Things appeared to be turning around for the Yankees’ batters as the slumping Bombers notched five hits in their first ten at-bats to start Tuesday night’s game in Minnesota.
But the hits – all singles – produced just one run through the first two innings, and once a Twins starter Joe Ryan settled down, he allowed just two more hits through the next five innings en route to a 6-2 win.
After scoring just one run on six hits in the series opener Monday, manager Aaron Boone saw some positives.
“Well, I mean I think just kinda looking at it holistically, I think tonight was just a lot better in the approach, aggressiveness, and taking the fight to him,” Boone said. “Problem was we weren’t able to get an extra-base hit… [they] kept us in the yard, but I thought at-bat quality was much better tonight and much improved. But in the end, we couldn’t just break through… and in the end, you add it up and it’s only two runs.
“Obviously, we gotta do better than that. But I thought up and down, just better intent, better aggressiveness with the at-bats, now we gotta finish through and get some guys rolling.”
A night after feeling like the Yanks batters were “dominated in a lot of ways,” Boone said tonight was different as they managed to “hit some ball on the screws.” But the result was the same, as they failed to break “through with that big one – that gapper that scores a couple or hits one in the seats.”
“When you kinda back off and strip the emotion,” the manager said, “watching tonight was, I felt like a different offensive game, a different at-bat quality than what we saw last night. So in some ways, you try and take a little gain in that, but the reality is we’re in a stretch right now where we haven’t scored enough runs and that’s gotta change.”
Boone added: “I thought we had the right approach against the heater and I thought there were some heaters that we were on that just missed that turned into a fly ball.”
Anthony Volpe had one of those hard outs off a Ryan fastball, scorching a ball 99.3 MPH off the bat for a lineout to open the game.
“There’s gonna be ups and downs this season and we’re definitely in a down,” Volpe said after a 2-for-4 night, “but I feel like there’s so much talent in this locker room and in this lineup, specifically, that we’re gonna come out of it. And if everyone just keeps with it and keeps with the process and keeps working like everyone is, I feel like everyone knows we’re gonna be fine.”
In the end, the slumping Yankees lost for the third straight time and dropped their fourth in a five-game span that has seen them score just eight runs.
“We’ve got to change it,” Boone added, “We gotta hopefully build a little bit on today in the fact that this was better than yesterday. We gotta hang some crooked numbers up there.”
Two batters too many?
Nestor Cortes struggled on the mound pitching in and out of trouble, but got through five innings allowing just two runs (one earned) on three hits. With the score tied 2-all, New York’s starter surrendered a leadoff double to Jorge Polanco and a two-run homer to Byron Buxton and then got the hook from Boone without retiring a batter in the sixth.
When asked why he decided to let Cortes come out to start the bottom half of the inning, Boone said “There wasn’t really a decision” to be made.
“He’s gotta go, we can’t run to the bullpen in the fourth and fifth inning every night in April,” the manager said, “and especially Nestor being one of our dudes. We got through some middle innings here. So frankly it wasn’t a decision.”