There is a lot that needs to happen for a team to lose a game in the first inning, but that’s what transpired in the opening minutes of this Sunday Night Baseball contest. Someone once said that one of the peculiarities of baseball is that if you happen to get knocked out early, they still drag your body around for about two and a half hours, maybe less if you’re lucky. Well, at least the Yankees didn’t allow that to happen. In fact, the blowout loss that looked certain by the end of the first turned into a tightly contested affair that ultimately didn’t go the Yankees’ way.
Will Warren came into the game with the mission to overcome his road issues and reasonably keep the Yankees in the game against the best pitcher in the AL East. After one inning of work, he had the Yankees trailing by half a dozen runs, including allowing the first five hitters to reach base safely.
Having Giancarlo Stanton in the lineup with Aaron Judge at DH is a tradeoff, and tonight the Yankees experienced the downside of that choice. One bad defensive play didn’t cause this disastrous outing from Warren; at the same time, when the opening hitter of the game gets a three-bagger on a fly ball completely misplayed by Stanton, it’s natural to wonder how that first inning would have gone had it started with an out. Duran’s triple in the first had an .010 xBA. For a pitcher with staggering home-road splits (Warren had a 5.43 ERA on the road before this game), any small moment can make the difference, and after that, it was hit after hit after hit, with a Carlos Narváez solo shot wrapping up the six-run frame.
Once down 6-0 and facing Crochet, the Yankees, and particularly Warren, could’ve folded early, made a bad situation even worse, and just gotten ready for the next one, but that didn’t happen. Right in the following inning, Warren had a two-on, two-out situation, and he kept Boston off the board. Despite facing the Red Sox’s whole batting order in the first, Warren had enough left in the tank to complete five innings, allowing no runs after the first inning blowup. The bullpen added three scoreless frames with Camilo Doval, Mark Leiter Jr. and Paul Blackburn each pitching a scoreless frame.
Facing Crochet, though, any disadvantage can feel insurmountable when he’s on, and six runs is usually more than plenty for him. Even with Warren’s and the bullpen’s solid work after the first, the Yankees still were a ways away from making this a game, but they did. Amed Rosario and Aaron Judge went yard in back-to-back innings in the fourth and fifth, and all of a sudden, that lead was cut in half with plenty of baseball to be played.
Filthy as usual, Crochet got more than his fair share of strikeouts, with 12 on the evening, but that also meant a high pitch count, and it helped drive him out of the game after six. With a new pitcher in, the scoring for the Yankees remained the same with a righty on lefty homer. José Caballero hit the third Yankee homer of the evening off Steven Matz, making this a 6-4 affair.
Given how dominant Aroldis Chapman has been this season, the goal would be to tie things up before the ninth. Aaron Judge teased that with a leadoff single in the eighth, but Garrett Whitlock struck out the side after that. Against Chapman, it was an uneventful 1-2-3, and the Yankees’ comeback effort ultimately fell short. The Yankees couldn’t walk out of Fenway with the sweep, but a series win nonetheless has them in decent positioning with the rest of their schedule entering cake walk territory.
The road trip continues with the next stop in Minnesota to face a depleted Twins squad following this year’s trade deadline. Carlos Rodón and Simeon Woods-Richardson will duke it out on Monday at 7:10 p.m. EST.
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