Yankees not named Aaron Judge and Juan Soto continue to struggle as Rays win again

Luis Severino, still not wrong.

The current Met and longtime Yankee recently created a bit of a stir  when he said of his former team: “You only have two good hitters.”

Those two hitters, Juan Soto and Aaron Judge, proved the point Sunday afternoon.

More accurately, the other seven in the Yankees' lineup did in a 6-4 loss to the Rays in front of 45,178 at the Stadium.

Soto went 3-for-5 with an RBI double in the ninth. Judge was even more productive, going 2-for-4, including his MLB-leading 35th homer, a 444-foot three-run shot into the leftfield bleachers in the seventh inning that cut a 5-0 deficit to 5-3.

But that was it.

Again.

Despite outhitting the Rays 9-7 and drawing six walks to the Rays' two, the Yankees (59-42) continued their  trend of failing with runners in scoring position, going 2-for-10 with nine stranded in losing for the 20th time in their last 29 games. Through four innings, the Yankees were 1-for-7 with RISP with eight stranded.

“It’s definitely tough,”  said Judge,  who in his last 64 games has 29 home runs, 70 RBIs and a .366/.489/.839 slash line. “You guys asked me the same questions in April; how are we going to get out of this? And it’s just about putting your head down and going to work. You can’t chase results in this game. It’s going to kill you.”

The Yankees fell behind for good seven pitches into the game, thanks to Richie Palacios'   leadoff home run off Marcus Stroman, and allowed four home runs for the second straight game.

Because the Orioles haven’t played distinguished baseball in the same stretch — losing to the Rangers on Sunday to fall to 15-15 since June 15 — the Yankees somehow are only two games behind the AL East leaders.

Still, the Yankees’ fade shows few signs of ending.

“For us right now, that’s what’s been a challenge, breaking through,” said Aaron Boone, who was ejected after the sixth, still irate at a called third strike (which did appear low) taken by Alex Verdugo on a full-count pitch leading off the inning. “Fifteen baserunners today, you sign up for that. I think we’re having a lot of really good at-bats . . . It’s not bouncing our way, but we have to make it happen. We’re giving ourselves opportunities, [but] the name of the game is cashing in. Kind of like in football; I feel like we’re stopping the run, we’re getting third and long . . .We have to find a way to break through.”

Ben Rice walked with one out in the ninth against the always jittery Pete Fairbanks, Tampa Bay’s seventh pitcher of the day, and scored on Soto’s double off the wall in left-center to make it 6-4. Judge got in front of a  1-and-1 slider, hooking a long foul down the leftfield line, before flying to center. After Fairbanks balked Soto to third,  Austin Wells, again batting cleanup, struck out looking on a 1-and-2 slider that caught a big chunk of the plate.

“This game’s hard for us right now, [but] we gotta find a way,” Boone said. “We know we’re better than this. I think there’s certain guys pressing a little bit.”

Verdugo, who has  two hits in his last 35 at-bats, acknowledged that he’s one of them. He went 0-for-4 in extending his slide to 14-for-100.

“Everybody presses, man,” Verdugo said of his last month-plus. “When you’re struggling, you want to get out of it, you want to compete, you want to do something good. My version of pressing is just trying. I’m trying hard. I want to make something happen. I want to help the team. In that sense, yeah, I have been pressing a little bit.”

Trailing 1-0, the Yankees loaded the bases with one out in each of the first two innings but were unable to score.

After one-out singles by Soto and Judge and a walk to Wells in the first, Gleyber Torres popped the first pitch to shallow leftfield and   Verdugo lined a bullet right into the glove of first baseman Isaac Paredes.

In the second, singles by Anthony Volpe and Oswaldo Cabrera, a double steal and a walk to Rice again loaded the bases. Soto then tried to pull a 3-and-0 pitch on the outer half of the plate from Shane Baz and hit into an inning-ending 3-6-1 double play.

Aside from the homer by Palacios, the Rays (50-49) received a trio of two-out blasts  by Randy Arozarena off Stroman, Jose Siri off Jake Cousins and Jose Caballero off Luke Weaver.

 Stroman kept the Yankees in the game, allowing three runs (two earned) and five hits in 5 1/3 innings in which he struck out five and did not walk a batter. Two of the hits were homers, including the leadoff blast by Palacios that quickly created a palpable here-we-go-again buzz in the crowd.

“I feel like every guy in this room knows what they’re capable of, so I don’t think it’s going to last long,” Stroman said of the team-wide slide. “It’s just something that we have to continue to come out here and keep battling, keep competing, and hopefully the tides turn in our favor pretty soon.”