HOUSTON — Eight straight wins. One of the best stretches of baseball the Yankees had played all season. Then Sunday happened.
New York dropped the series finale at Daikin Park, 7-4. The Astros were down two games in the series. They needed a lifeline. They got it, and the Yankees handed it to them.
The game had two problems. Luis Gil could not get batters out. And the Yankees’ offense could not get going against a starter who was there for the taking.
Neither problem got fixed until it was too late.
Offense goes cold against hittable Arrighetti
Spencer Arrighetti is not an ace. The Astros right-hander left plenty of balls out over the plate Sunday afternoon. The Yankees had chances to make him pay.
They did not take them.
Arrighetti went seven innings and gave up just three hits. The New York Yankees did not put a single run on the board until the sixth inning, by which point the game was already out of reach.
That is when Aaron Judge stepped in. It was his 34th birthday. The Yankees captain had gone homerless for six straight games on the road trip.
Judge turned on a 2-1 pitch and drove it out for a solo home run, his 10th of the season. The score was 7-1 at that point. The birthday blast barely dented the deficit.
The Yankees captaon has now homered three times on his birthday in his career, only one less than Lou Gehrig. His numbers in games played on his birthday are striking. He is batting .333, going 8-for-24, with three doubles, three home runs and eight RBI.
But Sunday was not about one swing. The Yankees left too many opportunities untouched against a pitcher they should have handled better. Arrighetti faced just 25 batters. New York never strung anything together.
It was the kind of flat offensive performance that felt especially jarring. It came off a week in which the Yankees had scored runs in bunches and looked nearly unstoppable.
Gil gets roughed up, offers no swing and miss
Luis Gil was the bigger story, and not in a good way.
He faced 20 batters. He did not strike out a single one. He walked three. He gave up five hits, two of them home runs, and allowed six earned runs in four-plus innings.
The Statcast numbers made the outing look even worse. Houston hitters swung at Gil’s pitches 34 times on Sunday. They missed only three times. On his four-seam fastball, which averaged 95.4 mph, Gil did not generate a single whiff. Astros batters swung at it 22 times and made contact every single time.
The damage started in the first inning. Gil walked Carlos Correa to open the game on four pitches. He got two outs. Then Christian Walker got a 3-2 changeup he liked.
Walker hit it 432 feet. Exit velocity: 109.8 mph. Two-run homer. Houston led 2-0.
It got worse in the third inning. Yordan Alvarez singled with two out. Then Isaac Paredes hit a two-run homer off a 95 mph sinker, pulling the ball off the left-field foul pole. Score: 4-0.
The Yankees were in a deep hole before the lineup had turned over once.
Gil did not make it out of the fifth. He walked Correa again to open the inning. Alvarez doubled. Aaron Boone had seen enough. He came out of the dugout and went to the bullpen.
Blackburn inherits mess, makes it worse
Paul Blackburn entered with runners at second and third and nobody out. It was a tough spot. The Yankees reliever made it worse.
He fell behind Paredes 3-0 immediately. Paredes got the green light and roped a single to score a run. Then Christian Walker doubled into the gap. Two more runs scored. The lead was 7-0.
Walker and Paredes drove in all seven Houston runs between them. Walker had four RBI on the afternoon. Paredes drove in three.
Blackburn was handed an almost impossible situation, but he did not help himself either. The Yankees’ bullpen had been sharp during the winning streak. Sunday was a step back for that group as well.
In four starts this season, Yankees’ Gil has walked 11 batters and struck out only nine over 19 1/3 innings. That is not a workable ratio for a rotation spot on a contending team. His ERA stood at 6.05 heading into Sunday’s game.
Carlos Rodon is working his way back from the injured list. He is expected to need at least one more minor-league rehab start before returning. When he does, the Yankees’ rotation picture will look much different and the pressure on every other starter will increase.
Late rally comes too late
The Yankees were down seven runs heading into the ninth inning. The game was gone. But they made some noise anyway.
Paul Goldschmidt hit a two-out RBI double. J.C. Escarra followed with another RBI double. Ryan McMahon added an RBI single to make it a three-run inning.
The score was 7-4. Jose Caballero came up with the tying run on deck. The Yankees shortstop lined out to end it.
The eight-game winning streak was over. The Yankees fell to 18-10 on the season. Despite the loss, they closed out the road trip with three straight series wins. They head to Arlington next for a three-game set against the Texas Rangers, with Max Fried scheduled to take the mound Monday night.
What do you think? Is Lusi Gil the only culprit?
