DENVER — , mile-high altitude and an opposing starter with a 6.40 ERA working in their favor, the Yankees seemed primed for an offensive outburst at Coors Field on Friday.
They scored two runs instead.
Those came off the bat of , who laced a two-run, 455-foot homer off Colorado lefty in the first inning. The blast and the second half with a bang, but the Yankees, now tied with Boston for last place, didn’t score again in a 7-2 loss to the basement-dwelling Rockies, who entered the game with the worst ERA in the National League.
“We’ve got to generate more,” Aaron Boone said afterward. “It’s as simple as that. It’s not the way we wanted to start off this series.”
The Yankees had a chance to tack on more runs in the sixth, when Stanton led off with a bloop double. But Anthony Rizzo, Harrison Bader and Josh Donaldson all recorded outs as the Yankees’ offense continued to sputter like it did for much of the first half.
“Everybody in the clubhouse knows what’s happened,” said , who picked up three of the Yankees’ eight hits. “We have to figure out faster the way to get better at home plate.”
Kyle Higashioka, meanwhile, felt the lineup has been collectively pressing a bit.
“It’s hard not to when you’re not winning every day, but we have a pretty good core group of guys and good leadership in here,” the catcher said. “We know that we need to just focus on the next at-bat. We’re not going to get three hits in one at-bat. So it just comes down to having quality at-bats every single time you go to the plate. And then that’ll compound into hopefully scoring a lot of runs.”
On the mound, came up short in his second start for the Yankees. The southpaw totaled four hits, four earned runs, one homer, two walks and six strikeouts over five innings and 88 pitches.
“I definitely wasn’t good,” Rodón said. “I don’t know if it’s rust. It wasn’t good tonight. Let’s put it that way. I have no other way to put it.”
While all of Rodón’s runs were earned, Isiah Kiner-Falefa in the second inning when Brenton Doyle lined a ball to left with two runners in scoring position and the Yankees up, 2-1. Kiner-Falefa’s first step was in, but the rope sailed over his head and gave the Rockies a 3-2 lead.
The ball had a 70% catch probability, according to Statcast.
“I thought it was a double off the bat,” Boone said. “I was just hoping it would stay in the yard.”
The Rockies scored their first run on an Ezequiel Tovar single in the second, while former Blue Jay Randal Grichuk continued his Yankee-killing ways with a homer off Rodón in the fourth.
Kris Bryant added a dagger in the seventh when he took Michael King deep to left for a two-run homer, while Nolan Jones piled on with a 469-foot solo shot off Albert Abreu in the eighth.
While the Yankees are still within striking distance of a wild card spot, this is the first time since Aug. 23, 1992 that they have been tied for last place this late in a season, according to . They have not been in sole possession of last place this late in a campaign since 1990, when they ended up in the cellar.
“We’ve got to be better, plain and simple,” Boone said. “I’m not worried about where we are. It’s all there in front of us. We don’t have to go on some incredible run. We control it, but we all know we’ve got to play better than we’re playing. Obviously, we’ve got to get the offense going. We can do a little bit of everything better. The good thing is we’re in a position where it’s in our control, but we’ve got to go do it, and I think to a man we all know we’ve got to be a little bit better.”
Higashioka relayed a similar message, though he knows the Yankees need to fix things fast.
“To be honest, I don’t really look at that and panic, because we’re not so far out of it that playoffs are out of reach,” he said. “But at the same time, there’s a sense of urgency here that we got to get it going pretty quickly. But in the meantime, we just got to grind games out, grind out some wins. If we get two or three in a row, we’re gonna start rolling.”
The Yankees will try to rebound from the loss when Clarke Schmidt takes the mound on Saturday. Connor Seabold will start for the Rockies, giving the Bombers another chance to breakout against a pitcher with an ERA well over 6.00.
“I know it’s a lot of panic outside the clubhouse with people talking where we are,” Torres said. “We just got to try playing better baseball. We have more games left. It’s going to be little by little. I think when we start winning games, everything will get better. I think tomorrow we have to start winning games.”
If Seabold doesn’t do the trick, the Yankees will get a crack at Chase Anderson on Sunday. His ERA is closer to 7.00.
Gerrit Cole, fresh off an All-Star start, will pitch the series finale for New York.
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