There’s one thing this league will do to you in a hurry.
You take a high-stakes weekend from the Red Sox, score 25 runs in two games, fly across the country Sunday night, and then get handed a 10-1 loss by a team tied for the worst record in baseball.
Folks, the Yankees (78-60) were not sharp in any area Monday. Lifeless. Flat. Coming off four games in three days, they fell apart against the Angels (53-85) and wasted a chance to pick up a game on the Rays. They’re still 4 1/2 games back in the division. Boston slid back within three of them for the top AL wild card.
Elmer Rodríguez Lasts 3 2/3 in Another Dud After Brief Hope
Elmer Rodríguez had offered a little hope his last time out, like maybe the kid had figured something out after that stretch at Triple-A. His first four big league starts were all fairly similar — meaning not particularly effective. Then he dazzled. Then came another dud.
He walked three, hit two more, and gave up four runs in 3 2/3 innings. It took him 91 pitches to get 11 outs. The velocity fell off late. The command never showed up.
“Just falling behind a lot of hitters,” Rodríguez said. “I feel like if I just attacked from the start — I know when I was ahead, I was getting my outs and executing good pitches.”
He even flew ahead of the rest of the team and landed in Los Angeles around 7:30 p.m. Sunday to get a good night’s rest. It did not make a difference.
In each of the first three innings, he issued a two-out walk. He worked around the first two. The third, after a leadoff double, turned into the Angels’ first run on Vaughn Grissom’s RBI single.
Then the fourth. Two outs, and he hits ex-Yankee Oswald Peraza and Tyler Heineman back-to-back, both on curveballs. Zach Neto and Mike Trout follow with back-to-back singles. Just like that, it’s 4-0.
Yankees Defense Unravels as Bullpen Lets Angels Pull Away
Any chance of climbing out of that hole got sabotaged by sloppy baseball late. Three errors. Two of them charged to José Caballero on one play.
In relief, Michael Fulmer, Luis Gil — in his first career appearance out of the bullpen — and David Bednar each gave up at least one run and let the thing get away. Bednar needed 28 pitches in the eighth after pitching just once in the last 10 days, with the rest of that seven-man bullpen already taxed.
The fifth wasn’t all on Fulmer. Runner on second, one out, Christian Moore dumps a bloop to right. Spencer Jones tries the sliding grab, comes up short, and his glove flicks the ball back toward the infield. Run scores. Moore takes second on the double.
Then Fulmer tries to pick Moore off. Caballero can’t catch the throw. Trent Grisham lobs one in to nobody in particular. Moore comes all the way around. 6-1.
Caballero later committed two errors on one play in the sixth behind Gil, who gave up one run in two innings. First he bobbles a grounder and loses the double play. Then he bounces the throw to first and doesn’t get that out either. 7-1.
“Couple mistakes we made, including me,” Caballero said. “Just need to clean that up and play better baseball.”
Aaron Boone Shuts Down Travel Excuses After Ugly Night
Look, four games in three days and a red-eye would be an easy thing to hide behind.
Boone wasn’t having it.
“That’s an excuse. That’s an excuse,” Boone said. “It’s obviously been a tough stretch. We’re coming out here, we know we got to play well. We were ready to go today, we just played poorly.”
They made plenty of loud contact early against Walbert Ureña and had little to show for it before he settled in. They let him off the hook in the first, when Grisham — moved out of the leadoff spot against a righty, in favor of Ben Rice, for only the second time since May — struck out to end the threat.
Their only run in seven innings against Ureña was Spencer Jones’ moonshot in the fifth.
“Obviously an ugly one for us tonight,” manager Aaron Boone said. “It’s just a great reminder that in this league, you got to play well or you get it handed to you.”
Folks, that’s how you lose 10-1 to a last-place club.
