Yankees suffer first loss of season after bullpen can't hold lead at the Stadium

On this night, the Yankees were torpedoed by their bullpen.

The unit, mostly terrific over the weekend, but relegated to back-burner status because of the 15 homers produced by the offense, failed to hold a late lead Tuesday as the Yankees suffered their first loss of the season, 7-5, to the Diamondbacks in front of 37,482 on a chilly 50-degree night at the Stadium.

After Will Warren pitched a solid five innings — putting the rookie in line for his first career win — and righty Fernando Cruz struck out four of six batters after taking over for the sixth, Tim Hill and then Mark Leiter Jr. blowtorched the proceedings in the eighth, turning a 4-2 lead into a 7-4 deficit.

The big blow came after Leiter replaced Hill with one on and one out — the score was 4-3 at that point — and walked two to load the bases before allowing a grand slam to Eugenio Suarez on a 2-and-2 splitter.

It was the third baseman’s fifth homer of the season.

“I just can’t walk two guys, that’s really it,” said Leiter, who struck out four of the six batters he faced over the weekend. “That’s all I really got for you, just can’t really walk those guys.”

When Hill came on for Cruz to start the eighth, the Diamondbacks (3-2) had just one hit. That changed when pinch hitter Randal Grichuk doubled. He scored on Geraldo Perdomo’s cue-ball single off the end of his bat to make it 4-3.

After Corbin Carroll, who hit a two-run homer in the third against Warren, reached on a fielder’s choice, Leiter walked Ketel Marte and Pavin Smith. Leiter struck out Josh Naylor with a splitter, his best pitch, before catching too much of the plate, with too little movement, with the splitter to Suarez, who muscled it into the first couple of rows of seats in left.

“That was a good swing,” Leiter said. “That’s my split, that’s what I’m going to go to, and he put a real good swing on it. Unfortunately, it got out.”

The Yankees, who became just the second team in league history (the 2006 Tigers were the other) to tally 15 homers in their first three games, got home runs from Jasson Dominguez, who does not use the in-the-news “torpedo” bat, and Anthony Volpe, who does.

Otherwise, it was a mostly quiet night against Arizona ace Corbin Burnes and four relievers as the Yankees totaled just five hits. The last of those was Ben Rice’s two-out solo homer in the ninth off A.J. Puk that made it 7-5.

Burnes, the Diamondbacks’ prized free-agent signing in the offseason, allowed four runs (two earned), four hits and three walks over 4 1⁄3 innings, in which he struck out eight.

Justin Martinez struck out Aaron Judge, Jazz Chisholm Jr. and Volpe in the eighth, and Puk struck out Austin Wells and Dominguez to start the ninth.

The 25-year-old Warren, 0-3 with a 10.32 ERA in six games (five starts) in sporadic duty last season, was good overall, allowing two runs, one hit and four walks over five innings in which he struck out four.

“That’s an exciting first outing for him,” Aaron Boone said. “That’s a really good offense to go through, and I thought he pitched really well. His secondary [stuff] tonight was excellent.”

Warren retired the first eight he faced before walking Perdomo on four pitches with two outs in the third and Carroll followed with a shot to right to make it 2-0.

Dominguez, one of the few Yankees not to hit a home run last weekend, led off the bottom half by cracking a 2-and-1 cutter to right-center to make it 2-1. Volpe’s third homer of the season — he didn’t hit his third in 2024 until April 28, in his 28th game — tied it in the fourth against Burnes and the Yankees added two unearned runs later in the inning to make it 4-2.

Notes & quotes: Giancarlo Stanton, who started the season on the IL with tendon tears in both elbows, said before Tuesday’s game he recently had begun hitting in the cage off “the Trajekt,” a machine that, more or less, is a pitching robot that can be programmed to replicate the pitch trajectories of a given pitcher. Stanton said he will “for sure” need at-bats in a minor league rehab assignment before playing in the big leagues but said he isn’t close to that step . . . With new closer Devin Williams put on the paternity list Tuesday, the Yankees signed veteran righthander Adam Ottavino, who pitched for them from 2019-20. The 39-year-old, a New York City native, on March 23 exercised an out clause in the minor league deal he signed with the Red Sox in February. Ottavino, a Met from 2022-24, struck out one and walked one in two-thirds of an inning Tuesday.

By Erik Boland

erik.boland@newsday.comeboland11

Erik Boland started in Newsday's sports department in 2002. He covered high school and college sports, then shifted to the Jets beat. He has covered the Yankees since 2009.