Greg Joyce, Post:
One team's fortune is another team's full-blown disaster — its second in five days.
The Mets became the latest club to crush Aroldis Chapman and Lucas Luetge, who tag-teamed to cough up another final-inning lead as the sinking Yankees suffered a brutal 10-5 loss in the first game of a doubleheader Sunday at Yankee Stadium.
Pete Alonso took Chapman deep for a game-tying home run to lead off the seventh inning, which sparked a six-run rally with the Mets turning Yankee Stadium into their personal playground. . . .
The Yankees (41-41), who lost for the seventh time in eight games and fell back to .500 for the first time since May 7, had no fight left in the bottom of the seventh. Seth Lugo pitched a perfect inning to send the Mets to a huge Game 1 win . . .
After Chapman and Luetge combined to turn an 8-4 lead into an 11-8 loss on Wednesday, they did it again Sunday upon being handed a 5-4 lead. It marked the third straight appearance in which Chapman blew a lead, but he didn't stop there after Alonso's homer on a 1-2 slider — a pitch selection that Boone later questioned. Chapman hit Michael Conforto with an 0-2 fastball and then walked Jeff McNeil, who was trying to bunt.
Pulled before he recorded an out, Chapman was booed off the mound — just like fellow All-Star Gerrit Cole had been four innings earlier in his shortest start since 2016 — as Luetge came on in relief.
Pinch-hitter Kevin Pillar greeted him with a bloop single to load the bases . . . [With one out] a third straight pinch hitter delivered the go-ahead blow as Jose Peraza ripped a two-run double to left field . . . Brandon Nimmo (two-run single) and Francisco Lindor (RBI single) added to the beatdown to push the Mets' lead to 10-5.
The Yankees had a 4-1 lead after three innings but their ace couldn't hold it. Cole, coming off his worst outing of the year when he gave up six runs against the Red Sox, got beat up in the fourth inning . . . Cole gave up four runs on six hits and three walks in 3¹/₃ innings.
Ken Davidoff, Post:
Well, other than the team's priciest two pitchers getting booed off the field and the manager making his most confounding decision of this dumpster-fire 2021, the Yankees enjoyed a lovely Independence Day on Sunday. . . .
"It's really fricking hard right now," Aaron Boone said following the opener . . .
The ace Cole, handed a 4-1 lead in Game 1, couldn't get out of the fourth inning against the club's intracity rival. Chapman, sinking like a milkshake duck, gave up a lead for the third time in three appearances and suffered the loss. . . .
Really, though, it can't be stressed enough that Chapman never should've entered Game 1 when he did, and that's on Boone. . . .
Boone asked Green to get the last out of the sixth with the Yankees up 5-4.
Green threw a grand total of two pitches. He had last pitched on June 28. Chapman had last pitched on June 30, when he memorably served up a game-tying grand slam . . . So why in the world wouldn't Boone let Green, one of his best relievers, come back out for the seventh to close things out and hope he could pocket Chapman for a lower-leverage situation? . . .
Boone praised Chapman for improving his mechanics this time, but come on now. The first batter Chapman faced, Pete Alonso, slugged a game-tying homer . . . and then the closer hit a batter and walked another before mercifully getting lifted for Lucas Luetge, who further blew things up just as he did following Chapman against the Angels. . . .
Wait, don't leave yet, we still have to discuss the Yankees' $324 million man posting a 5.24 ERA in his past six starts! . . .
No one signed up for this goat rodeo of a Yankees campaign, which still feels in serious peril despite a rare, relatively relaxing win in the nightcap.
Kristie Ackert, Daily News:
The largest crowd at Yankee Stadium since 2019 turned on Gerrit Cole Sunday. The Yankees' ace could not get through the fourth inning, and most of the 42,714 in ballpark stood up and let him know that was not acceptable. He walked off to boos for the first time as a Yankee. . . .
"You sign up for it when you come here... it's not a good feeling." . . .
In the first game of a doubleheader, Cole had his shortest start since 2016 and Aroldis Chapman blew his third save in his last nine appearances.
With their two highest-paid pitchers both struggling through the month of June, right when MLB began its crackdown on pitchers using foreign substances for better spin rates, it has raised the question of what they will be going forward. . . .
Both have denied that this is the effects of not using "sticky stuff," but whatever the issues are, they could not come at a worse time for the Yankees, who dropped to .500 with the 10-5 loss to the Mets in the afternoon and have buried themselves in the American League East and Wild Card races. . . .
Since June 3, Cole has allowed 20 earned runs and 10 home runs over 34.1 innings pitched. He has walked 11 and struck out 38. His ERA over that span is 5.24. . . .
[Cole:] "I mean, there's been some good things in there, too." . . .
Giving up the home run to Pete Alonso without recording an out in the seventh Sunday, Chapman has allowed 14 earned runs and five home runs in his last nine appearances, which includes four blown saves. Opponents are hitting .483 against him in that stretch. . . .
Cole has been the poster child for the pitchers' use of foreign substances to get better spin rates, movement and control on their pitches. Trevor Bauer called out Cole — his former college teammate — for a jump in spin rate when he was traded to Houston. . . . Cole's texts were cited in an Angels clubhouse attendant's wrongful termination lawsuit. Last month, right before the decline began, Twins slugger Josh Donaldson called out the fact that Cole's spin rates dropped suddenly after MLB sent the message about the crackdown by suspending four minor league pitchers.
Matthew Roberson, Daily News:
Aroldis Chapman is having the worst stretch of his career. It couldn't come at a worse time for his Yankees, who briefly dropped to .500 . . .
It was Chapman's fourth blown save in his last nine chances; he had not pitched since the nuclear meltdown on June 30 when he allowed a game-tying grand slam in the ninth inning. Coming in for the final frame of the seven-inning affair, Chapman twisted a questionable slider to Pete Alonso. . . .
Alonso put it into the bullpen to tie the ballgame at five.
"I don't think that was the right spot for that," Boone said of the failed slider. . . .
A hit by pitch and a walk later, and Chapman was pulled, walking solemnly to the dugout as boos, middle fingers and the familiar feeling of impending defeat came from every section of Yankee Stadium. Lucas Luetge took over and issued a single to Kevin Pillar, loading the bases. No one will remember the strikeout to James McCann that came next, because each of the next three hitters drove in the killer runs. . . .
All told, the Mets put up a six spot in the ninth inning, thwacking five hits while sending 10 hitters to the plate.
The Mets took it to both of the Yankees' high-profile pitchers. In addition to the beating they put on Chapman, they also gave Gerrit Cole the hook after 80 pitches. . . .
"I'll consider a number of things," Boone said when asked about his closer situation . . .
The loss to a crosstown rival marked just another disastrous day for the Yankees. Their embattled ace went just 3.1 innings; their embattled closer blew another save. At one point the men in pinstripes had won 22 of 30 games. They now sit at 42-41.
"Another awful loss," Boone succinctly said for seemingly the thousandth time this year.
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