Daily Report – 6/29/26
Yankees
Last night’s Yankees loss was the perfect blow to end a gut-wrenching series in Boston, as the Red Sox completed their first four-game sweep of the Yankees since 2018 with a 5-4 extra-innings comeback. The fifth-place Red Sox, who hadn’t won four straight games all season, took advantage of a scuffling, shorthanded Yankees squad, turning them into their personal punching bag.
For the first time since 1963, the Yankees were no-hit through four innings in three straight games. Last night, Sonny Gray no-hit his former team through 7 1/3 innings. Including Connelly Early, Payton Tolle, and Jake Bennett, Boston’s starting pitchers totaled 26 2/3 innings against the Yankees, and they notched 28 strikeouts while permitting just three runs, 10 hits, and six walks.
The Red Sox are 10 games under .500, so there are only two explanations for their triumphs this weekend: The greatest rivalry in sports brought out Boston’s best, and the Yankees’ long list of injuries finally caught up with them. Last night, despite overcoming hitlessness and maneuvering a comeback, the Yankees still found themselves in the loss column.
Carlos Rodón, the main reason the Yankees even had a chance to win last night, said, “We got outplayed. Although they’re still last in the division, they’re a solid club. They played good baseball and made things happen. They’re aggressive. It wasn’t our best weekend.”
Despite eclipsing 80 pitches by the fourth inning, Rodón only permitted one hit and two runs, both unearned, through five frames. In the fourth, the Red Sox took advantage of a fielding error by Oswaldo Cabrera, playing in his first Major League game since last May.
With two outs and runners at second and third base, Rodón left a fastball in Caleb Durbin’s wheelhouse, and he planted it in center field for a two-run single. That was Boston’s only hit until the seventh inning, when Connor Wong singled, but Paul Blackburn kept the 2-0 deficit intact by forcing Tsung-Che Cheng to ground into a double play.
After forcing Aroldis Chapman to hurl 20 pitches in Saturday’s loss, the Yankees punished him in yesterday’s ninth inning. José Caballero led off the frame with a single, Anthony Volpe followed with a walk, and Ben Rice flied out to Wilyer Abreu in right field.
After making the catch, Abreu mishandled his throw to the infield, allowing Caballero to score. Paul Goldschmidt, pinch-hitting for Jasson Domínguez, subsequently plated Volpe on a dribbler to shortstop, tying the score.
But Volpe should not have been hitting in the ninth inning at all, since he was playing in place of his ejected teammate, Jazz Chisholm Jr. In the sixth, Chisholm struck out on a checked swing. Frustrated that the home plate umpire Adam Hamari didn’t check with his partner at third base, Chisholm shouted at him. Despite his coaches’ efforts to calm him down, Chisholm continued to argue with Hamari. Once he slammed his helmet on the ground, his night was over.
“I never like our guys getting tossed,” said manager Aaron Boone. “Every once in a while, a guy does get tossed. I certainly don’t want him out of the game. I was trying to keep [Chisholm] in the game in that situation. They gave him a little bit of rope out there, arguing his case. […] You’ve got to try and rein it in there.”
David Bednar held things down in the bottom of the ninth, giving the Yankees a chance in extra innings. In the top of the 10th, with Max Schuemann at second base, Amed Rosario lifted a ball to Abreu in right field, but it skipped out of his glove, allowing Schuemann to score. Because Abreu made another errant throw, Rosario advanced to second base.
Cabrera moved Rosario to third with a bunt, and Austin Wells brought him home with a checked-swing dribbler. It was a big moment for Wells, who entered yesterday’s game with a .510 OPS, the lowest by any Yankees player in their first 175 plate appearances since 1976.
Leading 4-2 entering the bottom of the 10th, the Yankees felt confident because Fernando Cruz, who had stranded 28 inherited baserunners this season, was entering the game with a runner at second base. Cruz hadn’t given up more than one run since May 9, and he hadn’t permitted three runs in any of his 39 appearances this season.
But Cruz chose the wrong time to go flat. His splitter, usually unhittable, was quite the opposite. First, Anthony Seigler tripled to make it a one-run game. Then, Masataka Yoshida doubled, and Cheng tied the score with a sacrifice fly. When Jarren Duran stepped up to the plate, the Yankees formed a wall of five infielders, but he singled over their heads to score the winning run.
“Great teams go through this,” Cruz said. “The best teams go through stretches like this. Champions and great teams in history go through stretches like this, especially games like this.”
Perhaps Cruz is right. After all, the 1963 Yankees, the last team to get no-hit through four innings in three straight games, finished with a 104-57 record. But in the Aaron Boone Era, the Yankees have consistently struggled in June. This particular June has featured several injuries to key players, including Aaron Judge and Trent Grisham, and until this weekend, the Yankees had overcome their losses.
The Yankees have one win in their last 19 June games at Fenway Park. They have also fallen one game out of first place in their division. But the baseball season is filled with peaks and valleys, and at the end of June and early July, top teams tend to slump, and bottom-feeders take advantage.
“That’s what we do, baby! You’ve got to love this stuff,” Boone, all too familiar with the ebbs and flows of 162, exclaimed. “You’ve got to eat this stuff up. It’s a sickness. That’s what the grind is. We’ve got a really good freakin’ team. We played crappy on this road trip, kind of. It feels bad. [We’re] kind of pissed off, but it’s what we do. It’s what you sign up for.
“We’ll dig ourselves out of it and get it going here in short order. Bottom line is, we didn’t play well this weekend, and we’ve got to do better.”
Tonight, at 7:05 PM, the Yankees will begin a three-game set against the Detroit Tigers, this time in the Bronx (YES, Gotham Sports). Last week in Detroit, the Yankees took two of three games from the Tigers.
LHP Ryan Weathers (3-5, 3.95 ERA) will start for the Yankees tonight against the righty Casey Mize (2-5, 2.95 ERA). The Tigers scored two runs off Weathers last Wednesday, and the Yankees scored four runs off Mize last Tuesday.
Here is tonight’s starting lineup for the New York Yankees:
DH Ben Rice (L)
LF Cody Bellinger (L)
1B Paul Goldschmidt (R)
2B Jazz Chisholm Jr. (L)
RF Jasson Domínguez (S)
SS Anthony Volpe (R)
CF Spencer Jones (L)
C Austin Wells (L)
3B José Caballero (R)
SP: LHP Ryan Weathers (3-5, 3.95 ERA)
Schedule
7:05 PM: NYY at DET; YES, Gotham Sports; SP: LHP Ryan Weathers (3-5, 3.95 ERA) vs. RHP Casey Mize (2-5, 2.95 ERA)
