Yankees allow nine stolen bases, come up short in clutch in loss to Red Sox

BOSTON — The Yankees got run ragged by the Red Sox on Sunday night at Fenway Park.

Perhaps more significant, they lost first baseman Anthony Rizzo to a lower right arm injury, the severity of which was not immediately known.

After starting this seven-game trip with three straight victories, the Yankees dropped three of the final four games, the last one a 9-3 loss to the Red Sox in which they allowed nine stolen bases in front of an enthusiastic sellout crowd of 36,718.

Rizzo, who has mostly struggled at the plate and in the field this season, left the game in the seventh inning after hustling down the line and colliding with Red Sox reliever Brennan Bernardino on a play at first base. The players banged hips, but the injury occurred when Rizzo crashed to the ground and his right arm/wrist took the brunt of the fall.

Rizzo will get an MRI on Monday. “The initial imaging, just the fluoroscope, which is a low-grade X-ray, was negative,’’ Aaron Boone said. “But he’s in some pain in that lower arm in a number of places. He’ll get a lot of tests tomorrow and we’ll see what we’re dealing with . . . When he didn’t get up right away, I could tell he was in some pain. Obviously, concern there and then just certain movements, even out there, kind of knew right away he was in some pain. Hopefully we dodge something, but we’ll see what it reveals tomorrow.”

That play — in which Red Sox first baseman Dom Smith was charged with a throwing error after singles by Alex Verdugo and Giancarlo Stanton — loaded the bases with none out and the Yankees trailing 4-3.

Zack Kelly then fell behind Gleyber Torres 3-and-0 before getting two called strikes and fanning Torres on a sweeper that was well out of the strike zone. Kelly struck out Jose Trevino and got DJ LeMahieu on a liner to center to end the Yankees’ last hope, as the Red Sox scored three runs in the seventh and two in the eighth to pull away.

The Red Sox, who entered the game with 60 steals in 71 games, established a franchise record with their nine steals. Their club record had been eight, accomplished twice previously, most recently on Sept. 29, 1940, against the Philadelphia Athletics. It was the most stolen bases allowed by the Yankees since the Tigers stole nine bases against them on May 19, 1915.

“It’s on all of us,’’ Boone said. “It’s a group effort; it takes everything to control running games. Obviously, they have a very fast team and their running game beat us tonight. We have to do a better job overall of controlling those things, slowing them down, and we didn’t do them well enough tonight.”

All of the stolen bases came against Trevino, who is known as one of the game’s best pitch-framers but also, according to myriad scouts, is vulnerable to the stolen base because of the one-knee-down stance implemented throughout the organization (and plenty across the sport).

Trevino took the blame, deflecting it from Yankees starter Marcus Stroman or anyone else.  "They’re going to run,’’ he said. “We knew that coming in. I’ve gotta put the ball on the bag. They had some good opportunities to run tonight and they ran.”

Stroman (6-3, 3.08) allowed four runs and seven hits in five innings in which he threw 102 pitches, 58 strikes.

“Just a lot of deep counts,’’ he said. “A bunch of speed on that team. They do a good job of getting on and wreaking havoc on the bases. I didn’t do a good enough job. Too many walks, putting too many free men on base and allowing them to run.”

Boston righthander Kutter Crawford (3-6, 3.54) allowed three runs and six hits in six innings in which he walked one and struck out nine.

Stroman, like so many Yankees pitchers this season, had the lead before throwing a pitch. With two outs in the first, Aaron Judge sent a soaring 380-foot drive to leftfield at 114.2 mph for his MLB-leading 26th homer and a 1-0 lead. It gave the Yankees an MLB-leading 22 first-inning homers, 10 of which have been hit by Judge.

The Red Sox (37-35) took the lead in the second, rallying with two outs. After Enmanuel Valdez walked and stole second, Smith singled to put runners at the corners and stole second, setting up a two-run single to center by Ceddanne Rafaela.

Boston’s David Hamilton, who stole four bases, led off the third with a walk and went to third on a single by former Yankee Rob Refsnyder. Rafael Devers hit into a 6-3 double play, with Hamilton scoring to make it 3-1.

Hamilton led off the fifth with a single and easily stole second and third. Refsnyder walked and Devers’ sacrifice fly to center made it 4-1. Refsnyder then took off for second but was caught by Stroman, the only instance in which the Yankees were able to foil Boston’s running game.

Crawford silenced the Yankees after Judge’s homer, allowing one baserunner in the next four innings, but Trevino led off the sixth by blasting a first-pitch cutter onto Lansdowne Street for his eighth homer. One out later, Anthony Volpe slashed a single to right and made it all the way to third on Juan Soto’s groundout to deep second. With Judge at the plate, Volpe scored on a wild pitch to make it 4-3.

After the Yankees’ attempt to tie the score in the seventh fell short, Devers had an RBI single and Connor Wong tripled home two runs in the bottom of the inning to make it 7-3. Hamilton singled home a run in the eighth, although Soto threw out Jarren Duran at the plate on the play, and Wong added an RBI single.

“They were able to get on base, and then once they got on base, they were able to get in scoring position,'' Judge said. "Looking at it, they were 6-for-15 with guys in scoring position. When you do that, and then for us, we [were] 0-for-5 [with runners in scoring position], you’re not going to win a lot of ballgames like that. They capitalized when they got guys in scoring position, they were able to do it all night. That’s kind of the story of the game tonight.”