SAN DIEGO — For a half-inning at Petco Park, the kid from up the freeway had the ending he had drawn up as a boy.
Spencer Jones grew up in Encinitas and played high school ball at La Costa Canyon in Carlsbad, buying tickets to watch the local team from the cheap seats. On Friday night he stood in the batter’s box in that same building for the first time as a big leaguer, family and friends scattered through the stands, and did the thing every one of them had imagined. He delivered the go-ahead hit in the 10th inning.
The Yankees rookie had circled this trip the moment the schedule dropped. A homecoming series, in the ballpark where he grew up dreaming of the majors.
For a few minutes, it was everything he had pictured.
Then, in the time it takes to throw one pitch, it turned. What looked like a storybook night for the Yankees and their prospect became a gut punch, and a team fighting for October position walked off the field having lost more than a game.
Luis Campusano ended it in the bottom of the 10th, and the line that follows New York into Saturday reads Padres 3, Yankees 2.
One pitch flips Blackburn’s dominant Yankees run
The turning point arrived on the first pitch Paul Blackburn threw him.
Blackburn had been one of the quiet reasons the Yankees stayed afloat down the stretch, piling up scoreless relief without surrendering a home run in weeks. Aaron Boone handed him the 10th rather than push David Bednar, who had already worked around trouble in the ninth. Blackburn struck out Xander Bogaerts. He was one bad pitch from the dugout.
The bad pitch came next. Campusano jumped a sinker and drove it to left, a two-run, no-doubt shot that scored the automatic runner the instant it left the bat. It was Campusano’s sixth homer. Blackburn (7-3) took the loss.
The Yankees are 80-61. They woke up Saturday four games back of Tampa Bay in the American League East, and their cushion over Boston for the top AL wild card had shrunk to 3 1/2 games, though New York holds the head-to-head tiebreaker. Nights like this, wasted despite good pitching and a lead in extras, linger in a September postseason race.
Jones’ aggression erases a Yankees insurance run
Jones’ own aggression cost the Yankees an insurance run moments before Campusano’s swing.
His single off All-Star closer Mason Miller had scored automatic runner Luis Garcia Jr. and put New York ahead 2-1. Jones took second on the throw home, then broke for third. Campusano threw him out for the second out as Heliot Ramos struck out. The Yankees settled for one run. San Diego needed one swing to score two.
Jones spoke afterward like a young player still learning where bold ends and reckless begins.
“I thought I had a good beat on it, thought I had a good window,” Jones said.
He credited the men who beat him.
“It was a really good catch and throw from the catcher and a great tag,” Jones said. “I want to be aggressive and they’re giving me the opportunities.”
The moment he had circled was still swirling in his head.
“I was super excited to get a good swing off a good pitcher and give the guys a lead,” Jones said. “I was ecstatic. And then it’s just a quick turnaround and game over.”
Boone did not hide the whiplash.
“Great swing by Spencer to get us on the board there in the 10th,” Boone said, “but obviously a tough one in the end.”
Max Fried answers Yankees’ biggest question
Lost in the late collapse was a start that answered a real question for the Yankees.
Max Fried made his second turn back from the injured list, and the concern all week was workload. He covered 5 2/3 innings on 72 pitches, scattering four hits with one walk and four strikeouts. The only run came on a soft Bogaerts single in the second. For a rotation eyeing October, it quieted doubt.
“I was able to command the ball to both sides of the plate, and I was getting ahead,” Fried said. “They were really aggressive tonight, putting the ball in play early. It’s a lot easier for me to just be on the attack.”
Warren’s October audition hides inside the loss
Here is the wrinkle that made this game a Yankees October preview.
Boone had said the club would piggyback Will Warren behind Fried. Instead of a clean inning, he summoned Warren with two outs in the sixth, dropping the converted starter into the middle of a frame the way a leverage reliever lives.
Warren walked France on four pitches, blamed the jog in from the bullpen, then retired everyone else, recording seven outs without allowing a hit. It was a live look at the flexible bullpen role Warren and Ryan Weathers could hold in October, when the Yankees expect to lean on four starters.
“It was different, but it was fun,” Warren said, crediting catcher Austin Wells for helping him settle in.
Ben Rice’s 444-foot blast goes to waste
Ben Rice provided the only Yankees run that mattered before extras, turning on a Walker Buehler slider in the third and hammering it 444 feet to dead center. It tied the game at 1 and stood as Rice’s team-leading 36th home run. Buehler, a name Yankees fans recall from the 2024 World Series, otherwise kept New York guessing across five innings.
The offense went quiet when it counted. Adrian Morejon and Miller struck out five of the six Yankees hitters they faced in the eighth and ninth, and New York managed just two runs against one of the sport’s better late-inning bullpens.
There was a health scare, too. Trent Grisham exited with right hamstring discomfort an inning after he could not track down Bogaerts’ single. Grisham missed time with a hamstring strain earlier this season, and Boone said another injured list stint could not be ruled out.
One swing costs Yankees on two playoff fronts
The defeat cost the Yankees ground on two fronts, tightening the wild-card math behind them while the Rays pulled away in front. Campusano’s swing also lifted San Diego past Arizona for the National League’s final wild-card spot.
Carlos Rodon (4-3, 3.20 ERA) takes the ball Saturday against Padres left-hander Robbie Ray (11-7, 3.14), with the Yankees still searching for their footing on this West Coast swing.
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