MILWAUKEE — Cam Schlittler gave the Yankees everything they needed. Six shutout innings. Only two hits allowed. Six strikeouts. Not a single baserunner reaching second base. A 2-0 lead handed to a bullpen that had been reliable all season.
It was not enough.
The Yankees bullpen surrendered the lead in the eighth. New York grabbed it back briefly in the 10th. Then the Yankees lost it again on a William Contreras walk-off sacrifice fly. Milwaukee 4, New York 3. Ten innings. Another Yankees loss that stings because the pitching gave the offense every opportunity to do more.
The Yankees defeat dropped New York to 26-14, their third loss in four games. The team that had won six straight series just days ago is now searching for answers in extra innings in Wisconsin.
Schlittler dominates but gets no reward
Cam Schlittler was brilliant. He retired the Brewers in order in five of his six innings. He lowered his ERA to a major league-best 1.35 through nine starts. Four of those nine starts have been scoreless. Opponents are now hitting just .177 against him.
He also absorbed a scare. William Contreras hit a 108.5 mph comebacker off Schlittler’s left calf in the first inning with two outs. He stayed in the game and did not appear to be affected afterward. This was the second straight start in which Schlittler was hit by a ball in the field.
The Yankees staked him to a 2-0 lead through Paul Goldschmidt. The veteran first baseman hit a leadoff home run off left-hander Kyle Harrison to start the game. Then, in the fourth inning, Goldschmidt singled through a bases-loaded situation to drive in another run.
That was the support Schlittler received. That was it.
Missed chances pile up across nine innings
The Yankees had chances to build a larger cushion and did not take them. The missed opportunities came early and kept coming.
In the second inning, the Yankees had runners on first and second with nobody out. They did not score. In the fourth, they loaded the bases with nobody out and scored just once. In the eighth, they had runners on first and second with nobody out and again came away empty.
The final tally: three hits in 14 at-bats with runners in scoring position and nine runners left on base across nine innings.
Spencer Jones went 0-for-3 with two strikeouts for the Yankees. Austin Wells also struggled. Both left five men on base apiece.
Jones did contribute one highlight. In the seventh, he made a sliding catch in center field for the second out while Headrick worked through trouble.
Bullpen unravels in the seventh, eighth and 10th
Schlittler exited after six innings with a 2-0 lead. Headrick came on to start the seventh and immediately ran into trouble. Former Yankee Jake Bauers drove a pitch over the fence for the first home run Headrick had allowed all season. The lead was cut to 2-1.
Headrick walked the next batter. Jones’s sliding catch helped him retire the final three. The Yankees took a one-run lead into the eighth.
Camilo Doval had been one of the Yankees’ most dependable relievers. He could not hold the lead Saturday. Brice Turang started the trouble with a two-out single. He stole second on the next pitch. Contreras then lined a single to right-center that brought Turang home and tied the game at 2.
David Bednar kept it there with a clean bottom of the ninth. In the 10th, Ryan McMahon gave the Yankees a 3-2 lead with a two-out, two-strike single up the middle against Fernando Cruz. The Yankees needed three outs.
Cruz could not get them. He walked Luis Rengifo on a ball that spiked to the backstop, allowing the automatic runner to advance to third. Former Yankee Gary Sanchez hit a flyball to right-center that was too shallow to score a run. Then Jackson Chourio hit a slow grounder to the right of Jose Caballero. The shortstop had to slide for it, bobbled the backhand, and had no play. The game was tied again.
Aaron Boone called on Tim Hill to face left-handed hitter Brice Turang. Hill fielded a chopper and tried a long throw to third base to cut down the lead runner. The throw hit Rengifo. Contreras came up next and hit a sacrifice fly to end it.
The Yankees had gone from a one-run Yankees lead in the 10th to a walk-off loss in the span of six batters.
The bigger picture for a Yankees team losing momentum
The Yankees opened May by winning 11 of 12 games. They were the talk of the American League. The past four days have been a different story. Saturday was the third loss in four games. All three defeats had the same fingerprint: solid Yankees pitching, wasted offensive opportunities and a late collapse.
The team is still 26-14. They still hold the best record in the American League. But the stretch that produced six straight series victories feels further away than four days ago.
Carlos Rodon is scheduled to make his season debut Sunday against the Brewers. A strong outing would go a long way toward steadying a road trip that has lurched in the wrong direction. The Yankees need him to give them the kind of start Schlittler gave them Saturday. And they need the offense to do something with it.
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