Schmidt’s impressive display meant limited significance as the offensive didn’t live up to their end of the bargain.
When it rains it pours. On a day when the Yankees made one of Clarke Schmidt’s best starts of the season, the offense struggled to get off the ground as onfield mental errors exacerbated the batless bats. There is only so much time you can stop baseball’s most prolific offensive line, and that turning point came in the tenth round when Rangers won the series opener 4-2.
It took Schmidt a tremendous amount of energy to get through the first two innings. A pair achieved a single and strikeout wild pitch in the first run that should have counted as a pass ball to Trevino, but a Josh Jung fly-out ended the threat. Then, in the second half, a double from Robbie Grossman and a single from Ezequiel Duran put the runners in the corners with an out, but Schmidt once again managed to bail out, the only casualty being his elevated pitch count of 46.
The Yankees handled some traffic in each of the first three innings, but doubles in the first and third wiped out those baserunners. They managed to gain a runner in the second run when Anthony Rizzo took the lead with his 211th pitch hit of his career. Then DJ LeMahieu lasered a hanging slider right for a 106.7mph double, an encouraging sign as he works on some mechanical adjustments to break out of his doldrums. Billy McKinney tapped a grounder on third base to beat Rizzo to open the evening’s score.
The general rule when a team is struggling to get runs going is that you have to master the basics and get all the little things right. Conversely, Murphy’s law states that “anything that can go wrong, will go wrong”. Apparently, the Yankees only received the second memo. In the fourth inning after a Duran single, Leody Taveras emerged in center midfield. However, neither Anthony Volpe nor Isiah Kiner-Falefa sprinted all the way to the ball and it fell between them, allowing Duran to equalize at 1-1.
An inning later, IKF went ahead with a single, tried to steal second place, but then did the following:
It’s at this point that it starts to feel like a broken record – Schmidt has little trouble getting the count to two strikes, but from this point he has tremendous trouble throwing away batters efficiently. Far too often on advantageous counts, Schmidt has either sprayed uncompetitive breaking balls or missed his spots with hangers that leaked down the middle.
In fairness, though, Schmidt found his groove by the third set and ended up giving the Yankees a strong 5.1 innings, allowing for just one earned run on six hits and a walk with three strikeouts on 91 pitches (and that one run scored a hit on the defensive miscue). ). That’s now seven straight starts, limiting his opponents to three runs or fewer, which is certainly a boon for the rotation given the absence of injuries and the inconsistent performances of everyone outside of Gerrit Cole.
Jimmy Cordero hit the final two outs of the sixth set and Wandy Peralta scored a scoreless seventh set, prompting Aaron Boone to turn to Clay Holmes for the eighth set. Far from his best, he delivered a double against Jung and a groundball single against Mitch Garver to allow Texas to take their first lead of the competition 2-1.
The Bomber offense showed the faintest spark of life in the eighth, as IKF and McKinney stringed back-to-back singles to open the frame and get Trevino runners into the corners. Boone initially challenged Oswaldo Cabrera for a pinch hit, but after Bruce Bochy made a move from the box to the left, Boone chose Kyle Higashioka instead. The decision paid off as Higashioka threw a deep stall into left center to level the score at 2-2.
After fast ninths by both sides, this game was poised for extra innings. Fortunately, Rangers didn’t extend the ordeal as Adolis García smoked a hanging sweeper from Michael King into the left seats on the first pitch, giving Rangers a 4-2 lead. With that, King has given up five of his last six appearances. The Yankees went into the bottom half calmly, dropping the opener of the series 4-2. (At least fans got some vent to their frustration when Josh Donaldson pinched McKinney in the 10th minute and knocked him out; his ailing colleague Giancarlo Stanton also heard it clearly throughout the evening.)
It was an admirable feat to hold the offense to two runs in regular time with the highest scoring baseball score, but sooner or later they would break through, and the Yankees’ offense just couldn’t make it. Luis Severino will try to build on today’s starter’s success against Jon Gray tomorrow. The first pitch is scheduled for 4:05 p.m. ET. So be sure to join the game thread to see if the offense actually wants to wake up this time.
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