Yankees Edge Rangers to Win Series and Complete Ho-Hum Homestand

Clay Holmes tried his best to lose the series, but the Yankees survived his latest gaseous performance to take two of three from the Rangers and they’re back in a dead heat with the Orioles at 70-49 atop the AL East. I know, we should be happy, but with Holmes closing games, happy is merely an idea. Lets get to it.

Buffalo Bills coach Sean McDermott made a funny remark Saturday after his team got its ass kicked by the Chicago Bears. It was a bad day in every phase for the Bills, and McDermott said, “If you had a blood pressure cuff on me during that game, it probably would have exploded.”

Yeah, that’s how I feel every time Clay Holmes takes the mound as my blood pressure soars to unhealthy levels. I’d say this guy is a one-man health risk for us all, but he has plenty of help in the Yankees bullpen which, as I keep telling you, is going to cost them in the postseason.

In the final two game of this series against the Rangers, Yankee relievers gave up 14 runs (12 earned) on 18 hits and four walks in 8.2 innings. I’m no math genius, but that’s pretty bad.

But Holmes is a special kind of agita-stirring pain in the ass because he pitches the highest leverage innings, and he has a magnificent skill for turning what should be ho-hum victories into pulse-pounding, fingernail-gnawing shit shows of the highest order.

Sunday, the Yankees barely hung on to beat the Rangers 8-7 to win the series and stay on the right side of an uninspiring 5-4 homestand against the Blue Jays, Angels and Rangers. That was 5-4 against three teams who are a combined 32 games under .500.

And it was oh so close to being a 4-5 homestand because the Yankees nearly blew leads of 5-0, 6-1, and 8-3 thanks to their lit-match-into-a-can-of-gas bullpen. Sunday, the combined efforts of new guy Mark Leiter Jr. and Holmes very nearly cost the Yankees a game that, on paper, should have been impossible to lose given that Marcus Stroman pitched well, and Aaron Judge, Juan Soto and Giancarlo Stanton combined for four home runs and seven RBI.

Yet there we were, ready to throw our remotes through the TV after watching Holmes throw 45 agonizing pitches, 21 of which were balls, before he was finally able to complete one of the worst saves ever. And even when Leody Taveras grounded out to second baseman Gleyber Torres with men on second and third, Torres further added to the drama by tripping on his own feet before recovering just in time to get the ball safely to DJ LeMahieu.

Jesus Christ, why does this team make things so difficult? I’ll tell you why. This bullpen isn’t good enough, and Holmes, as he has proven over and over, is not a closer.

Naturally, Aaron Boone defended Holmes, plus his own decision not to take him out when things got really hairy. “I felt like he still had it,” Boone said. “His stuff was real sharp. They were putting up tough at bats and I was uncomfortable with it, without a doubt, but I also felt we had to ride it out.”

I get this all the time - you Yankee fans are spoiled because you had Mariano Rivera. Yeah, we were, but that doesn’t mean the Yankees shouldn’t have a competent closer, someone who doesn’t make us walk barefoot across a path of razor blades every goddamn night.

Holmes leads MLB with nine blown saves, and he nearly had a 10th Sunday. Since May 20, the day he allowed his first earned runs of the season (I joked at the time the guy had the worst 0.00 ERA in the history of baseball, which might have been true), Holmes has been terribly unreliable, and sales of Tums have probably skyrocketed.

In 28 games counting that day, his ERA is 4.73, eight of his blown saves have occurred, and his WHIP (walks, hits per innings pitched) of 1.54 ranks 171st among 190 qualified relievers. This is the Yankees’ closer, folks. A guy who is better suited to be pitching in the fifth or sixth inning of games the Yankees are trailing.

Leiter’s not the answer in the ninth, either. No one on this team is; we’re stuck with Holmes, so as we move through these final seven weeks and then however long the Yankees play in October, make sure you have a defibrillator machine next to your couch.

Aug. 10 (Gm 1): Yankees 8, Rangers 0

The Lead: Who is this Carlos Rodon?

The left-hander’s time with the Yankees has been eventful, that’s for sure. And for most of the time he’s been in the Bronx, his $162 million contract looked like it would be one of the worst in team history.

But this year, outside of that horrendous, laughable three-start implosion he had at the end of June when he was probably the worst pitcher in MLB, Rodon has been very good, especially lately.

In this game he didn’t have great command as he walked five in 5.2 innings, but he gave up only three hits and most importantly, no runs because he made big pitches when he needed. It’s hard to believe, but he now has 19 starts this year (out of 24) where he has allowed three runs or fewer, tied for the most in MLB behind only Corbin Burnes of the Orioles (21).

“Just trying to stay where I am right now,” Rodon said. “The goal for me is just to go out there and pitch and give my team the best chance to win and win the game. That’s it.”

Game notes and observations:

➤ Two walks and a single got Rodon into a second-inning jam, but he induced a fly out by Buffalo native Jonah Heim to escape. He left two men on base in the third when he struck out Wyatt Lankford, and left two more on in the fourth when he struck out Josh Smith.

➤ Boone took him out in the sixth after a double by Adolis Garcia with the Yankees leading 7-0, and from there the bullpen actually completed the shutout. Ron Marinaccio, who was called up to be the 27th man for the doubleheader, was very sharp with 2.1 innings of one-hit relief, and Tim Hill pitched the ninth. Marinaccio’s reward was being sent back to Scranton later that night.

➤ The offense was excellent against Texas’ Nathan Eovaldi, a pitcher who has had lots of success against the Yankees. He lasted only three innings and gave up three runs on six hits and two walks. Singles by Soto, Judge and Torres delivered the first run in the first inning, and in the fourth, Soto walked, Judge singled and Austin Wells chased both home with a double to right-center.

➤ Brock Burke took over in the fourth for Texas and the Yankees raked him for three runs in the fourth as Judge had an RBI single, his third hit of the game, and Wells’ two-run single. And in the fifth the Yankees loaded the bases with no outs, though they scored only once on Soto’s RBI fielders’ choice as second baseman Marcus Semien made a great play to rob him of a two-run single. Burke was DFA’d after the game.

➤ The last run came on a Jazz Chisholm homer in the eighth. In all, the Yankees had 12 hits, drew six walks, went 5-for-15 with runners in scoring position. Wells’ four RBI were a career-high, and since moving into the cleanup spot on July 20 he has enjoyed the best stretch of his young career with a slash line in those 15 games of .349/.419/.524, an OPS of .943, eight walks, two homers and 13 RBIs.

Aug. 10 (Gm 2): Rangers 9, Yankees 4

The Lead: A great Cole start wasted

Look, for the majority of us in this group - meaning those of us in our 50’s and 60’s or older - what happened in Game 2 would never have happened in our youth. An ace starting pitching having allowed just one run in 5.1 innings being taken out with no one on base because his pitch count reached a level (90) where the manager felt it was time to pull him. That would be a fireable offense in the old days.

Not today. This is what managers do, they coddle these players like they’re China dolls and what cracks me up is that it hardly ever matters because these players get hurt all the time. Boone’s reason was simple in this case: Cole was recently skipped in a start because of general body fatigue and this was his second outing since then, so the Yankees want to continue to be careful with him as he builds up for what will hopefully be a successful postseason run.

So I can’t kill Boone for that in Cole’s case, especially since he was turning to Luke Weaver who has been one of the Yankees best relievers this season. Unfortunately, this is where the weekend’s bullpen follies began and this move blew up in Boone’s face. Weaver was horrible as the Rangers lit him up for five runs on four hits and a walk and he recorded just one out. He had allowed five runs at home all season before this meltdown, and it turned a 1-1 game into a 6-1 blowout.

“It was one of those days. It happens,” Boone said about Weaver. “He has been so good for us, obviously. It wasn’t his day. I don’t think he had the right feel for the changeup. What he has meant to our ‘pen, it’s going to happen at different times over the course of the year.”

Game notes and observations:

➤ Weaver’s disaster was a shame because it spoiled Cole’s best start of the year. He dealt with a little traffic (six hits, two walks) so he still isn’t back to his Cy Young self, but he struck out a season-high 10 and like Rodon, he made big pitches when he needed them. “I felt good today,” said Cole, who got 26 misses on 52 Rangers swings. “We brought out a lot of good offerings today.”

➤ Not the case for Weaver who gave up the big blow, a three-run homer by Corey Seager that ended all doubt about the outcome. And certainly not the case for Michael Tonkin who, after a shockingly good start for the Yankees since he joined the team late in April, has taken a resounding step back to reality. Tonkin was brutal as he got knocked around in the seventh for three runs on five hits and there is no doubt that he can’t be relied on for anything more than what he was in this game for - to mop up. And he didn’t even mop up well. In his last eight appearances, his ERA is 6.92 with a .909 OPS against.

➤ After so much good work in the first game, it was pretty disappointing that the Yankees offense couldn’t do anything against Rangers starter Cody Bradford, one run on five hits in five innings. That lone run came when Chisholm singled, stole second and scored on a Torres single.

➤ The other three runs came in the eighth after it was 9-1. Judge walked and Stanton hit a two-run homer and Chisholm followed with a solo homer. That enabled Jazz to become the first player in franchise history to hit at least seven homers in his first 12 games with the club. That’s pretty amazing given the alumni.

Aug. 11: Yankees 8, Rangers 7

The Lead: Big day for the long ball

It’s a good thing the big boys were out in full force because as Stanton said, “We needed every last one of them” in order to secure just their second series victory at home in their last 10. Soto crushed two bombs to right, Judge went back-to-back with him in the seventh for his MLB-leading 42nd (and first in a week), and the biggest blow was a three-run missile by Stanton in the fifth that, for the time being before the bullpen got involved, broke open a tight 2-0 game.

It was the third time this season the three sluggers have homered in the same game, and you won’t be surprised that the Yankees won all three of those games.

Lost in the power surge and the bullpen implosion was a solid start from Marcus Stroman, his best since June 11 when he blanked the Royals over 5.2 innings. At that time his ERA was down to 2.82, and in his eight starts after that, he was a batting practice pitcher. But Sunday he had much better command as he went five innings and gave up just one run on four hits and three walks.

“It’s hard over the course of a year to be locked in the whole time,’’ Stroman said of his recent struggles. “I’m not someone who loses confidence after a few outings.’’

Thankfully, unlike Cole, his effort wasn’t for naught.

Game notes and observations:

➤ The Yankee scratched out a run in the first inning when Alex Verdugo reached on an error, Judge singled and Stanton hit a sacrifice fly. And then in the third Soto hit his first homer to make it 2-0, and that meant he has now homered against all 30 MLB teams at the age of 25. Crazy. One reason he hadn’t homered against the Rangers was that this was just the ninth game he’s played against them. His shot in the seventh gave him 30 this season, and he became just the 10th Yankee in history to hit 30 in his first season with the team.

➤ Stanton reached 20 homers for the 13th time, the most such seasons for any active player in MLB. And Judge’s homer gives him 299 for his career.

➤ The Yankees were up 6-1 heading to the seventh when the trouble began. Jake Cousins, who did a nice job in the sixth after he relieved Stroman, allowed a leadoff single. Boone brought in Tommy Kahnle and he got burned by a 50-foot infield single, a bunt single, and an awful two-run error by Chisholm who for some reason cut in front of Anthony Volpe to field a grounder and botched it.

➤ Soto and Judge answered immediately with their back-to-back bombs to make it 8-3 and with just six outs to get, it felt in the bag. But then in the eighth, Leiter was putrid as he gave up three runs on two long homers and after he allowed a double, Boone brought in Holmes for a four-out save. He was able to get the Rangers’ best player, Seager, to ground out, but in the ninth, after he struck out the first two men, it was walk, walk, RBI single before Taveras made the shaky final out.

➤ Volpe’s latest massive struggle continued and his inconsistency is off the charts. In his first 14 games after the All-Star break he was slashing .373/.383/.695 for a 1.098 OPS with five homers and 12 RBI and we thought he’d finally gotten back on track. He had hit just six homers in the first 103 games, so this was really something. But since then, he’s completely lost again. He’s 2-for-29 including 0-for-23 in his last five games. We are now one and two-thirds seasons into his career, and I have no idea what this guy is as a batter, but he can’t keep digging himself into these slumps where he disappears for weeks at a time.

➤ It’s hard to believe after how bad the offense was for so long, but now the Yankees have a streak of 14 games where they’ve had at least eight hits, their longest since 1997.

The Yankees now head to the South side of Chicago to play three against not only the worst team in MLB, but one of the worst teams in the history of the sport.

The White Sox are an absolute disgrace of a team and they’re on pace to finish with the worst record in the modern era which is currently held by the expansion 1962 Mets at 40-120. The White Sox are 28-91 and they’ve been outscored by 251 runs. They just broke a 21-game losing streak last week, but have still lost 24 of their last 26. Earlier in the year they had a 14-game losing streak.

It goes without saying that if the Yankees don’t sweep this series, and do it without giving us anything to worry about, my head might explode. Chicago is dead last in team batting average (.217), OPS (.619), runs per game (3.08), and it’s only because of the awful Colorado Rockies who play in a pitchers’ paradise at Coors Field that the White Sox are not dead last in team ERA (4.83), WHIP (1.42) and runs allowed per game (5.19). I’d say it should be almost impossible for the Yankees to lose to this team, but would we be shocked if they find a way to blow a game?

The pitching matchups are as follows: Monday at 8:10 on YES it’s Luis Gil (3.06 ERA) against Ky Bush (6.75); Tuesday at 8:10 on YES it’s Nestor Cortes (4.42) against Jonathan Cannon (3.91); and Wednesday at 8:10 on Amazon Prime it’s TBD for the Yankees (the doubleheader messed with the rotation) against Davis Martin (3.65).