NEW YORK — Anthony Volpe had a point, and he made sure the umpire heard it. What he could not argue away was everything else that went wrong around him.
The Yankees shortstop boiled over at first base umpire Brian O’Nora on Sunday after Chase Burns picked him off in the third inning. Volpe insisted Reds first baseman Sal Stewart had blocked his path back to the bag. The call stood, and the Yankees went on to a sloppy 4-1 loss to last-place Cincinnati at Yankee Stadium.
Ben Rice homered on the very next pitch to hand New York a 1-0 lead, a swing that briefly made the pickoff look harmless. It was not. The defeat dropped the Yankees to 46-30 and exposed a team undone by its own mistakes, even as it stayed atop the American League East by two games.
Volpe’s complaint had merit. The problem for the Yankees is that being right about one call did little to cover for a series’ worth of careless baseball.
Volpe pushes back on the pickoff
Anthony Volpe dove back headfirst and argued he had nowhere to land, contending Stewart’s right foot sat in his lane. He told O’Nora to check the replay on the center-field scoreboard. The umpire declined.
Volpe described the exchange afterward, still animated about being denied a look at the video board.
“He told me he didn’t want to watch it on the screen,” Volpe said. “He said the throw took him there, which I didn’t (see). But that’s up to him.”
Manager Aaron Boone agreed his shortstop had been wronged by the letter of the rule, while conceding the call almost never goes the runner’s way.
“I think the letter of the law, that’s blocking the base there,” Boone said. “Are you really going to get that call very often? Probably not. Chase Burns has one of the really good pick-off moves in the game. But he’s also slow to the plate.”
Sloppy defense undoes Yankees
Whatever sympathy the Yankees earned on the pickoff drained away over the next several innings. Their defense turned a winnable game into an unsightly one.
Catcher’s interference erased a double play earlier in the afternoon. With Blake Dunn aboard, JJ Bleday lined a ball that Volpe fielded before stepping on second and throwing to first for what looked like two outs. The home plate umpire ruled that Austin Wells, just back from the injured list, had reached his glove into Bleday’s swing. Wells was charged with his second error of the season, and the inning stayed alive.
The eighth inning was worse. Spencer Steer rolled a soft grounder that skipped under Jazz Chisholm Jr.‘s glove. Volpe was half-hearted backing up the play. Jose Caballero, an inning into a move to center field, charged the ball and airmailed a throw over second base to the backstop, letting Steer reach third.
Steer scored on Noelvi Marte’s ground-rule double that Jasson Dominguez, making his seventh career start in right field amid Aaron Judge’s injury absence, could not corral before it bounced over the wall.
Boone faulted the execution rather than the alignment that put players out of position.
“We’re not gonna make a play on that, but I thought Cabby was a little slow to react in center, which allowed Steer to get [to second base],” Boone said. “And then we didn’t play catch well.”
Dead bats with runners aboard
The mistakes might have been survivable if the Yankees had hit. They did not. New York went 0 for 9 with runners in scoring position and finished 2 for 32 for the series.
Dating to the eighth inning of Friday’s 5-0 win, the Yankees are hitless in their last 24 at-bats with a runner in scoring position, per the YES Network. Burns stranded a runner at second or third in four of his five innings.
The clearest miss came in the sixth. Paul Goldschmidt, who hammers left-handers, pinch-hit with runners at the corners and two outs against southpaw Sam Moll. He flew out on the first pitch.
Wells offered the kind of flat assessment that fit the afternoon.
“The ball just didn’t really roll the way we needed it to,” Wells said.
Volpe, the player at the center of the day’s loudest moment, struck a more patient tone about the drought.
“[If you] keep getting in those situations, getting guys on base, good things will happen,” he said. “It’s just a matter of time.”
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