Clay Holmes’ nightmare ninth inning snaps Yankees’ win streak at seven with loss to Mariners
Perhaps blame Clay Holmes, whose stuff seemed crisp but who could not find an out in a ninth inning that was never-ending.
Perhaps blame Gleyber Torres, whose poor throw in the frame only added to the frustration.
Perhaps blame Giancarlo Stanton, who bounced into two inning-ending double plays to extinguish threats.
After Monday’s stunning and series-opening 5-4 loss to the Mariners in front of 37,590 in The Bronx, though, several Yankees blamed the sport itself.
“It’s baseball,” manager Aaron Boone said after Holmes entered the ninth inning with a three-run lead, then allowed soft hit after soft hit until four runs had scored.
“We got one of the best closers in the game,” Aaron Judge said after the Yankees (33-16) snapped a seven-game win streak. “Stuff like that is bound to happen at some point.”
“To be honest, it’s baseball,” said Marcus Stroman, who allowed one run in 7 ¹/₃ innings and continued what has been a masterful stretch for Yankees starters.
Baseball (and the Mariners) beat Holmes, who entered — with the added frills of a more official closer entrance — having allowed zero earned runs in 20 innings this season and then could not escape the frame.
Given a 4-1 edge and looking for his 14th save, Holmes let up:
- A swinging-bunt single to Julio Rodriguez on a ball that officially traveled 2 feet before hitting the grass;
- A six-pitch walk to Cal Raleigh;
- An infield single to Luke Raley on another ball that officially traveled 2 feet and which Torres bounced off Anthony Rizzo’s glove and into the Yankees dugout, which scored a run;
- A bloop single to Mitch Haniger that left the bat at just 75.5 mph and bounced in front of Aaron Judge;
- A walk to Dylan Moore, who was behind 0-2 before laying off four sinkers and sliders;
- A game-tying sacrifice fly to Dominic Canzone, who was the rare batter who made hard contact;
- A grounded single that Ty France poked through the right side for the go-ahead RBI.
Others blamed the game. Holmes blamed himself.
“That was on me,” said Holmes, whose season-opening, 20-game streak without allowing an earned run only trailed Dellin Betances (26-game streak to begin 2015) in franchise history. “I thought I made some good pitches and definitely some balls found some holes. But I had a couple guys there that [were] 0-2, 1-2, and I put them on base.”
Minutes earlier, Holmes had entered the game with some surprise and some wonderment.
The club — pushed by Holmes’ teammates and not by Holmes himself — has added some theatrics to the closer’s entrance and followed the leads of plenty of teams around baseball, including Edwin Diaz’s Mets.
The lights briefly go dark before they start flashing while a hype video, Holmes’ name and some psychedelic effects take over the video board.
The Yankees have introduced the entrance, which Holmes acknowledged is “a little more subtle” than most of the light and/or trumpet shows around MLB, for the first time this homestand.
Fans appeared to enjoy it Monday until Holmes actually began pitching. A few minutes and a few poorly struck balls later, Holmes was pulled and heard boos from a crowd that had just loudly cheered his entrance.
“Those balls, sometimes they find holes,” said Holmes, whose ERA rose from 0.00 to 1.74. “Still, as a pitcher, you got to make pitches after that and overcome that. I wasn’t able to do that tonight.”
The Yankees were in control for the first eight innings but were not able to pull away.
Most of the Yankees’ offense was provided by two swings from Alex Verdugo, whose double in the first inning drove in two and whose single in the fifth brought in one.
They scored another run in the eighth on a Jon Berti single but turned 12 hits into just four runs because they left nine on base.
Stanton was the biggest offender, coming to bat with runners on the corners and one out in the fifth and grounding into a double play before doing the same with the bases loaded in the seventh.
The way Stroman was throwing for 7 ¹/₃ innings, it appeared offensive issues would not matter.
Those issues mattered when the ninth inning began and baseball reminded of its fickleness.
“Just didn’t really bounce our way in that inning,” Boone said.
