldson walk and a McKinney ground-rule double, Trevino roped a ground ball up the middle. Red Sox second baseman Hernandez was in position to field it, but before the ball got to him, it hit off second base and ricocheted into the outfield for a single that scored both runs for the 2-1 lead.