MILWAUKEE — Aaron Judge hit his 16th home run of the season in the first inning Sunday. Spencer Jones knocked in his first career RBI hit. The Yankees led 2-0 entering the fourth.
It was not enough. Again.
Brice Turang hit a two-out walk-off homer off David Bednar in the ninth. The Brewers won 4-3. Milwaukee had their sweep. The last time the Brewers swept the Yankees in a series of at least three games was August 1989. That was 37 years ago. Robin Yount was chasing his second MVP Award. County Stadium was the venue. Paul Molitor had three hits that day.
The Yankees dropped to 26-15. They have now lost four of their past five games, having arrived in Milwaukee as winners of 16 of their previous 19.
Rodon’s return lasts four innings
Carlos Rodon made his long-awaited season debut after recovering from offseason elbow surgery to remove bone chips and shave a bone spur. He was far from sharp. Command problems plagued him throughout his 4 1/3 innings of work.
Rodon walked five batters, hit one and threw a wild pitch. Three of those walks came to lead off innings. The damage came in the fourth. The Brewers used those free passes to score three times and erase a 2-0 Yankees lead. He allowed only two hits in total. The ball was not being squared up against him. The walks were the issue.
Blake Perkins capped the fourth with a two-out, two-run single that put Milwaukee ahead 3-2.
Manager Aaron Boone kept his assessment in perspective.
“We’re really good,” Boone said. “We had a bad series.”
Boone added more detail about the weekend when pressed on what went wrong.
“Tough weekend, obviously,” Boone said. “Didn’t play our best and I thought they pitched really well against us and matched up well against us. But just not able to string together enough big hits there. Good swing by Turang to finish it off. Tough weekend, part of it, and look forward to getting on to Baltimore and righting the ship.”
The offense that was strangled all series
This was a Yankees lineup that had outscored opponents 123-52 across the previous 19 games. Against the Brewers over three days, they scored six runs on 16 hits. They struck out 39 times in 28 innings.
The Yankees six runs across three games was their lowest series total of the season. The strikeout total revealed a lineup with no consistent answer for Milwaukee’s pitching.
Brewers relievers were especially dominant. Milwaukee’s bullpen held the Yankees to two runs, one earned, on six hits with 17 strikeouts across 13 innings in the series. Not one of those relievers allowed a home run until Turang hit his in the ninth.
Aaron Judge was asked about the Yankees’ inability to solve Milwaukee’s pitching throughout the series. His answer was a candid acknowledgment of how well the Brewers were put together.
“They got an incredible pitching staff, from the starting rotation to their bullpen, their back-end bullpen,” Judge said. “Guys that, from the bullpen to their starters, run up to 97-plus. They got a good thing going over there. So it made for some tough at-bats, some long days, kind of battling back and forth all series long.”
Spencer Jones gets his first career hit
Amid the frustration of the series, one moment stood out. Spencer Jones, in his third major league game, ripped an RBI single off Logan Henderson in the second inning. It was the first hit and first RBI of his big-league career.
Jones had been called up after Jasson Dominguez went on the injured list following his wall crash last Thursday. The 6-foot-7 outfielder drew natural comparisons to Judge. His clean, professional at-bat gave the Yankees a 2-0 lead.
Henderson retired the final nine Yankees hitters after those runs. Four Brewers relievers allowed just one run on two hits over the last four innings.
Bednar’s first home run allowed, and Turang’s heroics
Bednar had been one of the most reliable Yankees relievers through the first six weeks. Heading into Sunday he had not allowed a single home run in 16 appearances.
He struck out the first two batters he faced in the ninth. He threw a first-pitch curveball down the middle to Turang. Turang snuck it over the center field wall. Game over. Sweep complete.
“Just didn’t execute the way I wanted to,” Bednar said. “But that’s baseball. It sucks.”
Turang played alongside Judge on Team USA during the 2026 World Baseball Classic. The two developed a genuine bond. Judge spoke warmly of him all series even as Turang kept beating the Yankees.
After the final out, Judge was asked about the player who had just broken his team’s heart for the second straight day.
“He’s going to be a bright young star in this game for a long time,” Judge said.
A series loss that changed the look of the trip
The Yankees entered Milwaukee having won six consecutive series. Their last series loss before this weekend was a sweep against the Tampa Bay Rays earlier in the season. Between those two sweeps, New York went 6-0-1 in series play.
The trip to American Family Field broke that stretch in the worst possible way. Two walk-off losses. The lowest run total of any series this year. A debut from Rodon that had little to show for itself beyond a promise of better things once the rust wears off.
The Yankees also fell to 1-8 against teams with winning records. Three series Yankees losses this season: Rays, Athletics, Brewers. Their three series losses this season have come against the Rays, the Athletics and now the Brewers, all clubs playing above .500.
The Yankees head to Baltimore on Monday. The bullpen needs answers. Rodon needs more outings. A Yankees team that looked invincible two weeks ago is suddenly looking for its footing.
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