Schadenfreude 311 (A Continuing Series)

After 7½ innings:

Yankees - 001 101 01. - 4 8 0
Red Sox - 000 000 0.. - 0 0 0

Final:

Yankees - 001 101 010 - 4 9 0
Red Sox - 000 000 05x - 5 5 0

 

Dan Martin, Post:

After Domingo German flirted with history, the Yankees went up in flames again in a 5-4 loss to the Red Sox on Sunday at Fenway Park, as they continue to find ways to top themselves with crushing losses.

Even for the Yankees, this one was a beauty, as the Red Sox stormed back for five runs in the bottom of the eighth. . . .

German took a no-hitter into the eighth inning, with the Yankees ahead seemingly comfortably by four runs.

But after Alex Verdugo's leadoff double to right ended German's outing, Jonathan Loaisiga allowed all four batters he faced to reach and left with runners on second and third and no one out in the eighth, with the Yankees clinging to a one-run lead.

Zack Britton entered to face pinch-hitter Kevin Plawecki. With the corners in — but the middle infielders at medium depth — Plawecki grounded out slowly to short, allowing Franchy Cordero to score the tying run and Kiké Hernandez to move to third.

Xander Bogaerts, with the infield in, hit a sacrifice fly to right to score Hernandez with the go-ahead run.

Giancarlo Stanton singled with two outs in the ninth off Matt Barnes and pinch-runner Tyler Wade stole second before Rougned Odor popped out to end it.

The collapse meant the Yankees lost three of four in the series and fell back to nine games behind Boston in the AL East with a trip to Tampa Bay to face the second-place Rays beginning Tuesday.

It ended with their sixth stunning loss since June 22 . . .

The result seemed hard to imagine given how well German pitched. . . .

And again, the Yankees' offense was unable to tack on more runs when they had the chance. . . .

Kristie Ackert, Daily News: 

Domingo German was spectacular Sunday. . . .

Alex Verdugo broke up his no-hit bid to lead off the eighth, but German left with a comfortable lead and went to the dugout to watch the rest of the innings.

It was brutal to watch.

Jonathan Loaisiga gave up four straight hits and did not record an out as the Red Sox rallied to beat the Bombers 5-4 at Fenway Park.

"Very tough. . . . It's like you will find yourself on top of the world and all the sudden you're free falling," German said . . . "It's so hard to even process…. what? Like, what happened? How did it happen?" . . .

And that is the spot the Yankees (51-47) find themselves in: extremely tough.  With yet another awful, gut-wrenching loss, the Yankees  were beaten three out of four games — with two brutal bullpen losses — and head to Tampa nine games out in the American League East behind the Red Sox (61-39). . . .

Loaisiga gave up an RBI-double to Hunter Renfroe, a single to Christian Vazquez and another to Franchy Cordero. That was Loaisiga's three-batter minimum, but Boone stayed with him to face the always dangerous Enrique Hernandez. . ..

Hernandez doubled and Loaisiga left without recording an out. . . .

Britton got the outs, but two of them were productive for the Sox. He faced pinch-hitter Kevin Plawecki, who chopped a ball up the middle against the Yankees' defense, which only had the corners in and the middle infielders back. That scored the tying run. . . . Xander Bogaerts' sacrifice fly to right scored the go-ahead run.

In a season that has been marked by gut-punch losses, this could be the worst.

Mike Vaccaro, Post:

There's the standard-issue gut punch. Aaron Boone talks about those a lot, because the Yankees collected so many of them this year, have allowed Boone to pursue a master's degree in the subject. Those are the kinds of losses that keep you up deep into the night.

Then there's the kind of surprise punch to the solar plexus, not unlike the one that felled Harry Houdini. You get those every now and again in a baseball season. The Yankees lost one of these in Houston two weeks ago. They lost another Thursday night in Boston. These require some combination of Alka-Seltzer, Maalox and Pepto-Bismol to fully recover from.

Then you get something like what happened to the Yankees on Sunday afternoon at Fenway Park, something akin to the scene midway through "The Godfather, Part 2" where Vito Corleone returns to Sicily to pay a visit to Don Cheech, who had his parents and his brother murdered. Cheech is an old man but that doesn't stop Vito from plunging a knife straight through his belly, twisting it, then heading north toward the sternum.

The Yankees were Don Cheech'ed Sunday afternoon.

They led 4-0 after 7½ innings. Better: They were building on the momentum of Saturday's feel-good comeback . .  [sending] out the message that they weren't finished yet in the AL East . . . Best: Domingo German had a no-hitter going, he was mowing down the Sox, and Fenway sounded lifeless and limp. . . .

And that's what made what followed so impossible to believe. German lost his no-hitter when Alex Verdugo doubled leading off the bottom of the eighth. German knew he was batter-to-batter, hadn't thrown this many pitches since May, handed the ball to Boone after 93 mostly brilliant ones, 10 strikeouts next to his name. . . .

Jonathan Loaisiga, making his second appearance since leaving the COVID list . . . served up double, single, single, double to 7, 8, 9 and 1 before Boone summoned Zack Britton, and by then it was 4-3. He played the middle infielders back — "Maybe the one thing I second-guess myself about now: he said later — and of course a soft grounder that would've kept the runner pinned at third instead became the tying run.

Xander Bogaerts' go-ahead sac fly was almost anti-climactic, that's how inevitable it was.

And before you knew it, the Yankees had lost 5-4, they were on the balcony of their decaying Sicilian estate with only the knife handle visible in their torso, and the Red Sox were rushing for the getaway car, rushing toward the gate. No season expires in July, not even one that has been this star-crossed from the start.

But we're close with the Yankees. Awfully damned close. . . .

There are still 64 games to play. The Red Sox are still flawed. So are the Rays, who the Yankees get three cracks at this week. That’s the good news.

The bad? The Yankees are awfully flawed, too, and awfully close to done. They might not yet have a fork sticking out of their back. But right now they do have a knife sticking out the front.

Greg Joyce, Post:

About 15 minutes after they were six outs away from a no-hitter with a four-run lead Sunday afternoon, the Yankees were losing.

An eighth inning from hell was to blame, with manager Aaron Boone second-guessing at least one of his decisions that led to the crushing 5-4 loss to the Red Sox at Fenway Park.

After Boone had called on Zack Britton to relieve Jonathan Loaisiga, who was roughed up while pitching a second straight day following a 14-day layoff, the Red Sox had the tying run on third and winning run on second with no outs. Facing pinch-hitter Kevin Plawecki, the Yankees played in at the corners and back up the middle.

Naturally, Plawecki hit a soft grounder to shortstop, where Gleyber Torres had no shot at getting the runner at home and instead took the out at first as the Red Sox tied the game 4-4. . . .

Xander Bogaerts came up next and hit a sacrifice fly to put the Red Sox ahead.

Loaisiga . . .never had it Sunday. Relieving Domingo German after the starter lost his no-hitter leading off the eighth inning, Loaisiga gave up a four hits — three of them hard hit — to the four batters he faced before getting pulled. . . .

Boone said pitching Loaisiga in that spot gave him "a little bit of pause" because of his recent schedule, but kept him in one batter past the three he was obligated to face. With the lefty Britton warming in the bullpen, Boone stuck with Loaisiga to face the right-handed hitting Kiké Hernandez. It backfired as Hernandez roped an RBI double to right field to make it 4-3.

"Just felt like I wanted one more hitter for the righty," Boone said. . . . "[J]ust felt like if Lo could locate a pitch there, I like the matchup."