Yankees hit with another gut punch, falling to Red Sox after taking three-run lead on HRs by Aaron Judge, Austin Wells
Yankees pitcher Clay Holmes heads back to the mound after giving up an RBI double to Wilyer Abreu of the Red Sox during the eighth inning at Fenway Park on Friday in Boston. Credit: Getty Images/Winslow Townson
BOSTON
Roughly 48 hours after Aaron Boone’s expletive-laced postgame rant in the Bronx, the Yankees were greeted with an eerie silence at Fenway Park, where no music of any kind was played during the visitors’ batting practice.
That was the last thing Boone & Co. needed at this point, being alone with their thoughts, left to the soundtrack inside their own heads, a Spotify list of negative hits.
In the seventh inning Friday night, Aaron Judge finally changed the channel, albeit temporarily. Just as the self-doubt threatened to overtake the Yankees again, Judge drowned out those voices with one of the loudest, longest home runs ever to echo throughout Fenway.
With the Yankees trailing 4-3, Judge destroyed a first-pitch fastball from Red Sox reliever Zack Kelly, hammering it high above the centerfield bleachers and over a TV camera ledge. The estimated distance was 470 feet, according to Statcast, but it looked more like 570, and the only sound coming from the sellout crowd of 36,661 was a hushed disbelief.
But not even Judge had the muscle to squash the bad karma hanging around these Yankees. Austin Wells followed Judge's home run with one of his own to give the Yankees a 7-4 lead, but the bullpen couldn’t hold it, and it was Clay Holmes who ultimately caved.
In the bottom of the seventh, Luke Weaver gave up a two-run homer by Ceddanne Rafaela. When Holmes entered for a five-out save with two on the eighth, he surrendered Wilyer Abreu's tying double and a two-run single by Masataka Yoshida that dealt the Yankees a 9-7 loss, dropping them to 10-23 dating to June 15 (the second-worst record in the majors over that span).
Not only that, but there was plenty of other noise going on around them in the AL East, especially involving the Orioles, who began filling their two biggest needs Friday afternoon. First it was grabbing reliever Seranthony Dominguez from the Phillies, followed by a swap with the Rays to get starter Zach Eflin.
Boone, back to being a Sunshine Superman after Wednesday’s diatribe following the sweep by the Mets, smiled Friday while being interrogated about the Orioles' moves. A poker face? Perhaps. But the clock is ticking toward Tuesday’s 6 p.m. trade deadline, and the Yankees don't seem to be improving any on their own.
“You pay attention to all of it,” Boone said before the game. “It’s all kind of exciting — wow and anxious. And at the same time, you want to get through the [deadline] and be like, this is what we’re going with, this is what everyone’s got, let’s go.”
For Boone’s sake, the Yankees can’t be at that stage yet. Aside from general manager Brian Cashman working the phones to import some help, they have some in-house Hail Marys on the horizon.
The first is Giancarlo Stanton. Boone said the club now is targeting Monday in Philadelphia for the fragile slugger’s return to the lineup. Stanton has been on the injured list with a hamstring strain since June 23, or right around the time the Yankees officially went in the tank. How desperately do they need Stanton’s power bat? Enough so that he’ll skip a rehab assignment in order to face the Phillies, but Boone insisted the move wasn’t accelerated to get Stanton back in the cleanup spot ASAP.
“No, if that were the case, we’d rush him in there today,” Boone said. “He’s physically probably at that point, but we want to make sure he’s in a really good spot. And ready to have the best opportunity to not only be successful but to sustain it, too.”
With the ever-streaky Stanton, there’s no guarantee he’ll hit the ground running. He may need a few days, at least, to again be the same Big G with the killer exit velo and the 18 homers through his first 69 games.
Also, Stanton could have company before too long, with Jasson Dominguez beginning his rehab stint Friday for Triple-A Scranton, hitting leadoff as the DH. Dominguez is well ahead of the eight-week timeline of his original prognosis for his oblique strain, and we wouldn’t expect him to be down there for a minute longer than absolutely necessary.
The problem is knowing precisely how much time he’’ll require. Dominguez returned from Tommy John surgery in May, then played only 23 games in the minors before injuring the oblique. That puts the Yankees in a bit of bind, trying to upgrade their pitiful lineup as quickly as possible yet worrying about the health of the oft-injured Martian.
“Obviously he’s a guy that we’ll pay close attention to,” Boone said.
With the Yankees in town, another interesting AL East development was the Red Sox giving Alex Cora a three-year contract extension worth $21 million. The Sox didn’t even try this past winter, putting together the 12th-highest payroll in the sport, and Cora was painted as a disgruntled manager unhappy with the direction of the franchise. But that’s changed dramatically over the last few months. Boston is hovering around the third wild-card spot, and Cora is enjoying life a heck of a lot more than his Yankees counterpart these days.
“Pretty good deal,” Boone said. “He’s paying any time I see him.”
So scratch Cora’s name off the potential list of Boone replacements if the Yankees fall short of their October aspirations. And in that regard, the noise only gets louder from here.
David Lennon is an award-winning columnist, a voter for baseball's Hall of Fame and has covered six no-hitters, including two perfect games.
