MINNEAPOLIS — Anthony Volpe swung so hard he lost his balance, sure the ball was gone. It banged off the high wall in right-center instead, a two-run double that pulled the Yankees even with two outs in the ninth. For one loud, teasing stretch Wednesday, New York looked ready to steal a sweep.
What followed was four more innings of a team reaching the doorstep and refusing to walk through it. The Yankees took the lead in the 10th. They took it again in the 11th. They filled the bases with nobody out in the 12th. Each time they walked away with a tie or a wasted rally.
A road trip that should have ended in a sweep instead exposed the one flaw a contender cannot carry into October. This was not a bullpen collapse or a bad bounce. It was a Yankees lineup that kept setting the table and never sitting down to eat.
The final blame fell on a rookie who did not deserve it alone.
The Minnesota Twins beat the Yankees 5-4 in 13 innings, ending the marathon on Victor Caratini’s leadoff single that bounced off the mound and slipped under the glove of George Lombard Jr. at second base. The loss dropped New York to 88-64, four games behind the Tampa Bay Rays in the AL East with 10 to play. The Yankees have clinched a playoff berth, but the division and its first-round bye are slipping away.
A comeback that led nowhere
New York had four hits through eight innings and trailed 2-0, with Twins right-hander Zebby Matthews striking out eight. Then the ninth arrived. Lombard singled, Paul Goldschmidt followed, and pinch runner Jose Caballero set the table for Volpe.
Volpe drove both home, handing Twins closer Yoendrys Gomez his first blown save of the year and forcing extras.
Ali Sanchez singled home the automatic runner in the 10th for the Yankees’ first lead. Luke Keaschall answered with a tying single off David Bednar. Caballero’s sacrifice fly put New York ahead in the 11th. Royce Lewis matched it. Two leads, two immediate replies.
The inning that will linger
The 12th is the frame fans will replay. The Yankees loaded the bases with nobody out, the setup that should end a game. It produced zero.
Heliot Ramos, hitting in Aaron Judge’s spot, chopped a ball back to the mound. Travis Adams turned it into a 1-2-3 double play. Sanchez struck out to strand two more. The Yankees finished 7-for-30 with runners in scoring position.
Judge exits, and the offense thins out
Judge left in the sixth with right lower leg tightness he first felt in the opening inning. He struck out twice and did not return, only seven games removed from a 99-day absence. That is why Ramos was hitting in his spot at all.
Manager Aaron Boone framed the night as a chance lost, not a game stolen, his words carrying the weight of the calendar.
“Obviously a lot of good things, but not enough good things,” Boone said. “Tough one, obviously, when you got a chance to sweep and heading into an off-day. But we got to get over that and get ready for a good Diamondback club.”
On the walk-off, Boone did not spare Lombard, but he did not bury him either.
The Caratini grounder took a bounce off the mound, Boone acknowledged, yet it was a play Lombard “expects to make and we know he can make.”
Rodon gives October, gets nothing back
Carlos Rodon gave the Yankees the start a postseason rotation needs and watched it evaporate. The lefty allowed two runs over six innings, extending his franchise record to 25 straight starts allowing three runs or fewer. He threw a season-high 102 pitches and lowered his ERA to 2.95.
“I just started off a little slow, a little tight,” Rodon said. “It loosened up on me going out the next few innings, so that was nice.”
Clarke Schmidt made his long-awaited return in the seventh, striking out two before Brent Headrick stranded a pair. The bullpen ran a marathon that the lineup never rewarded.
A franchise first not seen since 1991
Here is the layer few will lead with. This was the first Yankees loss after leading multiple times in extra innings since May 5, 1991, at Seattle, a span of more than 34 years. It was also their eighth walk-off loss of the season, a franchise record, and no MLB club has given up more walk-off hits in 2026, per Baseball Reference research. No Yankees team has ever lost more extra-inning road games in a single season.
The twist is that bad teams do not pile up numbers like these. A poor club loses in nine. It takes a good one to keep forcing extra baseball on the road, then keep losing it.
Where it leaves the AL East race
Spencer Jones offered his own warning, striking out five times in an 0-for-6 night that showed how fast swing-and-miss gets punished when margins tighten. It reads differently in September than in July.
The Yankees are off Thursday before opening a weekend series in Arizona, where Gerrit Cole starts Friday at 9:40 p.m. ET. Judge is not expected to need further testing. New York lost ground it may not recover and handed the Rays breathing room.
The Yankees know how to win the games in between. On a night they needed to finish just one, they could not.
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