THE BRONX, N.Y. — The weather outside was ugly. The game inside was uglier.
A 3-hour, 35-minute rain delay pushed Sunday’s series finale between the Yankees and the Miami Marlins past dinnertime at Yankee Stadium. When the game finally began, the two problems that had been quietly trailing New York’s hot start finally caught up with them.
The bullpen collapsed. The lineup went cold with runners on base. The Yankees lost, 7-6, dropping the series finale and ending a four-game winning streak. They fell to 7-2, still tied with the Brewers and Dodgers for baseball’s best record, but with two clear vulnerabilities now fully exposed.
Of the 34,807 fans who showed up, many waited through the delay, only to watch the Yankees blow a fourth-inning lead they could not get back.
The ninth inning gave them one last chance. They could not take it.
Rice delivers, Fried grinds, and the Yankees build a lead
For three innings, everything went according to plan.
Max Fried, who entered with 13 and one-third scoreless innings to open 2026, gave up his first run of the season in the first inning when Otto Lopez stroked a two-out RBI single. It was a blemish, but a minor one.
Ben Rice answered immediately. Facing Pete Fairbanks, the Miami closer who was making his first start since 2020 so he could fly home Monday for the birth of his fourth child, Rice launched a three-run shot 410 feet into the second deck in right field. The blast was measured at 110 mph off the bat. It was Rice’s third home run in his past four games.
An unearned run in the third, when Aaron Judge scored after a throwing error on a potential double-play ball, pushed the Yankees lead to 4-1.
Fried was not at his sharpest. He walked three batters, surrendered two runs in the fourth and sixth innings, and was clearly working to keep Miami at bay rather than dominating. He exited after 6 and two-thirds innings, charged with three runs on five hits and three walks, with the Yankees still leading 4-3.
“I didn’t do a good enough job, especially when the offense comes back,” Fried said. “I give up one in the first and then Ben hits the home run to really do it, and then I end up giving up three, so it cuts down the lead. Some things that definitely could have been avoided.”
Two Yankee challenges in the sixth preserved the lead. Max Fried picked off Heriberto Hernandez at first base after the initial ruling on the field went against New York, and Jose Caballero gunned down Lopez at home plate on Connor Norby’s grounder despite plate umpire Manny Gonzalez initially calling the runner safe. Both reviews went in the Yankees’ favor, keeping Miami from tying the game.
Fried handed a one-run lead to a bullpen that was already running thin.
Bullpen implodes, gifting Miami the lead in the eighth
David Bednar was unavailable. He had thrown 33 pitches in Saturday night’s ninth-inning save and could not come back the next day. Setup men Tim Hill and Brent Headrick had both pitched on Friday and Saturday and were also held back.
The Yankees needed their depth relievers to hold a one-run lead for two innings. They could not do it.
Fernando Cruz entered the eighth with the Yankees leading 4-3 and walked Jakob Marsee with one out. Manager Aaron Boone turned to Jake Bird, who had posted four consecutive scoreless outings to open the season.
Bird walked Otto Lopez on four pitches. He hit pinch hitter Griffin Conine with his very next delivery, loading the bases. He then got ahead of pinch hitter Graham Pauley with two strikes, only to hang a sweeper that Pauley pulled into right field for a two-run double. The Marlins led, 5-4.
“I just need to be better about getting my breath and executing pitches,” Bird said. “Just didn’t do it right away. Had one get away from me after the walk, and by then it’s time to bear down, and I just didn’t do my job. I gave them freebies. You should never, ever give freebies. That’s not big-league baseball, and it’s just not good.”
He added: “Just not a good day. But going to be better moving forward and try not to let this happen again.”
Lefty Ryan Yarbrough entered with the bases still loaded and immediately surrendered a two-run single to Xavier Edwards up the middle, pushing Miami’s advantage to 7-4. Bird was charged with the loss, credited with three earned runs without recording an out.
The Yankees had scored nine runs in a wild win over Miami just the night before. Now they needed to score three in the final two innings against a Miami bullpen that had been leaned on heavily all weekend.
Bottom of the order fails to deliver with bases loaded
The second flaw was just as visible. The Yankees went 2-for-12 with runners in scoring position on Sunday, finishing the series at 6-for-38 in those situations. They left 11 men on base.
The most damaging sequence came in the third inning, when the Yankees had runners on second and third with nobody out after the Marlins played sloppy defense. Giancarlo Stanton grounded out. Jazz Chisholm Jr. flied out to shallow center. Austin Wells struck out.
The Yankees also stranded two runners in the fifth and again in the seventh. Chisholm hit inning-ending groundouts with runners on second and third in the fifth and with first and third in the seventh. The bottom of the lineup was consistently in the game and consistently came up empty.
Boone acknowledged after the game that Chisholm had been the subject of a conversation the previous night following his slow reaction on a ninth-inning grounder. Chisholm was measured in his response when asked about it.
“We all know how I play baseball, how we play baseball,” Chisholm said. “The guy caught me with my head down. He did a good play. I do it to other teams all the time. I feel like, someone caught me, it’s no big deal to me. If I was him, I would do it, too.”
Late rally gives false hope, Escarra ends it
Down 7-4 entering the ninth, the Yankees were not finished. Cody Bellinger worked a walk. Ben Rice drew a walk. Chisholm, batting just .194 on the season after a slow start, stepped up with two outs and ripped a two-run double into the right-center gap to cut the deficit to one.
“We don’t think the game is over until the last out, until the umpire calls the last out or the last strike,” Chisholm said. “So for us, we always go out there battling until the last minute.”
Anthony Bender issued an intentional walk to Austin Wells, putting the winning run on base. J.C. Escarra, pinch hitting for Caballero, went down swinging on three pitches to end it.
Boone acknowledged the positive sign in Chisholm’s final at-bat.
“Our lefties put some tough at-bats on Bender there,” Boone said. “It’s good to see Jazz do that. Hopefully that’s something that gets him rolling.”
The Yankees set a franchise record during the three-game series, drawing 30 walks, surpassing the previous mark of 28 set against the Chicago White Sox in May 1934. Rice reached base safely in each of his eight games this season.
The team is off Monday. They return home Tuesday for a three-game series against the Athletics, with Cam Schlittler taking the mound against Aaron Civale in the opener. The two issues that defined Sunday’s loss, a shaky bullpen depth and a struggling bottom third of the lineup, will follow them into that series.
A digital technocrat-turned-baseball buff, Sara is an ardent follower of the New York Yankees. Born and brought up in New York City, she is a regular to games since she was a kid. Despite working as media strategist, baseball is her first love. She has been covering baseball games in the city as well as MLB and MiLB games involving the Yankees, the Mets, and their minor affiliates as a freelancer for different web and media publications. She works as a lead author for the Yankees-centered PinstripesNation since its very inception.
