Yankees’ shameful series streak continues with loss to Nationals
After snapping their longest losing streak in 41 years, the Yankees proceeded to extend a different skid that has been quieter, if just as devastating.
As has been the case all season, the breath of fresh air that was Wednesday’s victory — which ended a run of nine straight losses that represented their longest slide since 1982 — was followed by one more setback.
The Yankees returned to The Bronx on Thursday afternoon and completed a ninth straight series without a series victory.
Aaron Boone’s club lost yet another set, this time crumpling late in a 6-5 defeat to the Nationals in front of 39,681 unhappy fans, who watched a seventh-inning meltdown become the club’s undoing.
The Yankees have not won a series since taking three games from the Royals from July 21-23.
After that sweep, the Yankees were two games removed from the final AL wild card.
Just over a month and what has felt like a lifetime later, the Yankees (61-66) are 10 games back of the postseason picture.
The Yankees, 0-7-2 in series since sweeping Kansas City, already have waved a white flag and will continue playing a pair of prospects (Everson Pereira and Oswald Peraza) during a 10-game trip through Tampa, Detroit and Houston.
“I feel like we’ve been frustrated a lot this year,” said Michael King, who pitched 2 ²/₃ mostly solid innings as a building-up starter, allowing one unearned run. “We show flashes of it like obviously [Wednesday], and even today I felt like we had awesome at-bats — there were a lot of good things about it, and it just didn’t all come together.
“That’s when you know you’re going through it: When the pitchers do well, the hitters aren’t. When the hitters do well, the pitchers aren’t.”
Whenever hope has appeared — as it did with Aaron Judge’s fourth home run in two games, a first-inning blast; with Gleyber Torres’ third-inning, two-run shot; with a few late rallies as they tried to scramble back on top — frustration has followed.
In a season in which occasionally the rotation and usually the bats have been problems, Tommy Kahnle was the biggest issue this time.
Kahnle entered in the seventh inning of a game the Yankees were ahead, 3-1, and flushed the lead. Kahnle gave up three hits — an RBI single to Jake Alu and back-to-back home runs from Alex Call and CJ Abrams — and the Yankees had buried themselves again. All three hits came off changeups, Kahnle’s best pitch but one he felt Washington was waiting for.
The Yankees could not come all the way back. Giancarlo Stanton’s eighth-inning home run made it a one-run game, though the Nationals reclaimed the two-run edge by finding holes against Clay Holmes — the RBI single a tapper from Joey Meneses — in the ninth.
In the bottom of the ninth, three singles (from Peraza, Torres and Stanton) brought the Yankees to within one again. But with two out, Harrison Bader completed a rough, four-strikeout day with a deep fly out to center.
“It’s frustrating you can’t finish it off, especially when you got a lead and you know the back end of the bullpen is coming,” Boone said of a group of relievers that has easily been the team’s biggest strength this year. “But we got to move on. We got a tough trip starting [Friday].”
Wasted was a promising if short start from King, who is auditioning for the rotation. The righty allowed a hit, two walks and one run that should not have scored.
With Alu on third base with two out in the third, King induced a ground ball from Meneses, but Anthony Volpe booted it, allowing what was a tying run to score.
There were errors defensively and more unforced errors on the base paths.
The Yankees ran themselves out of a threat in the second inning, when Kyle Higashioka tried to advance from second to third on a ground ball to Abrams, the shortstop, and was thrown out. Peraza then was picked off at first base.
Such are the type of mistakes that burn teams that are not powerful enough to compensate. DJ LeMahieu said “a lot of factors” are keeping the Yankees from seizing any momentum.
“Hasn’t been pretty,” LeMahieu added. “Hasn’t been fun.”
