Yankees fight back, but pitchers surrender 21 hits to Cardinals in series finale loss

It was a little after 11:30 in the morning and Aaron Boone was being asked when rehabbing Luis Gil and Clarke Schmidt will return to the Yankees’ rotation.

Without getting into absolutes, Bone hinted that one or both could rejoin the team during its upcoming six-game road trip to Texas and Chicago.

Shortly thereafter, the Yankees put on a 3-hour, 21-minute exhibition of why they need those arms to return and contribute.

Seven Yankees pitchers yielded 21 hits and 13 earned runs in a 14-7 loss to the Cardinals in front of 42,768 at the Stadium on Sunday.

Nestor Cortes started and was followed by Scott Effross, Tim Mayza, Jake Cousins, Tommy Kahnle, Phil Bickford and Ron Marinaccio.

“Overall, a tough day for us,” Boone said.

The Yankees (79-58), who have dropped four of five, had their AL East lead cut to a half-game over Baltimore.

After the Yankees erased a 7-2 deficit by scoring three runs in the fifth and two in the sixth, St. Louis (69-68) promptly scored five runs in the seventh after two were out to take a 12-5 lead.

The first four runs came on consecutive drives over rightfielder Juan Soto’s head, as Kahnle allowed a three-run double by Lars Nootbaar and an RBI double by Victor Scott II. Scott scored on Bickford’s throwing error on Masyn Winn’s bunt single.

“I didn’t have my A-plus stuff,” Kahnle said. “Just kind of got behind a couple counts and I think I made some bad pitches. They adjusted and took advantage.”

Marinaccio gave up a two-run home run by Nootbaar in the ninth.

The Cardinals’ Jordan Walker, who entered the game hitting .143 with a .439 OPS, went 5-for-5 with three RBIs and four runs scored. Nootbar (five RBIs), Paul Goldschmidt and Brendan Donovan added three hits each for St. Louis, which hit three home runs and six doubles and scored 11 runs with two outs.

Donovan doubled — a drive that Soto appeared to have trouble seeing and got a late break on — and scored on Walker’s single to give the Cardinals a 1-0 lead in the second, but

the Yankees responded with two runs in the bottom of the inning.

Giancarlo Stanton drilled a 387-foot solo homer to leftfield off Miles Mikolas, his 24th of the season, and Jazz Chisholm Jr. followed with a ground-rule double. Mikolas used an inside move and faked a throw to second to hold Chisholm close, and as the righthander stared in before throwing his next pitch, Chisholm broke for third. Mikolas didn’t realize it until Chisholm was two-thirds of the way there, then bounced an awkward throw past late-covering Nolan Arenado to give the Yankees a 2-1 lead.

With runners on first and second in the fourth, Cortes struck out Nootbar and Scott, but Alex Verdugo, shaded toward left-center, couldn’t quite get to Winn’s two-run double, a fly ball that landed just inside the leftfield line and then eluded Verdugo.

Luken Baker then gave the Cardinals a 5-2 lead with a two-run homer.

Cortes, who allowed only one run in 20 2⁄3 innings in his previous three starts, gave up five runs and nine hits in four innings. “He wasn’t getting the swing-and-miss that he’s been getting,” Boone said.

Efrross, who hadn’t pitched in a major-league game since Oct. 3, 2022, because of Tommy John surgery and back surgery, replaced Cortes in the fifth. After allowing a leadoff single, he induced a double-play grounder, but Donovan singled and Walker homered to give the Cardinals a 7-2 lead.

Chisholm led off the fifth with a single and scored on Rizzo’s double to left to cut the deficit to 7-3. RBI singles by Verdugo and Gleyber Torres then made it 7-5.

Rizzo’s single in the sixth put runners on first and third with one out, and Anthony Volpe’s RBI single made it 7-6. Verdugo’s single loaded the bases and Torres tied the score with a long sacrifice fly to right-center, with Scott making a nice running catch to prevent further damage. Soto’s bid for an opposite-field home run then was caught in front of the leftfield wall.

Although Aaron Judge went 1-for-12 with seven strikeouts in the series, the Yankees nearly erased a five-run deficit in a 6-5 loss on Saturday — a bid for a potential tying grand slam by Stanton in the eighth hit high off the centerfield wall and became a three-run double — and they did erase a five-run deficit Sunday.

“Offense, we’re right there,” Soto said. “We almost got the comeback.”