NEW YORK — Everything that had been going right for the Yankees over the previous five games went sideways Wednesday night. Will Warren suffered the worst outing of his season.
Nathan Eovaldi arrived to do what he always does against New York. The Yankees offense, which had scored 46 runs in five games, managed just one. The team left Aaron Judge fighting alone.
Texas walked out of the Bronx with a 6-1 victory. The Yankees’ five-game winning streak was gone. It was just the third Yankees loss in 18 games, but Eovaldi’s dominance made it sting.
Warren unravels early in front of home crowd
Coming in, Will Warren was one of the better stories in baseball. The right-hander had not allowed more than two earned runs in any start this season and carried a 2.39 ERA and a 4-0 record into Wednesday’s matchup. Yankees fans had every reason to feel good about the draw.
The trouble started in the very first inning. Corey Seager, who had gone 4-for-31 over his previous eight games and had not driven in a run in nine straight contests, found life on a 3-0 pitch from Warren. Seager launched it over the right field wall for a solo shot, giving Texas a 1-0 lead just three batters into the game.
Warren dodged a second-inning threat by striking out Andrew McCutchen with runners on base. But the third inning proved too costly to escape.
Brandon Nimmo drew a leadoff walk. Ezequiel Duran followed with a double to left-center that scored Nimmo. Two batters later, Evan Carter got a 2-1 sweeper that was left far too close to the middle of the plate. Carter drove it into the second deck in right field. The two-run blast stretched the Yankees deficit to 4-0 and ended any hope of a quick comeback.
In the fourth, Warren walked two more Rangers and surrendered two additional runs on a Duran sacrifice fly and a Seager RBI single. By the time manager Aaron Boone lifted him, Warren had thrown 90 pitches across four innings, allowing season highs of six runs and seven hits. He did punch out seven batters but walked three. Warren threw first-pitch strikes to just 12 of the 22 hitters he faced.
It was the first time this season Warren allowed more than two earned runs, snapping a run of dominant outings that had made him one of the American League’s most reliable starters.
Eovaldi owns the Yankees again
If Warren’s collapse was the gut punch, Nathan Eovaldi was the clinic on the other side.
The right-hander had blanked the Yankees for seven innings just one week earlier in Arlington, a 3-0 Texas win. That performance extended his mastery over New York into something historically lopsided. Coming into Wednesday, Eovaldi had a 1.58 ERA across his seven starts against the Yankees as a Texas Ranger since 2023.
Wednesday looked the same. Eovaldi retired batter after batter. He faced just 21 Yankees total across his eight innings of work, allowing only three hits and walking nobody. His strikeout total for the night reached eight, a season high. He threw just 75 pitches.
The only crack came in the sixth inning, when Aaron Judge connected on Eovaldi’s 15th pitch to him for his major league-leading 15th homer of the year. Judge’s blast snapped Eovaldi’s scoreless streak against New York at 13 innings. It was Judge’s 12th home run in his last 23 games. But one run was all the Yankees could muster.
Over Eovaldi’s last two starts against New York, spanning 15 innings, he allowed just one run on three hits while striking out 15. The Yankees managed five baserunners all night against him and the Rangers bullpen combined.
Bullpen holds, but damage already done
With Warren lifted after four innings and the Yankees trailing 6-0, Yerry de los Santos came on in relief. Called up from Triple-A earlier that day, the right-hander tossed 3.1 scoreless innings with just one hit, one walk and five strikeouts.
Ryan Yarbrough followed with five outs and no hits allowed. Clean work from the bullpen, but six-run holes are not easy to climb out of against Eovaldi.
Cody Bellinger extended his hitting streak to eight games with a first-inning single, finishing 1-for-3 with a walk. Jose Caballero took a 77-mph Eovaldi curveball off his left elbow in the third and stayed in the game after a visit from the trainer.
The Yankees remain 25-11 and still own the AL’s best record. The Rangers ended a three-game losing skid and gave their offense something to feel good about after a quiet stretch.
For the Yankees, the captain gets no support. Despite the loss, the Yankees still boast the best MLB record so far this season.
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