An Absolutely Absurd, Ridiculous, Inexcusable Loss for the Yankees

Without question, the worst loss of the season, and holy hell, let’s hope that one remains No. 1 all year because that was an absolute travesty. Seriously, I can’t believe the Yankees found a way to blow that game Monday night and thus I’m breathing fire today. Down in Box Score Briefs, I have some thoughts on the Cubs and possibly the end of the road for Kyle Hendricks, Matt Olson’s durability, Rafael Devers, Corbin Burnes, and the bumbling Angels. Let’s get to it.

May 20: Mariners 5, Yankees 4

What the living god damn hell was that? Did the Yankees really lose this game?

Look, I know they can’t win every game, and I know that these things happen all across MLB, teams blowing leads in the ninth inning to lose in inexplicable ways. But the Yankees blew a game to a team that looked like a bunch of high schoolers at the plate for eight innings against Marcus Stroman and then Luke Weaver.

The Mariners were helpless, and they had basically a .00001 percent chance of winning that game trailing 4-1 with one out in the ninth, and then … what? Are you kidding me?

Yet here we are thanks to the worst 15 minutes of the Yankees season, an unbelievable confluence of events that featured some bad luck on a few at bats, Clay Holmes’ first meltdown of the season, and yet another boneheaded play by Gleyber Torres, all of which resulted in the Yankees pissing away a sure victory and ended their seven-game winning streak.

I’ll tell you exactly when it all went to shit, the very moment this game turned. After Julio Rodriguez nubbed a 30-foot single between the mound and third, Holmes got ahead of Seattle’s best hitter, Cal Raleigh, 1-2. Raleigh had struck out three times against Stroman, clueless all night. But then Holmes started nibbling and he threw three straight balls to walk him.

That was so maddening, and you could sense trouble was brewing. Throw the damn ball over the plate! With his stuff, his sinking fastball and sharp slider, there is no reason for Holmes to ever nibble, especially with one out and a three-run lead in the ninth. Throw it over the plate, let them get themselves out and the game is over. But nope, he decided to get cute and for the life of me I don’t know why.

Then, of course, there was Torres picking the worst possible moment to make his ever-ready brain dead play. Luke Raley hit a slow chopper over the mound and it was going to be tough to get him. But a whole bunch of MLB second basemen would have found a way, but not Torres. He threw the ball wildly past Anthony Rizzo. Rather than two outs and the score still 4-1 with runners on second and third, instead it was 4-2.

Then it was 4-3 when Mitch Haniger blooped a single to center. Next came another dumb walk to Dylan Moore, a .225 hitter, as Holmes got ahead 0-2 but threw four straight out of the zone to load the bases. By now I’m ready to throw the remote through the TV because at this point, there was no doubt Seattle was taking the lead.

Sure enough, Dominic Canzone, a guy with 217 career at bats whose hitting .227, nearly hit a grand slam to the short porch but still, it was a sacrifice fly that tied it. And then finally, the only well-struck ball of the inning, a line-drive RBI single by Ty France won it.

As I said, absolutely ridiculous. And it all started with the walk to Raleigh that should never have happened.

“That was on me,” said Holmes. “I thought I made some good pitches and definitely some balls found some holes. But I had a couple guys there 0-2, 1-2, and I put them on base. They could have been big outs. I was trying to get a little too much chase on a couple guys there. My stuff was good enough tonight, I just didn’t make the pitch when I needed to.”

Just a bad, bad, bad loss, one of those losses that you look back on in September during a close race because, as I always say, every game matters and you can’t piss them away like this.

Here are my observations:

➤ For a while I was joking that Holmes had the worst 0.00 ERA in baseball history because he was always in trouble before wriggling out. But lately he’d been great and his 20 straight appearances without allowing an earned run was the longest since Dellin Betances’ franchise-record 26-game streak in 2015. Well, that’s done and his ERA jumped up to 1.74.

➤ What a shame for Stroman. Easily his best performance as a Yankee sickly wasted. He pitched 7.1 shutout innings before he gave up a solo homer to Canzone in the eighth, a run that sure seemed meaningless at the time. Only three hits and one walk with six strikeouts, but he gets a no-decision for all that work. “To be honest, it’s baseball,” he said.

➤ Thanks to Stroman’s outing, the Yankee starters now have an 0.86 ERA over their last eight games. That's the lowest starting pitcher ERA over any eight-game span by the Yankees since September 1968. And this was the eighth straight start of six-plus innings and two runs or less allowed, longest since a nine-game stretch June 3-14, 1998.

➤ Of course, Holmes shouldn’t have even had the chance to blow the save, because it should not have been a save situation. It should have been about 8-1 by the ninth, but the Yankees were abysmal with men on base. Naturally, the day after I write nice things about Giancarlo Stanton, he grounded into two double plays, one with the bases loaded and one with men on first and third to kill what could have and should have been big innings. And Jon Berti grounded into one with the bases loaded. Oh my God, it’s crazy how many times the Yankees kill themselves with double plays, a number that is now 50, most in MLB.

➤ The start was good. Aaron Judge doubled to put men on second and third in the first inning and Alex Verdugo delivered both with a double to right off Logan Gilbert, an excellent pitcher. But then Berti killed the fourth inning, and after Verdugo’s RBI single in the fifth, Stanton killed the rest of that inning. And in the seventh, Anthony Volpe singled but got thrown out stealing, Soto and Judge walked, Verdugo singled, but then friggin’ Stanton with the DP.

➤ It sure seemed like the game was over when Berti ripped an RBI single in the eighth. However, having left so many runs out there, the three-run lead wasn’t enough.

➤ Before the game Boone said that Ian Hamilton reported feeling ill Sunday and Monday he went on the 7-day Covid list which, wow, that’s still a thing. So that’s the roster spot that Tommy Kahnle will grab, thereby prolonging the Yankee tenure of Michael Tonkin for a week.

⚾ The Cubs are going through some tough times and it’s a damn miracle they’re in second in the NL Central, only two games behind the Brewers. Last week they lost five of seven games to the Braves and Pirates hitting a collective .178/.279/.290 with an average of 2.4 runs per game. Granted, they faced some outstanding pitching (more on that below) but they’re also missing shortstop Dansby Swanson and Nico Hoerner.

“We're hoping Tuesday that both are in the lineup,” Cubs manager Craig Counsell said. “I don't think it means guarantees of scoring runs.” No, it doesn’t, but it should help. Both are solid hitters and outstanding in the field at short and second.

What would also help the Cubs is, sadly, moving on from pitcher Kyle Hendricks, a beloved Cub and a forever hero as one of the last links to the 2016 World Series team. Hendricks is shot. He has always walked the tightrope because of his lack of velocity and he has put together a fine career relying on off-speed and location. In 2016, he led MLB with a 2.13 ERA and he can’t even touch 90 mph.

But now the 34-year-old is a batting practice pitcher. He has given up seven earned runs in three of his last five starts and his ERA across seven starts is 10.57 with a WHIP of 1.989. He’s allowing an average of 14.7 hits per nine innings including 2.9 home runs. The Cubs are 2-5 in his starts and he wasn’t the winner in either, giving up five runs to the Dodgers in one of those.

“We certainly need better,” Counsell said after watching Hendricks get lit up for seven earned runs in Friday’s 9-3 loss to the Pirates. “That’s not going to work. And that’s not going to be good enough.”

⚾ In that game last Friday, Hendricks could have pitched great but he still wasn’t beating the Pirates phenom, Paul Skenes. Wow, what a debut the No. 1 prospect in baseball has had. True, he has had the good fortune of pitching his first two games against the scuffling Cubs, but no team would have succeeded against him in that second start.

He struck out the first seven Cubs, finished with 11 whiffs, walked one and did not allow a run or a hit in his six innings. The Cubs swung and missed 22 times on 54 swings, and Skenes’ averaged 99.3 mph on his fastball. A reporter asked him if it would be a challenge because the Cubs would surely adjust from the first time they saw him to the second. Bursting with confidence, Skenes sort of laughed and said, “I mean, go ahead and adjust. Good luck.” Hey, the dude backed up the bravado.

⚾ Atlanta’s offense has been weirdly mediocre this season, and part of the problem has been the slow start by first baseman Matt Olson. But give Olson this: He just played his 500th consecutive game, just the sixth player since 2000 to put together a streak that long. Hey, Olson only has about 13 more years of not missing a game before he could pass Cal Ripken.

Monday in the first game of a doubleheader, Olson went 2-for-4 with a solo homer and slow starting Ronald Acuna went 3-for-5, but the Braves blew a 5-0 lead to the Padres and wound up losing 6-5 when San Diego scored four runs in the eighth. The last two came on a double by Manny Machado who is not having a good season. Reliever Joe Jimenez came into the eighth inning with a 1.59 ERA and left with a 3.50. Four runs will do that to you.

⚾ Monday night, Rafael Devers etched his name into the Red Sox record book as he homered for a sixth straight game as Boston blanked the Rays 5-0 behind Tanner Houck’s seven two-hit shutout innings. Devers had been tied at five in a row with Bobby Dalbec (2020), Jose Canseco (1995), George Scott (1977), Dick Stuart (1963), Ted Williams (1957) and Jimmie Foxx (1940). This leaves him two game shy of tying the MLB record of eight straight games shared by Ken Griffey Jr. (1993), Don Mattingly (1987) and Dale Long (1956).

In Devers’ first 13 games this year, he hit .188 with just two homers, five RBI and a .703 OPS. In 23 games since then, the Red Sox star is hitting .337 with a 1.068 OPS and he now has 10 homers and 23 RBI. Devers is such a good hitter and don’t the Yankees know it. He’s played 100 games against New York and has an .852 OPS with 25 homers, 20 doubles and 63 RBI. Oddly, the Yankees and Red Sox will not play their first game against each other until June 14-16 at Fenway.

⚾ One of the hard to explain tidbits of this season was that before Sunday the Orioles lost four straight games started by their best pitcher, Corbin Burnes, including his start against the Yankees on May 1. Of course, he allowed only seven earned runs combined in those games so it sure wasn’t his fault. That streak ended Sunday when Burnes pitched six innings and gave up one run while striking out 11 as the Orioles beat the Mariners 6-3.

Thankfully, the Orioles didn’t gain any ground on the Yankees Monday night because they lost 6-3 to the Cardinals as Dean Kremer gave up five earned runs in four innings. Gunnar Henderson did take the MLB home run lead with his 16th.

⚾ The Angels are a special kind of bad. It’s not enough that Shohei Ohtani bolted in the offseason, and Mike Trout got hurt again and will miss at least half the season. Saturday night, they went 0-for-18 with runners in scoring position and lost in 13 innings to the Rangers 3-2. In the four extra innings they had no hits and their automatic runner only advanced to third once.

And then in the bottom of the 13th, the Rangers had men on first and third with one out, so Angels manager Ron Washington had Carson Fulmer intentionally walk Corey Seager. Which was fine; Seager is a great hitter, and loading the bases set up a force everywhere, and maybe even a double play. Instead, Fulmer proceeded to hit Nathaniel Lowe with his very next pitch to allow the winning run to walk home. Brutal.

All that said, they did rebound nicely as they won the series final Sunday and then Monday, they rallied from a 6-1 deficit in Houston thanks to a seven-run fifth inning against Framber Valdez to beat the Astros 9-7. Still, at 19-29, the Angels are going nowhere yet again.